<reviews>
<review>

This all-Spanish handbook for parents with new babies will prove essential for any concerned about a child's health. Manual Pediatrico appeared first in English; the Spanish edition provides essential health information at a glance for parents unversed in medical care; and should be a mainstay of  any Spanish-speaking home with children

</review>
<review>

McCarthy's writing and portrayal of Lester Ballard, a necrophiliac, is so well done that when the townfolk are after him you want him to escape. And then you have to wonder...why am I siding with a necrophiliac of all people? The writing is up to the high standards expected of McCarthy, and as usual he plumbs darker side of the human psyche. The book has an interesting twist to the plot - Ballard is falsely accused of rape, his house is auctioned off and he's left as a social outcast, an animal. He is removed of all his ties to humanity and so becomes the animal. If you like books that deal with the darker side of life then give this a read

</review>
<review>

Do you giggle uncontrollably when poking corpses with a stick? If so, look no further, this book is for you.

I understand a book like this will appeal to a certain demographic. I guess I shouldn't have expected much, and I certainly didn't expect a literary masterpeice, but this was the first book in awhile I just felt like giving up on. I didn't, since it's so short, but I may just as well have. It is not that the book is so "grotesque" or "disturbing" as seen described elsewhere. The author either left out or was incapable of the proper narrative to make the potentially disturbing scenes at all vivid. Unfortunately, that applies to all aspects of this book.

The entire book is in rural vernacular, including ignoring proper punctuation. But the end result is that nothing is described in any detail. It's like reading a poorly worded list of stuff that happened. It's almost as if he wasn't really trying very hard, or as if the story really was told by a simpleminded country person - an omniscient one that can read people's minds. I suppose the idea could have worked, but doesn't. Not a terrible read, just annoying and vague. With so many other good books out there, why waste your time

</review>
<review>

I was initiated into the world of Cormac McCarthy with this novel in Southern Lit class.  My professor was the vice president of the Cormac McCarthy Appreciation Society and considers McCarthy one the most talented novelists of the twentieth century, as do I.  This work is very much a product of an evolved understanding of Faulkner.  It incorporates all of the typical faulknarian literary elements and subject matter, but stretches and evolves them to an unusually intense point.  There is a message about decay, especially of the south in the diction, especially where the flood and the degeneration of Lester Ballard are concerned.  There is Old South v. New South and the post reconstuction circumstances of the south with the disposession of Ballard.  There is also lust here, something that Faulkner tackeled in a more subtle manner than McCarthy in the Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying.  However, McCarthy's story of lust is intense and grotesque and is described without sentiment in an amazing display of the gift of total candor.  McCarthy is nothing short of stoic in his descriptions and must posess an amazing constitution, as he has the ability to write what would make most of us vomit just thinking about.  The ability to reduce a human character to the lowest common denomimnator, performing unspeakable acts of depravity and at the same time remaining a valid character whose presence still carries a literary message and a human one as well, is the most unique of gifts.  This novel may be hard to take for the faint of heart, but it is well worth the read.  It is haunting to the reader, not for its perverse subject matter, but for its understated messages, masterfully placed in the character of Lester Ballard, a disposessed and depraved madman, holding the dark secrets of what humanity can be driven to

</review>
<review>

I cannot speak to the literary points in the novel though I can say I enjoyed it. In fact, I couldn't put it down until I finished it. However, I think it an interesting setting considering it is set in my hometown of Sevierville, Tennessee! Strangely, the author refers accurately to several persons and events that I've known forever. Mr. Wade's children still live in Sevierville, so do the Whaley and Ogle families. The 1964 flood was over the parking meters and the White Caps were stopped by a real life Clint Eastwood of a Sevier County Sheriff! The opening scene with the auctioner can be based on no other than C.B. McCarter whose trademark saying was  and quot;WE SELL THE EARTH. and quot; C.B., my grandfather, has never told me of any run-ins with Lester Ballard, the novels main character! THANK GOODNESS! As it turns out Ballard is a murdering necrophiliac. This is where McCarthy takes over and writes his story instead of mirroring persons of the actual community

</review>
<review>

There is no denying the strain of Faulkner that runs through McCarthy's early works; like his predecessor, McCarthy is concerned less with plot than with character and the many and sundry ways in which character and place (here, the hills of Eastern Tennessee) interact.  But McCarthy is more fun to read; his prose is lean and lyric and leaves lasting images in the mind's eye.  He does not shrink from displaying humanity in all its ugly (often ungodly) forms.   and quot;Child of God and quot; is best-known for its haunting portrayal of necrophilia--few writers could address so ghastly an act in such beautiful, elegant prose.  But that is one of the great joys of Cormac McCarthy's early novels--they are not so much tours de force as they are exhibitions of  beautifully painted landscape and haunting, nightmarish imagery

</review>
<review>

I have read sevral of McCarthy's other novels. His best ones stretch something to the limit.  In  and lt;Blood Meridian and gt; it was violence.  Here it is simple depravity and lack of concern for other human beings.  Lester Ballard is the ultimate user.  Other people exist for him only to meet his needs, even if they are dead.  I have never before read a book about necrophilia, and yes, as many of the other reviewers point out, reading this book takes a strong stomach.  Yet McCarthy achieves something only the greatest writers can pull off, which is making an unsympathetic character sympathetic.  Totally in spite of myself, I found myself cheering Ballard on when he outwits the lynch mob and gets away.  The only thing I can imagine more outrageous than this book is a sympathetic portrayal of a child molester.  Yet, I believe that this is ultimately a spiritual book.  I don't think the title is meant to be ironic.  I think we are meant to see that even Lester Ballard really is a child of God

</review>
<review>

This is a gripping novel that probes the breadth of human depravity and perversity while plunging the reader into a malevolent and sinister world. Lester Ballard is a deeply deranged and demented individual with sexually perverse lusts that resides in the Eastern Tennessee countryside. He's accused of rape, imprisoned for a short time, then released after which he commits unspeakable acts against his fellow man. It's doubtful his incarceration had anything to do with his behavior since it's obvious from the start this man is troubled. This is a wonderful novel filled with effective imagery and stunning descriptiveness. I found the chapter where the town sheriff, deputy and old Mr. Wade rowing the boat through the flooded town streets to be quite interesting. A recommended book, but beware the subject matter is quite graphic and might not be suitable for those without strong stomachs

</review>
<review>

If you're considering buying the Peter Smith "edition" of this book, note that it is NOT a new "edition" in hardcover but the Vintage International edition rebound in red cloth, with the cover of said trade paperback glued onto the front. It looks like it's been rebound for libraries, is the type of thing that's usually not for sale to the general public (. . .) The book is WELL-REBOUND, and may still be worth it to you Cormac McCarthy diehards out there -- it is for me, and ultimately I'm just gonna keep the copy of it I bought, but it's still quite disappointing. Thought you deserved a warning, hope it came in time. McCarthy's a great writer, of course -- feel a little guilty about the one-star, but it's an issue of the edition, not the book

</review>
<review>

What I didn't realise when I ordered this is that it is an publication of a US kennel association.  It is a slim book, gives a good, realistic overview of kenneling from a management perspective, and is a good thing to read if you need to decide basic questions like  and quot;is the kennel business for me? and quot; and  and quot;what are the main issues in kennel management? and quot;  Its orientation is toward large kennels (65+ dogs) in the US.  For someone like me, who is thinking about a small kennel in Australia, it was interesting, but not really worth its pricetag

</review>
<review>

"Ha ha ha hah ha hah!"  That's Stirling laughing all the way to the bank.  Or at least I hope that's what he is doing.  But sadly I suspect he more likely feels his Wiccan/SCA/DnD-infused vision of a post-apocalyptic society is a reasonable, nay, likely path we'll follow should selective physical laws break down.  Quick!  Stop me!  I feel the need to wave my sword, sing a Gaelic song, and break out my cauldron!  The genre requires we make a leap of faith.  And as a fan of the genre, I do so willingly.  But having made the leap, it is annoying at best to be forced through this "Tolkein as faith" drivel.  But as I will likely read the entire series (remember, I love the genre) I have to hope that Stirling leans towards the "thanks for the buck buddy" and is himself laughing at us all.  But a picture is worth a thousand words and his mug on the inside cover tells me he believes this nonsense!

My recommendation?  Read the book.  Laugh a bit.  Maybe laugh a lot. But do this with the library's copy, not one you paid for

</review>
<review>

The Protector's War (2005) is the second Alternate History novel in the Change series, following Dies the Fire.  In the previous volume, the Bearkillers allied with the Mackenzie Clan, CORA -- Central Oregon Ranchers' Association -- and the University Committee.  They cooperated in assaults on the fortifications along Highway 20 at the Echo Creek bridge, using Larson's trebucket against the eastern fort as a distraction.  Then they attacked the western fort from the sky with hang-gliders.

In this novel, during the eighth year after the Change, Alleyne Loring and John Hordle break into Woburn Abbey to free Nigel and Maude Loring.  The Special Icelander Detachment guards are bypassed, distracted or taken out while the rescue party pulls out the window bars and climbs up to the Lorings.  Nigel and Maude barricade the door and arm themselves with makeshift weapons.

When the blocked door is noticed, Nigel and Maude respond with knife and club as the SID guards attempt to force the door.  They gain some time, but eventually the guards get into the room.  Nigel finally gets a sword and fends off his attackers.  When Hordle enters the room, the guards retreat down the hallway.

Nigel has minor wounds, but Maude has been cut through the abdomen.  She bleeds out as her husband holds her.  At the urgings of the rescuers, Nigel lays Maude's body on the sofa and flees out the window.  The SID guards don't pursue them, but other troops are searching the countryside.

At Larsdalen, on the ninth anniversary of the Change, Mike Havel -- Lord Bear -- concludes the three day meeting with the ceremonial lighting of a pile of gunpowder;  as it burns instead of flaring, the audience cheers, moans or otherwise signifies their acceptance of another year of the Change. The party (or wake) continues with a pancake breakfast and the ritual of acceptance of graduated military apprentices into the A-list.

Lord Ken, Mike's father-in-law, shows his latest attempts to understand the Change.  The Ideal Gas Law has been modified to restrict the pressure within a gas beyond a certain threshold to less than the former value;  the gas seems to gain mass instead of pressure.  Still, reduction in pressure results in the same loss of heat as before the Change.  It looks like the Alien Space Bat theory is correct;  someone or something has imposed the Change upon them.

In McMinnville, the Protector is building another fort.  This one is a full fledged castle with plenty of steel I-beams and concrete.  Still, the Protector is not assembling his men for an immediate attack.

This story is, despite the name, the prelude to the Protector's War.  Both sides are preparing for the war, but not eager to start it right away.  The Protectorate is stronger, but the alliance is growing faster.  Of course, the alliance has the usual weaknesses of a democracy:  self-centered concerns, diverse opinions, and sheer indecisiveness.  All this hampers their preparations, but few really doubt that the Protectorate will try to conquer the Williamette Valley and beyond.

BTW, do you reckon that the date of the Change -- March 17th -- is symbolic?  It is Saint Patrick's Day and Juney's mother was Irish, but what could it mean?

Highly recommended for Stirling fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of political intrigue, military training and actions, and perseverance.

-Arthur W. Jordi

</review>
<review>

I loved Stirling's "Islands in the Sea of Time" trilogy, and I also loved the first book in this series.  Stirling is one of the best alternative history writers in the business, in my mind head and shoulders above Turtledove and Flint in his prose and his execution, but this book is one of the first books I've ever read in which ALMOST NOTHING HAPPENS AT ALL.  It is not true to your reader to use an entire book, which runs seven dollars for a paperback, to set up the third book but which does so little to advance the plot or the characters.  This book is a major disappointment.  Also, I found myself wincing, even in the first book, at the emphasis on witchcraft with the main characters.  It comes across as simply ludicrous.  The best scenes in this book are the ones involving the escape from Britain of the tangential British characters.  This is a very poor effort and though I plan to read book three even though I hated book two, I think a person, by reading the reviews of book two on Amazon, could skip the book entirely and read book three without missing a thing

</review>
<review>

It completely sucked. Very long with nothing to say. Author was proud of his own knowledge of the SCA and Wiccans, and the publishers thought that obviated the need for plot or character development. What's the worst is that the extra length is just packed full of both cliched lines and characters.

I now live overseas, so I bought a bunch of books in the "4 for 3" price discount section in order to save money. This is the first one I read of the received books. If they're all this bad, I'll be avoiding that discount database in the future

</review>
<review>

I found that everytime I started getting to like the story it would stop or change subjects or switch gears without finishing the smaller plot or finish the plot very unsatisfactory. For instance the family that was running from the Baron and his men, it started out fine and then of course the rest of the Wiccan Army shows up and it ends. Some mumbo voodoo curse and the bad guy runs away. No one bothered to help the family or find out why they were running they were just forgotten. Well later they are caught stealing sheep but the point is there was no conclusion to the scene when it ended I was like "what just happened!". It misses the small points that make a world believable, most humans would have talked to the family and would offer them food or something or at the very least say the scouts could not find them. There was no humanity in the scene (which I thought it was going to show) just a chance for the Wiccan horde to throw a few curses around and forget the main point of the scene which was the family running from dogs.... Very bad stuff there in my opinion. I like the small things in scenes this one just made no sense.

Also leaving out important elements of the story. Such as when the Wiccan Witch is talking about who would stand against the Bad Guy in Portland she completely left out Mt Angel and the so-called warrior monks as an ally. Granted that is something small but it sticks with me when the story drops very interesting parts like the Monks. They sound interesting but are ignored, I guess being Christians is not worth writing about. Why are they ignored? Their premise is as I said an interesting one but they are left out except for a couple of pages.

There seem to be no faults in the utopian "good guys" world. There are no turn coats or spy or killers or rapist they are all perfect. Except for the one scene with the girl complaining about being seduced by the young A-Lister and getting with baby but that is not to show anything bad it is to show off Mike Bearkillers skills at being a leader to the English Chap. Of course he fixes the problem in 20 seconds and they walk off into the sunset and we never read about it again. The Characters are just too simple even the Heroes.

Although I like Mike his wife and the English trio they are interesting. Hordle is one of my favorites but I am left with an empty character in the end. Of course the English trio and Cpt. Nobbes went from the coast of Africa to Portland without any detail what so ever which made it look silly. As I said though the little things make a story for me even if it would have just been a small plot about getting around South America or did they cross the pacific ocean did they meet any more ships on their travel did they stop off anywhere to give background to the over all story? I don't know it just beamed them to Portland without an answer to just simple questions. Did they get the Prince to safety? I guess I am left to make up my own story.

The mind numbing wiccans are just that mind numbing. I can not say much about them because I just skipped over most of the irrelevant rituals and such and singing it annoyed me. We can not find out what happened to the Prince of Wales but we can read dozens of pages of wiccan rituals and silly plots. I have nothing against wicca I know nothing about it actually but if this is what it is then it is nothing I would want to know. That might sound harsh but really if the book is accurate it is silly to me, and I am not a Christian either really more agnostic I guess I know why now. I think the old Roman Gods would be more fitting, Mars and Jupiter, Gods of War and the blade and bow and stuff such as that. Just annoying to read all the mother earth stuff to be honest. I felt I was being fed religious propaganda half the time when reading about the disfunctional "Clans". Either they were either Lord of the Rings heroes or Druids I do not know really know which I could not read the nonsense.

But it is his story and I am free to read it or not and that is what it comes down too. Of course there are some huge gaps missing:

What happened to the US Army, Marine Corp, US Navy? For 60 years the US military has stockpiled food and gear for such a world and even without rifles and tanks would make them a incredibly powerful force. They just went poof? The Dark Lord in Portland would have been far better as some egotistical General carving out his own slice of the pie. Tacoma Washington is home to one of the largest US Army bases in the country yet they just died of starvation? Not to mention the numerous Naval Bases throughout the area. At least give an explanation such as you know they killed each other off or got VXed or something. Because to be honest I would rather have the kevlar body armor and helmet of the military then chain mail from 1400. But that is just me, not my story.

That is just one huge gap I kept asking about but never found an answer.

I love the premise of the story I just think it was badly presented. No offense to anyone that loves it

</review>
<review>

Yet another fine effort from Stirling.  The finely developed plot, the alternate history that is fantastic yet plausible, and the smooth flowing story his fans have come to expect are all in evidence again.  A proven master of the genre, his characters continue to be excellent -- deep and detailed.  The plot becomes a little confusing in the middle as different threads come together via multiple flashbacks, but that could be my own fault for not paying enough attention to chapter labels.
I found the title a bit misleading, however, given the way the plot develops.  No spoilers, so I won't elaborate other than to suggest "Gathers the Storm" or somthing similar might have ben a better title.  Hopefully "A Meeting at Corvallis" will be equally entertaining

</review>
<review>

Mr. Stirling has succeded again.  Protector's War is an amazing addition to the Change Trilogy, and well worth the read.  Honestly, I don't know where to start when explaining how good it is, so I will let you know the one thing I found highly disappointing about it, in one word:
Wicca.
That's right, Mr. Sterling has filled this book with so much "blessed be's" and "Lord and Lady" junk that you have to actually wade around that gobbledeegook to get to the real story.  In fact, if it weren't for the obviously well writt and enjoyable story underneath all that dross, I'd have given this book two, maybe three stars.  Somehow I highly doubt that wicca would ever, ever evolve to become a major religion after such a massive cataclysim such as Mr. Sterling protrays here.  Likely the major religious parties of each continent would rise up again, i.e. Christianity/Catholicism in Europe and the Western Hemisphere, Anamism/Islam in Africa, Islam/Buddhism/Hinduism/Shintoism/Anamism in Asia, etc.  But Mr. Sterling not only is portraying a world where wicca is widely practiced, but one where the "Lord and Lady" actually interact with some of the characters.  Yet the characters don't sit there and think to themselves, "Hey, my gods never claim to be all nice and merciful, and they actually exist, maybe they are responsible for what happened?!"  Nope, never crosses the Mackenzies mind.  Oh, well.  My only advise to Mr. Stirling would be, keep up the great stories, but keep the preaching about wicca to a minimum.  We don't mind religions being portrayed in a positive light, and I'm personally pleased at the relative equal positive descriptions of the surviving religions, but let's try to keep to a minimum the "blessed be's" or "lord and lady" references to a religion a lot of your readers may find, well, offensive, kay

</review>
<review>

While I enjoyed most of Dies the Fire, by the end I was very annoyed with the Juniper character, and found myself skipping over the (boring) details of her wiccan prayers and outlook. I had hopes for The Protectors War, and unfortunately it's worse than it's predecessor. McKenzie and her group get far too much play, and come across as self righteous religious fanatics. The reader is dragged thru endless truly horrible chants and poems, as these people seem to have to invoke their deities with laughably stilted invocations for every thing from brushing their teeth to going into battle. I found myself skipping large chunks of this book, and the editing- switching from linear narrative to flashback in midstream- didn't help matters any. There is too much exposition, and not enough action. All in all, a boring disapointment. The third book in the series is out in hardcover, but I won't even be checking it out of the library.

</review>
<review>

Read this book!  I never thought a history book would be one I could not put down.  It's enlightening and eye-opening.  It's a broad, fascinating history.

</review>
<review>

Many reviewers have commented that Taylor's "American Colonies" gives indigenous peoples a larger role in North American history than most previous studies do.  This perspective is relevant to the interpretation of the American Revolution.

Among the Revolution's motives were "liberty" (a better form of government than that provided by London) and "empire" (eliminating British barriers to the colonies' territorial expansion).  Since the indigenous people were the ones most affected by the colonists' territorial expansion, giving them a larger role in the history, as Taylor does, makes the history read more in the "imperial" vein.  See chapter 18, "Imperial Wars and Crisis: 1739-75."

In an important way, the "liberty" and "empire" motives both came down to land.  The colonists knew that a key reason they were freer than the average Briton was that they could move into land acquired from the indigenous peoples.  Jefferson summed up their objective as "an empire of liberty," which Taylor uses as chapter 18's final section heading

</review>
<review>

The reviews of this book are greater entertainment than actually reading the book. It makes for hard going, however, the insights into the true American history are many. The threads of the migration of the indigenous population is more than fascinating and should be included in every textbook in schools. Yet the main disappointment, other than the fact many have complained about (ie: the death of Kamehameha), is that this a more of a professorial dissertation rather than a vibrant book, which a friend of mine from the long ago and faraway, Roxie Yonkey, also noted. This is one of those times when I wish to debate the wherefores with my dear friend

</review>
<review>

Has a pretentiousness to it that is sometimes nauseating but for the most part is a very informative well-written text by a good historian. That is, unless your car won't start before the final and he decides to give you an insanely difficult alternative the following Monday two days before Christmas.  In that scenario, his good-historian-ness flies out the window and you just hate his guts. Taylor: Not all of us come from big money! Sorry my 80s model car exploded and inconvenienced you so! Thanks for ruining my gpa!
Good book though

</review>
<review>

I found this book well researched and full of information I knew nothing about. Taylor doesn't pull any punches when discussing our European ancestors and their brutality towards the native americans they helped destroy. Fascinating reading for anyone interested in our early history

</review>
<review>

We all learned the basics of colonial history in school: the Mayflower; Jamestown; Tobacco; the development of New Amsterdam, Boston, Charleston,  and  Philadelphia; indentured servants; and French trappers / Spanish Conquistadores.  However, most history books and classes spare the details about how the colonies truly developped between 1492 and about 1760.  Moreover many histories contain stunning inaccuracies about colonists and Indians.

Despite being an American History buff, it was not until finishing this excellent survey of the colonial period that I realized how little I knew.  Taylor has put together a detailed but approachable narrative of the Spanish, French, English, Swedish, Dutch, German, etc colonizers who shaped what was to become the United States.  There are plenty of fascinating details about exploration, the hardships of the first settlements and the problems faced by the expanding colonies.  More importantly, this book provides a solid background for why the English-speaking colonies prevailed and the baggage they carried entering the revolutionary period.

A well-written and well-researched book about an important era in our history that far too little is written about.  This is history that is hard to put down

</review>
<review>

Traditionally, coverage of "colonial America" is confined to the study of the thirteen English colonies of the eastern seaboard - a narrow focus that overlooks the vast scope of European involvement in North America, to say nothing of the diverse peoples who had occupied the continent for millennia before Christopher Columbus's historic voyage.  Alan Taylor rectifies this imbalance with this book, a wide-ranging survey of the first three centuries of the European presence on the continent and its impact on its inhabitants.

His scope is impressive.  After an initial chapter that provides a 14,500 year overview of the population migration that settled the continent, Taylor settles into a masterful examination of the establishment of the European colonies in the region.  The canvas is immense, encompassing the Spanish settlements of the Southwest, the exploration of Canada, and the establishment of the plantation colonies in the West Indies, as well as the colonization of the Atlantic seaboard by nearly a half-dozen European countries.  Through his account he pays particularly close attention to their interaction with the indigenous population, as well as the trans-Atlantic relations with Europe and Africa.

Taylor's macro-historical approach does not exclude the details of settlement, though.  Throughout the book, the narrative focuses on the individuals and societies of the various regions, detailing the choices they made, the factors that went into them, and how these choices shaped subsequent development.  The result is a collection of divergent stories that would all eventually be tied together (though not necessarily within these pages) into the United States of today.

As the first book in the "Penguin History of the United States," Taylor has set the bar high for the subsequent volumes.  By blending the latest scholarship and perspectives into a well-written account, he has produced a superb history of America's colonial development, one that is essential reading for anyone interested the subject and will likely remain the standard for years to come

</review>
<review>

Books like this are regrettably--but understandably--rare. Alan Taylor takes on the entire sweep of the human presence in North America up to the turn of the nineteenth century: from the earliest migrations across Beringia, to the European impact on Hawaii. It is astonishing how much he is able to include in a single, compact volume. While somewhat slanted toward an Anglo-centric account after the sixteenth century (for instance, the chapter on the West Indies from 1600-1700 is almost entirely about the British presence--Hispaniola and Cuba are completely ignored), it is only a moderate bias, admirably offset by his full and comparative accounts of the French in Canada and Louisiana, the Spanish in the southwest and California, and Russians in the northwest and Alaska. The tone of the writing, however, is exquisitely balanced and clean. In fact, the clear and efficient style is a pleasure to read, and chapter after chapter flows smoothly through the complexities and nuances of the latest and finest scholarship on the colonial era. American historians have truly brought their craft to a golden age of deep research, critical analysis and sound--yet astonishing--interpretation: Taylor's bibliography is a treasure chest of books I can't wait to read. He expertly weaves the most recent foci of American historiography--Atlantic studies, epidemiology, environmental history, pre-Columbian (and post-Columbian) archaeology, analyses of trade, demographics, gender roles, race, etc.--into the more familiar stories of explorers, empires, wars and migration. The whole story (or galaxy of stories) is thus given a structure and pattern that places what might have seemed to be arbitrary events into a tractable context. Perfect for the beginning pupil, this book is nonetheless eminently valuable for even the most well-read student of American history. It is perhaps too much to hope that the next volume in this series is as brilliantly done

</review>
<review>

Taylor provides an extensive - 526 pages including bibliography and index - overview of European colonial initiatives in the Atlantic, North America and parts of the Caribbean from the early 1400s - when Portuguese and Spanish proto-colonists got their feet wet, so to speak, by colonizing the Azores, Canaries and Medeiras - through Spanish and Russian efforts on the West Coast in the early 1800s.  Substantial space is given to colonial efforts of the French, Dutch, and Spanish as well as English settlement in the eastern Caribbean and the east coast of what eventually became the United States.

A tragic theme throughout the book is the encounter between Europeans and Native Americans that decimated the latter, primarily through inadvertent introduction of diseases but also through warfare, slavery, appropriation of their land and destruction of the environment on which the Indians relied.  Taylor also describes how the Indians repeatedly collaborated with or benefited from European traders and colonists when they perceived - often erroneously - that the Europeans' actions benefited their own economic and strategic interests.  And, yes, the Indians traded in slaves - either other Indians or Africans - as well.  The role and some of the impact of enslaved Africans on Colonial development is also described throughout the book.

Regarding the English colonies that became the original thirteen United States it's helpful for Taylor to remind that most of the colonies had unique beginnings that influenced their cultures and economies and politics for many years after the American revolution.  For example, South Carolina essentially began as a colony of the fabulously wealthy colony of Barbados, and initiated use of enslaved Africans on a scale that dwarfed the Chesapeake tobacco plantations.  And Pennsylvania started relatively late but grew quickly and prosperously as the initial English Quakers were quickly outnumbered by industrious German family farmers as opposed to indentures servants or slaves.

I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in Euro-American settlement, the formative history of the United States and the interaction of Europeans with Native Americans.





</review>
<review>

The above is my favorite book and SLB conjured up similar emotions in me.  I read this book in a day and will definitely put it in my daughter's "must read" pile when she is ready for it.  This is one of those books that, when you read it, it forever changes your life.  Atleast it did for me...the same way TKAM changed me and has stayed with me.  I highly recommend this book

</review>
<review>

The story is quite compelling as it interweaves the story of a white girl with a black community during a time period in which it was not easy.

I liked very much how softly the author gives us, the readers so much information on the lives of bees, and specially she gives a bibliography for those interested.

Although, I do not consider it a masterpiece it is very, very likable

</review>
<review>

I read this book 2 years ago, and I must say that it is one of my favorite books.  The imagry that Kidd uses is amazing.  I could place myself on that peach orchard in georgia.  You fall right in love with the charicters.  This book made me laugh it made me cry and feel outraged, and in love.  It is such a dynamic story with suspense.  I felt like i missed the charicters when i finnished the book, and i wish there were a sequal. I would reccomend this book to anyone

</review>
<review>

A wonderful, gentle, informative coming of age story. And the reader was a pleasure to listen to

</review>
<review>

This book really great. I enjoyed the story immensley. Character development was excellent and descriptions in this story were fully visualized. I really could picture myself at the "flamingo pink" house in Tiburon. The main character, Lily is the sweetest kid anyone could ever come across, but with the anxieties of being a teenager and trying to find herself by finding out about her deceased mother. The group of sisters that she settles with teach her about life, love, faith and understanding. It's very heartfelt

</review>
<review>

One of the best books ever!!!!  I was disappointed that the story wasn't longer, as I was so sorry when it was over.  I even contemplated rereading it immediately, but decided to try another Sue Monk Kidd novel instead, and read The Mermaid Chair.  Different genre, but also very entertaining!  I have become an overnight, true fan of this author

</review>
<review>

Lilly is a 14 year old white girl in the south. Her mother was shot (unclear by who, but Lilly feels responsible) in infancy, and she has been raised by her mean, hateful father, who punishes her for any little infraction of his inflexible rules by forcing her to kneel for hours bare kneed on grits (among other tortures). Lilly's only friend is the African American housekeeper/babysitter, Rosaleen.

When Rosaleen decides she has to go to town to register to vote, she gets into an argument with a typical white cracker character--and she and Lily end up in jail. Lilly is bailed out by her father, but she escapes, and then breaks Rosaleen out of the hospital (she was beaten half to death by the police after Lilly was bailed out).

On the lam, Lilly decides to try and find out about her mother. She and Rosaleen end up in the home of a trio of Black sisters, who survive making the best honey in the county.

Of course, ultimately, their summer of freedom ends, and reality comes crashing back in, when Lilly is found by her father.

While the story is somewhat predictable, Kidd keeps the tension, moves the plot forward, and does a superb job of getting into the heads of all of the characters. While the racism of the time is clearly a subtext to the entire plot, it is (with a few obvious exceptions) the subtext, and not the foreground. This allows the reader to discover what racism feels like from the inside.

A very good read

</review>
<review>

The era and the setting of the novel was something I could relate to.  Growing up in the 60's and 70's and knew it was a tumultuous time The book was about the innocence of a neglected young white girl caught up in the racism of the time and specifically the South during the civil rights era.  It was wonderfully told and beautifully written.

</review>
<review>

Over the years I have read many books on the Red Scare in Hollywood and could never quite understand the attraction to communism.  This book does the best job of describing the issues, the attraction to communism and documentation of actual plans by the communist party concerning their intent to influence films.  In reading many past books, the authors never quite expressed WHY they were communists.  In fact, many of the books never mentioned whether they were incorrectly persecuted or whether they actually were members of communist party.  This book provides documentation and reasoning by none other than Dalton Trumbo, one of the leading communists in Hollywood and the screenwriter partially responsible for breaking the blacklist.  And in the end, he disavowed his former communist party and their teachings.

But this book will not be without controversy as the authors are known as right-wing Republicans.  While I am in the middle of the political spectrum leaning slightly to the left, I find their account very believable and documented sufficiently to overcome any perceived bias.  The significance of this book to me from reading Ring Lardner's famous "I'd Hate Myself in the Morning" to watching Woody Allen's "The Front" and FINALLY getting a closing answer is overwhelming.  I no longer feel the need to explore why Americans chose to follow another government's agenda to the potential detriment of our country.  However, I do not fault these people for their initial attraction to communism and frankly, I don't view communism as wrong:  it's just a different government method some choose.  For myself, I remain quite satisfied with democracy, EVEN in these trying times.  Rather, the attraction to communism was clearly a byproduct of the recent depression as well as the growth of fascism.  I can live with that reasoning.

This is an exceptional book if you have any interest in the 50s, movies, or communism.  In closing, I must comment on the complete disrespect shown to Elia Kazen on receipt of his lifetime achievement award some years ago when Nick Nolte and others refused to applaud or acknowledge this award.  I suggest they read this book.  The Red Scare was a horrible period but Freedom of Speech needs only go so far when supporting a government with intent to overthrow our own.  I strongly recommend this book.

</review>
<review>

While George Clooney was simultaneously thumping his chest and patting his back for how he and his "community" are proudly out of touch with mainstream America, I was engaged in the rather more edifying exercise of reading this great new book by Ronald and Allis Radosh. For readers with an interest in the context of the culture-clash between the "Hollywood elite" and the poor benighted people who buy movie tickets and DVDs, this book is an excellent resource.

I say the "context" of the clash because this is a look at history, and a serious research work too. This is not a book that details the fashionable Leftist obsessions of Clooney, Streisand, Penn, and the rest, and therefore may be less satisfying to some readers than other recent books that address current names and controversies more directly. Instead, "Red Star Over Hollywood" digs deep into something far more serious and sinister ("sinister" comes from the Latin word for "left," by the way): the film colony's infiltration by agents of the Comintern, dedicated partisans of Stalin, and other actors, directors, writers, and executives eager to use the power of film to promote socialism in the United States.

As Clooney's speech -- and even more so, his movie -- make clear, modern Hollywood's sense of itself is built to a large degree on the legend of its heroic stand against "McCarthyism" and the blacklist (that's what makes Clooney's self-congratulation so laughable -- does anyone in Hollywood *defend* McCarthy?). But the Radoshes demonstrate not only that there really were communists in positions of influence (in other words, the witch-hunt turned up real witches), but that there was also a strong and active anti-communist Left in Hollywood. Even more than the relatively small number of conservatives in Hollywood, it was this anti-communist Left that was in the most direct conflict with the Stalinists, their apologists, and their dupes, particularly before and during World War II.

All of this is important information, but it's when they turn to their discussion of HUAC and the blacklist in the postwar period that the authors most directly confront Hollywood's defining myth. Far from the usual pop-psychology analysis of the deranged and sweaty McCarthy (and why do so few people seem to notice that *Senator* Joe McCarthy had nothing to do with the *House* Committee on Un-American Activities?) the authors have gone in-depth in committee records, and also into the backgrounds of the people from Hollywood who came before the committee. It's certainly easier to issue blanket denunciations of McCarthy and his ilk than to sift through pages and pages of dusty documents. Ronald and Allis Radosh are to be commended for doing the latter.

It's because this book is so heavily researched -- so filled with names, dates, and places -- that I note again that it may not be to everyone's taste. It is, I repeat, a work of history. It notably lacks the rhetorical sledgehammer blows of, say, an Ann Coulter book, and so doesn't have the fist-pumping, take-that-you-commie excitement value some readers derive from more polemical works. But those books seem to disappear as soon as they fall off the bestseller lists. This, on the other hand, is a book that deserves to be around for a long, long time

</review>
<review>

Remember the Hollywood blacklist? The Hollywood Ten? I'll bet you know a lot about these events even if you weren't alive in the 1950s. That's because Tinseltown has a vested interest in keeping the memory of this era alive. It was the era of the Red Scare, of Senator Joseph McCarthy waving his infamous list of communist subversives during a speech in West Virginia. It was the time of congressional investigations, a time when invoking the Fifth Amendment might keep you safe from a contempt charge but would make you look guilty as sin in the public eye. For a select few the McCarthy era was a time of great fear, and no one feared this witch-hunt against communism more than Hollywood. Why? Because, despite the mountains of claims to the contrary that have emerged over the years, the movie industry oozed communists. There were so many Reds in Hollywood that they should have renamed the town Little Moscow. Yet even today, you won't hear about this truth in the media. You will, however, get the skinny on what really went on if you pick up a copy of Ronald Radosh's "Red Star Over Hollywood: The Film Colony's Long Romance with the Left."

Talk about exploding myths! Radosh's book, which he co-wrote with his wife Allis, cuts through the layers of denial and presents us with an ugly picture of the real Hollywood of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. Vladimir Lenin, the little pipsqueak who brought the nightmare of Marxism to the Soviet Union back in the early part of the twentieth century, had a soft spot for film and theater. He believed that the best way to spread communism around the globe was through movies and plays. This is exactly what the Kremlin crowd set out to accomplish in the following decades. They managed to gain converts to their cause--men who later became movers and shakers like Budd Schulberg, Joseph Losey, and Maurice Rapf--by allowing them to work closely with the Soviet film industry. Once these people came back to the United States, they spread their plague to others with the help of party apparatchiks Willi Munzenberg, V.J. Jerome, and John Howard Lawson. In no time at all, writes Radosh, a branch of the communist party flourished in Hollywood. So many big names signed on that newcomers to the industry, in an attempt to make contacts and find work, had to become communists or fellow travelers themselves.

The Hollywood branch of the communist party worked to increase their membership and influence in several ways. One of the most successful methods involved the tried and true "United Frontism" and "Popular Front" techniques, or the forming of organizations that on the surface embraced popular progressive causes to lure in unsuspecting liberals while maintaining strong communist control behind the scenes. Radosh reveals that the concerns many people had about the rise of National Socialist Germany in the 1930s helped increase membership, although the party's propensity to change direction, oftentimes overnight according to directives issued from the Kremlin, tended to alienate many members. Also off putting was the heavy-handed discipline that could fall on an unsuspecting member at any time. Albert Maltz, for example, discovered the inflexibility of the party when he wrote an article deemed "revisionist" by the upper hierarchy. His very public refutation of his article left little doubt about the strong-arm tactics used behind the scenes. Despite the ugliness the Hollywood Reds occasionally displayed, they were somewhat successful in spreading their propaganda through films like "Mission to Moscow," "The Spanish Earth," and "The North Star." Congressional investigations threw some of these dupes in the slammer, and silenced a few more, but many never repudiated their warped views.

I enjoyed Radosh's book, the first one of his I've had the chance to read. The author and his spouse obviously know what they're talking about and, since Ronald Radosh himself was a communist for many years, he understands how these groups think and act. "Red Star Over Hollywood" occasionally suffers from dry prose and a bewildering number of groups and individuals, but the authors always manage to bring the book back up to speed by throwing in some great anecdotes. For instance, the part where we learn about Ronald Reagan (at the time a liberal) and his buddy William Holden crashing a communist get together in an attempt to inject some common sense into the proceedings is great fun to read about. Reagan got up and started talking only to find himself under verbal attack for some forty minutes. God bless him! The account of Albert Maltz's forced rehabilitation is absolutely chilling, a sobering tale that hints at the violent tendencies inherent in communism. Arguably the best part of the book, however, involves the long, strange trip writer Dalton Trumbo took from the time of his blacklisting to his repudiation of the communist party later in life.  So many intriguing stories pop up in the book that the actual creation of the blacklist takes a backseat.

I have one recommendation and one warning to those readers about to attempt the book. In the case of the former, if you're not very familiar with this time period, read a background history of the Red Scare first. Doing so will assist you in learning the context for what happens here and help you learn the basics about a few of the groups and personalities associated with the blacklist. In the case of the latter, the topic is so huge that Radosh doesn't have the space to cover many of the important Reds. There is almost nothing here about Lillian Hellman or Dashiell Hammett, for example, and both of those individuals had a lot to do with the influence of communism in film and books. Nevertheless, this book is well worth your time. Read it and remember it the next time Hollywood releases yet another "we were innocent" propaganda piece.

</review>
<review>

I have always been curious about the influence of Communism in Hollywood.  This book by the Radoshes was perfect for someone like me who was willing to read and learn something about it.  It was far from being a right wing diatribe as two previous reviewers who panned the book stated.  It seemed to be a straight forward analysis of the situation.  I came away from it feeling that despite the diligent efforts of the Communists to use the movies to propagate their views they were far from successful.  The studio heads, whether for economic or patriotic reasons, insured that the obvious propaganda was kept out of their movie productions.    Like C Coffman who wrote the prior review, I wanted to know more about the thinking of the people who were so enamored of the Soviet Union.  It was difficult for me to comprehend how the Hollywood writers continued to support the Soviet Union in the face of clear evidence that Soviet movie writers were being executed in the Soviet Union.  Nor could I fully understand how these Hollywood writers, men (mostly) of immense talent, cowered before their Communist censors.    Finally, the Radoshes put the "Hollywood Ten" and the blacklist years in perspective.  They state there were wrongs on both sides and show how the claims of the victims of the blacklisting that they suffered immensely from the Congressional investigations were highly exaggerated.   I came away with the feeling that the ability of those blacklisted to eventually gain work and to use their media to publicize their plight so as to portray themselves as heroes was only possible because they lost.  It would never have been possible for them to show movies about the evil of the blacklisting days had their dreams for a Communist take over of the USA come true since like their fellow professionals in the Soviet Union they would have probably been executed.  Who said you can't win for losing!

</review>
<review>

This book touches on one of the touchiest and nerve-wracked controversies of the last sixty years. Precisely because of a tendency to close ranks around the defense of semi-myths one needs to zero in from two angles. Here we get the clear effort to indulge in what many would think revisionist propaganda. But despite an obvious bias built in to the account, the tale told is of interest from the conservative angle and sticks to the parts everyone should know, but might not, after the shouting matches over McCarthyism. I really think this book provokes the need for still another book to correct the correction, but in the meantime the information is interesting enough to be quite worth reading. Conservatives get fainting spells about commies in the movie business, but you can read around the lurid conservative passages (not so bad) for some useful corrections of the record, and no doubt much left out.

</review>
<review>

It's no secret that many of Hollywood's and the entertainment businesss's current "stars" are socialist afficienados (or worse), but where did this denationalized elitism come from? "Red Star Over Hollywood" does a spectacular job at laying out the groundwork and background of the Hollywood political left, Communists and fellow travelers from the 1930's to 1950's. With about 37 pages of reference material (diaries, speeches, Congressional testimony, biographies, autobiographies, news articles, interviews, etc.), the authors leave no doubt about how these folks cooperated with the Soviet Union in its attempts to "take over" Hollywood as a tool in their effort to create a Soviet America. The names of the actors, screen writers, producers etc who were card carrying Communists, fellow travelers, quislings, leftists, and varieties of socialists who made up the Hollywood scene in those days will floor you. You'll have to read the book to find out who they were.  And there were many heroes as well, who finally stood up and took on these cultural saboteurs. You'll never watch movies on the Turner Classic Movies channel the same way again. After you read the book, look closely at the writing and producing credits on these old films.

The authors draw some connections between the Hollywood leftists of that era and the current crop of leftists in the "entertainment industry" today. But that comes at the end of the book and is a very brief section.

This is a must read book for anyone who is even slightly interested in the Hollywood of the 30's-50's and who here's the sophist leftist pontifications of the Tim Robbins, Barbra Streisands, Bill Mahrs and others. One thing that will strike you  is how well educated, thoughful, well read and articulate both the left and the right were in the 1930's, 1940's and 1950's. There was intelligent discourse on all sides. They make today's left and right apologists seem like 3d graders reciting "Dick and Jane" from memory. That insight was worth the price of the book.

Gar

</review>
<review>

I used to wonder why Hollywood ignored the crimes of Soviet Communism, which easily rival the crimes of National Socialism, something they've shown us over and over and over again (certainly understandable). Not one major film has been made showing us the summary executions during Lenin's "Red Terror," the deaths of millions during forced collectivization, the torture and mass murder during Stalin's purges of the late 30's, the cold-blooded massacre of thousands of Polish citizens at Katyn, or the horrors of the gulag. But Hollywood has been plenty busy pumping out films on "McCarthyism" and the ghastly "blacklist." They're listed in this book: Guilty by Suspicion, The Front, The Way We Were, The Majestic, Marathon Man, The House on Carroll Street, Fellow Traveler, One of Hollywood Ten. This is all propaganda of course. The way they tell it you'd think it was one of the darkest and most tragic eras in human history. McCarthy and his ilk were no saints, and there were certainly excesses, but I don't believe anyone was murdered by McCarthy and HUAC. By contrast tens of millions were murdered in Soviet Russia. Apparently that's no big deal to the fools in Tinseltown who are constantly wringing their hands over "McCarthyism," the blacklist and the persecuted Hollywood ten. These crybabies wouldn't have lasted ONE DAY in the Kolyma forced-labor camps!

The Radoshes show us that Hollywood back in the 30's and 40's was filled with Soviet-sympathizing Communists who put out propaganda films whitewashing Stalin's mass murders such as The North Star, Song of Russia and Mission to Moscow. While the first two simply glossed over the Stalinist holocaust in Ukraine, the latter film actually GLORIFIED Stalin's secret police and mass purges. Can you believe this? Hollywood actually justified Stalin's killing machine! Think about that the next time some Hollywood leftist whines about the "horrors" of "McCarthyism."

While no one in Hollywood would dare praise Stalin now, quite a few do embrace other blood-soaked Communist despots. For example, Shirley MacLaine made a pilgrimage to Red China, then reeling in the aftermath of Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution, and declared that Mao Tse-tung was a hero of all time. Someone should let Shirley know that her "hero" is the biggest mass murderer in history (see "Mao: The Unknown Story" by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday). And countless Hollywood "useful idiots" such as Robert Redford, Danny Glover, Oliver Stone and many, MANY others swoon over that thug Fidel Castro, who has more blood on his hands (15,000 killed) than the hated Augusto Pinochet (3,000 killed). Pinochet's crimes have been the subject of several Hollywood flicks - i.e. Missing, Of Love and Shadows, etc. None have been made on the mass murders of Castro and Mao. To add insult to injury Castroite Robert REDford was executive producer of "The Motorcycle Diaries," a saintly portrayal of Castro's chief executioner Ernesto "Che" Guevara in his early days. He later went on to murder hundreds of "counter-revolutionaries" at La Cabana prison, something that's highly unlikely to be portrayed in the next pro-Che film starring Benicio del Toro.

The negative reviews are beyond pathetic. McCarthy this... McCarthy that... blah, blah, blah... Of course they can't refute one thing in the book. They prefer myth, not facts. Hollywood was filled with Stalin-worshipping Reds (now Castro-worshipping Pinkos), the Rosenberg's were guilty as charged and Alger Hiss was a Soviet spy. Truth hurts - deal with it!

Also recommended:

Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant by Humberto E. Fontova
Hollywood Party: How Communism Seduced the American Film Industry in the 1930s and 1940s by Kenneth Lloyd Billingsley
In Denial: Historians, Communism  and  Espionage by John Earl Haynes  and  Harvey Klehr
The Venona Secrets: Exposing Soviet Espionage and America's Traitors by Herbert Romerstein and Eric Breindel

</review>
<review>

The McCarthy era is generally portrayed as one of the darkest times in American history, and those who faced blacklisting in Hollywood have been lauded as heroes. Through ground-breaking new research and the reliance on original source materials, the Radoshes have compiled a thorough re-examination of the enchantment by some in the film industry with the Communist Party, and their betrayal by that very same party.

The Radoshes describe the infatuation of "the Hollywood Party" from its roots in the 1930s, when several visited the Soviet Union.  They demonstrate that, far from being innocent, the "Hollywood Ten" were committed Communists, who used and abused free-speech supporters (like Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall) for their own ends. The Communist Party, in turn, cynically used the "Ten" for its own ends -- trotting them out to speak at unrelated left-wing events for years, which prevented the Ten from individually rehabilitating their images and obtaining work.  The authors also describe the way the CP line was inserted in several films, most notoriously, "Mission to Moscow." This film, designed to turn the views of a skeptical American public toward the USSR during World War II, whitewashes Stalin's purge trials of the 1930s, where many truly innocent were tortured into confessing and executed.  Perhaps most interesting is the difficult path faced by those who broke with the Party and either "named names" or walked a fine line to avoid naming names.  For many, being seen as an informer was worse than preventing and exposing genuine Communist infiltration.

If I have any criticisms of the book, it is that the Radoshes did not take their exploration of the film colony's long romance with the left through the Vietnam War years and today. While the blacklist years were seminal, many in Hollywood contine to lean left even after the fall of the USSR, and take almost reflexively anti-Bush positions today. We are left to wonder what the leftist fathers passed on to their sons. Perhaps the authors will address this issue in a subsequent book.  In the meantime, "Red Star Over Hollywood" is well worth reading.

</review>
<review>

The back lash continues against the media strangle-hold on revisionist history.

How many times have you watched a documentary or a movie that exhonerates those poor persecuted innocents, dubbed the Hollywood Ten, as sitting targets seated before an array of mean and ruthless right-wing zealots - the HUAC committee of the late 1940's and early 50's?  Over and over and over it seems, doesn't it?  Well now we have a detailed and painstakingly written rejoinder, "Red Star Over Hollywood", which tells the real tale; that these were mostly hard core members of the communist party USA, who took their marching orders directly from the Kremlin.  They were Stalin's men and, not to put to fine a point on it, useful idiots in his quest to foment a world-wide communist revolution.

Ron Radosh, a communist from childhood, smelled the coffee after he wrote a book trying to prove the innocence of the Rosenberg's only to find that .... they were guilty!  After he said so he was unceremoniously drummed out of the "leftist corp" and made to wear a political scarlet letter by his former comrades....some friends they.

Radosh is a PhD in History and a diligent, detailed researcher of the facts i.e. he's interested in the truth and in that sense wherever the facts lead him he will go.  Unfortunately, one doesn't find this trait to be prevalent among political ideaologues be they historians, archeologists, political scientists, reporters, book publishers or video media types.  As an aside, I found it interesting to compare this book with Neil gabler's, "An Empire of Their Own: How the Jew's Invented Hollywood."  The nexus for me is the juxtaposition of the capacity for those who would be relentlessly capitalistic to simultaneously have the ability to be in favor of a world-wide communistic revolution?  Is it a fear of chistianity as an ally of capitalism?  I don't know, but I for one would encourage Radosh to address the subject.  And, he's the man to do it (another book to read as a companion peace would be "Intellectuals" by Paul Johnson, the author of "Modern Times.")

It's important to recognize that not all of those in Hollywood, whose lives were ruined by HUAC, were hard-core communists.  Some were just idealistic liberals trying to make a differnce against perceived and real injustices.  To the readers benefit, Radosh teases out these nuances rather well, and anyone interested in this period of history will read this book with great interest.

Setting the record straight is important, but the Hollywood left still clings to a thin tissue when it characterizes this story as a "fable of innocence destroyed by malice."  It's their shakey attempt at moral authority, the kind that underpins a Sean Penn in his critique of Bush's Iraq policy, while he ignores the evils of Sadaam Hussein.

This book challenges the template of the Hollywood left: that these were brave dissenters standing up for the right to espouse unpopular beliefs against right-wing bullies leading a witch hunt against "un-American activities;" that they were victimized political innocents who were skewered by despicable sellouts who named names to save their careers.  Read it, it's good.





</review>
<review>

Written for Training Professionals, this book will help you to launch a corporate university, run it like a business using appropriate financial models, use the corporate university to strategically advance your organization, deploy effective technological resources and measure the ROI of corporate university activities.  In the world of Training and Development, this book is thorough, well organized and insightful.  This book is written for a general audience and supplies a thorough overview of the subject.  Allen knows that corporate leaders want to know what impact corporate universities will have on the bottom line, and what value the corporate university adds to the organization. Creating this link between learning and results, requires managers to identify their problems and needs, analyze employee performance, determine performance drivers, and then create corporate university programs that can directly improve identified problems and meet specific needs.  The Corporate University Handbook provides practical guidance and proven best practices

</review>
<review>

Published in 2002, The Corporate University Handbook is now considered required reading for anyone who has been charged with establishing or administering a corporate university. Edited by Mark Allen, the handbook features the latest thinking from leading practitioners concerning best practices for establishing and administering a successful 21st century corporate university. No matter how overloaded your bookcase is, throw something out to make room for this invaluable "how to" handbook

</review>
<review>

Once upon a time in the halls of academia, being a college graduate was enough. But now, corporations need their employees to have a more intense, ongoing academic and technical education, so they provide it themselves via corporate universities. Mark Allen and other experts from ten corporate universities, academic institutions and consultancies contributed chapters to The Corporate University Handbook, a practical, behind-the-scenes manual about designing and managing a corporate university. The goal goes beyond education: corporate universities must train employees and help corporations excel and prosper. This thorough, yet conversational, examination includes best practices, source notes and programs offered by specific companies including Motorola, Toyota, Sun Microsystems and Charles Schwab, in the U.S. and elsewhere. We from getAbstract assign this insightful book as an authoritative homework seminar for corporate university planners or managers

</review>
<review>

Because I don't get TV One and have only seen the show a few times, I was pleasantly suprised when I saw this cookbook today in the store. I recommend it a MILLION TIMES over instead of Mo'Nique's, especially since she got some of her recipes from him!!!

A GREAT way to get a taste of what's in store for you if you buy this book is to to go the show's website. Many recipes are there, but nothing beats having a book that you can carry with you. Some of these will be making their debut at the Thanksgiving table next week and I can't wait!

There are some beautiful photos but not a whole lot, but that doesn't take away from the book too much because you can view many of them on the site.

Highly recommended. I wanna have backbreaking sex with G. Garvin. Thanks for letting me share

</review>
<review>

My husband and I have been waiting for this book since we first saw G. Garvin on TVOne.  Needless to say, I am pleased with this book.  The layout and directions are clear and concise.  The entire book is not in color, but I can deal with that.  Here's the table of contents:
*Super Simple
*Family Style
*Market Fresh
*Good Food Made at Home
*Building a Great Dish
*Cognac, Sticks and Steaks
*Entertaining with G
*Sweet Thoughts
*Index

My one criticism is that I wish a hardback edition of this book was available

</review>
<review>

excellent book. the recipes i have tried are excellent. i like pictures too but content and recipe outcome are more important to me. i would highly recommend this as a new purchase

</review>
<review>

I am a big fan of N. Sparks and enjoyed this book as I do all of his books

</review>
<review>

Sparks continues to make his readers feel. I hope he continues to write for a long time

</review>
<review>

I use "The Notebook" and "A Walk to Remember" as optional films in my upper division sociology courses. After hearing many positive student responses, I was curious about Sparks as an author--one of the few males writing commercially successful romance novels.  After a slow start with "True Believer," I was more satisfied with "The Rescue."  Taylor's friendship with Mitch and his emotional growth add dimension to an otherwise standard tale of boy meets girl, etc., etc.,

</review>
<review>

I absolutely Love all of Nicholas Sparks' books.  I have read them all and if want a great read with a touching story then he is the author for you.  Get your kleenex's ready. You can't go wrong here.

And I always preorder his new ones..... I'm addicted

</review>
<review>

I've been adventuring off reading new writers that i've been hearing about. Well Sparks was one of them and after reading this I wonder why did it take me so long to read his books. This book was really heart touching. The mom was a real inspiration for everything she was doing with her son and changing her life to better his. The love story was also great because that is somewhat reality. When you loose someone or go threw hard times; Its hard to put yourself back out there and to trust someone because its so much easier just to do things on your own . I can't wait to read more of Sparks books because I've already heard so many great things about them

</review>
<review>

I just got done reading The Rescue last night. I just didn't like the part when Taylor blamed himself for his father's death. He had a right to be happy and live his life. The boy really likes Taylor. Denise was a sweet lady. I am surprized they got married and the little boy finally had a Dad. You might want to read that book again. I am a Nicholas Sparks fan. I have been his fan for 1 year and a month. I love all his stories, I will be looking forard to the next one in October

</review>
<review>

I have read several of Nicholas Sparks' books, but this one was different for me.  It was a very very slow start.  I was more than 150 pages into it before I got interested in the plot.  I had even considered quitting reading it at times.  It ended up being an okay story, but nothing that I couldn't have lived without reading.  What I did enjoy is the way Mr. Sparks writes about male characters in the romantic way women wish men really were.  I would suggest another read from Mr. Sparks like "The Notebook" or "The Wedding" if you want a good romantic read.

</review>
<review>

I didn't know why I chose to read this book. Anyway, it was disappointing, really. The book was slow, and it was too long for a story of its type. I mean, I think the book could go on without some of the parts. When I was reading it, I only thought of putting it down because it's making me go crazy. I thought the plot was shallow, but Taylor's self-conflict was even shallower. He kept on blaming himself about his father's death well then it's really his fault! He was a coward. If you don't believe me, go on and read about it... although you might get bored getting to that part because it's towards the end. And I hated it when this stupid conflict got in the way with his relationship with Denise. He was acting really immature! He should have at least thought about Denise but he was too selfish. It really sucked.

And yes, I know that this is supposed to be a romance novel... but I kept on looking for that love factor althroughout the book. And what did I find? NOTHING. Oh, what a waste. It's like Sparks tried very hard to make the situations in the story seem romantic but as a reader, it didn't really capture the whole essence of what romantic situations should be like.

If it hadn't been for my HRR (Home Reading Report) I wouldn't have finished reading this at all.

I guess I'm saying this because I'm not into this genre. Love stories are fine but this one... nah

</review>
<review>

The above is my favorite book and SLB conjured up similar emotions in me.  I read this book in a day and will definitely put it in my daughter's "must read" pile when she is ready for it.  This is one of those books that, when you read it, it forever changes your life.  Atleast it did for me...the same way TKAM changed me and has stayed with me.  I highly recommend this book

</review>
<review>

The story is quite compelling as it interweaves the story of a white girl with a black community during a time period in which it was not easy.

I liked very much how softly the author gives us, the readers so much information on the lives of bees, and specially she gives a bibliography for those interested.

Although, I do not consider it a masterpiece it is very, very likable

</review>
<review>

I read this book 2 years ago, and I must say that it is one of my favorite books.  The imagry that Kidd uses is amazing.  I could place myself on that peach orchard in georgia.  You fall right in love with the charicters.  This book made me laugh it made me cry and feel outraged, and in love.  It is such a dynamic story with suspense.  I felt like i missed the charicters when i finnished the book, and i wish there were a sequal. I would reccomend this book to anyone

</review>
<review>

A wonderful, gentle, informative coming of age story. And the reader was a pleasure to listen to

</review>
<review>

This book really great. I enjoyed the story immensley. Character development was excellent and descriptions in this story were fully visualized. I really could picture myself at the "flamingo pink" house in Tiburon. The main character, Lily is the sweetest kid anyone could ever come across, but with the anxieties of being a teenager and trying to find herself by finding out about her deceased mother. The group of sisters that she settles with teach her about life, love, faith and understanding. It's very heartfelt

</review>
<review>

One of the best books ever!!!!  I was disappointed that the story wasn't longer, as I was so sorry when it was over.  I even contemplated rereading it immediately, but decided to try another Sue Monk Kidd novel instead, and read The Mermaid Chair.  Different genre, but also very entertaining!  I have become an overnight, true fan of this author

</review>
<review>

Lilly is a 14 year old white girl in the south. Her mother was shot (unclear by who, but Lilly feels responsible) in infancy, and she has been raised by her mean, hateful father, who punishes her for any little infraction of his inflexible rules by forcing her to kneel for hours bare kneed on grits (among other tortures). Lilly's only friend is the African American housekeeper/babysitter, Rosaleen.

When Rosaleen decides she has to go to town to register to vote, she gets into an argument with a typical white cracker character--and she and Lily end up in jail. Lilly is bailed out by her father, but she escapes, and then breaks Rosaleen out of the hospital (she was beaten half to death by the police after Lilly was bailed out).

On the lam, Lilly decides to try and find out about her mother. She and Rosaleen end up in the home of a trio of Black sisters, who survive making the best honey in the county.

Of course, ultimately, their summer of freedom ends, and reality comes crashing back in, when Lilly is found by her father.

While the story is somewhat predictable, Kidd keeps the tension, moves the plot forward, and does a superb job of getting into the heads of all of the characters. While the racism of the time is clearly a subtext to the entire plot, it is (with a few obvious exceptions) the subtext, and not the foreground. This allows the reader to discover what racism feels like from the inside.

A very good read

</review>
<review>

The era and the setting of the novel was something I could relate to.  Growing up in the 60's and 70's and knew it was a tumultuous time The book was about the innocence of a neglected young white girl caught up in the racism of the time and specifically the South during the civil rights era.  It was wonderfully told and beautifully written.

</review>
<review>

The Messenger by Daniel Silva is just as interesting, exciting, and intriguing as every other Gabriel Allon book
has been.  I was hooked on page one and had a hard time putting it down until I reached the last page. My only regret is
that more of the story is not set in Venice, my favorite city. There is just enough of a parallel to characters and events in the real world to make the stories
plausible and just enough romance and action to make it gripping and absorbing. I am already looking forward to the next Gabriel Allon story

</review>
<review>

well, imho, not as great as the other books in the allon series, but well worth the read!
i'm looking forward to the next in the series.


</review>
<review>

Very pleased with the price and speedy delievery and quality of the product.


</review>
<review>

In this novel we have the characters we have come to love. The writing is tighter and the plot clear. Not quite as exciting or fresh. Some further development with Leah happens which I won't reveal

</review>
<review>

A caveat to all Westerners who may think our most sacrosanct values are protected.  Silva reaches into inner space to warn us of the dedicated nature of the enemy.  If this is fiction, it is well dressed as a wake-up call to its readers

</review>
<review>

I'am unable to get this message to anyone.  This is the second book I orderd and both books are bad.  This one starting on disc #4 all is bad.
I sent back the customer card and explained my displeasure but no one has contacted me.  I had the same problem on Vanishing Point, the cd left will not play on my player.  I will not order another book from You. Once I can see this happen, but twice is unacceptable

</review>
<review>

Daniel Silva has taken his protaganist right onto the front pages of the worlds' newspapers with his best work to date

</review>
<review>

This is a timely, well written and exciting book. I enjoyed reading it.

</review>
<review>

Love Silva's characters and plots. Only wish is for more, more, more

</review>
<review>

I think this is a brilliant book. A great selection of interesting and relevant ideas on art, politics and technology. Beautiful images too and well published

</review>
<review>

I read Bruner's book in one of my doctoral seminars which added a unique perspective on curriculums in early childhood education; however, journeying into the book and determining the main points of argument will challenge due to Bruner's overly dense prose.

He highlights the idea of culture defining curriculum through its langauge, customs, history, and society status, but he fails to offer examples accessible to the classroom teacher.

I would recognize this book as a added addition to to any Early Childhood Professional's library, but please prepare yourself for many re-reads

</review>
<review>

This is, by far, the worst book I have EVER been forced to read. One star is too much. The title of this book, "The culture of education" leads the reader to believe that the author knows something about education. He toots his own horn several times in the book saying how good he is at what he does, but wouldn't someone who knows something about education be able to relay information in a more effective way? This book is entirely unreadable. For example, here is a sentence from page 106. "Many of the tacit presuppositions guiding intersubjective transactions seem surprisingly incorrigible, even surprisingly inaccessible to conscious reflection." What exactly does this mean? I'll tell you what I think this book is. I think that Mr. Bruner is trying to impress people, while trying to make them feel stupid. If he has something to say, he should just say it! He buries whatever point he has in pretentious words such as "immutable," Pontogenetically," and "Hermeneutic." If you are buying this book on Amazon, I suggest you also purchase the biggest dictionary they sell

</review>
<review>

This book is a gift for readers. Maybe not all readers, but those who are genuinely interested in human values and culture.  Bruners ideas are bright and deep, making us understand that the future of education depends  on human beings as agents of their destiny. The importance of every  cultures history and the transmission of experiences is only possible  through human interactions.  We cannot be naive and think that technology  is not an instrument of culture. It is, and we must acknowledge it,  otherwise we will be overridden by it. But, education is only possible by  means of intersubjective exchanges: they are the key to the development of  human beings

</review>
<review>

I don't know about you, but sometimes I stumble upon a book that is a salve to my soul; I am not happy about one thing or another, and I need someone to talk to, talk at, or listen to--I need to look into someone else's life so that I can feel human again and not totally strange and alone.

Nora Ephron's HEARTBURN did that for me, and for that I will put it on my bookshelf, along with the many books that have served the same purpose.

On my second reading I could not remember if the story was based on the author's life.  I was afraid that I might not enjoy it if it was  pure fiction.  I was wrong.  The book is a very, very funny satire of the Washington scene, whch has not changed.  It is also a tale of real angst and heartbreak.

What is basically a sad story has delicious veins of humor, wistfulness, sadness, prosaic pragmatism, and real recipes marbling through it, all of which magically meld into a satisfying whole: but that is what a work of art can do.


</review>
<review>

Every year or so I re-read "Heartburn," one of my favorite novels of all time.  It is fall-on-the-floor-funny, and possibly the best and most memorable form of revenge that a spurned wife ever had.

Today's re-reading of "Heartburn" was inspired by the revelation that Mark Felt is the real name of Deep Throat, the former FBI mole who fed Watergate information to Ephron's former husband, Carl Bernstein.  In this roman a clef, the chatacter based on cheating-husband Bernstein is called "Mark Feldman."  Today I read Ephron's admission, in the Huffington Post blog, that living with the knowledge of Deep Throat's true identity was a "very heavy burden."

So, was her estranged husband's character name inspired consciously by Deep Throat's name, or subconsciously?

I don't really need an answer to that question.  However, it does prove that the novels we love are gifts that keep on giving.  Thanks, Nora.  Thanks, Mr. Felt--for everything

</review>
<review>

If I had it to do over again, I would have made a different kind of pie. The pie I threw at Mark made a terrific mess, but a blueberry pie would have been even better, since it would have permanently ruined his new blazer.......so Rachel Samstat muses on her marriage to Mark Feldman.

Nora Ephron's thinly disguised account of her marriage to famed Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein is laugh-out-loud funny in parts, though if you're looking for advice on how to save your marriage, the aforementioned tidbit is typical of the advice you'll get.

Rachel is seven months pregnant with her second child when she learns her husband is not only having an affair with a mutual acquaintance, but has fallen in love with her. This indignity is compounded because, due to Rachel's advanced preganancy, she can't even date. She does manage one innocent flirtation on the subway which, in true slapstick fashion, leads to armed robbery. Ah, the perils of life flitting between New York and Washington.

Short and savvy, this contemporary 80's novel is peppered with recipes since Rachel is a cookbook editor and host of her own cooking show. A collapsing marriage doesn't seem suitable for high-level comedy, but Nora Ephron makes it work and will have you laughing all the way to the bitter end.

</review>
<review>

This book took a little getting used to (This was my first of reading books with recipes within the storylines) , but once I did... boy did I laugh! Great story along with recipes. Who couldn't beat a book that was funny, witty, and full of recipes!! A great read for anyone whom wants to curl up with a good book

</review>
<review>

I didn't like this book.  Truth be told, I still haven't finished it, and I bought it over six months ago.  The characters are boring; the situation (while ripe with potential) drags; and the recipes don't even sound good.  I am supremely disappointed, as I usually love what Nora Ephron does.  Bummer

</review>
<review>

Nora crafted one of my all-time favorite books.  Why I picked up a paperback copy as a freshmen in high school is beyond me.  Why I finally got around to reading it at 18 is also a mystery.  Why I've reread it more times that my dogged copy can tell is no mystery meat; sadness steeped in life's tea.  In real life, I've played the part of the toddler in this tale.  Wish I could say my folks were class acts, such as the author and her former spouse, but chicken fried steak is more common in middle America than Lillian Hellman's Pot Roast. --Laurel82

</review>
<review>

This is one of contemporary fictions first books. It was written in the early eighties before Bridget Jones became a household name. It is a thoughtful novel about the breakup of a marriage. It is a quick read, but its not an earth-shattering premise. I recommend it for the beach or the bathtub

</review>
<review>

Now that our democratic system has been eroded almost to the point of no repair, perhaps we should read books like this one to refresh our minds about what this country has always stood for.

</review>
<review>

I am unfortunately not suprised by any of the revelations in this book.  It seems that the vast majority of Americans simply do not care what kind of scumbags claim to "represent" us.  Unfortunately, I do not own a multibillion dollar corporation, so I suppose I do not deserve representation.  Hey, didn't the Declaration of Independence say something about people not being represented properly?

Oh, pardon me, I have mentioned America's TRUE patriotic roots.  God forbid anyone not agree with Dick  and  Bush's neo-Nazi (or is that neo- conservative? It's hard to tell.) version of patriotism.

Anyhow, I'll save a seat for you other treasonous free thinkers in the prison camp, or Hell.  We all know that those are the only two suitable places for those who do not agree with the "decider"

</review>
<review>

This book is a terrific volume for understanding what's gone wrong in America over the past 30 years.  Unlike many best-selling authors, who spout only uninformed opinions and vitriolic ones at that, this guy actually does substantive research on his issues and helps us understand the deeper context behind them: the history, the players, their connections to other folks.  What good is that you'll learn how much of our world is being controlled/destroyed by people and regulations that you've never even hear of or about.  If everyone read this book and spoke up, we might actually preserve this democracy and live better lives.  We'd understand what in our democracy and world is going wrong and have some ideas as to how to fix this.

</review>
<review>

Actually, you can't according to Greg Palast who challenges the results of the 2000 election in which he charges Jeb Bush with instituting his own style of Jim Crow laws to ensure that his brother would get elected. It's unique because time and again conservative papers and organizations conducted studies to show that Bush would have won anyway. Palast concedes that a recount of the actual votes would back that up. But Palast is concerned with the voters who were not allowed to vote, and the votes that were not counted.

He charges that more than 57,000 law-abiding citizens were improperly labeled as felons, and were kept from voting in Florida. These were almost all African-American who universally vote Democrat. There was an 80% criteria for finding a match of felon names. The company Choice Point started with a 90% match, but the state told them that was too high! They were told to make it an 80% match.

So, a felon named John Johnson Jr. would also keep a law-abiding citizen named Jack Johnson or John O. Johnson from voting too. When did the state of Florida inform these people that they were on a felons list and could not vote? They didn't, even though they were supposed to give ample notice to allow any mistake to be corrected.

The company that got the job of putting the fix in, Choice Point was awarded a multi-million dollar contract over other companies that would have done the same job better for literally pennnies per voter. Florida decided to pay much more per voter with Choice Point.

Now here's the lie. Choice Point said that they did not use race as a criterion, but it was used as a matching criterion. Presto! Even with the disproportionate number of Blacks in the prison population, Palasts states that the number kept from voting was statistically way out of proportion to the number of felons.

Just to ensure the outcome, the voting machines in Black neighborhoods were fewer and older than the ones in White neighborhoods. In some cases 18% of the Black vote was thrown out for one reason or another while in White neighborhoods were 1 to 2% was the norm. This was the perfect scam since anyone knows that Blacks would overwhelmingly vote for Gore, and the Whites would have had a large voting block for Bush.

Florida's official reason was that the law prohibited felons from voting. They didn't want any felons to try to vote. (?)Palast asks, what felon wants to vote so badly that he would risk going back to jail for it? Good point! Not one person in Florida was arrested for voting twice.

Then, there were the roving republican goon squads who went to wherever the recount was attempted to intimidate the recount process.

Palast accuses the press of doing nothing or investigating nothing about a national election that was obviously rigged. When he offered the story to CBS, a network that has long since cowed to conservative screams of bias, they refused. Why? The CBS executive called the state of Florida to verify the story. They, the state, assured them there was nothing to it? Isn't that like asking the fox if he can be trusted to protect the henhouse? Palast gained a large audience in Europe bringing this story to light. It received almost no attention here, and when it did, it was way after the election.

This was the most important part of the book for me. While I enjoyed his commentary on Wackenhut and other exposes, this one was the most riveting. It scares me. This isn't supposed to happen in the US. That is why I recommend this book and especially his newer one, "Armed Madhouse."

Palast proves by showing leaked documents, pictures and statistic improbability that this and the 2004 election were stolen by electronic ballot stuffing. I thought this was only supposed to happen in a third world nation.

Shouldn't someone go to jail for this? Shouldn't we be able to count on it

</review>
<review>

I read this book in record time.  Greg Palast took all the pieces of the jigsaw over the last few decades and put them together in a succinctly written way to make me see in a new light this 'government'.  I am ashamed that our own US media is no longer emboldened to fight this hypocrisy we call a government.  From Iran to Iran Contra to Iraq and the Oil fields, from the Halliburtons and all the cronys names who have been hiding for so many years doing so much harm.  Thanks for opening my eyes and giveing me a new insite into how easily our democracy can be turned without the participation of ALL the people.  AND HOW IMPORTANT FREEDOM OF THE PRESS AND THE FOURTH ESTATE is to your Democracy

</review>
<review>

Palast bares it all. Put me through all 5 stages of mourning- from disbelief to anger to despair

</review>
<review>

Greg Palast loves challenges.Bold and sarcastic. Now you can understand why emergent countries will always remain in the third world for the benefit of big corporations and corruptous politicians. Not surprising that all the info provided by Palast was never shown on the america's news.

</review>
<review>

The first time I read this book it was because I'd heard an interview with the author on NPR and felt compelled to get the whole story. It's a fast, entertaining and SCARY read. Don't skip any parts if you can help it - it's not just about corporate and political corruption, it details (with evidence) how this world of ours works and what we need to keep our eyes open for when the bad guys get into our neighborhoods. The sections on what US corporations do in other countries is APPALLING. The sections on the country-destroying terms of IMF and World Bank loans is HORRIFYING. And, if you've ever wondered what the heck public utility privatization is all about, this explains it - AND IT'S UGLY

</review>
<review>

Devour this book in small bites, or you're likely to choke on the raw truth of it.  Between these covers, Palast demonstrates repeatedly why EVERYone today needs to resist the sound byte mentality thrust upon us and pay attention to the facts.  While I'm in no position to verify the accuracy of some of his investigations, the policies and actions carried out by the Bush Administration since this book was first written illustrate the accuracy of most of Palast's claims in broad daylight.

If only the mainstream media were paying attention.  Then again, the mainstream media is owned by corporations that make money selling fluff and not upsetting too many of their readers, viewers, and/or listeners.  So why should we expect otherwise?

Occasionally, Palast pushes the envelope on his ability to actually KNOW the motivations and responsibilities (blame) of various people he is writing about here.  More often than not, however, he simply puts forth so many facts, and connects so many dots for us, that it's difficult to not come to many of the same conclusions he has.  And, again, the actions of the Bush Administration -- and various members and associates of the Bush family -- have born out many of those conclusions over the past few years.

Read this book and compare it with news stories from the past 5-to-6 years and, if you have done any digging at all, you will quickly see how scary the truth really can be.  Hopefully, you'll also see how important it is now to stand up, speak out, and fight for genuine middle class America and those folks even less fortunate than us.  One thing you can put money on, our current government sure isn't looking out for them...or you.

Good luck to us all

</review>
<review>

I heard all of these great things about this book etc...... So I got a copy and let me tell you it was a huge let down. I can honestly say it had loads of disgusting passages that I did not find at all entertaining. The "bowel movement" chapter was totally repulsive. I found it self indulgent, he had a crappy upbringing, that does not make for a good book

</review>
<review>

I like to use the Amazon reviews when purchasing books, especially alert for dissenting perceptions about higly rated items, which usually disuades me from a selection.  So I offer this review that seriously questions the popularity of this work - I found it smug, self-serving and self-indulgent, written by a person with little or no empathy, especially for the people he castigates. For example, his portrayal of the family therapist seems implausible and reaches for effect and panders to the
"shrink" bashers of the world. This "play for effect" tone throughout the book was very distasteful to me

</review>
<review>

If you like strange stories, you will love "Running with Scissors" because it is just plain weird.  After reading this book, you will have a feeling that you just returned from the Twilight Zone.
Marty Wurtz
Author of Deceptions and Betrayal

</review>
<review>

How one child can overcome such a nightmarish childhood to become a productive adult is almost beyond my comprehension. Any one of the trials described throughout this young life would be enough to derail most people.  Yet the author adapted to his situation the best he could in order to survive and kept his sense of humor about it at the same time.  I didn't find the book funny in the least but I got the humor with which the story was told.

This book was a two-night read for me, not because I couldn't put it down but because I felt the need to hurry up and get it over with because it was so disturbing.  I can't believe nothing was done about the living conditions of these kids and I frequently felt sick reading it.  But truth is stranger than fiction and knowing that it actually happened made me stick with it. I'm glad I did.  I was rooting for our hero and he made it out alive, which was no easy feat.


</review>
<review>

I picked up this book read the reviews on the cover and was up for a funny book.  The book was anything but funny.  I read about half, up to
the point where he was in a mental institution and could not read anymore.
I consider myself fairly liberal but this was too over the top for me.  The graphic details of his homosexual love affair with a 33 yr. old was just sick. I am not sure where this belongs as a novel or a memoir but I
had to throw it away because I did not want my children to get a hold of it.  I found the whole thing disturbing and failed to see the humor in these sick, mentally ill characters. I started hating them for the abuse they put their children through

</review>
<review>

This book is great.  Augusten Burroughs is genius, and a great storyteller!  I couldn't put it down

</review>
<review>

Lula Cruz and her best gay friend, Jeff, embark on a trip to Miami just before College eats her time up. After a series of misfortune, they find themselves working for a somewhat Latin woman, Cece, in a Cuban cafe.

SoBe's (South Beach) environment wasn't the only one that caught her attention---a guy named Enrique, a man who you could never go wrong, swooned her heart.

But what if Enrique turns out to be her best competition later on?

The first time I read the book, I got hooked with it. When I finished reading it, the book left me amused and it somehow satisfied me.

What I didn't like in the book was its too predictable. However, because I was hooked in this book the first time I read it, it didn't show (as for me).

However, though I enjoyed it, I wish the authors put some sense of "mystery and quality" in it---something that keeps the readers guessing until the very end

</review>
<review>

Eighteen-year-old Lula Cruz is totally stoked about the road trip she'll be taking with her best friend, Jeff, the summer before she begins her studies at a University in Miami. She plans on checking out of hot, sweaty NYC, and diving right in to the cool waters that SoBe (South Beach) provides. However, the two friends are quickly realizing how hard it truly is to be out on their own, with no one there to support them. They get day jobs that totally run them down, and are, how should we put this...totally boring! So Lula and Jeff decide to spice things up by entering a local band contest that could get them televised and everything. The only problem, is that the newest hottie Lula's been hooking up with, Enrique, has also entered the band contest, and is her band's toughest competition. Sure, Enrique is totally mesmerizing to look at, but Lula's not sure if she can trust him with her secrets...or her heart.

As a HUGE fan of the SIMON PULSE ROMANTIC COMEDY series, I never pass up the opportunity to read their latest releases, which is why SOUTH BEACH SIZZLE quickly caught my eye. Suzanne Weyn  and  Diana Gonzalez have created an excellent book for anyone looking for an easy read during their Spring Break or Summer Vacation. The characters found in SOUTH BEACH SIZZLE are upbeat, fun, and all feature unique personalities. The romance is cute, and will definitely appeal to pre-teen and teenage girls; while the band competition will appeal to aspiring musicians of the female gender. Overall, this was a wonderful addition to the SIMON PULSE ROMANTIC COMEDY series, that will be enjoyed by all.

Erika Sorocco
Book Review Columnist for The Community Bugle Newspape

</review>
<review>

I love all the books in this "series" (Royally Jacked, Spin Control, Ripped at the Seams, etc.), and I couldn't wait to read SOUTH BEACH SIZZLE.

SOUTH BEACH SIZZLE is about Lula Cruz and her best friend Jeff. They move from New York to South Beach, Florida the summer before they start college, and the trip is a bit of a disaster from the start. Lula is going to stay with her dad, and is planning on getting to know him better, and Jeff is going to be staying with his ultra-strict uncle. When both Jeff and Lula realize that they can't possibly stay where they are, the two of them decide that they have to find an apartment that's relatively cheap. Enter CeCe's Cuban Cafe, a small cafe in South Beach that isn't doing to well business-wise. There's an apartment over the restaurant, and the owner (CeCe) decides that Lula and Jeff can stay there if they offer to work in her restaurant.

SOUTH BEACH SQUEEZE is a cute story about friendship, music, and romance. My favorite thing about the book was all the pop culture references, but it's overall a really enjoyable read.

Overall grade -

</review>
<review>

Then you will absolutely fall in love with this book. This book is full of images from a wide range of media and artists. The short bios on the artists are short but informative and don't take up much space (more room for pictures). If you're something of an artist yourself then you can certainly pull lots of ideas from this book. I definitely am glad I bought this book

</review>
<review>

Not only the content is insightful, but the design of this book is just wonderful. It is a good source of international drawing's world and a good coffee table book. Get it now

</review>
<review>

I am disappointed with the quality of the images.  They are the quality of an ink jet printer set at draft quality.  Most of the images are so faded it is difficult to see at all.  I have returned this book, which is something I do once every 1000 books I order, and it is the first art book I have ever returned in my life.

</review>
<review>

Beautifully bound and a pleasure to hold...what a book is all about vs the digital stuff.
Two small niggles....first; the larger drafted works when reduced for the book become virtually unreadible (maybe they could have got a page each?) and second; the dust cover while beautiful and reflecting the texture and aesthetics of the book is virtually useless for it's purpose as it is too easily torn.
I gave it 5 because I'm prejudiced

</review>
<review>

It has many interesting works in the book. It is great to have it

</review>
<review>

This is a book that when you first open it up and flip through a couple of pages you will be saying to yourself that you have to sit down with it for a long considered look. Myself, I just looked at the care that Phaidon press took while publishing this, from its rough artistic pages to the in-depth look at contemporary drawing and knew instantly that this was a survey book that I would be opening time and again for years to come.

The artists that are covered here are not neccisarily unknown. Pettibon, Peyton, and other long standing luminaries stand along side scores of other artists that I had never heard of. What it is, is a survey of non-illustration/often conceptualy based drawing that is occuring today be the artist known or obscure.

If you are into drawing, this is a must have book. One thing to keep in mind is that the format presented here is pretty much along the lines of Vitamin P and the three 'Cream' books. I think all four of these ranged from good to great, if you disagree with this sentiment, you might not like 'Vitamin D.'

</review>
<review>

David Kennedy's "Freedom from Fear," the 9th volume of the Oxford History of the United States, is a generally exceptionally well researched history covering from the Great Depression to the end of World War II. In this book, Kennedy offers a summary and a synthesis of research by dozens of historians, as well as giving his own personal interpretations of key events and individuals.

I believe most of David Kennedy's interpretations and judgments are well reasoned. However, I disagree with his deemphasis upon the major decline in the stock market between late 1929 - 1931 as one of the main causes of the Great Depression.

Even more so I dissent very strongly with David Kennedy's suggestion the Roosevelt administration should have tried harder to avoid war with Japan by essentially appeasing Japanese aggression against China. To quote from his book, Kennedy writes on page 513: "Why not acquiesce, however complainingly, in the Japanese action in China, reopen at least limited trade with Japan..." Given the fact that Japanese aggression and atrocities in China were as bad or worse as Germany's in Europe by late 1941, I find Kennedy's opinion morally reprehensible.

In general, this is a very good book, covering social, economic, political and military history of the era. However, don't read "Freedom from Fear," expecting to learn much about cultural history in the United States between the Great Depression and World War II.

</review>
<review>

Freedom From Fear is an exhaustive study of America and its people during two of this country's most defining periods, the Great Depression and World War II. David Kennedy packs a lot of information in this very substantial book while maintaining a very readable study of this important period in American history. While the book is geared towards the general reader, it doesn't lack for analysis, which makes this both an accessible and very informative book.

This period in question covers 1929-1945, which in the broad spectrum of time seems to be very insignificant, but in reality was anything but insignificant. From the early stages of the depression in the late 1920s during the Hoover Administration, to the Atomic bombs used against Japan in 1945 during the Truman Presidency which ended the war in the Pacific, this books covers many important people and events in both the social, political and economic realms of American life.

The Depression years are the focus of the first part of the book (obviously) and delves with insight into what issues led to the crisis, how the Hoover and Roosevelt Administrations confronted the crisis, how the American people were affected by the economic difficulties and how the New Deal was both successful and unsuccessful. Hoover was actually quite proactive in the fight to bring some economic stability to the nation, contrary to what many believe, Hoover was an extremely capable man, but perhaps not open minded enough to try new and far larger objectives as Franklin Roosevelt proved during his presidency.

The New Deal is obviously the focus of much attention as it should be, but while it did do much to bring about some major legislation in the relief and reforming aspects of the New Deal's objectives, it wasn't quite the panacea to complete economic recovery, only World War II would bring that about. I think I'm summarizing Kennedy's view on the New Deal as accurate as possible without getting to overwhelmed by the nature of this broad program. There is so much covered that it's hard to summarize both concisely and precisely.

The turmoil in Europe caused by Hitler's regime, the strong isolationist sentiments that so pervaded the attitudes in this country before Pearl Harbor, and the eventual American intervention and allied efforts to defeat the German and Japanese powers are all part of the next phase in the period covered in this book. Kennedy is able to effectively describe the many facets surrounding America's entry and involvement in the Second World War from the mobilization of the country's industrial and manpower-womanpower supply, to the different strategies developed and implemented to win the war on the European and Pacific fronts, and the people who played such important roles in the conflict.

The major battles fought, the successes and setbacks of military and political strategies, the changing nature on the American homefront that would improve the standard of living for so many Americans after World War II are all covered. Difficult subjects aren't left out either, including the internment of Japanese-Americans, the status of African Americans during the war years, and the general brutality of the war itself from both sides, most especially in the Pacific Theater of the war.

This book is all-encompassing, well-written, yet very analytical when it needs to be. Quite rare. Maybe some of his conclusions are open for debate, which is not unusual when writing history. He at times can be critical of individuals for decisions made or not made, lost opportunities and the likes, and that should be discussed. He does disagree with the theory, I suppose advocated by some, that Roosevelt wanted Pearl Harbor to be attacked or knew it would happen. Some sections of the book require a good working knowledge of certain issues, but overall it is well-written. I've studied this period before, but I found this book very rewarding in that I also learned quite a bit I knew little or nothing about. I would highly recommend this book

</review>
<review>

Despite the newfound popularity of social history, and ethnic history, and gender history, it's nice to just sit down and sink my teeth into a nice old-fashioned survey history of America. Heavy on political history, Freedom from Fear tells the story of America during the Great Depression and the Second World War. It is a survey, but it is broad and deep, running more than eight hundred pages to cover about sixteen years. David Kennedy's Pulitzer Prize winning text is worth every penny.

Given the two broad subjects, it's not surprising that the book is essentially divided into two sections. In the first, Kennedy takes us on a journey into the downward spiral of the American economy during the Hoover years.  Maligned by history, Hoover could have been a better president than he was, but events overwhelmed him. Even his great success in life prior to winning the White House did not prepare him for the immensity of the task. Indeed, possibly no one could have handled it. But Roosevelt is seen here to have been up to the challenge. Not of actually fixing the problems. Kennedy is quite frank in his evaluation of Roosevelt's New Deal programs and his performance in such matters. In many places Roosevelt could have done better, perhaps by adopting a more internationalist approach to economics, or by not antagonizing and demoralizing the business community.

More broadly, we see the decline in living conditions, and at the same time the rise of labor unions and government programs both useful and not. We see the uneven performance of the economy in various parts of the country, and the desperate mobility that sometimes resulted. We see a country scared and in turmoil, unsure of itself and its destiny.

But though the Depression dragged on, waxing and waning, events elsewhere in the world did not stop to wait. Though America was among the hardest hit of countries, it was not the worst behaving on the international scene. Rumbles of war began in Europe and in Asia, and America stood aside hoping to avoid it all. Of course this was not to be, and with the Japanese attack America found itself thrust into total war. The economy was finally freed of the doldrums by massive war spending. The people were roused from stupor by the drumbeats of battle. Alliances solidified, and the enemies were targeted. And America joined the war in its own unique way. It could never be said that America takes no advantage of its industrial strength. While the countries of Europe dealt with the situation forced upon them, America armed itself and prepped for battle. It built its forces. It provided machinery and equipment to allies. It transformed factories to a war production mode. Industrial geniuses, pumped with cash, streamlined methods of mass production on a scale never imagined before. And newer and better weapons came to be. More than in most books, Kennedy makes it clear that the American effort in war was a mechanized and deliberate effort. When the Western front opened, it was run with industrial clarity of purpose.

If there is a dominant theme in Freedom From Fear, it is that America runs on its commerce.  The business of America really is business. With or without government regulation, with or without organized labor, it is economy that runs Kennedy's America. But with such sweeping vision and engaging style, the reader could do much worse to learn about America in the interesting times than to read this gripping account

</review>
<review>

There is much to like in David Kennedy's history of the United States during the 1930s and early 1940s.  His book is an excellent overview of the political and economic history of the period.  His examination of the New Deal is both insightful and judicious, while his description of America in the Second World War is gripping and informative.  Throughout the book Kennedy offers a penetrating analysis of events, discerning approaches that reshaped many of the fundamental relations that existed between the American people and their government.

Yet in some respects the volume is something of a disappointment.  The book is a contribution to the superb "Oxford History of the United States" series, which has set a high standard with its earlier volumes.  It is by this measure that Kennedy's book is wanting; it is hardly the comprehensive examination of its topic that the earlier volumes were, as his focus on politics and economics gives short shrift to American culture and society during the period.  Moreover, his prose often seems excessively grandiose.  Efforts to create soaring metaphors often become too labored and fall flat, making for a stark contrast with the clear descriptions and jargon-free analysis they buttress.

Nevertheless, Kennedy's achievement with this book is impressive.  He has provided a well-written account of America's efforts to deal with some of the greatest challenges that the nation ever faced.  Readers seeking a history of the period would be hard pressed to find a better and more readable book with which to start

</review>
<review>

With W. Bush preparing to undo the last vestiges of the New Deal, whether you agree with him or not I can't think of a better time, and reason for reading this remarkable study by David Kennedy.

Kennedy debunks much of what the remnants of history have left most of us about Herbert Hoover. I think this was the most surprising part of the book because everything I had read, seen, or heard up until now left only negative impressions of the man. I have a both a new respect for Hoover as a man, dour though he was, and a clearer understanding of why he failed as a politician. I also have a fresh reminder of how nothing is really original - FDR borrowed much of the New Deal from Hoover.  But where Hoover couldn't make the ideological leap from good ideas that were to be voluntary only with only minimal government assistance, FDR was amenable to trying anything, including transformational ideas such as mandatory business compliance with Federal regulation, an evening-up of the playing field between business (which had corporatized) and labor (which until FDR hadn't the power to do the same) and labor, to massive government spending. Although FDR didn't understand Keyensian economics, he nevertheless proved the theory.

FDR defined the "general welfare" clause of the Constitution, and left a legacy that has affected every single one of us ever since, and continues to do so today.

Beside the in-depth look at the Great Depression, Kennedy also provides a survey of WWII, debunking many more myths along the way, and exposing the beginnings of the cold war in FDR  and  Churchill's unkept promises to Stalin about the opening of a second front in Europe.

I consider this a "must read" for anyone who considers him/herself interested in American History

</review>
<review>

This is a very literate and enjoyable history. It explains some of the greatest crises of Western Civilization and parades in all their glory heroes like FDR, Churchill, Truman, and Marshall, and it singles out others for less glowing treatment.

Professor Kennedy's survey of the period from 1929 to the end of W.W.II is, in my view, the finest of those perilous times. Naturally, the Great Depression and World War II are too vast for any one volume, and if one has an interest in any specific topic, personage, or chapter, the author has provided an unrivalled bibliography to kick off the quest.

The professor's writing is simple and straightforward and he knows how to keep his narrative moving at a good clip. This is essential in such a lengthy document. All in all, I'd classify it as a tour de force, essential reading for those interested in the Depression and the War.

After the wonderfully enjoyable read, the book sits well on the shelf and comes down quickly for solid reference. This is definitely a five star effort.





</review>
<review>

I thoroughly enjoyed this book.  The book is exactly what it says it is, a general history of the United Stated during the Depression and WWII.  I found myself wanting to know more about many topics than author wrote.  This should be expected though as the nature of a book of this type though is that some topics must be treated in a rather cursory manner or left out all together.  The book does provide a vivid portrait of the era and of the events and personalities that shaped it.  After reading it, I can see why it won the Pulitzer prize

</review>
<review>

 and quot;Freedom From fear and quot; by David Kennedy is a highly respectable history book for the Great Depression and WWII era. Professor Kennedy filled this book with lots of quality research, as well as his own opinions on the Great Depression. In the beginning of this book, Kennedy begins with Herbert Hoover and how he did things  and quot;wrong and quot;, but then he turned to FDR who kept up with the changing economy at that time. Kennedy portrays FDR as powerful and willing for change. He was an inspiring character for those during the Depression. Further into the book, Kennedy devotes his research to the New Deal and the effects it had on the Depression. Kennedy did go into detail about the effects, but he should have researched more about the causes of the Depression. Even though this book seems to drag on at parts because of all the information thrown at the reader, it was Kennedy's writing style that made the book hard to put down. It was very enjoyable to read and we recommend it to any history lovers who want to learn more about the Depression

</review>
<review>

Management new paradigms, strategy, the change leader, information challenges, knowledge worker productivity, managing oneself, Druker proved himself more than capable in his definitions and unique challenge to managers. Rather of a retrospective of his past work "he set aside to wirte not the known past but the unknown future".
Peter Drucker discusses the profound social and economic changes occurring today and considers how management--not government or free markets--should address these new realities in the workplace. "Management is Business Management in all kind of organizations". This book is easy to read. For most content may be wider than how we think management usually is. Druker wrote in his introduction " the advice in this book requires a reversal of what most people have thought about management for more than a century". Peter Drucker discusses how the new paradigms of management have change and will continue to change our basics assumptions and principles of management

</review>
<review>

Drucker outlines lessons that management can learn from the changing world economy and population.

1. Management is not just business management, but is the ability to take advantage of opportunities in sectors of the economy that are likely to experience growth in the future, like education, the professions, and healthcare.
2. Recognize that there is not one ideal way to organize an enterprise.  Both "team" organization and the "CEO cult of personality" have their shortcomings.  It can be difficult for teams to make decisions effectively and popular CEO's must have successors.  You must find the right balance of organization that fits your company's business needs.
3. There is no one way to organize employees.  You need to lead workers rather than manage employees.  This is because management increasingly does not know the areas of expertise that employees possess, and employees are now seeking interesting and rewarding work.
4. National boundaries and regional markets will become less defining factors of the companies boundaries.  Innovations in an industry don't necessarily come from within the industry anymore.  Further, national governments will be less able to protect local industries from facing the competitiveness of the global industry leaders.  Global competitiveness must become a strategic goal for the business.

Drucker also outlines the economic consequences of the declining birthrate in the developed countries.  A declining birthrate means that the working population will become progressively older.  New relationships must be forged with older workers, especially knowledge workers.  Companies that attract and retain knowledge workers past retirement age will gain a significant competitive advantage.

Managers must become Change Leaders, who direct inevitable change in a controlled and orderly fashion.  Managers must look to extending the lifespan of their companies and approaching change as a source of business opportunity.

</review>
<review>

Peter Drucker, an editorial columnist for the Wall Street Journal, a consultant and writer has been duly noted as one of the world's most respected management thinkers. His books, over 20 of them, have been called the "landmarks of the managerial profession" by the Harvard Business Review.  He has always been a step ahead of the curve of the latest in business thought.  In 1954 he espoused the idea of 'teams.'  In 1969 he proposed the 'knowledge workers' concept.

Here Drucker lays out six of the 'new' challenges facing the businesses of the early 21st century.

First involves management's new paradigm of organizational structure and managing people.  There is no 'one size fits all' approach.  The method or combinations of methods that may be required are ultimately determined by what the customer considers is 'value.'  Employees of the future may be treated as partners and volunteers, 'persuaded' rather than 'ordered.'

The next challenge is the new certainties of the coming business landscape.  The collapsing birthrate and the shift in the distribution of income need to be studied and planned for.  Global competitiveness is a must for survival.  Performance needs to be redefined for the organization on more than just short-term gains in order to inspire and commit 'knowledge workers' to their mission.

Third is becoming a change leader.  Educate others that change equals opportunity.  Regularly abandon activities that no longer produce results.  Enhance practices that have been working by exploiting and publishing their success throughout the company.  Study what is working or not in the market with other companies. Don't confuse motion with action.

Fourth are the information challenges.  The purpose of information is not knowledge but being able to take the right action.  Success is based on the creation of value and wealth in the eyes of the customer.  Information needed would include the normal foundation information as well as productivity, competence and allocation of scarce resources information.

The fifth challenge lies in vitalizing 'knowledge workers' into high productivity.  Attention should be given to all ways to make this asset grow.  Differing from manual laborers, knowledge workers carry the 'means of production' within them and rely less on a specific employer for work.

The sixth challenge is managiing ourself (ourselves).  The biggest possible increase in production lies here.  Intellectual arrogance promotes disabling ignorance.  Concentrate on your strengths.  Avoid trying to change yourself.  Ask yourself what your strengths are.  Determine how you work.  Do you like to work alone?  Would you prefer to be an advisor or a decision maker?  What are your values?  This type of questioning will help determine where you belong.  Most of our careers will involve changing organizations at least once.  You must learn what makes 'you' tick.

Five Stars


</review>
<review>

This book is first published in 1999.  Right in the beginning, Drucker defined management as NOT only business management, but management in all kinds of organization: government, university, hospital, army, non-profit organization, etc.  The book is easy to read, just below 200 pages.  The scope and content is much wider than how we think management usually is.  It describes the CERTAINTIES: collapsing birthrate, shift in performance, global competitiveness, etc, and of course, how it affects all kinds of organizations.  It talks about information challenges, the knowledge worker and how one manage oneself in this new century.  Concepts like "individuals will outlive their organization", "how to defines one's goal and contribution" are all interesting topics and issues that everyone have to face, since, this is the REALITIES.  I highly recommend this book to anyone, not just CEO/executives, but those want to know more about oneself, how to behave and contribute in this KNOWLEDGE BASE WORLD

</review>
<review>

Regrettably, Peter Drucker passed away just a few days after I picked up this 1999 release. At the age of 89 (in 1999), Drucker proved himself more than capable of comprehending the changes information technology would force on business. His chapter on "Information Challenges," at 38 pages one of the longest in the book, Drucker correctly states that irnformation technology was shifting focus from data to the meaning of data. Few companies exemplify this better than Wal-Mart with their highly developed systems of measuring consumer behavior and translating the information into action all through their supply chain.

Perhaps earlier and more consistently than any other management writer, Drucker recognized that "more and more people in the workforce - and most knowledge works - will have to MANAGE THEMSELVES." (Emphasis in original.) Drucker recognized that many people had to plan second careers for the second half of their lives, something he himself did.

As Drucker put it in his introduction, the advice in this book requires a reversal of what most people have thought about management for more than a century. With this book, as with all of his others, Drucker may be gone physicially, but his thoughts will live on for many decades to come.

Jerr

</review>
<review>

If you Manage a large firm, be responsible and read it

</review>
<review>

Drucker is a master at Business management and a great visionary, this book is a must for anyone planning for the future--CraigAdams.ne

</review>
<review>

An experienced Author's presentation 'Management Challenges for the 21st Century' is a challenging and an inspiring Read. Since years, there has been drastic changes in social and economic levels. Management requires re-shaping the business strategies from time to time. Peter offers new paradigms of management with thoughtful implementations of strategic ideas to face the critical areas, weaker spots, problems, practises and how to face in the 21st century. Slightly for the genius minds, the book demands deep business sense and profound knowledge. Management needs to indepth recognising strengths and analysing on performance, clear goals on how to achieve quality work, motivation and getting quipped with innovation. Peter argues that management will increase the productivity of the knowledge worker and with the global competitiveness, he focus on re-definition of corporate performance. Peter offer lessons with the major chapters like 'Management's New Paradigms, Strategy, The New Certainties, The Change Leader, Information Challenges, Knowledge-Worker Productivity, and Managing Oneself for the new waves. In the chapter 'The Change Leader', he clearly motivates the leaders to be ahead of times by starving the problems and feeding opportunities. The uncertainties can be overcome with change in accepting new and abandoning old patterns of management and make an increase in productivity. The Knowledge worker chapter is to enhance productivity piloting to fresh new innovative ideas. Managing oneself is a thorough learning guide as Peter leaves no room in grooming the new age management leader. An Outstanding Book for Read n Digest especially to all generation next leaders and a Must Read for existing Management CEO's to cope up with the change - Change before the Change

</review>
<review>

Harper Neeld's book is an incredibly detailed compilation of the author's personal experiences in the sudden loss of her young husband, interviews with other widows/widowers, and discussions of phases of the grieving process.  I would rate this book highly, along with one of my favorite grief authors, thanatologist Alan Wolfelt (e.g. Understanding Your Grief books).  Harper Neeld seamlessly combines her painful, personal story with factual, helpful guidelines to create one of the best written boooks I have read on widowhood.  I used the introspective questions with my grief therapist, who liked the book so much that she borrowed it and used it for a class she taught.

</review>
<review>

My friends keep telling me I should write a book about my grief, but I think that what Elizabeth Harper Neeld has written is better than anything I could produce. This book is so readable and covers every aspect of grief. My husband died four months ago, and I have found this book exceedingly helpful. Elixabeth put the most important step first "To experience and express grief fully."  There are hundreds of ways to run away from grief, but it is necessary "to feel it to heal it." I was given the best advice by a friend who said to "lean into the pain." The second choice "To endure with patience," has helped me be more patient and compassionate with myself. Thank you, Elizabeth for this beautiful book. I will buy it for everyone I know who loses someone dear

</review>
<review>

After my husband died suddenly, I was beside myself. My aunt insisted on placing this book in my hands. It has been a lifeline to me. I have purchased well over 20 copies of it for friends and continue to haunt my local bookstore when they don't have it on the shelf for immediate purchase. Having read almost every grief book out there, don't waste your money, just buy this one and learn to live again.

</review>
<review>

My husband of 1.5 years but my soul-mate of a lifetime passed away a year ago. I have read so many books of grief, but only Seven Choices helped me find hope. This book is an honest account of a difficult journey, and like all things that are done with honesty - it touches the core of who we are.

</review>
<review>

I bought this book in audio for a friend of mine whose husband died of cancer after 44 years of marriage.  The day it arrived, she listened to both tapes and said she could so identify with the author. She thanked me profusely for this gift and said she was going to listen to it in her car as she drove. Her husband has only been dead a month as of this writing, and neither of us expects her to "heal" in record time, but she found comfort in this book and made me so glad this is the one I chose to send her.  Based on her comments, I strongly recommend it to the grieving, especially widows

</review>
<review>

This is a great guide that I recommend to all of you who are looking for scholarships. Check this out thoroughly, and if you feel you're up to the total scholarship plus being paid for training that West Point offers, I recommend that you then go on to read "West Point: Character Leadership Education..." by Norman Thomas Remick to understand the importance of this college that is the best kept secret and the one that everyone has a good chance of getting into

</review>
<review>

It covered a lot of ground. I feel like I got my money's worth

</review>
<review>

Tobias writes a bible in personal financial investment without the lack of humor and personal touch. He is clear on investing principles he preaches, states his opinions precisely and still provide overviews of investments he believes are pure baloney.

American investors would be thrilled that he goes indepth with certain investments and terms but international readers might skip 30% of this book that deals with investment products, policies and law regarding the subject in US

</review>
<review>

This is the only investment book I can get my husband to read.  I gave copies of the 1987 edition to my sons when they graduated from college and I am giving them the 2005 edition as they approach 40.  Tobias has been consistent with his advice over the years.  He does not promise to make you rich but he gives guidelines for ending up with a comfortable retirement; partly by getting one to acknowledge what one does not know.

He helps create a saving mind set.  His explanations are clear and useful even for more sohpsticated investors than I am.  Plus I enjoy his sense of humor which makes for an enjoyable read

</review>
<review>

I can honestly say this book changed my life by opening my eyes on how investing and money really work over the long term

</review>
<review>

I have found the advice in this book to be invaluable.  You simply can't go wrong.  Those looking for a book with stock/mutual fund investing howtos should keep looking however.  This is a broad brush stroke at handling one's money.  Period.  If you are going to read this book, be sure to read My Vast Fortune as well.  The two tell quite a story and show that Mr Tobias is not just blowing air between his gums.  This book is eminently readable and there is just not much wrong with it.  Everything from what to do if you inherit wealth, to what type of life insurance to buy, to how to buy a car, to how to use the internet to save money on staying at a hotel are covered, as well as everything in between.  Read this and prosper

</review>
<review>

It's clear, easy to understand and remember.  Also entertaining and insightful.

</review>
<review>

First and foremost, Tobias has a keen sense of humor, which makes this book an enjoyment to read.  In my opinion that is the most important thing because if a book is dull albeit with good advice, then you're probably not going to get much from it.  The real-world examples and down-to-earth suggestions make this something for everyone, not just the wealthy.  This was the first investment book that I had ever purchased.  And although it isn't the only one I own, it's the one I refer to most often.  I've never taken a business class, and my career is completely unrelated, but I needed something to help me plan my finances.  I learned an extraordinary about from Tobias and I definitely feel confident going into the investment world.
I've since began buying this book for my siblings as a college graduation gift.  I think that you can't go wrong purchasing this item

</review>
<review>

I enjoy Andrew Tobias' writings.  He is witty, concise and intelligent.  While I don't agree with all of his advice, most of his reasoning stands up. I also highly recommend Tyson's Investing for Dummies, Personal Finance for Dummies and Mutual Funds for DUmmies

</review>
<review>

I read this book because of I thought it was going to be funny, and it was. But I was not expecting to learn anything new, having read several books on investing. So I got a pleasant surprise when I actually did learn something. I would say this would be a great first investment book to read.

BTW, if you are looking for more humorous and worthwhile investment books (a rare thing) out there I would recommend "Where are the Customers' Yachts?" and "The Money Game

</review>
<review>

The book, "The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need" is a gross misnomer.  At best, the book should be entitled "A Good Personal Finance Guide".  If a person bought the book, as I did, for expert stock market investment guidance, he/she may likely be highly disappointed.  The book contains very good personal finance guidance, that's all.  Way overstated with the title!

</review>
<review>

Very enjoyable to watch TV from that era - no cell phones, vintage cars.  The DVD is very good in terms of color, quality of sound, etc.  However, I did encounter freezing at the beginning of an episode.  Otherwise, I recommend this product

</review>
<review>

I found this story sad but very good with nice ending. She suffers alot but I really enjoyed the ending

</review>
<review>

Danielle Steele is a writer who wields the written word like an artist... using story lines that attract you by their sheer difference from what people experience in their own "tame" lives. Widowhood, single parenting, trauma, and grudging admiration make this story compelling...a tear jerker.... I would recommend it to anyone who appreciates the talent of a successful story teller

</review>
<review>

I like Danielle Steel and I'm happy becouse I don't need to go to the store to see what's new...I have a good friend "amazon.com".I'm very satisfied  about all items I received.Whenever I need something," I look for my friend....I trust amazon.com and I'm very sorry I don't know much more English words to show you how well we get along each other...It's easy,fast,safe and be sure you'll never send back items received becouse they come faster than you believe and the best shape you've ever seen.Just go to amazon.com and you'll see!Dorina(I apologise for my mistakes that more than likely I made!

</review>
<review>

This being the first book I read by Danielle Steel I expected more than what I got since I love the moive verisons of her book. The start gives it hope but near the end you can sense the direction that the book is taking and I like alittle unpredicatable stuff

</review>
<review>

This is a story with a happy ending about Liz Sutherland, an attorney, who lost her husband by a gun shot wound. He was killed when a man shot him at their office when he ran an errand on Christmas day. The killer was an abusive and enraged husband of one of their clients. The Sutherlands were family law attorneys and defended domestic abuse cases.

Liz and her 5 children grieved for the loss of their father for some time... Not long afterward, her oldest son was severely injured in a car accident. In the midst of her stress along with grief, she noticed a handsome emergency room physician who treated him. His name was Bill Webster, MD. He noticed her also. The two soon began to date... and they began to fall in love.  However, problems arose with Liz's children because not all of them were ready to let go of their father's memory. They did not want to accept Bill. On Thanksgiving Day, when he was invited for dinner, her daughter insulted him. He decided to leave...Liz's heart was broken..

</review>
<review>

The beginning of the book was excellent and then it tapered off towards the end. The House on Hope St, has tones of her earlier and much superior book  and quot;Accident and quot;, which I highly recommend. Pick it up for a good read, but realize as soon as she enters the relationship with the doctor, everything is textbook romance

</review>
<review>

This book is a predictable love story, what we've all come to love about Danielle Steel's books. Perhaps we'd like a bit more UNpredictability, but most of the time I enjoy the story anyway. Reading a book like this makes you feel so thankful for what you have, that's always a good thing. It also makes you think that if anything bad were to befall you, you could probably survive. This wasn't her best book, but I thought it was decent. If you want to read a really great love story by Steel, check out: The Ring, To Love Again, Summers End, Answered Prayers  and amp; Passions Promise

</review>
<review>

August Escoffier was known as "The king of chefs and the chef of kings". This book is indispensible to anyone who is serious about the culinary arts. Escoffier defined the benchmark for classic French cooking from which most western cooking gets its roots, much like all forms of modern music from rock to country have their roots in classical music.  You can find essences of classic French cooking in even the lowliest diner fare.
Much of what is taught in culinary schools today is based on Escoffier's tecniques.  By purchasing this book, you are getting this information straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak, rather than second-hand with the possibility of influences instilled by the instructor skewing the information.
I believe the most surprising section of the book is that dealing with treatments for various types of game.  This section contains comprehensive instructions for dealing with a wide variety of game from buffalo to venison that are very useful today.
I have noticed in at least two places, Escoffier appears to contradict himself. I believe this is due to the problems with translation, and if you follow carefully what he is saying, you can figure out the correct meaning

</review>
<review>

I am very annoyed that people who do not have any idea of what this book is, have the audacity to rate it. If you made the mistake of buying this book thinking it was a cookbook that is your own fault! Please don't rate Escoffiers culinary writings based on your own stupidity.

As other reviewers have pointed out this is a reference guide or encyclopedia of French cooking and not a cookbook. The author assumes that you have more than basic knowledge of French cooking and has no glossy pretty pictures. It is complicated yet simple and an is indispensable guide for anybody that wishes to research classic French cooking.

To give an example of how this book is arranged, if you wanted to prepare a Velout Alboufera, first you would have to know what a Velout is and how to prepare a basic Velout. Then you would follow the directions to prepare a Velout d' Ecrevisses and finish with a liaison of egg yolks butter and cream. If you don't know that a Velout is a type of soup, skip this book and please please for those of you that made the mistake of buying it, please don't rate it!

</review>
<review>

It has been said that the true test of any work,whether it be a piece of art, music, or a book is the test of time. This volume has done just that! First written almost 100 years ago these recipes are just as relavent today as they were in Escoffier's time. Please be aware that this book is not for the beginner. The author assumes that the reader has developed the skills and methods that are needed in any kitchen. I have worked professionally as a chef for 25 years and assure you that this work will always be on my bookshelf. When it comes to classic French cuisine this work is indispensible

</review>
<review>

This is THE book on Classic French Technique and Cuisine by the Master chef, Auguste Escoffier.

This the English translation of the 4th Edition of the Guide Culinaire by Cracknell and Kaufmann, and it supersedes translations of the Guide to Modern Cookery (1907).

This is the "real" English translation with over 5,012 brief recipes for sauces, garnishes, soups, hors d'oeuvres, eggs, fish, poultry, game, garde manger, vegetables, desserts, ice creams and ices...on and on!

Don't waste your money on the new abridged versions which have less than 5,000 or less than 3,000 recipes, as you'll be missing thousands of recipes and their commentary, for no good reason!

Classic terms are clearly defined and described, and just about any recipe you have heard of in French cooking is here.

This is for intermediate level and up cooks and chefs, as unlike conventional cookbooks, a knowlege of cooking is presumed, lest this be far more than than it's 646 pages in length. There are no pictures, none are really needed. Some recipes do make a gallon of sauce, rather than just enough for a couple or foursome to enjoy, so scale back or freeze a lot!

Why read it?

For me, it's living culinary history, and the recipes can make one drool with their simplicity or lushness...It's the source of thousands of "tried and true" recipes, unsullied by "fusion" fads or foolishness, where a "souffle" defines anything from a pancake to a meringue topping, and even "molten chocolate brownies" are also called "souffles" by food knowledge-challenged "writers" who apparently do not bother to read a recipe, nor have made or tasted a true souffle.

I read the name of a tasty dish at a restaurant, and later see how closely it adheres to the recipes of almost a hundred years ago, and surprisingly there's little variation when cooked by a traditional French trained chef. There are many pointers on how to prepare things, unusual combinations to try, how to tie a roast, ... all sorts of tricks of the trade that are passed from one chef to the next, and not found in Joy of Cooking or most celebrity chef recipes.

If you are serious about learning and appreciating French cuisine, don't need your hand held while evaluating or following a recipe, and appreciate access to thousands of classic recipes collected in one book, then this is THE source and the book for you

</review>
<review>

great book not for the home maker of course must have a basic understanding of the art this book is great for refference there is no pics only usefull infomatio

</review>
<review>

I teach Culinary Arts and this is a must have for every serious cook and future Chef. You must have some knowledge of professional culinary techniques to be able to understand and use this book. As one reviewer wrote, this is not a cookbook, it is a reference book, and my students use it when they have to do research work

</review>
<review>

The book is probably the best reference I've seen. What it isn't is a cookbook for beginners. I'd recommend it for someone that already knows their way around a kitchen and wants a source for myriad (well only 5100) ideas

</review>
<review>

There's nothing wrong with giving background on a subject, but Mr. Winchester abuses the privilege. There's no digression too minute, no reference too arcane, no place where one word can't be replaced with 100. When he does finally get to a set of pertinent points, the writing is excellent. That's what kept me from giving it a worse review. Too bad those excellent parts are as rare as cashews in a tub of economy-brand mixed nuts.

If you're prepared to work your way through the innumerable detractions and root out the nuggets, the book is worth your time. Otherwise, pass on it.


</review>
<review>

Winchester, a geologist and proven writer, is a perfect choice for chronicling the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake.  I currently live and work in SF, and enjoyed listening to the book on my mp3 player while commuting in the MUNI subways.  True to form, Winchester only spends a small amount of time on the catastrophic event itself, and instead develops the events which lead up to the event -- first in a geological perspective, and second in a sociological one.

Unfortunately, this book does not come together as well as his book on Krakatoa.  Being a current San Franciscan, I found his history of the city lacking.  His conclusions about the current Christian revival as being strongly influenced by the quake is tenuous, but his points about its pyschological impact on society are well-received.

The best parts of the books were the descriptions of the science and history of plate tectonics, as well as the detailed historical descriptions of the quake itself.  If you're at all interested in the quake, you should pick this up, and also try his other books

</review>
<review>

Plate tectontics... yawn... Hey the continents move, we all know that. But what you didn't know is why, what happens with they suddenly move quite quickly. If you live along either the Northern or Southern end of the San Andreas Fault you owe it to yourself to read this book. Lets just say, I won't be living there anytime soon.

I liked Simon's other book, "The Professor and the Madman" and that book seemed less dry and fragmented than this one. But Krakatoa and the "Map that changed the world" are now both on my reading list for the summer. All and all good stuff. The way that history should be taught in High School. (and in this case Geology too.

</review>
<review>

A lot of good factual information written in a readable fashion.  I want my family to read this book.  Anyone who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area should read this!  I've already ordered another copy as a gift

</review>
<review>

"A Crack in the Edge of the World" is a great read that I especially recommend to all whom live, have lived or who have simply just visited the San Francisco region of California.  To all these individuals, it would only be some troglodyte who has not at least heard of the great earthquake of 1906.  This book covers that momentous year and much more as well.

I had the good fortune of living in San Francisco for two years in the mid 1980s and experienced one relatively small earthquake.  These tremors from below are no laughing matter.  They are terrifying.  One can only guess at the magnitude of the quake of 1906.  Yet Californians are so blas?.  Are they foolhardy or simply ignorant?  I think the former as no one could be unaware of the brittleness of the ground on which they tread.

Simon Winchester's book provides the reader with a brief history of plate tectonics, the precise events of 18 April 1906 as well as some ruminations about the future.  He puts this all in perspective and wonderfully entertains the reader along the way.  His analysis of Portola Valley as a "deeply dangerous place (that is) liable to be destroyed at any moment" is courageously and provocatively true.  I have visited this town many times and been simply amazed at how people can deny the very obvious fact that there lives rest upon a ticking time bomb.  No doubt his further view that "many of its houses and offices deserve to be evacuated and abandoned" will be ignored.  In the long run, he will inevitably be proved prescient.

Winchester probably says much that people, particularly those who reside in California, don't want to hear.  However, he is no crackpot.  Rather he is a writer who deserves to be read by a wider audience.  This book is a great work that I recommend to all....and that includes the residents of California.

</review>
<review>

A Crack in the Edge of the World by Simon Winchester is about the catastrophic 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire.  This being the centennial of the event, there have been a lot of books produced about it, but I had heard good things about Winchester and his writing, so this is the one I picked.  I'll have to find another one to read that has the info I was looking for.  I was looking for a book filled with stories about the people who lived through it and how it affected their lives.  I wanted to read about families separated and united, romances and businesses.  I wanted to read about human emotion.  This is not the book for that, but that's not to say that it doesn't have merit.  I learned about plate tectonics, the formation of the world, the settlement of the American West, earthquakes in the Midwest, and much more, but only 50-75 pages of the book are actually devoted to the earthquake and fire in San Francisco, and once the fire it put out, the book quickly ends.  There is a little discussion about the rebuilding, but mostly just to disparage the effort.  Winchester throws in lots of footnotes with interesting asides and more annoyingly lots of Latin phrases and oversized words that show off his intelligence but do little to enhance the storytelling.  His research is excellent, and I did learn quite a bit, enough to sleep well in my stable state of Wisconsin and ensure that I'll never visit California

</review>
<review>

Geologist turned journalist Simon Winchester is carving out his own fine niche in popular science writing, of which "A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906" is a very good example. However, his latest book is one which rambles on a bit too long, instead of trying to captivate the reader as successfully as he did in his previous books "Krakatoa" and "The Map That Changed The World". For example, though he offers a fine chapter on plate tectonics and its bearing on the occurrences and intensity of earthquakes  ("From Plate to Shining Plate"), it tends to meander as much as the rivers and lakes he describes whose courses and shapes changed after the New Madrid, Missouri earthquakes near the end of 1811, transformed more into his own personal odyssey of exploration into the earthquake's history, than a lucid, mesmerizing account of North America's tectonic history (For a more lucid, better written account, one should turn to John McPhee's books, most notably those comprising his "Annals of the Former World".). In a similar vein, his chapters on the San Francisco earthquake and its immediate aftermath are a huge morass of facts and figures whose inclusion may have been due more to offer dramatic impact, than add some interesting insight on the 1906 earthquake itself. But to his credit, Winchester offers some fascinating nuggets of information, most notably in his descriptions of seismologist Frank Richter's personality and the origins of the earthquake magnitude scale which bears Richter's name. However, if you are interested in a sprawling, occasionally mesmerizing account of the 1906 earthquake, then "A Crack in the Edge of the World" may indeed be of interest to you, the potential customer and reader

</review>
<review>

I am always sad to finish one of Mr. Winchester's books; they are definitely not to be read in one sitting and because they stay with you for so long, it is as if you have finished a memorable semester by the time you put the book back on the shelf.  True, they are discursive--but wonderfully so, and "Crack" more than most.  Indeed, the cover serves as a hint of things to come--folded into a cover is a surprisingly large poster--just as the ideas of this book are much larger than they first appear.

If one truly wishes to understand the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and the geological, sociological, historical and other effects that rippled outward in time from the central namesake event, one must prepare for a journey.  As with any great journey, some parts are better and more interesting than others--but the combined and lasting understanding of the science and history to be derived from reading this book is unequalled.  Suffice it to say that upon completion of "Crack" the reader understands earthquakes and their impact upon our world.

Think of your favorite lecturer in college and you get a sense for Winchester's style--a style wryly self-referenced as bloviation.  His diversions are often entirely unexpected (and not always entirely supportable) but enjoyable and thought-provoking nonetheless.  He communicates a sense of the joy of scholarship and discovery--being able to drive up to Alaska, for example, just to see how the big pipe fared in the massive Denali quake; being able to utterly discredit the worthless dreck rushed into print shortly after the disaster; pointing to that most Californian of attitudes--the stunning failure to take advantage of the opportunity to re-create San Francisco according to a grand master plan, a mistake echoed in Southern California's loss of the redcars in favor of freeways.

What Mr. Winchester desperately needs is a format that allows him more graphical content.  Something along the old TimeLife science series or the Dorling Kindersley formats.  Anyone that can work opera, immigration, Arizona's meteor crater, Watson Lake bashing, fault finding (geologic) and roadtrips into an interesting book about earthquakes needs all the resources he can get.  Give the man a series and run him around the world like Michael Palin

</review>
<review>

With the 100th anniversary of the Great San Francisco Earthquake I eagerly anticipated Winchester's latest book. I highly enjoyed "The Map that Changed the World" and "Krakatoa" and I expected a similarly great book this time.

Winchester again delivers a wonderful narrative on the San Francisco earthquake and the tragedy that befalls the city. A lot of his personal narrative is a bit rambling at times, but the overall theme of the book, the journey across the North American tectonic plate is a good one (though I think John McPhee does it better in his book "Annals of the Former World"). Winchester again displays an uncanny ability to make the complex (plate tectonics) understandable. I only wished he'd gone into a bit more detail like he did on "Krakatoa".

Still, I enjoyed the book and I recommend it to anyone wanting to learn more about the San Francisco earthquake, and the science behind why it happened then and will happen again

</review>
<review>

How can a best-selling author like Simon Winchester take an event as exciting as the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 and turn it into a tedious snooze-fest? One answer: write as if you had just discovered an adjective mine and were free to throw in extra descripitive terms on every line until listeners scream for an end to florid phrases. Another: strive to break the record for most clich?s in a single paragraph. Finally: write about events in 1906 as if no one but Simon Winchester had ever before thought about their consequences -- thus, everything in this tedious narrative becomes about Simon. Simon and the raccoons; Simon on the failing American economy; Simon attempting to reproduce American accents. This is a CD set for avoiding

</review>
<review>

The alternate title of this book should be:  THE ~COMPLETE~ AND ONLY GUIDE TO COLLEGE DEGREES BY MAIL AND INTERNET YOU WILL NEED TO READ.  Excellent and up-to-date information regarding courses, tuition, residency requirements.  I will FINALLY be able to confidently and comfortably select 'THE' Masters Program that is right for me!  Tuition is quite varied and ranges from low to very high...Bears' Guide saved me the time and frustration of looking at schools with astronomically high tuition rates.  If you are just beginning to look at Distance Learning programs, have been looking for awhile and are not able to make a decision, or you are just thinking about a DLP, this book is essential.

</review>
<review>

If you want to get your education and not go into slavery with your student loans. Then get this book ASAP, it covers just about everything one needs to know on how to get your degree. I really think the future of higher education is going this way. But if you want to spend a lot of time, money, grief and get a real ration of manure. Then don't read this book

</review>
<review>

And the Band Played On is an act of phenomenal research and writing, and a very frightening book on many levels because of the political wrangling, political bumbling, and political disregard for a medical crisis which cost the lives of so many, the scientific in-fighting which slowed medical break throughs and sacrificed lives, and the insanity of national agencies which were supposed to be saving lives, but which in this case knowingly risked the lives of many either because they didn't want to do the work, didn't want to spend the money, or didn't want to anger certain political groups.  Gay men were deemed to be utterly dispensable by so many.

It's the sign of a good book when it brings out strong emotions.  This book provoked in me anger, rage, confusion, compassion, sadness, and tears.  I wish I could thank all those, like Don Francis, Dr. Michael Gottlieb, Dr. Selma Dritz, Marc Conant, Dr. Dale Lawrence, Paul Volberding, and Dr. Arye Rubenstein, who tried so hard, against such overwhelming odds, to save lives quickly.  I would also chastise President Ronald Reagan and Merve Silverman and give Margaret Heckler and Bob Gallo a piece of my mind -- the skunks!

I am thankful that there are politicians like Orrin Hatch and people behind the scenes like Bill Kraus and Cleve Jones.  Though he was woefully slow in responding I'm grateful for the response of C. Everett Koop and that once having made his stand he never wavered and took it to the media wherever he could.

Randy Shilts did an excellent job of showing the culture in the United States and France and the politics in the medical and scientific communities and the political posture and arena during the 1980s.  He also humanized the crisis by following many of the patients from onset of medical problems to death (Enno Poersch, Gary Walsh, Frances Borchelt, Bill Kraus, and Gaetan Dugas) and by following the doctors and scientists in their fight to discover the properties of this terrible disease and conquer it.  It was enlightening and helpful to have the book structured as a time line.

The amount and variety of research done for this book is astounding, requiring Shilts to conduct hundreds of interviews and read millions of pages of articles and medical material.  In reading this book, my education has been enhanced and my life is more full and forever changed.

It is a great tragedy that AIDS killed Randy Shilts as it had killed so many other innocents, and that as I write this there is still no cure for AIDS.  As far as I can tell, it is again being largely ignored by governments and the medical community.  Where will the next Randy Shilts, Bill Kraus, and Dr. Gottlieb and the other saviors come from--and will they come soon enough?

</review>
<review>

Good stories work on several levels; they are multi-dimensional views of the same event. To honor the 25th anniversary of the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, I reread Randy Shilts's groundbreaking work, which was published a mere six years after the reports of a `gay cancer' first surfaced at the CDC.

It is still an intense and provocative book that reveals the social and political motives that became both pathways and obstacles for finding a cause and a cure for the killer disease. Shilts, who tested positive during the research for his book, but said he didn't ask for the results until his writing was finished, nonetheless brings an emotional bias to his research. His regret (he engaged in many of the risky sexual practices against which he rails) runs like an electric current throughout and gives his story a kind of missionary momentum and zeal.

As a result, "And the Band Played On" survives as a masterpiece of nonfiction storytelling because it is as much about a human disease as it is about the human condition including themes of betrayal and sacrifice, fear and love, exuberance and panic, loss and redemption - contrasts that the play "Angels in America" perfectly captured when it premiered in 1991.

Shilts explored AIDS in America as a disease of both body and spirit - seemingly through the prism of his own tragic circumstances. It's a timeless and priceless view.

</review>
<review>

To me this important expose on the begining of the AIDS crises and Reagan's response is extremely important.  It's now classic and old information.  But it's a valuable history lesson we all must read

</review>
<review>

The sexual revolution is over, wrote an old revolutionist named P.J. O'Rourke, and the microbes won.  This book, by an SF journalist now dead from AIDS, tells how the microbes won the war.
Author Randy Shilts tells the story of all-night all-day playgrounds on America's left coast and of the way those bath houses and bent brothels became incubators for retroviruses.  AIDS wasn't the gay plague, Shilts reports.  It was the 4th or 5th gay plague, nurtured by a radicalized and sexualized subculture that had blown out of Stonewall's closet.  Gay sexual activists took it for granted, writes Shilts, that an indulgent and helpful society would always find a magic bullet for their promiscuously transmitted diseases.  When the magic bullet for a strange plague of the early 1980s didn't magically appear, sexual athletes did what any normal hot-blooded Americans would do:  they blamed Reagan.
Mr. Shilts in his book was judicious about the blame game.  His scorn for bath house behaviors  and  for blood banks is loud  and  clear; cheap-shotting of Reagan is muted.  Reagan, after all, had other wars and a rocky post-Carter economy on his hands.  By the time Mr. Shilts' book became a tv mini-movie, however, Reagan moved to the front and center as its designated villain.  If only he had uttered the name of the sickness that dared not speak its name, thousands and millions and billions of us would have been saved ... after all, we are now told, we all have AIDS.  (Ponder what Reagan might have said if he'd been convinced by Koop or somebody to speak the name of AIDS in 1982 or 1983:  Well, as your mothers probably should have told you ... Reagan, being a realist, understood that AIDS in America was/is overwhelmingly a behavioral disease.)
Read And the Band Played On in tandem with Dragon Within the Gates by Stephen Joseph, former health commissioner of New York City and former Clintonista.  These books, together, are the best war reporting of the recent past.  They show how microbes won the war, and how microbes then won civil rights.

</review>
<review>

You want to read a horror story? This is it. This is the shameful way our government dealt with AIDS in the first six years it appeared in the country- by doing nothing at all.

EVERYONE ignored it. The CDC, the NIH, the National Cancer Institute, it was ignored by everyone but a handful of scientists and doctors, and they were ignored too. Over 2000 gay men (and hemophiliacs, and straight people, and babies) died before the government even acknowleged that yes, something new was going around. Newspapers and media did not report this, because it was too embarrassing talking about how it was a "gay disease." Gay men didn't want to discuss that it "might" be spread through sex, and the ideas of shutting down the bathhouses and losing that little bit of hard-won liberation was unthinkable. Blood banks wouldn't even ACKNOWLEGE the fact that their products were contaminated, even after it was PROVEN that transfusion AIDS was possible and happening.

By the time President Reagan FIRST uttered the word AIDS, over 25,000 Americans were dead from the disease.

This book made me cry. The entire way through it, I wanted to scream, I wanted to throw things, I wanted to hit people until they realized that gay people deserve to live too. A university official that was denying AIDS researchers desperately needed funding had the nerve to actually remark, "Well, at least AIDS is getting rid of a lot of undesirable people." How absolutely disgusting.

This is a dauntingly large book- 621 pages of reading, all of it frustrating, angering, scream-inducing, and yet, still inspiring. They didn't give up. No one threw in the towel until their last breath, or until funding, sufficient funding, was finally granted. Sadly, the author himself died of AIDS in 1994. God bless everyone who worked so hard to make AIDS a household word, which finally happened, oh, about SEVEN STINKING YEARS after it first started killing people in the US. What the heck is wrong with this country? Why did people have their heads in the sand for so long? What's so stinking WRONG with us?

Another book everyone should read, if only to know how our government helped spread AIDS around the world by ignoring it for six damn years. How many people did they kill by doing that? Far, far too many. We were the last civilized nation to institute an AIDS education/prevention program. This book made me dislike the bureaucracy of this country even more, and I didn't think that was possible.

God bless everyone who is working to make life better for people with AIDS

</review>
<review>

Having been born in 1981 I was educated as a teen about the importance of safe sex and the realities of HIV and AIDS. But, this book brought home the true horrors of the history of the pandemic. While lengthy, it is extremely informative and, if read with an open mind, refreashingly unbiased. I found myself taking extra time and care in reading "And The Band Played On" just to let the information sink in.

</review>
<review>

Having seen the film that this book is based on several times, I was curious to read into the whole story... and this book does not pack any punches.
Whilst I did not expect a 'G' rated book, I certianly did not expect some of the in depth writing that is included.  However it is all relevant to the story.
Definately a book for our times

</review>
<review>

The amazing part of this tragedy is that Shilits was a frequent visitor to the baths he condemns in this book even after knowing he was infected and thus infected countless other humans, directly or indirectly.
This book is good only if you view it as an example of someone blaming someone else for your own destructive behavior. While this book has become a major read for those who are into "victimhood" the sad truth is that Shilts is far more guilty than any of those he condemns in this book because he was the one who transmitted the virus, not the owners of the baths he paid money to in order to have his night of fun and ultimate death.
Shilts was sick in more ways than one when he wrote this and deserves condemnation rather than praise. Good night, killer.

</review>
<review>

I was required to read this text for a class.  I would not have normally picked something like this to read for pleasure.  I found that this text is very attention grabbing, and it is extremly informational.  I would recommend this text to others

</review>
<review>

Shilts' great book shows us how much of the AIDS related suffering of the last twenty years could so easily have been avoided. The book opens with the July 4th 1976 bicentennial celebration of American independence and closes with the death of Hollywood star Rock Hudson, whose passing garnered the necessary oxygen of publicity that all the thousands of previous AIDS casualties could not.

In between, the book revolves around the hedonistic community of San Francisco's Castro Street area and brings us an amazing array of villains, victims and plain heroes. The villains include the bathhouse owners, who used America's First Amendment to keep their businesses open even as it was blatantly obvious that they were a major conduit for the spread of the virus; Dr. Bob Gallo of America's National Cancer Institute, who put his own prestige ahead of everything else, normal scientific and academic ethics included; and the Reagan administration, which did as little as politically possible to stem the burgeoning plague that blighted America during those years.

Because the air bridges between Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco helped spread the virus at breakneck speed, Shilts also introduces us to Gaetan Dugas, the Canadian air line steward, who is credited with infecting many of America's earliest victims. Shilts paints him as half victim and half villain.  Dugas, he shows, went from being the pretty boy everybody in Castro Street wanted to bed to being the terminal AIDS case they all eventually feared.

Rock Hudson, Liberace and other closet gays are likewise painted as half villains and half victims. Michael Foucault, the fashionable French philosopher, must rank with the vilest villains; he hid his diagnosis from everyone, even his devoted lover. So much for that pompous philosopher and philanderer!

But even in the blighted world of AIDS, there were many heroes. These include the French scientists who discovered the HIV virus and, Gallo excepted, the American ones, who followed up all the early clues that eventually led to the discovery of the medications that can now tackle the illness. Many of these American heroes, Shilts shows, were penalized rather than praised by their universities for performing their singular services to mankind.

The bathhouse chain owners, who were more interested in profiting from the unbridled orgies that gave them their profits than in stemming AIDS, were not the only amplifiers during the crucial early years. The blood banks, by refusing to screen blood, also contributed to the death of thousands of Americans. The Reagan administration's preoccupation with Central America and the Soviet Union was also a godsend to the virus.

And, as the band played on, AIDS wormed its way through America's marginalized communities of hookers, hemophiliacs, heroin addicts, and Haitians. Gay activists, who tried to sound the alarm bells, were dismissed as sexual Nazis and theocrats by their confreres who wanted to party on in Castro Street's backroom bars and bathhouses, even though, as Shilts constantly reminds us, it meant almost certain death.

Shilts has sent us a powerful message that we ignore at our peril. AIDS means that hedonists can expect to die sooner rather than later. The world's legions of drug shooting hookers will remain major amplifiers for AIDS, hepatitis and related illnesses as long as their addiction continues. So too will other marginalized and uneducated people. So too, of course, will people like Robert Gallo, who put his own narrow agenda ahead of humanity's.

On the positive side, the book shows us that the villains are vastly outnumbered by the heroes, not the least of whom is Randy Shilts, who also finally succumbed to this great human calamity.

</review>
<review>

I teach practical Game Theory for executives. This book its an excellent complementary material for the course

</review>
<review>

If you are really into learning Microeconomics right form the start, this is the book for you..

</review>
<review>

I am an unabashed  admirer of Howard Zinn, but I am tremendously impressed with Paul Johnson's A History of the American People. I read this book while attending graduate school, years after reading Zinn's fascinating People's history of the United States. Johnson's interrogation of the polemic characters, social movements, and various ideologies provides readers with a brilliant but conservative perspective that is trenchant and well-detailed. Although I consider myself a moderate liberal, I was intrigued on how Johnson describes certain historical figures, For instances, unlike Zinn, Johnson reveres business potentates, such as Rockefeller and Drew, for their philanthropic activities in the late ninetieth century. He is exceedingly critical of Thomas Jefferson, but he adulates Andrew Jackson for his gallantry during the Battle of New Orleans. I recommend students, scholars, general readers, and history buffs, to read this thought-provoking book with Zinn's People's History to procure a well-balanced understanding of American history and the people and ideas that shaped this great nation.

</review>
<review>

While I wouldn't recommend that my students read only Paul Johnson's work on US History, I would definitely recommend that they read it in accompaniment to their texts.  Johnson is rightly to be credited for providing a more balanced and optimistic view of the American people/government than is prevalent in the majority of publishing firms today.  He does not shy away from criticism where it is due, but neither is he afraid to assert honor where honor is due--even if it means offending some politically correct ears.

While I agree that he can be classified as a conservative, I would also note that this is not a "conservative's conservative" book.  By that I mean that people who are unabashedly Republican,  Religious Right, etc., will not find unscrutinized support for their revisionist accounts of history.  While Johnson does overlap with certain conservative appraisals of historical events and figures, he does so on a case-by-case basis, always aiming to support his evaluations with fact.  In many instances, these facts are not widely known because they have been cut out from liberal textbooks.  They are not, however, smelling of the party line.

Indeed, Johnson's book is fascinating for his historical scholarship, research, and deep analysis.  His coverage of "forgotten" spans of time (i.e. Grant, Arthur, Hayes, Garfield) is welcome, as is his deft treatment of figures who are normally expansive in coverage (i.e. Lincoln, JFK).  I found the 1860-1900 chapters to be personally most enlightening.

Johnson is especially great at noticing overarching themes in government and economic life.  He is not a social or sociological commentator, which will relieve some of his more liberal readers.  And in fact, I believe most people--liberal or conservatve--would gain an awful lot from his research and presentation if they read with an open mind

</review>
<review>

Paul Johnson's History of the American People is a great response to Howard Zinn's work. Johnson's offers a conservative take on much of the events and people that Zinn criticizes harshly. The book is a fairly optimistic work, speaking to the resilience and ingenuity of the American people.  I particularly enjoyed reading his unique takes on the value of the Nixon and Coolidge presidency and his criticisms of JFK. Paul Johnson has an interesting perspective on American history, as he did not learn about as a child growing up in England.  He appproaches American history with a certain zeal not found in other historian's works. I really enjoyed reading the book after reading Zinn's work

</review>
<review>

I had to read this for a US History class I took in college and when I received it, groaned at the size of the book.  But when I started reading it, I found that I really enjoyed it.  It gives more information than your average history textbook but enough to inspire you to do further research on topics contained within the book.  Its a big one - but very interesting so you won't mind that at all.  Like one of the other reviewers mentioned, I wish that I didn't have to stop and highlight and take notes as I was reading because this could be purely a ""leisurely" read if you are into history

</review>
<review>

This is perhaps the best concise history of the United States out there.  Johnson writes beautifully, and, unlike Howard Zinn, he does not let ideology completely dominate the book.  But be prepared to spend a lot of time on this one, as it's a heavyweight

</review>
<review>

I had to read this book for my college US history class. This is the most interesting history book I have ever read. Besides making a good college text, this book would also be a fun read as it is written like good literature. True he does go on and on about how good the North American weather is, but I say this is only natural for a British Chap :) It is this incredible insight and depth that never gets bogged down that is one of the strong points of the book.

A History of the American People reads a bit like Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America in that it is a European that is just fascinated by our experiment in republican self-government

</review>
<review>

This has been a most surprising opportunity to enjoy the history of our society as seen through the eyes of a British historian.  The author admittedly is a strong admirer of the American people and he encourages the reader to be just as supportive of the society in which we live.  He supports his view by giving the background of the various stages through which our society has grown as well as giving some insight into the personalities of those who guided our journey.  We are a rugged strong society and we did not get here by way of the route detailed in the history books that I studied going through school in the 1930's and 1940's.  Alas, maybe Washington did not cut down the cherry tree after all.

</review>
<review>

Mr. Johnson brings the history of the United States to life in profound and exciting ways.  I now emerge from four months of reading and intensive cross study with a WELL MARKED copy of this book and a better understanding of our great nation than ever before.  I am already anticipating re-reading certain portions in order to use them in teaching.

More than anything this book has helped me to reawaken a passion for history, learning and understanding.  Mr. Johnson's unique voice has become that of an old and wise friend that calls us to take back up the moral imperative that has made this country great.

I recommend this book very highly, especially to teachers, ministers, parents and anyone else who has a part in shaping the minds of others.  This is a vital missing link in a complete education

</review>
<review>

At over 1,000 pages of information, this book looks very intimidating. It's so fascinating, however, and so well constructed, that the pages go by very quickly. Entertaining and highly educational

</review>
<review>

I really enjoyed this book, in that its not the usual wine and roses type text. He shows America warts and all and I found it most refreshing. Well done

</review>
<review>

I just reread this book for the second time.  I haven't read it since it came out a few years ago.  I enjoyed it this time around as much as I did the first time.  The book has everything, mystery, romance, humor, and sadness.  It's an emotionally charged book that keeps you hanging on til the end.  The main plot is around Callie an archeologist who has her life turned around after appearing on TV.  She is approached by a woman (Suzanne)who is convinced she is the daughter who was taken from her stroller in a mall when she was an infant.  After some investigating and tests, Suzanne is proved correct.  But a baby stealing/selling scheme is uncovered in the process.  Callie is determined to get to the bottom of it.  While that is going on she has to deal with her ex-husband Jake being brought in on her dig, he's an anthropologist. I don't want to get into too much detail and ruin all the surprises but there are several wonderful relationships being developed, reconciled and explored.  Callie has a new family and it is interesting to watch everyone get to know eachother and heal after this upheaval.  It is a wonderful love story and mystery.  I think this book would appeal to anyone who just loves good fiction

</review>
<review>

The story seems to go on forever. It is a novel after all; a very long one. Each character possesses his/her own specialty but most of them are either archeologists or in the medical profession. The final showdown is worth the reading and waiting. It is interesting to witness the deduction method used in solving the ultimate mystery - who is the person behind all the killings. Romance genre deals with various types of relationship confusions and this one is no exception. Conveniently, Dr. Dunbrook arrives in a small town for a dig to land herself in turmoil of a kidnapping case - her own. That leads her to hiring a lawyer to find out the truth. The man she never gets over is there to win her heart again. Her brother who she didn't grow up with has his own love interest. A divorced couple find each other once more. Everything boils down to loyalty among friends, lovers, and family members. Not easy to achieve and understand in real life but in a fiction it is all swell and great which makes up the utmost joy in reading

</review>
<review>

Normally I like Nora Roberts, but this book was a very tough read. Callie, the main character, was not likeable whatsoever. She was nasty throughout the entire book with a filthy mouth. She did not come across as strong or self-sufficient, just nasty. It was not entertaining, just tiresome. I started skimming towards the end because I just wanted to get through it.
The end was anti-clamatic, didn't really settle the issue of two sets of parents. The last few pages were practically identical to Three Fates, which, incidentally was a great read.



</review>
<review>

Roberts has certainly come a long way as a writer. This is a gripping story...I was glued to the book till the very end

</review>
<review>

As the previous reviewers have already stated, this story encompasses many plots; all of which are interesting and somehow tie to one another.  Callie Dunbrook, archeologist, out on a dig of a lifetime with a surprise addition to her team - her ex-husband/anthropologist, Jake Graystone.  Not only do Callie and Jake discover each other and the remnants of a lost settlement in the town of Woodsboro, MD, Callie has a bigger surprise in store for her - the discovery of a birth mother, father and brother that could possibly be more fact than fiction.  This story plays many different angles, but Nora ties them all together with some really lovable characters - Doug, Lana, little Ty, Suzanne, Jay, Vivian and Elliott as the parents and siblings as well as the team, and I especially like Digger!  Definitely a Nora book you won't want to miss - Birthright is a great find.

</review>
<review>

This is one of Nora Roberts' best books ever! I have read everything she's written and this is now my all time favorite. I ADORE this book.  The characters are interesting and very human, the plot is gripping and the background fascinating.  Callie, an archeologist, comes to a little town in Maryland to set up a dig and ends up learning about her birth parents and reuniting with her ex-husband. What I really like about this is the two main characters already have a history before this book so its so much that they fall in love on the spur of the moment, like most romances (including Roberts).  Definitely a book I highly recommend for both the romance and the thrilling plot.  It will keep you glued to the pages until you figure out who the bad guys are

</review>
<review>

I have been a longtime fan of Robert's work....unfortunately, lately it seems some of the story lines are becoming repetitive. This was refreshingly new and I read it twice before putting it down.

There are several different curves thrown into the mix of this book. Everything from Black-market baby selling, to ancient civilizations  and  their cultures, to theories of ghosts  and  curses, to dealing with ex-romances in the workplace. Only Roberts could intertwine this many storylines without making it confusing.

Here is the cliff-notes version: Witty and beautiful archaeologist Callie Dunnbrook, is sent to small town Woodsboro to investigate claims of 5000 year old bones found at a construction site. Unfortunately, the town isn't that friendly. When people start vanishing, many wonder...could it be a local or a curse from the disturbed graves? Not only must she wrestle with a possibly cursed dig site; but her partner for the dig, sent from the university, is none other than her ex-husband, Jake!! To make matters worse local, famous baker, Suzanne (think-Mrs. Smith's) claims Callie is her daughter who was kidnapped as an infant. Only problem is Callie wasn't adopted...or was she?

Poor Callie must decipher clues to the past; Suzanne's, Jake's, the remains in the ground, and her own. As the old adage proves true, secrets never last forever

</review>
<review>

This book is worth reading if only for his journalistic sections of his personal stay in an abandoned station in the arctic. Also, his section which describes the equipment used is pretty fun to read once you've finished the story.
I found sections of The Rifles to be quite monotonous, and the historical thread seems to run a lot thinner here than in dreams 1 and 2.

</review>
<review>

Having now read all four currently published Dreams in this series, The Rifles, which is the shortest of the four at 340 pages (+ 70 of source notes, glossaries, etc.) seems the most strange and dream-like.  It is a cutting edge blend of modern travelogue, historical research, and imagination.  The ill-starred Franklin expedition of 1845-1848 to discover a northwest passage underlies this volume's take on the larger series theme of European and Native American interaction.  Two central aspects of this theme are the Canadian relocation of Inuit peoples in the 1950's from Quebec to various Arctic islands, and the hypotheses that rifles were the ultimate source of demise for these peoples.  As in each of the other Dreams, Vollmann injects heavy doses of modern realism into the "Rifle-text", having at once the effect of scattered shards of glass in a children's sand-box, and ice-bergs jutting from a tranquil sea.  Landscape descriptions are consistent in their non-romantic portrayal of desolation, serenity, and danger.  As Vollmann states in an end-note, it is a sort of companion-piece to The Ice Shirt.  Both take place in the North American Arctic and include thinly disguised and candidly undisguised personal travelogues which complement the "ages" in which each novel dwells.  Beyond the historical contexts of this novel, there is the sad  and  twisted "love story" between the modern Inuit-Quebecois girl Reepah  and  Subzero (who should be added to the list of male-female counterparts I mention in my review of Argall).  But this is no ordinary love, since it sometimes involves Captain Franklin, his wife, the author himself, and the Inuit goddess Sedna.  The author's alter-ego Subzero, exchanges delirious thoughts on women and exploration with Captain Franklin as though time and place were immaterial.  In fact, distinctions are altogether absent in many passages and it's almost impossible to distinguish between sets of characters.  On page 120 Vollmann (or is it Subzero?) asks, "...are you behaving differently at this very moment because someone not yet to be born for a century of more will someday think about you?"  There are similar sequences in The Ice Shirt, and to lesser degrees in Fathers  and  Crows, and Argall (each work uniquely powerful  and  worthwhile), but here in the most "modern" dream this timelessness is much more pronounced.  Sound confusing?  Check out the source notes for hints  and  clues if necessary, but it definitely helps to stay alert to which "voices" are speaking (the narrative frequently alters between 1st, 2nd, and 3rd-person) and to understand that much of the novel deals with the author's own (mis-)adventures in modern-day Arctic Quebec in relation to  and  for insight into the original Franklin expeditions.  With Vollmann's Seven Dreams series it's best to read on and not get bogged down, because a lot of stuff that doesn't make sense at first will make sense later.

Next up, Volume 7: Cloud Shirt?  From what I understand this will be about the Hopi  and  Navajo in the American Southwest during the 1970's-1980's.  Volume 4, Poison Shirt might be about King Phillip  and  The Great Swamp War of the mid-late 17th century.  And Volume 5, Dying Grass is slated to cover Chief Joseph of the Nez Pierce plains Indians.  Whatever he turns out, whenever, I can't wait - Vollmann's dream series is forcing a much needed up-date in the consciousness of the various "Ages" of our North American continent.

</review>
<review>

I enjoyed reading the Rifles quite a bit.  That being said, it was not quite up to par with the Ice Shirt.  The plight of the native people of Northern Canada (it depends on who you ask what they wish to call themselves) is not something one usually reads about.  While there have been numerous accounts of the plights of other native peoples, the arctic is usually reserved for stories about the "great white explorers" and have little to do with those living there.   I enjoy how Vollmann refuses to pass judgment on his characters, leaving them to become real humans.  I will continue to read this series and look forward to the next installment

</review>
<review>

Although though it may be hard to begin Vollmann's  and quot;7 Dreams and quot; series because each book in the series is so massive, it is certainly worth the time. Not only is Vollman attempting to create, with some fiction, the entire history of North America, each volume he writes is a totally new undertaking. New people, names,histories, and unique grammar reflective to  the period. A truly talented author who has thoroughly researched his subjects and makes you feel that you are right in the middle of the action in the snow and ice, Vollman is writing the series out of the time seqences in which the history appears, but since each is complete in itself, that does not matter.  I look forward to his next  and quot;dream. and quot

</review>
<review>

THIS BOOK WAS GIVEN TO ME . THE COPY I HAVE IS THE 1932 PRINTING . I KNOW NOW HOW LUCKY I AM TO OWN IT AFTER  FINISHING  . IT WAS VERY HARD TO PUT DOWN . OTHER BOOKS I HAVE READ ABOUT HIM DIDN'T TOUCH ON HIS GENTLENESS AND HOW IT AFFECTED NOT ONLY HIS MARRIAGE BUT, THE WAR.  SOMETIMES I THINK NOW, HE WORRIED TOO MUCH ABOUT OTHERS FEELINGS .  SUCH AS INEPT GENERALS AND THAT LUNATIC WIFE , MARY TODD WHO'S TEMPER TANTRUMS WERE INFAMOUS.  LIKE HE HAD ENOUGH " ROCKS IN HIS SACK " WITHOUT STRIFE AT HOME.  I SO PITY HIM , EVEN NOW THAT HE IS BEYOND ALL CARES AND WOE .  GOD BLESS YOU SIR AND GIVE YOU THE PEACE THAT SO ELUDED YOU HERE ON EARTH

</review>
<review>

The storytellers of other nations and cultures have to manufacture myths to give themselves heroes.  Americans don't have to.  Abraham Lincoln is inspiring because of his greatness, yet he is inspiring also because of his human frailties, which make his monumental achievements all the more fantastic.  This book is a labor of love by Mr. Carnegie about his hero; it's his way of making his hero available to us all.  I love particularly the introduction in which Mr. Carnegie tells his reasons for writing the book and his method of composing it.  This is one of the best books I've ever read.  All the wisdom and insight Mr. Carnegie ever collected in his "how to" books can be found more poignantly and abundantly here, because Lincoln exemplified everything that Mr. Carnegie ever taught.  This book is what will keep Mr. Carnegie's name alive, long after his institute has folded and his "how to" books have gone out of print.  In this book Mr. Carnegie captures the living reality of Lincoln, his wisdom, his virtues, his beautiful and unfettered English prose, his keen understanding of the paradoxical condition of mankind, his deep reverence, and his abiding love.  This is a book that you never finish.  The experience remains with you.  Besides changing forever the way you think about Lincoln, it'll change the way you think about yourself.  This book is not overtly religious, but I'd recommend it alongside Bonhoeffer's Cost of Discipleship, Chesterton's Everlasting Man, and Thomas Merton's Seven-Storey Mountain.

</review>
<review>

If you don't know anything about Lincoln this book is for you!

The author, Carnegie, was enthralled with Lincoln and by the end of the book you will be too.

The book does an excellent job portraying who Loncoln was from childhood to adult to Presidency. It was the first book I ever read on Lincoln and I ended up learning so much about this superlative man.

A great introduction to Lincoln.

</review>
<review>

I agree with Oceandweller who said he/she wished this book were still in print so he/she could send a copy to all his/her friends.  This book is terrific right from page one until the very end.  I bought this book used, I forget how much I paid.  Whatever I paid, it was worth it.  It's not often in one's lifetime that one comes across a book like this, both educational and entertaining.  Dale Carnegie pulls you right into the story from the very first page and you just can't extricate yourself from then on until the book ends.  Not only was the story so interesting, but Lincoln comes across as the wisest of men.  "With malice towards none and charity for all..." these, his words, keep echoing in my mind.  Though he fought the civil war, a terribly bloody war, he did this to save this great nation.  His words and his sentiment must be what is meant by 'love your enemies'(St Luke 6:27). Lincoln had no church; he said, "When I do good, I feel good, when I do bad I feel bad, and that's my religion". But through his life he exemplies the best which man can aspire to.  After reading this book, for me Lincoln stands head and shoulders above all the greatest men of whom I know something (there may be others like him but I haven't met or read about them).  This book should be required reading in all the high schools - in my humble opinion.

</review>
<review>

I first read this book in early 1994. It left a lasting impression on me. The account of Abraham Lincoln's life is remarkably written by Dale Carnegie. This is not the story about the Lincoln that we learned about in school. Lincoln used his life struggles and applied them to his life to make him one of the greatest Presidents. Mr. Carnegie goes deep into the background to bring us a story of a young man and the trials that he went through to get to the White House. We can see the problems that Lincoln had while in the office of President. It would be hard to imagine what this country would be like if Lincoln had not been President because his foresight about this country and what he wanted to accomplish was remarkable. For example, the conflicts with staff and generals of the armies made Lincoln sometimes judge himself harshly. This book should be read by anyone who has an interest in Political Science or just wants to know more about the President. This is a very interesting book that I found hard to put down. I have read this many times and I cherish each moment that I spend reading the book

</review>
<review>

All I can say is, if you really want to get most out of your life, and wish to be able to tell your friends and family you had a great life at your last day, you should read this book

</review>
<review>

I recieved this book (which is "How to Win Friends and Influence People" and "How to Stop Worrying and Start Living" in one edition) as a gift from a Dale Carnegie Instructor (Thanks again Ron!). This has been quite possible the greatest gift anyone has given me. I recommend this book to anybody and everybody. Reading this book will increase your confidence and your skills incredibly. Not reading it would be a punishment to yourself, and you deserve better

</review>
<review>

A lost love he mourned for his whole life, an extremely difficult wife, endless attempts to undermine his authority, constant personal sorrow - who knew?  This book helped me understand and admire Lincoln the man, versus Lincoln the President.  They are both likable characters

</review>
<review>

This is a thoroughly engrossing book. I could not put it down after finding it in my grandmother's collection of old books. It inspired me to become a better person and to strive for perfection and integrity in everything that I do. This book talks about the Lincoln that we were not taught about in history classes. I was impressed with the fact that Lincoln totally despised slavery. Especially after witnessing the treatment of a mulatto slave girl on the auction block by prospective buyers. His triumphs and failures make him seem much more human. Not only was he a great President, but a great human being as well. It illustrates the fact that the only true measure of real success is the ability to endure pain. If you can get your hands on this book, it is a must read

</review>
<review>

It is a superbly written book about one of the greatest leaders that mankind has known. It is amazing how Lincoln, from humble origins, shaped up to become so great. He is an insipiration to all. I only wish that this book was in print - I would send it to several of my friends

</review>
<review>

I have been a manager for over 10 years, and have worked in different industries and different countries.  And I gladly admit I still have a lot to learn concerning management.  This book talks about concepts we know we should all be applying, such as learning from mistakes, responsibility and organization, attention to details as well as to a master plan, communication, etc.  However understanding how Churchill put these concepts to work is fascinating.  I did not know that much about Churchill in the first place, perhaps that is why I enjoyed the book so much.  It is a nice change from CEOs' biographies.  And yes, I am putting some of what I read to work, so it was worth my time and money

</review>
<review>

I just completed this book yesterday and I must confess if it was any longer I might not have.  While it was mildly entertaining, it contains little that is new or particularly informative.  The book generally repackages concepts that are written elsewhere and ties them to passages in Churchill's life.  Many of the comparisons seem strained.  In fact, comparing Churchill's almost single-handed stand aginst tyranny with normal business competition, seems inappropriate and a little silly.      It's probably fair to say that the book contains a few kernals of wisdom which would be helpful to anyone in business, or otherwise. These kernals are relatively simple and (it seems to me) obvious.  It begs the question, Why, exactly, do we need a book such as this?       The people most apt to pick-up the book in the first place are those who already have a more than passing affinity for Churchill.  If so, those people will likely have read books which are more informative, historically significant, insightful and generally worthwhile.  If this is your first introduction to Churchill, do not let it be your last.  Overall, I think there are much better uses for all of our valuable time

</review>
<review>

As a longtime fan of Churchill, and in a position of leadership in a commercial environment, the book appeared to be excellant vacation reading. Well it was but only from the 'fan' position. The author sets out with good  intentions and early in the book he relates Churchill ways back into the  context of today's executive's environment. But, by the middle, and then  thereafter, he's lost his way and it becomes a bit idol worshipping with no  real relevance to application to today's leadership 'student'. At times Mr  Hayward really is squeezing the pips to show Winston as a model to follow -  I've suggested dictation from my bathtub but so far my secretary hasn't  picked up on the idea. If you want to understand Churchill it's a good  read. If it's leadership you want you'll have to browse further

</review>
<review>

I'm going to say something that might sound odd: this is not a leadership book.  It deals pretty well with the everyday tasks and details of Churchill's style, but strangely not his  and quot;executive success in the face of adversity. and quot; And Hayward's assertion that Churchill's style is  like that of an executive seems a little red-faced: Hayward spends a lot of  time defending against Churchill's critics that Churchill was disorganized  and a bad judge of character.  In all likelihood, he is forcing Churchill  into a category that he does not belong: indeed, Churchill may have been  disorganized, but he was a darn good prime minister. My opinion is that  Churchill deserves more than this. In place of this book, I would recommend  Lincoln On Leadership

</review>
<review>

As we all know too well, in the flow of flotsam from academe, there is seldom material that is both readable and edifying.  Often neither quality is present. This book, Churchill on Leadership, scores high in both  categories.  Hayward's obvious in depth knowledge of Churchill and his  times enabled him to organize the vast storehouse of material available  into a useful and unique way of teaching the leadership principles  Churchill personified.  God knows the lak of leadership today evidences the  extreme need for what Hayward has wrought

</review>
<review>

Churchill's leadership and perseverance carry this book. The lessons mentioned at the end of each chapter seem trivial - as if summing up Churchills achievements can be encapsulated in a few managerial maxims.  What Mr Hayward has achieved is to display a man very much like us (women included). I learned his eloquence was not a gift but the result of hard work (I too can work on my short-comings); he had many failures, some fatal for a politician, but continued to soldier on (I too can persevere); he stuck with his own sense of self-worth when every one else proclaimed him as finished (I too can maintain confidence against adversity).  The maxims, Mr Hayward, are not needed. But thank you for bringing such a powerful figure down to earth, where we can all learn from his extraordinary life

</review>
<review>

Steven Hayward places Churchill's experience and approach to executive problem solving into historical context.  This is a must read book for students of leadership  and amp; management as well as fans of Sir Winston.  A relatively short book about such a significant topic, but well worth the tim

</review>
<review>

I love these Examples  and  Explanations books.  The rules make sense when you can get decent examples, and these books do a good job of that.

If you find your outline frustrating (Like Emmanuels and/or Gilberts - both of which drive me nuts with frustration) try the Finals series books.  I like them much better as outlines than the "official outlines."

</review>
<review>

Great book. Definitely doesn't cover every area of Torts that you're going to need to know for your course (IIED, false imprisonment, etc.). Get Gilberts or Emanuels or just use your class notes on this stuff though. Also: if your professor has a slightly different view on the rules (even if it's just a difference in semantics) use your prof's rules when working the Examples. Writing out your answers to the Examples throughout the semester will solidify your knowledge and you won't have to struggle to memorize the elements of each rule at the end of the semester

</review>
<review>

The book is great as it is, no doubt, but the older editions do not have Products Liability in them, which is VITAL to your studies. Make sure you get the latest edition, which has two chapters on PL.

Aside from that one missing element in the older edition, the rest of the book is excellent.

</review>
<review>

This book is very easy to read and allows for easy digestion of complex principles.  I find it to be very useful in understanding torts

</review>
<review>

Very seldom is a sequel better than the original.  Terminator 2 comes to mind, along with perhaps The Empire Strikes Back and the Aliens series.  But for the most part, sequels suck.  The opposite is true in law school support texts.  I borrowed the 2nd edition of this book from a friend and found it to be utter crap (think crap on the level of the third Austin Powers or The Mummy Returns).  It was almost as if Glannon, during a celebration over the success of his Civ Pro E and E success, got hammered and wrote Torts E and E 1st and 2nd Eds in a drunken stupor.  It seems, though, that for the 3rd Ed. he either ran out of alcohol or got an editor.  It's still not Civ Pro E and E, which single handedly rescued me from oblivion (and likely suicide) in that course, but it is definitely worth having

</review>
<review>

For some reason I think Amazon's reviews bleed through different editions.

IE. You will find reviews of the 1st/2nd edition on the 3rd editions page. This often misleads and/or distorts the promotion of a product.

The newest editions of examples  and  explanations are fabulous and settle a few issues that may have been present in the past. All to often students expect these to be comprehensive outlines like Emanuels that do all the work for them---no. The grades come to those who work and that is where this series shines. It gives you practice and furthers understanding

</review>
<review>

This book was actually recommended for our Torts class and I am so glad it was. Glannon is a great writer and he makes things easy and fun to read (sometimes he is a little too punny).  His examples are a great help too, especially around exam time.  His practice exams are great at helping you to spot the issues and organize them clearly. Glannon also wrote Examples and Explanations for Civil Pro. That is highly recommended also

</review>
<review>

Buy this and High Court summaries keyed to your casebook and you're set.  I also used the Gilberts and Sum and Substance 1L tapes while commuting to school--the best preparation with the least effort.  AWESOME!
This book make Torts my best 1L subject.  Even though I forgot a lot of details, the substance stayed with me for 1L and it got me an A in Torts.  I'd recommend reading prior to the first year, and then reviewing as you complete each chapter during the semester.  AWESOME especially since Glannon includes a sample exam--good luck trying to find many profs to offer that!

An ABSOLUTE MUST for 1L!  You WILL get your money's worth, and if you keep it in good shape you'll find another 1L to buy it from you when you're done with it.  Unless you keep it for Bar Review.
This book is like good foreign cars--the resale value stays up. :

</review>
<review>

as a 14 year old girl spending my entire summer reading this book was possibly the worst thing my teacher could have done to me. i can definately see how some older people could somehow get into it but its really just not that good in my perspective, to me the symbolism made no sense i didnt understand what they were saying most of the time and i'm an honor roll student with straight A's in english. i really deeply and truly do not suggest this book to anyone that is a teenager because it will bore you to death. it did me. pips character was too boring estella was too much of a brat miss havisham was too shrill, the ONLY good part of this book was herbert. he was the only one i liked. my mother loved this book and is now driving me insane with how much she is into it. yes, this book has given Dickens a bad name in my mind although he may not be a bad writer. i can usually somewhat get into english literature but this was just about all i could bear.in a nutshell...its definately a college read.

</review>
<review>

My first complete Dickens book was "A Tale of Two Cities." Since that was an idealistic romance novel, this book rather surprised me with its portrayals of the darker side of human nature. Instead of heart-wrending sacrifices, I found painful ingratitude. Instead of perfect heroines, I found scheming, insensitive women. This book was not anything I expected with regards to characterization and theme. However, I would have to say this book exemplifies human nature much, much better. It was not a very entertaining read at all, but the craftsmanship and word employment simply could not be better. This book may not turn one's daydreams on paper, but it is a solid, landmark work of literature

</review>
<review>

Perhaps the greates novel I have ever read.  Not only enjoyable but contained relevan lessons for my life - you can't escape who you or where you come from by changing your circumstance

</review>
<review>

First of all, in reference to the reviewer who seemed to think the title was inapropos, all I can say is that I hope that they didn't read the book, for such a lack of understanding would be pathetic. I digress. I am here to dispel some myths. Since this book is often assigned in school, and perceived as "important," as another reviewer noted, I think a lot of people shy away from it and assume it will be boring or difficult to understand. Dickens' novels, however, work on multiple level. There certainly is important social criticism and a web of subtly laced motifs within this novel, but on the surface, it's just a good read. I read it on a whim and ended up staying up all night to finish it. So, don't dispel this novel and turn to the many vapid works available to you. One piece of advice, read the real ending before the changed ending (though the changed one will appear first). I felt that the original one was far better, more relevant, and sadly invalidated by the changed ending thrust upon me first. Happy reading

</review>
<review>

This book has nothing to do with anyone expecting anything great, so I hate it! This book is perhaps one of the greatest books of all time, but I hate it, because the title is misleading. What the Dickens does the author think he's doing giving this book a title like that!

</review>
<review>

Of all the Dickens novels I've read, this one is certainly the most atmospheric and perhaps the most true to life.  In terms of art, this is probably his supreme achievement.  The plot isn't as convoluted as it is in Bleak House.  The action is more dramatic.  The female characters, particularly Estella, are more believable and (in the case of Miss Havisham, for instance) more intriguing.  The sentimentality and the overall length are under tighter control.  The humor still abounds.  The language is easier to read but no less descriptive.  No, it's not a perfect work -- there are still cloying and annoying characters and incidents, and far too many ridiculous coincidences -- but to me, at least, Great Expectations is Dickens' greatest achievement

</review>
<review>

Read it, no matter what, no matter if you have to read a page a day for two years, get into it and you won't be able to put it down and then you'll think, that reviewer was right I love this book. It was the best book that I read in my junior year, it wasn't required reading, BUT IT SHOULD BE! And Miss Havisham and Estella! After reading about the endless virtues of Lucy Manette in a Tale of Two Cities, I found those two very refreshing and intriguing and completely unexpected. Read the book, love the book, accept the book and all of its truths, and then name your cat Pip

</review>
<review>

Great Expectations is filled with ambition, greed, cruelty, and love. It is one of the best books I have ever read in my high school years. Get entertained with Mr. Joe and her violence towards Pip and her husband Mr. Joe Gargery.
Also, Pip travels to France to become a gentlemen, which is one of the best parts of this novel.

</review>
<review>

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens was a very good novel in my eyes.  The main character Pip believed, as a true Victorian, that a gentlemen is made solely of financial aspects and physicall possessions, and he is oblivious to moral aspects of the positions.  Upon recieving his great expectations, he moves to London for a further education, and to become what he thinks is a gentlemen.  Through Pips life he learns that his life as a gentlemen is not what he thought it would be, and his views of a true gentlemen start to change.  With thanks to Dickens and Great Expectations, we realize that sometimes even a convict may be more genteel than a traditional gentlemen.  He may start as a poor orphan boy, like Pip, or labour as a blacksmith, like Joe.  truly, what matters is the heart and inner worth that make a genuine gentlemen, and social prestige has not a bit to do with it

</review>
<review>

Dickens explores various sides of human nature in Great Expectations, as he tells the story of Pip, a common, lower-class, laboring boy who shows his desire to become a civilized gentleman. Along the storyline, Dickens inserts several points that man has several sides. The book is excellent in depicting how easily betrayal can occur, how quickly man can turn on his closest friend.

A very well written story, Great Expectations continuously keeps the reader interested with its intriguing occurences.

</review>
<review>

This book is well written and very ambitious in its scope.  It is fascinating to get a "people's eye" view of the rise of Sun Yat Sen.  Additionally it empathically covers the social response to mixed marriages by two very different cultures.  This is a women orienated book about a very tumultous time and ties the events together skillfully in the Western U.S. and the emerging China of 100 years ago

</review>
<review>

When I received this book I was really eager to read it. The whole storyline appealed to me and I was convinced, based on the first few chapters, that I would enjoy it.  I'm not sure when I changed my mind.  Maybe it was after reading countless details about historical and political China when I just wanted to know more about the main characters.  Sometimes I felt as if the author couldn't decide if she wanted to write a history book or a love story.  While her descriptions of the surrounding enviroments within the book were very colorful and evocative, the presentation of historical events taking place was a bit on the boring side.  I found myself fighting the urge to just skip over those parts.  Also, the ending (which I won't give away) sort of left me feeling cheated. I suppose I could've overlooked all of those things except for one thing.  The fact is, the main character just isn't very interesting or likeable.  To me, that's a deal-breaker

</review>
<review>

I have mixed feelings about this quasi-romance novel about an American teacher named Hope and Po-yu (Paul), her Chinese student. On one hand, it was often very interesting, as Ms. Liu gives a lot of historical detail about San Francisco and China. On the other hand, the characters were rather shallow. I didn't find Hope, who oddly resembled a whiny yuppie of the present day, particularly appealing. Po-yu was far more interesting, and was portrayed with some complexity and depth. The romance between Hope and Po-yu rang false for me. ("Honey, I first fell in love with you when I realized it was required for the plot to progress!") I still can't see what attracted them to each other. Also, did anyone else notice that any slight against Hope is recorded with meticulous detail (the rampant racism against Chinese at that time seems glossed over in comparison although it is mentioned), but Ms. Liu has some pretty crude stereotypes in this novel: a hearty blonde Swede, a drunk, surly Irishwoman, and Hope's one-sided-ly disagreeable mother-in-law to name a few. Also, she takes some pretty cheap shots at two groups it is still politically correct to demonize: all the Britons in the book are "right-o, jolly-good" bigots, and all the Christians are consistently hypocritical, or stupid, or both. In addition, much of the middle of the book is bogged down in political discussions that try so hard to be interesting that they're just the opposite. And to top it all off, the ending was forced. This novel could have been so much better: as this book is based on the lives of her grandparents, she obviously had some fascinating material to work with. And one more quibble: one of Hope and Po-yu's daughters is named Jennifer Pearl. In 1908 the name Jennifer pretty much existed in only one place in the world: Cornwall, UK

</review>
<review>

Using stories told by her Grandfather, Aimee Liu provides an insiders tale to a time of turmoil in China.  The story starts in San Francisco at the time of the big quake.  It is a love story of an American girl and a very educated Chinese boy at a time when women hardly spoke to a Chinese person, much less married one.  Her husband is a part of Sun Yet-sen's battle to topple the Manchu Dynasty.  Within the novel is the history of China from the Opium War in 1840 to the Communist's  War of Liberation in 1949.  Good insight into the people of China and their relationship with the Western Powers

</review>
<review>

I had to write a few words.  Every now and then I hit upon an author that pulls and pushes at your heart.  I listen to dozens of audio books every month driving to and from work.  This story was so very well written.  It has real life in it.  It has passion, love, danger, devotion, understanding, pain - it has it all.  It is a must read/listen for historical and just plain enjoyment reasons.  (The plot is in the description.)  I must now seek out other books by this author.  If you want to fill moments of your life with a treasure include this story. doroth

</review>
<review>

While I don't believe that Elizabeth was totally the excellent strategizer, I do believe she was well advised and did her own thinking.  This book goes back and imposing upon historical events the decisions made by Elizabeth-I and how it would apply in business today.  There are certain parallels between a monarchy and corporation that do fit together and can be seen in examples.  The major portion of the book covers the image that Elizabeth set forth by taking on being the  image of the Mother Mary (Catholic church) to her subjects, thus, to make the people more accepting of the new Church of England as the religious seat of power, thus diffusing the Vatican's hold over the people. My only complaint, like others opinions, there were no mention of where things went wrong, only highlighting the good things.  This is a very good book still and I recommend it along with another book called Big Chief Elizabeth (which is more of the history of the new World and Elizabeth's funding of the voyages to capture more land).

</review>
<review>

Elizabeth I CEO was a wonderful reading that inspired me a lot. My wife and I kept fighting on who gets to to have the book first, it is one of those books that you hate to leave unfinished. The lessons of Elizabeths leadership are compelling and quite inapiring.

I never thought that I would need a book on inspiration in my life, but this book indeed changed this view as well.

Excellent work

</review>
<review>

I do have a comment on history content, in response to one of other reviews I read -let's keep in mind that, if it wasn't for Elizabeth I there would be no empire to pass along to James I-England would be swallowed up by either France or Spain. Surely, Elizabeth I made a few mistakes like every other monarch, but they fade out in comparison to her achievements. She truly did build an empire, and serves as a great example of a true leader.
Tudor schola

</review>
<review>

Oriana Fallaci died recently and loss will be felt in the Europe that decided to ignore her once she voiced her criticism of it mindless poltical correctness that threatens its very existence. "The Force Of Reason" is a call for Europe to wake up and fight back against Islamization.

Fallaci knew her time was limited when she wrote this book. In a way, it is to be regretted that not only was she aware of her impending death, but that she decided to do her own English version. Fallaci's English was not up to the task and, as a result, the book is an unnecessarily difficult read which will understandably put many people off.

Too bad because Fallaci's message is important. Fallaci correcetly perceives the menace of Islam in Europe. She recognizes the mass migration of Muslims and their refusal to assimilate as an invasion intended to conquer Europe. She laments, loudly and shrilly, the craven cowardice of the politically correct left. What really infuriated Europe's so-called liberals was Fallaci's tracing of their history back through their origins as socialists, fascists and communists. Fallaci distinguishes between the "left" of pre-Bolshevik days and the "left" that emerged after WWII and predominates in Europe today.

Fallaci engages in a lot of self-referential comments, talking about her "martyrdom". She was badly treated by the intellectuals in Europe who did not like her message. Her self-pity is understandable, but a distraction.

Fallaci's message is simple in the end: "The decline of intelligence is he decline of Reason . . . Refusing to admit that all Islam is a pond inside which we are drowning, in fact, is against Reason.A"

Fallaci provides more than ample evidence of her latter point which proves the former. Many will not appreciate Fallaci's message, but no one will be able to disprove her facts.

Jerr

</review>
<review>

A comprhensive expose' of Islam and rebukes the traditional thinking in America that the Muslims are "just like us"

</review>
<review>


If you are up to challenge your own traditional views and the daily bland diet of information that is churned by the conventional media and pundits on the oral and written media then you are for a ride!
The author compels critical action from her readers.


If you are up to challenge your very  own traditional views on Islam, and not satisfied with the bland diet of information that is churned by the conventional media and pundits .... Then you are for a ride!

Whether you agree with author or not, she compels you to critical mental and emotional reaction.

</review>
<review>

I used to admire this woman.  She was smart.  She inspired me when I was young.  It is a shame, however, to see her intellectual decline in her last years.  Was this the effect cancer had on her brain?  First, I can't understand how a book written with more heart and passion than brain and analysis can be called "The Force of Reason."   She appeals to our feelings and fears more to our rationality.  Second, she conviniently chooses historical events that only prove her point sometimes ignoring undeniable facts.  For instance, she quietly forgot the role of Christianity in the Conquest of the Americas and the slaughter of the Indian races.  Or the role religion played to justify the worst atrocities of the European powers.  And what about the survival of Catholicism in Spain in spite of eight centuries  of Muslim domination?  Yes, there were churches and  synagogues in Muslim Spain.  This manifesto doesn't look very different from those fascists wrote about Jews in Europe in the 1930s.   Poor woman.

</review>
<review>

Oriana Fallaci is no longer among the living. We will have to do without her unrelenting opposition to Islamic nihilism.  She died in the United States.  Her fellow Europeans essentially expelled her from the continent.  They made Fallaci's final years a living hell.  As an ex-Catholic, I am more then a little irritated by the Roman Church's capitulation to the radical Muslims.  Fallaci described herself as a Christian atheist and was more of a defender of the "true faith" than its own hierarchy!  "This Catholic Church without which the Islamization of Europe, the degeneration of Europe into Eurabia, could have never have developed. This Catholic Church that remains silent even when the crucifix gets insulted," added the author.

Fallaci rebukes the politically correct and cowardly European culture which is unwilling to combat Islam's racist, sexist, and homophobic doctrines.  Fallaci quotes Denis Diderot's accurate description of Islam as "the enemy of reason."  The anti-intellectualism and contempt for secular learning pervading the religion of Mohammed cannot be disputed.  What has the Muslim world accomplished in the last 400-500 years?  Will its more militant adherents return us to the misery of the 8th Century?   Are there any life affirming moderate Muslims?  If so, where are they?  Oriana Fallaci deserves a statue erected in her honor.  Will her memory encourage us during our inevitable future trials and tribulations?  I strongly believe that this will indeed be the case.

David Thomson
Flares into Darknes

</review>
<review>

"The Force of Reason," by the late Oriana Fallaci, is an interesting book which provides criticisms of Islam while exploring the possibility of widespread conquest of Western civilizations and Europe by the Muslims. Apparently, the opposition was not too pleased with "The Force of Reason" or her previous publication "The Rage and the Pride," as they have attempted numerous times to have the text banned and Fallaci has also been the proud recipient of numerous threatening messages as a result of this, yet the text has become a bestseller in Europe and, apparently, North America as well, as the book is currently ranked at #8 on this site's bestseller list as of today. She shares some of these ideas with her readers by alluding herself to writer from centuries ago named Master Cecco who, in pursuit of standing up for his beliefs, was thought to be a witch who was later burned at the stake and then the reader is treated to a wealth of information concerning the Troy burnings. Fallaci wastes no time is sharing her views against Islamic terrorists and looks with contempt upon any civilization or religion that does not do everything within the scope of its power to stand up to them

</review>
<review>

This is high octane stuff and not for the faint of heart.  Ms. Fallaci pulls no punches

</review>
<review>

Oriana Fallaci is the Rocky Marciano of Italian letters.  To her, the best defense is a good offense.  If you're pro-Islam you will hate this book.  If you're anti-Islam you will love it.  If you're sitting on the fence you're in for a rough ride.

I've never read anything like this book.  The pugnacious Ms. Fallaci picks you right up out of the crowd and drops you in the center of the ring where the fight is taking place.  Her emotionally charged first person style draws you into her mind, heart and soul.  You soon feel you are fighting for your very life, right alongside her.

It's been years since I've read a book I just couldn't put down.  Had to take a brief break for some pressing concerns and grabbed the book up again as soon as possible.  Another stint of intense and exhilarating reading, and finally radical Islam was left reeling on the ropes.

Winner by a knockout, Champion of Polemical Prose, Ms. Oriana Fallaci.

ADDENDUM

Sept. 18th Obit BLOG by David Horowitz on his website: "A great warrior is gone - Friday, September 15, 2006 9:21 AM Oriana Fallaci has died after a long struggle with cancer at the age of seventy-seven. Her last years were spent in the United States in part because she was hunted in her own beloved Italy because of her war against the Islamic jihad. A fatwa calling for death was issued an Islamic jihadist; an Italian judge attempted to put her in jail for offending the invaders. She found refuge in the United States. But she also embraced America as her homeland in exile because she understood that America was the global center of resistance to the Islamic threat. The attacks of 9/11 inspired her. From her sick bed she wrote two polemics -- The Rage and The Pride and The Force of Reason which are clarion calls to action to defend the West. If we prevail in this battle to defend our civilization they will be remembered in the same way that Tom Paine's Common Sense is remembered as a summons to Americans to defend their freedom. Orianna Fallaci was a woman of unbelievable courage. We will not see her like again soon. May we honor her by heeding her warnings and dedicating ourselves to the struggle to which she gave her final hours."

</review>
<review>

This is Ms. Fallaci's forceful reason against the rising and insidious spread of radical Islam into Europe which she refers to as Eurabia. Does she overplay her hand or is she merely telling it as it is?  Are Europe's leaders, especially in her native Italy, biased towards Muslim sympathies in opposition to Christian values?  An argument not likely to be considered by Muslims or their leaders, though the Muslim side should take note that: 1.  opposing and contrary views are inherent to the Western tradition, and 2. many non-Muslims in the West remain skeptical about Muslim claims to be a religion of peace, while their mullahs propagate ingorance and hateful attitudes to non-Muslims; that women are accorded merely partial human rights, depending on the degree of fundamentalist view; and that violent terrorism is an acceptable form of mediating political and social "grievances"

</review>
<review>

Very informative - and scary. Ms Fallaci offers firsthand observances of what's going on and what we may expect if we don't wake up.
Scary to read about a minority group within a country browbeating the citizens to do just as they want. If the powers-that-be don't develop spines, we'll all be in trouble.
Am waiting for Ms. Fallaci's next book

</review>
<review>

I found this book to be so helpful that I ordered 20 copies for my team

</review>
<review>

I listened to a CD from the library.  Then bought the book, simply to get the one-time use ID code required to take the test.   For about 20 bucks, you get a quick guesstimate of your strengths.    I'm a bit disappointed, at the lack of direction, e.g.
Deliberative
Ideation
Learner
Analytical
Intellection...With only a small paragraph describing each strength.

If you are serious, I would suggest spending serious money.  For example, about 4 years ago, I paid $2500 for a psychologist to administer a full battery of IQ tests to my son (6 year-old taking 6 or 7 hours of tests)  For $2500 I received a 30 page detailed report on how to best teach my gifted son.  If you are looking for TRUE INSIGHT as to career change, I would think that you would be better off investing some real money.  Twenty bucks only gets you thinking about a journey, but provides little in the way of a road map.  If it happens to help you, great. To me, the book is more an appetizer than a full meal.  The website informs you that you can have additional guidance for about $2000.  If you have that kind of coin, I would advise you skip the book and have testing administered by a psychologist in your neighborhood, so that you get advice tailored specifically to YOU.


</review>
<review>

We are a small nonprofit and have all read this book, taken the test and know and value our strengths  - We use this knowledge of each other in our team and individual work, in thinking about our learning and what is next - for our organization and personal growth.

The Support Center for Nonprofit Management in New Yor

</review>
<review>

There are thousands of self-help books in the management section of your local bookstore, covering a bewildering spectrum of ideas about how to bring out the best in people. Few of them are helpful, beyond trite statements about human behavior, and even fewer of them are based on more than a modicum of research. Now, Discover Your Strengths is an excellent book on both counts. The Gallup organization has studied excellence in many fields for over thirty years. This book summarizes some of that research from the perspective of identifying and bolstering people's talents.

The writers worked hard to make the book clear, precise, and readable. The book never sacrifices clarity, even when faced with complex ideas. I had to read the book twice to make sure that the straightforward writing wasn't masking conceptual problems. It wasn't. The writers lay out the main idea right away; they write that "to excel in your chosen field and to find lasting satisfaction in doing so, you will need to...become an expert at finding and describing and applying and practicing and refining your strengths." They go on to describe precisely what they mean by "strengths," then they give you a tool to discover your own strengths by taking an on-line test.

The outstanding thing about Now, Discover Your Strengths is the foundation of research that supports it. The Gallup folks are serious about their research. The claims in this book are based on reliable studies of almost 2 million employees. If you have any doubts about their research methods, the writers supply a technical report on the StrengthsFinder tool in an appendix. I almost wet my pants with glee, reading about interrater reliability, modern test theory, and "big five" personality factors. All of this is safely ignored in favor of the practical suggestion in the main sections of the book, but it makes a skeptic like me confident in recommending this book to everyone on my team.

Here are the main reasons why I recommend this book with no reservations:

1) It's based on exhaustive research

2) It comes with a free test...a similar tool  would cost hundreds of dollars if you bought it from a career counselor or management consultant.

3) It is carefully written and eminently practical.

Now, go buy yourself a copy, take the test, and start a strengths revolution at your own workplace

</review>
<review>

Just when I figured I had seen it all, "Now Discover Your Strengths" comes along with a new outlook and a dynamic paradigm. A unique difference from others in its genre is the "Strengths Finder Profile" (can be interfaced on the internet).  It covers many different personalities of leaders with concentration of five dominant traits.  Chapter 4, page 83, does a fascinating job with detail explanations of thirty four "themes" of leadership.

If I may paraphrase Vince Lombardi (the legendary football coach): "In practice I do not worry about what other teams are doing. If we concentrate on what we do best, the game will take care of itself." I found that philosophy to be the essence of this book.  Focus on your strengths instead of trying to change weaknesses.

It is amazing how many companies make this mistake with their employees.  When trying to improve sales, and reduce turnover, they focus on the weakest link (the bottom) when more productivity can be realized by rewarding, emulating, and promoting the best producers.

Those who have been obsessed with what is wrong in their lives will discover a better way is to learn what works best for themselves and others. The authors' ideas are motivational, inspirational and can be implemented by anyone.

There are some revealing comparisons in the book to another prototype leader (Warren Buffett). Readers will be surprised and infinitely impressed with the key reasons for his success.

This book should be a must read for anyone in a leadership position looking to improve the bottom line. It is very well done and has no comparison.  Reading it gave me strength, buy it and discover yours!

Reginald V. Johnson, author, "How To Be Happy, Successful And Rich"

</review>
<review>

If you've ever wondered what your true talents (i.e. strengths) are, or wondered why you act and react as you do, this book is for you.  In my office, we use the book as a career development tool, and it enables us to help guide our staff in the direction that they are most talented, and therefore, most successful in the long-term.  It has helped improve morale and communication.  Additionally, this book helped me understand and appreciate myself on a new level, and it helped open doors of deeper understanding with my family.  I'd buy this book for a business or personal gift any day!  It's rewarding to have an understanding your strengths and then be able to act on them in a positive way

</review>
<review>

"Finding Your Strengths" may be Marcus Buckingham's finest work to date. Buckingham and Clifton have succeeded in bringing to life an idea that is enormously practical and helpful.  Using themes as a means of describing one's gifts, Buckingham and Clifton have given me enormous insights about who I am and why I do the things I do. More importantly, they have taught me not only to accept my weaknesses but how to management both my strengths and weaknesses, so that, I can learn to be better than anyone else in my strengths.  Thank you Marcus and Donald.

</review>
<review>

A fantastic book of weekness and strength, a human being is a mixture of weekness and strength equally and those among us who take work with thier strength come out successful regardless of the profession they are involve in, they can focus on thier strength rather than weakness, positive attitude regardless all the adversaries of a life. I learned a great deal out of this Marcus Buckingham book and I strongly recommend to the book lovers don't miss this one

</review>
<review>

By:  Jeffrey W. Bennett, Founder of LayMentor and author of Under the Lontar Palm.

This book turned me upside down.  What a novel concept, to focus on what our strenghts are.  I used excerpt from this excellent book in a time management presentation for my coworkers.  How else can you perform at your peak unless you are doing something you absolutely love.  When you know your strenghts, it's easier to focus on being successful where you are.  If you are concerned about weaknesses, then you are spinning your wheels.  It's like Pareto's Principle.  You need to focus your efforts on the 20% that makes 80% of the results and this books shows you how

</review>
<review>

This book has its good points. If anything, it helps you put into words what you want  from a supervisor, but it is not very accurate. The online test does not account for a difference between when 2 of their options are both exactly like you, or if they don't describe you at all. This messes up the results, and it did not describe me very well. I am not just in denial. I have taken a lot of personality type tests, like the Keirsey Temperment sorter and have a pretty good idea of my strengths. So, although this book is pretty good in making you understand the importance of incouraging your strengths, it still leaves you wondering about how you fit in to their terminology.

As for using this book as a manager to better serve your employees, I'v seen it done and it does not necessarily work because the strengths spit out for people were not wholly accurate. The company I work for has done this, and most of the people who were shifted around to better serve their strengths (according to this book) are very unhappy in their new positions.

Your money can be spent better elsewhere. I say its only worth about $10

</review>
<review>

Having attended one of Walter's workshops on book selection, I look forward to his updated books.  He is, as he says, opinionated, but he backs up his opinions with solid expertise.  Unlike other "guide" books, his is a lot of fun to read, which in this over-information age, is an important consideration when choosing reference books

</review>
<review>

If you're looking for clear, fun, expert advice about the books children truly enjoy look no further.  Every parent, grandparent and teacher should have this on their shelf.  This is THE best book to buy for a baby shower gift

</review>
<review>

Being aware myself that men talk about their seed when it would be more accurate to talk about their pollen I was intrigued to come across such an extensive theory based on this very mistaken metaphor.
This book is a great read and certainly we need to understand human nature and include it in our understanding of our history and ourselves today. McElvaine makes a good first stab at this and I will not repeat his argument again but point out a few important errors.

The faults with the book concern the biology, both the factual errors and the lack of real exploration. The descriptions of the mating behavior of primates are not fully correct, especially regarding gorillas - the silverback has a very small penis and testicles and little interest in sex except when a female is ovulating which means at intervals of three to four years, hardly comparable to humans. McElvaine also says that animals rarely kill members of their own species but Dian Fossey stated that 25% of gorilla mortality was due to the male gorilla - he kills both other males and infants if he ousts a resident male.

The biggest error is that apes are, in fact, not matrilineal. In chimpanzees and bonobos the males remain for life in their natal group and the females leave at puberty. This is most likely the case for hominids and humans ie human females have hardly ever been matilineal and had the benefit of this base for kin or female-female bonding.

McElvaine makes a big case for human 'mounting' behavior which may be valid but amongst other primate species there is no universal evidence for it correlating directly with dominance and submission. Sometimes the dominant individual is mounted, sometimes females mount their female 'friends', sometimes a presentation is a way to give an olfactory signal by a dominant. Also, presentations that are submissive are very different from the upright, assertive, four-square stance of a female soliciting a copulation.

These errors do not greatly undermine any of the arguments but do show that when we are going to use biology in an argument we need to know more than just a little biology. The fact that human males have nearly always spent their whole life with kin when females have had to join a new group to breed is an enormously important factor in the repression of human females and the dominance of men and masculine values - including men fighting over possession of such females. Looking at primate behavior tends to show that the roots of some of our behavior were very deep and strong well before agriculture came along.

Also, even if we do think more about the male/female spectrum of human nature there may well be a number of males at the masculine end of the spectrum who are not striving to be anything other than they naturally are - ie are extreme males who simply have little or no capacity for feminine values. If these are the dangerous males then the best we can do is to stop allowing them and their virtual 100% masculinity to be the role models for the more average male - or even the average human.

McElvaine's points about the false metaphors we use,  male-biased language and attitudes, misogyny, a male creator, the belittling of feminine values and behaviors and the impossible way men try to be 'notawoman' are certainly strong and in many ways obvious when pointed out. And it is surely foolish to think that such a lop-sided species can hope for anything other than toppling over in the mightiest of Falls.

McElvaine offers a few ideas about how we might be able to overcome our maladaptive proclivities but it is an enormous task both to recognize our human errors and for men to ever overcome their maladaptive inheritance and genuinely not feel so much contempt for the feminine in human nature. It is hard to imagine the necessary changes coming any time soon.

A highly recommended read and hopefully it will open up essential further explorations in this area

</review>
<review>

I liked this book, it definitely gets you thinking about things differently.  I found it very interesting to look at how society and culture changed, including the dynamics between women and men as a result of, or coinciding with the onset of agriculture.
I would also highly recommend the book, Guns, Germs and Steel for a look at how society evolves and changes in response to similarities and differences in climate, population, technology.
Both these books offer very interesting perspectives, not hum drum at all.

</review>
<review>

This book has been especially useful for a university paper I was working on. It passed some time since that but the concepts I read are still fresh in my memory, since it were concepts I've been suspicious for a long time. One might think that the author forced a note in affirming the male dominance is caused by the male "impotence", but if you take an impartial look you'll find he is right. Don't get me wrong: I have no problems in beeing a man, but I'm honest enough to recognize that the western world is based on a patriarchal figure, on a concept of a man that needs constantly to prove to himself and to others that he is no woman, that he is not a sissy or a gay - wich is even worse -, but, on the contrary, that he is a real macho, a sex machine that can "score" as many women as he wants since they are so inferior that they get completely overwhelmed by his mere presence. It's sad but it's the reality.
Fortunately, things are changing. In Spain we had notice of the first girl (she's 16) that joined a senior male soccer team as an advancee. In Germany, Angela Merkel is the first woman to be nominated chancelor. In the great majority of western countries, the armed forces do accept equally male and female recruits.
It reminds me the movie of 007 "Goldeneye", when the Admiral said to M (a woman) that she didn't had the "balls" to stand in face of the situation, to wich she replied that she had the advantage of not having to be thinking with them all the time...
It would be nice if in the future our leaders will think less with the "balls" and more with the brains..

</review>
<review>

This is a sad effort and sadder still that these ideas were published. The fact that any publisher believes that readers of social history would be interested in such a twisted analysis of the nature of man/woman and the development of societies is indeed sad. McElvaine is a longtime self promoting boor stuck in a jerkwater academic environment with way too much time for idle pondering. His imagination worked overdrive to produce this piece of fantasy. I guess if any of us had enough time on our hands we too could construct elaborate theories on the 'nature of things' and put enough of a self-loathing feminist slant on it to attract a fringe readership. That's what happened here. Don't waste your time. A disturbing aspect to this is that he's teaching the next generation of leaders

</review>
<review>

This is the book I've been looking for. It explains the world we're living in right now. And where we've been. This book really gets to the root of the basic problem: men arn't able to be men because we're afraid of our femininity. So we're half-men, and we're so [angry] at being half-men that we take it out on women. We blame them for it. That's it in a nutshell. And it all started thousands of years ago, with the agricultural revolution, when we lost our place in society. We were out of a job. And we've been playing catch-up ever since. And still are today: it's still going on. NOTE: I'm writing this on the 10th day of the insane war we're waging on Iraq. After reading this book, you'll understand why these insecure, infantile itiots mask their impotence by waging war. We are at this moment witnessing the catastrophic consequences of the hyper-masculinity that he talks about. As long as we define man as "not-a-woman," we're [stuck.

</review>
<review>

This is not one of the better books I have read on history that predates mankind.  Before reading the book I knew that women were the first farmers.  The author uses this fact as the basis for thousands of years of discrimination against women.  I do not buy the argument

</review>
<review>

After reading an editorial in the Washington Post written by this author concerning the Taliban's treatment of women, I had to read this book.  This is truly an important and timely book that touches on everything that vexes our society today - women's rights, where men fit into the modern society, racism, and how religion has played an unfortunate part in keeping women down, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.  It is a dense and challenging, but worthwhile read.  And when you get your copy, pass it around.  It should be shared.  PS. Someone should tell Bill Maher about this one.  It's right up his alley

</review>
<review>

This book is a treasury of true American cooking, with the recipes our mothers and grandmothers loved,and that make fond memories for us. Some are still favorites for family and entertaining (Pineapple Upside-Down Cake, Stroganoff Casserole), others beg to be rediscovered (Imagine! Coca-Cola Salad), all provide fascinating reading, with their accompanying histories, orginal ads and illustrations.  and quot;American Century and quot; has rapidly become one of my favorite cookbooks, both for browsing and for adding to my collection of recipes that please and amaze

</review>
<review>

I use this book as a reference guide for my high school American History and African American Studies classes. Everything in the world seems to be here including an old favorite from the 1960s, 'Puree Mongole.' This cookbook is easy to read and most recipes are simple to follow. The best part for me, as a Social Studies teacher, is the gem of the history lessons and time lines associated with all the food preparations. A real pleasure and a book that is priceless if you like the history of American cuisine

</review>
<review>

It is a good book to find popular American recipes.  Cookies and quickbreads are delicious, and my husband likes the casserole chapter.  As I was born and raised outside the U.S., the tidbits about American culinary history in the book are very fascinating.  I had to try exotics like soup mongole (a Campbell combination soup), and I admit it is pretty good.  The ethnic recipes that entered American mainstream are often Americanized, but it should not be surprising because it is the American Century Cookbook after all

</review>
<review>

If your looking for it it's in this book and a whole lot more.  My favorite recipes from childhood like grasshopper pie and wafer cakes even that strange perfection salad is there.  There are recipes for mystery  cakes, heavenly hash, oh just tons of recipes each with a preface which  talks about the recipes history.  If you like history and you like food  this is a treasure.  There is a timeline of food happenings and section on  the international influences on the American palette

</review>
<review>

I recently received a copy of The American Century Cookbook.  My wife and I have several dust covered recipe books that are largely ignored when it is time to cook up something new.  After one quick shuffle through this  book however, we found ourself sitting together and going through the book  as if it were, well what it is, an intriguing history book that accents its   and quot;flavor and quot; with numerous recipes, pictures and facts.  Several of  my friends, including my parents and my in-laws will be receiving their own  copy of this wonderful historical treasure. I may even have to buy myself  another copy because my wife likes to dogear pages that she wants to come  back to.  In this case it would have been easier to dogear those that she  did not want to return to

</review>
<review>

When I started cooking about three years ago, I had absolutely NO experience to draw from (except for grilling and pancakes--the two CAMPING dishes I learned from my Dad).   Because I did not want to give half my  salary to fast food restaurants and eat from stryofoam for the rest of my  life, I decided I ought learned how to cook.  That is when I started  collecting cookbooks. I started with Cooking For Dummies and went on from  there.  I quickly found that I had a knack for cooking and soon came to  enjoy it.  As my cookbook collection grew, I quickly discovered that there  were two types of cookbooks:  Those you cook from and those you read.  This  is the first cookbook that I have found is good for both.  The recipes  included are fabulous and it is a great book to browse.  The recipes come  on all levels so the cooking klutzes and the Julia Childs alike will be  able to use it.  When you buy this book, and you certainly SHOULD buy this  book, go directly to the recipe for blondies.  I had never heard of them  before but they are cheap and easily made.  After I made the first batch, I  made a double batch to take to work where I had just started.  Let's just  say it made breaking the ice in a large office a lot easier.  Thanks, Ms.  Anderson

</review>
<review>

I've just spent a delightful journey reading Jean Anderson's  and quot;American Century Cookook. and quot; What a treasure, especially for those of us who savoured many of the dishes of this period--but lost the recipes!  Now we have them in an interesting, easy-to-read and-make recipe roundup.  My copy ofJean Anderson's cookbook is tabberd with post-its to preprare  favorite recipes soon--especially Shrimp de Johnghe (page 120) and  StroganoffCasserole (page 151). I hope others will enjoy this cookbook as  much as I. Anne Anderson (no relation!

</review>
<review>

I heard all of these great things about this book etc...... So I got a copy and let me tell you it was a huge let down. I can honestly say it had loads of disgusting passages that I did not find at all entertaining. The "bowel movement" chapter was totally repulsive. I found it self indulgent, he had a crappy upbringing, that does not make for a good book

</review>
<review>

If you like strange stories, you will love "Running with Scissors" because it is just plain weird.  After reading this book, you will have a feeling that you just returned from the Twilight Zone.
Marty Wurtz
Author of Deceptions and Betrayal

</review>
<review>

How one child can overcome such a nightmarish childhood to become a productive adult is almost beyond my comprehension. Any one of the trials described throughout this young life would be enough to derail most people.  Yet the author adapted to his situation the best he could in order to survive and kept his sense of humor about it at the same time.  I didn't find the book funny in the least but I got the humor with which the story was told.

This book was a two-night read for me, not because I couldn't put it down but because I felt the need to hurry up and get it over with because it was so disturbing.  I can't believe nothing was done about the living conditions of these kids and I frequently felt sick reading it.  But truth is stranger than fiction and knowing that it actually happened made me stick with it. I'm glad I did.  I was rooting for our hero and he made it out alive, which was no easy feat.


</review>
<review>

I picked up this book read the reviews on the cover and was up for a funny book.  The book was anything but funny.  I read about half, up to
the point where he was in a mental institution and could not read anymore.
I consider myself fairly liberal but this was too over the top for me.  The graphic details of his homosexual love affair with a 33 yr. old was just sick. I am not sure where this belongs as a novel or a memoir but I
had to throw it away because I did not want my children to get a hold of it.  I found the whole thing disturbing and failed to see the humor in these sick, mentally ill characters. I started hating them for the abuse they put their children through

</review>
<review>

This book is great.  Augusten Burroughs is genius, and a great storyteller!  I couldn't put it down

</review>
<review>

One of the things I love about James Patterson's books is his prose. It's a no-nonsense, no frills, "I am what I am" voice that doesn't try to entice you into the story with a lot of flowery language. In Judge  and  Jury, the story is written from a first-person perspective: that of FBI Senior Agent Nick Pellisante.  For years, Nick has been on the trail of a powerful Mafia don, named Dominic Cavello, and his efforts are about to pay off.  Nick trails Cavello to the wedding of his favorite niece and successfully captures him.

The story picks up the pace after Andie is introduced as one of the jurors selected for the court case against Cavello. Andie is a single mom and an out-of-work actress who is trying to make ends meet with low-paying acting jobs that her agent can get for her.  The suspense heats up when Cavello's people hires a world-renown assassin to help him get out of jail.  The assassin is successful and what follows is a devastating tragedy that forever changes the lives of those involved. Cavello's ruthlessness, however, puts him squarely in the path of an enraged mother who will stop at nothing to get her revenge.

Judge  and  Jury is an easy read but also very entertaining. You'll not be disappointed.

</review>
<review>

Great book one of Patterson's best I had a hard time putting it down once I started on it.  Combined some of the legal ease of John Grisham.
Really enjoyed reading this book

</review>
<review>

Oh, this was a grabber.  Nothing's missing in this thrill a minute saga - which has been voted "the book I most enjoyed while staying in Barbara's guest room."  Two guests now have been up all night reading "Judge and Jury".  It's featured prominently on my guest room book shelf with a strong recommendation that if they want to read a good yarn, this is it.  Although everyone reports favorably on the book, it does make for some pretty droopy-eyed siteseeing the next day.  I loved the premise of this one - felt I knew the characters, and I thoroughly enjoyed the trip to Ushuaia.  I never knew what the end of the world was like, but now I feel I've been there.  As a writer myself, I marvel at James Patterson's output. I guess if he experiences writer's block, he just says, "Here, Andrew, you write for a while."  Whatever the procedure, they hit an ace with this one.  And, what's really great is that while I'm still riding the crest of the wave on Judge and Jury, the news reports another new book about to be launched - "Cross".  I can't wait!

</review>
<review>

Once again, James Patterson has us on the edge of our seats in another page-turner.  He has created a brand new villain equally as detestable as Gary Soneji in the persona of mob boss Dominic Cavello.  When Nicholas Pellisante a/k/a Nicky Smiles joins forces with the sole survivor of a bus carrying the jurors for Cavello's trial which has been bombed by one of Cavello's guns for hire to catch the escaped Cavello, the reader is in for the ride of a lifetime.

</review>
<review>

If you've read other Patterson mysteries and enjoyed them, you'll like this one, too.  There are no real surprises--this novel trods the well-worn mystery formula, but does so entertainingly.  Yes, there are legal bloopers, but people don't read novels like this to learn the law.  If you haven't read any Patterson, you'll probably like this if you like John Grisham, for instance.  These are plot-driven novels with not too much description or fine character development.  If you like Law  and  Order, you'll probably like this, too

</review>
<review>

I enjoyed the book, I like the suspense, the connection with the characters, I enjoyed James Patterson suspense novels in the way he writes them and how the characters have their own identity and pesonaility

</review>
<review>

This book, like most all of James Patterson's books, kept me on the edge of my seat!  I couldn't put it down

</review>
<review>

An engrossing story well written with twists and turns that make the reader want to turn the page or start the next chapter. I personally found "JUDGE  and  JURY" a more rewarding read than "BEACH ROAD"

</review>
<review>

As judge  and  jury, I would highly recommend this book.  Patterson can't write a bad book, but this is one of his best

</review>
<review>

The Watcher and Other Stories is a collection of three different but thematically interlinked stories.  I personally thought that the title story was the most intriguing.  The Watcher deals with our protagonist "watching" the voting procedures in a home for invalids/deranged/etc.  The home is a mini city and becomes a type of microcosm of Italian society.  Smog deals again with the futility of human life through pollution.  The Argentine Ants is a type of mock horror story.  All of the above are extremely well written and executed.  Although I did enjoy this book, I would suggest that readers unfamiliar with Calvino try some of his masterpieces first, and then move onto the minutiae of works such as these.

</review>
<review>

Grisham departs from his usual genre to write a book with a strong sense of place and time (Arkansas, 1950s). The events of a summer of cotton picking unfold gradually through the narration of young Luke Chandler.
The author creates much the same feel that you get from Rawling's The Yearling, though this is not really a coming-of-age story. As you sit on the porch listening to the Cardinals baseball game on the radio, you become one of the family in this book. You hear the local gossip, worry about the uncle in Korea, and feel the desperation of a struggling farm family about to lose their crop.
The relationships and events become complex with the addition of the migrant Mexican workers, the hillbilly family and a varied neighbors and town folks.
I'm not quite sure what the painting of the old house was supposed to signify, but the relationships held my attention as the story flowed and unfurled through the eyes of Luke.

</review>
<review>

While reading A Painted House, I had to keep reminding myself that this was a Grisham book!!  It honestly was not like anything else of his that I've read, and I was happily surprised.

The story of a farming family and the workers they take on that summer to help with picking cotton, is one that sweeps you up almost immediately.  The characters are so rich in description and the dialogue so compelling that before you know it you're thrown into the middle of the story that centers around a young boy who is trying his best to interpret the world around him.  In the meantime he's growing up a bit too fast.

The conclusion tied the perfect bow on this present of a story.  I'd definitely recommend this book to someone, especially Grisham fans who may have a bit of trepidation in reading something not centered around law.


</review>
<review>

John Steinbeck is one of my favorite all-time authors (The Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden).  Grisham has managed to capture Steinbeck's style and weave a tale that captures the reader right from the first paragraph!

Luke is a 7 year old farm boy who dreams of leaving the farm and playing baseball for the St. Louis Cardinals.  His family are cotton farmers and every summer they hire a group of "hill" people and Mexican migrants to help them pick the year's cotton crop.  The work is grueling (long hours in the hot sun) and Luke must pitch in.  The only respite Luke gets is a trip to town on Saturday afternoons where he can get a coke and see a movie (usually a Gene Autry western or something along that genre).

What happens is that the group hired has a scary dangerous man (Hank) who loves to beat up and maim people, a young girl named Talley who likes to charm young Luke and a simple minded boy (I forgot his name) who decides that he will paint Luke's house (it has never been painted in 50 years and thus the title of the book comes from this).

Luke is exposed to a good deal of secrets (two murders and the knowledge that his brother who is away fighting in Korea may have gotton a neighboring 15 year old pregnant).

The writing is superb and it excellently captures a forgotten time (life on a farm in the early 50's).  I liked this book better than Grisham's courtroom dramas and I hope he has some more of these type of novels up his sleeve

</review>
<review>

I really enjoyed this book and, not being a Grisham fan (AT ALL), this is really saying something.  I don't really care for courtroom dramas and my husband finally cajoled me into reading A Painted House by promising that there was not a single courtroom scene to be found.  And right he was.  This story was touching and fast-paced.  It was enjoyable along the same lines as To Kill a Mockingbird (the only courtroom story I've ever enjoyed) in its background and overall feel.  I didn't like the ending - not because it wasn't good and not because it didn't flow with the rest of the book (a lot of novel endings these days seem rushed and thrown together) but because it's not the way I wished it would go.  All-in-all a great book and highly recommendable

</review>
<review>

A Painted House is a truely refreshing departure from the typical Grisham novel.  I do believe Twain would have been pleased.  Sp may parallels (not the least of which is the painting).  Not since The Client (another Grisham favorite) has there been such an engaging juvenile protagonist.  Like some reviews, I found it hard to imagine that Luke was a seven-year-old.  I think any other child that age would have a few more sleepless nights witnessing some of the events in the novel and keeping them secret as long as he does.  But the atmosphere painted by Grisham draws the reader right into the backwater Arkansas area in the hot, humid fields.  Humorous, touching, and above all riveting

</review>
<review>

Fast pace and at times intense.  Kept my interest through the entire book

</review>
<review>

One of those very lovely coming of age stories. This was truly an enjoyable book. It has been 4 or 5 years since I have read it and the characters and unforgettable scenes still linger in my head.

Grisham steps out of the box and encircles a world of writing that I would like to see more of from him. This story is supposed to be loosely based on his own upbringing and the passion and honesty of his experiences are transposed into an adventurous tale.

I agree with the other reviewer that the boy shouldn't have been 7 years old and more like 10 or 11. (I have 4 boys myself). I think this is the only weak spot in the story. It just isn't convincing enough to me that he is that young, especially in 1952 when a 7 year old was truly a 7 year old

</review>
<review>

I read the other reviews praising this book and have to assume that I was not in the right space to appreciate this book when I read it. This was the most boring piece of literature ever written. I know it was a period piece/coming of age story etc., but pages upon pages of people picking cotton, talking about cotton, and talking about picking cotton...zzzzzz....it took me forever to finish because I kept passing out and having nightmares of- yep, cotton

</review>
<review>

I realize this is an old title, I've not had a chance to get to all of the back list, I only first read Hiaasen a couple years ago.

Anyway, Hiaasen is a writer, pure and simple, but he also has a good idea of what goes on in the human mind and behind closed doors.  That kind of cynicism and satirical writing can be horrible if not handled well, but he pulls it off and I've enjoyed the several titles I've had a chance to read.

This one was funny and pointed out some of the absurd things we let happen in our houses of government.  While the story centers around a stripper, it is really a story about corruption and politics.

In any case, if you haven't had a chance to check out this author, this is a good a place as any I suppose and I give this one a strong recommendation

</review>
<review>

The mystery of why every single Carl Hiaasen book hasn't been made into a movie has finally been solved.  Suffice it to say that Mr. Hiaasen should be allowed to slap Demi Moore until her head falls off, and his readers should have the right to go Skink on anyone else who took part in the debacle that was "Strip Tease" the movie.

Unbeknownst to stripper Erin Grant, she is at the center of a big cover-up the night one drunk beats up another with a champagne bottle while she's onstage.  The bottle wielder is none other than US Congressman David Dilbeck, who heads the committee that keeps sugar prices artificially high and ensuring fat profits for corporate sugar farmers, who in turn pay their workers disgustingly low wages.   Dilbeck is recognized by one customer who is so infatuated with Erin he offers to blackmail the congressman into helping her get custody of her daughter, which she lost in the divorce because of the job she had to take in order to pay her attorney fees.  When the customer disappears, his body later found by Florida detective Al Garcia while on vacation in Montana, Garcia links the death to a missing attorney and his cousin, who happened to be the fiance of the man who was bludgeoned by Dilbeck with the champagne bottle.  At the same time, the bouncer at Erin's strip club, the Eager Beaver, had been attempting to earn a huge settlement by planting a roach in a carton of yogurt.  His attorney happened to be the same one who went missing.  Erin's ex also goes off the deep end, his drug habit and wheelchair stealing getting out of control as he gets closer and closer to losing it.  There's quite a cast of characters, between the bigshots behind the scenes keeping Dilbeck's career on track to the cast of dancers and crooked managers of both the Eager Beaver and its rival club, the Flesh Farm.  It's great entertainment all the way, which just makes me wonder how the unskilled moron who hacked this book into a screenplay managed to miss it all and come up with the script that made it to the big screen.

Maybe I was a little prejudiced because of that awful excuse for a movie, but it took me a few chapters to really get into this book.  Erin was a bit much of a powerless victim at the beginning, but once she gets mad enough to start taking some drastic action, things get going and this wound up being one of my favorite Hiaasen novels.  It's got everything we expect from him:  a convoluted plot full of off-the-wall characters and plenty of laughs.  It even managed to overcome the stigma of sharing a title with the worst movie I have ever seen.

</review>
<review>

I have read several of Hiaasen's books and loved them.  They were very funny.  This one is not.  It is an endless description of naked strippers.  I found the main character, Erin, to be very unappealing.  She is just so stupid.  Her problems are all of her own creation.  And she is not funny.  I think you have to be a man to like this book.  I, as a woman, just found it exceedingly boring.  I kept waiting for it to get funny.  It never did

</review>
<review>

Hiaasen and Dave Barry in the same office...how did anything ever get done at the Miami Herald?
Another in a series of entertaining off beat adventures where the quasi anti-social "good guy" triumphs over an insensitive self absorbed, environmentally destructive no good-nick

</review>
<review>

I just finished reading Strip Tease by Carl Hiaasen. I found his writing to be typical Hiaasen which is to say it is unexpected, sarcastic and witty. In this book he tackles some of the issues that he has been known to expose in the past.

In this book his protagonist is a young woman, Erin, who loses her job at the FBI because of her husbands felonious past. She then loses her daughter when her husbands past is hidden by the very people sworn to protect her when he is 'hired' as a confidential informant.

Erin ends up turning to exotic dancing as it is the only way for her to make the money she needs to fight for her daughters' custody. I found this commentary on society, in particular our views on women's jobs and pay, to very poignant. The only way Erin can make thousands of dollars  is to expose herself to the very men who are judging her to be an unfit mother.

Following the theme of previous Hiaasen novels, the antagonists are corrupt and oblivious to the harm they cause to both the environment and their constituents. The descriptions of the misconduct is both intriguing and scary.

Hiaasen continues to impress with his sarcastic and witty style. If dark humor is what you fancy, you won't be dissapointed in this outing from one of the best writers in the genre

</review>
<review>

I would give it an 11 if I could. This book is flawless. From the first page, I was hooked. The characters were the best I had ever read in a novel. Hiaasen's humor was incredible-I found myself laughing often. Even though the movie didn't cover as much ground as the book, I think the movie was much better than most people have let on. READ THIS BOOK-you will love it. I have gone through 3 copies, I've read it so much.
[...

</review>
<review>

Recomendations for setting up a new kitchen good.  The rest is poo

</review>
<review>

Great book. Easy to read. Perfect for the beginner cook. Spiral bound so it's easy to fold the pages back. Would be nice to have some sort of menu planner, for example buy the ingredients for one dinner and some of those can be used the next day for lunch or another dinner so I dont have a box of 11 eggs left over. I could dig and find another recipe that calls for eggs too but I'm a begginer cook - I need someone to point me to the next recipe

</review>
<review>

This book is a good cookbook for poor, mac and cheese eating college students. The receipes are easy to follow and cheap to make. The only thing I didn't like about it was that is was too short...more receipes please

</review>
<review>

As Jean Patterson's sister, I was the target audience for this book. Since I was a college student with little to no experience in the kitchen, I needed help. Scrambled eggs were a nightmare, and macaroni and cheese from the box was as good as got.
After testing recipes that my sister sent me I discovered that the directions were not only easy to follow, but the results were incredible. My brownies have even been praised as the best ever tasted. Yes, even better than Grandma's. I find with this book I am eating much healthier, and saving money as well.
This book did wonders. Plus it makes a great gift for students!

</review>
<review>

These recipes are quite simple and perhaps someone who is an experienced chef might not like them, but I am a singleton who works 60 hours per week and this book is full of quick dinners, and more importantly, stuff that I can make and take to work to reheat for lunch

</review>
<review>

I don't know about college students, but I do know that I'm not sure how I've made it 33 years in life without this book.  The great thing about this cookbook is, the meals don't take 5 hours to prepare, and it's all very simple--almost as fast and easy as calling up the pizza delivery guy, and a helluva lot healthier.  I even impressed my new fiance. ;

</review>
<review>

I wish somebody had given this book to me when I left the nest. It covers all the basics and would have saved me a lot of calls to Mom. Everything is organized so well, with what you need listed at the top of the page and careful, step-by-step instructions below. The spiral cover makes it easy to set it down on the countertop and not worry about it flipping over to another page. The perfect gift for a graduate

</review>
<review>

If it wasn't for this book, I would have starved

</review>
<review>

This was another Pinker book I couldn't finish. If he was a taxi-driver he would take you from Brooklyn to New York via San Francisco. Sometimes even his asides have asides! Perhaps like pulp fiction writers he gets paid by the word

</review>
<review>

Interesting and insightful. However it can occasionally lack clarity, lose the thread of what is being said. Even so, this is well worth snapping up for a summer read. Especially so if you have not read this kind of stuff before

</review>
<review>

To paraphrase from preface's the famous Dr. Noam Chomsky's (a personal hero) suggestion regarding our ignorance, we do not have any idea  how this vast mystery called the mind could be solved.  I have read this book the year it first came out (1997) and many times over since; should one still belive that thoughts, feelings, beliefs, meanings or ideas that all generated from this wonderful gold mine we called the mind can ever be understood?  Dr. Pinker served as a wonderful tour guide to simply and elegantly point out some sailent features and functions of the mind that we ,I mean any non-psychologist, take for granted every day.  I use my mind every day.  (My wife and co-workers might want to argue otherwise, but they are wrong!  I do think on a daily basis.).  Yet I don't have any clue on the inner workings inside my own brain.  Is the 17 th century French philiospher Rene Descart right when he proclaimed "I think therefore I am?"  What insight and understanding have we gain regarding our mind since Descart's time?  Another words, do we have any better understanding how thoughts and ideas are generated and processed in our mind?  Dr. Pinker, now at Harvard and a gaint in this field, do not have the answers.  As a matter of fact, he was not even sure all or any of our current understanding and guesses would later proven to be true.  However, he has painted an overall picture on the state-of-art research on cognition.  Oh, the book.  It has eight chapters with interesting and enticing titles and he tried (I think and hope) to tickle readers' imaginations and challange our mostly unproven assumptions and beliefs.  For example, under the standard equipment chapter, rationality and decision making serve as a frame work to discuss the complexity of our mind.  He used the working definition of intlliegence (ie the ability to attain goals by assessing obstracles along the way and modify one's action to reach that point) to illustrate that we use our desires (ie the latest big screen Sony TV) and use our beliefs (ie if I work extra 50 hours per week to generate more income) to increase the chance of achieving that result (i.e. watching the Final Four basketball games on SONY big screen TV).   Yet is this stimluli (vivid and beautiful live college hoops on TV) and response (working extra hours to generate estimated 5000 dollars of income) due to thinking or is this just a result fo a physical response from a sensory input?  Do we endlessly shop for junks we cannot possibly need because of a physcial response of a sensory stimuli and not due to brain activities at all?  Perhaps endless charges on credit cards of the mall rats have nothing to do with the minds or intelligence but a mere knee-jerk response to stimuli.  What about the molecular/celluar level of the brain?  Can we understand how the mind work if we exam and understand how each cell in our brain work and therefore how the mind work?  From page 99, Dr. Pinker stated from the mathematicians Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts that neurons have one purpose in life: "add up a set of qualites and compare the sum to a threshold and indicate whether the threshod is exceeded."  Are you joking me?  With a description like this, it sounded more like a description of a computer than a living breathing cell let alone a functional neuron.  Suppose we have a complete and perfect understanding of a neuron on a celluar and molecular level, as he pointed out in the next few pages it is the interconnectiveness (my own invention to summarize the vastly complicated neural networks) that might be more important than any single cell.  Another words, perhaps thoghts, ideas, imagination, emotions and other abstraction generated from our mind might be the results of these "supercomputer" networking.  This conjucture might be completely wrong but interesting nevertheless.  What about complexity itself?  Can the fact that we are the product of millions of years of natural selections and therefore the compelexity of any organ in our body including the brain is resulted from million years of fuctional and adapive survival?  It is beyond imagination of my limited mind (no pun intended) that perhaps I don't have adequate brain power to understand my mind?  So why should I or any one care how my mind think and why my mind think a certain way?  A mental life is the result of my mind, and it is utterly unexplainable in most cases.  Why certain stimuli upset me to the nth degree and only at certain time and space?  Is my mind too limited or incapable of overcoming those undesireable yet almost unaviodable negative feelings?  Why can I be peaceful and happy like I want to be every time I am sitting in traffic idle for hours on that big parking lot we called the 210 freeway in Los Angeles?  Dr. Pinker has no answers for my agony or a way to relief my mental anguish.  He only gave me a clue as to the possible explainations and ideas.  I keep this book close to me at an arm's reach every time my mind fails me (more frequent than I like now days and I am only 36 years old) and I re-read it over and over for its shear beauty, audacity, and clarity.  Unquestion the authorative guide to my or any one's mind

</review>
<review>

Have you been amazed by the things your body can do(and probably cannot do) ... like the great stereo vision, the spatial hearing capability, the ease at which we learn/speak/update multiple languages. How does our brain achieve all this? How does our brain stores and incorporates new information? Where do human emotions come from? What is the reason behind anger, fear and other multitudes of human emotions? What is this thing called consciousness? What is the reason behind the peculiar male, female behaviour? What makes our ties to blood relations so strong? Why we find enjoyment in Art? What is life ... Why do we exist?

I personally have been intrigued by these and more of these questions. Most of the time we relegate answers to these questions to some divine entity and many of them we just take for granted. However, this is one of the books that attempts to answer or shares insights to answers to some of these questions. In short this book is going to blow your mind away(literally  and  figuratively). This book not only tries to enlighten us but also makes us ask more questions about our own existence. In general author contends that the evolution process contributed towards the development of different faculties. In affect we own most of our cool faculties to survival instinct of our genes. The author(a great scientist) provides some interesting evidences to support his thinking.

One thing I liked about this book is that it is written in a very simple and easy to comprehend language. It avoids references to tongue twisting weird words like Myelography, Parietal, Occipital. Another thing I liked about this book is that it conveys lots of nice information/know-how via the means of references to interesting anecdotes from Calvin and Hobbes, Godfather and like.

All in all this is a must, must read ... it is going to leave your awe-struck!

-Sachi

</review>
<review>

As a layman (even athough I was trained as an engineer), I was quite ambivalent when faced with the ultimate purchase decision for this book, especially after I have read most of the editorial  and  readers' reviews on the net. I was really intrigued by the fact that many readers took heavy pot shots at both the author  and  his book. My decision was further compounded by the fact that the book was thick - over 600 pages -  and  the apparent level of complexity, judging from my random five-finger test.

However my deep personal interest in understanding brain science  and  the curiosity streak in me finally drove me to buy the book.

The first half was quite an easy ride for me as the author offered a general model to explain how  and  why the mind works the way it does. This is despite the fact that the writing was dry  and  monotonous in most areas, witty  and  crisp in some areas  and  cram packed with seemingly irrelevant information. The second half was a tough ride for me as the author touched on the implications of social behaviours.

Frankly, I am not disappointed by the book even though I am still puzzled by some parts of the book. My own personal assessment of the book is that it is an intellectual smorgasbord of disparate, multi-disciplinary scientific topics/facts (e.g. natural selection, artificial intelligence, neural networks, economics, biology, anthropology, philosophy, psychology, family values, feminism, emotions, etc.) which probably make my reading somewhat difficult, especially towards the second half of the book.

At the end, I have really enjoyed reading this book, particularly in terms of what I am looking for in the first place. I also like the author's extensive notes and large reading lists.

The most productive learning experience for me is a better understanding (may be I should say another perspective) of visual perception. In fact, in Chapter 4, the author has dedicated an almost entire chapter (from page 214 to 242) to the perception of random-dot sterograms (or 3D visual illusions).  As far as I know, this is the only brain book (after discounting Bela Julesz's book) that I have come across that touches on this wonderful topic, which also happens to be one of my pet subjects.

On the whole,  and  from my personal perspective, this somewhat wonderful book definitely gives a reasonably good coverage on the intricacies  and  idiosyncracies of the human mind, in spite of what the author had admitted in the preface: "First, we don't understand how the mind works..."

</review>
<review>

asks, in one of his compositions, how one might expect a spider to comprehend arachnophobia

</review>
<review>

After becoming thoroughly jaded by the 'standard social science model', and the brow beating of religion, this book was a near epiphany for myself.  The writing is crisp, witty, lucid, and provocative.  I contented myself with how he substantiated his research, albeit there is a sense of having completely arrived with a comprhensive overview of the human mind and subsequent behavior.  I'm sure there is more to be discovered and scrutinized, but the genie is out of the bottle now, and one is compelled to relentlessly and tenaciously pursue this endeavor after reading this book.  Pinker will bring you under this compulsion, if not absolutely convincingly but if only to fan the flames of inquiry.  Dare to read, dare to change, dare to think.  For some, Pinker will open up a 'Pandora's box', but he will leave you with a cautious optimism as well.  This read will stike you like Dorothy stepping into color for the first time.  This book is now permanently shelved for future reference, which is very telling, because I simply can't say that about the vast majority of material I've read to this date

</review>
<review>

Don't be seduced by Pinkermania; he's trapped in a little box and he won't be taking a look around anytime soon. Edward Oaks couldn't have said it better in his review:

http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9803/articles/oakes.htm

</review>
<review>

I first read this book shortly after it was published and it was one that started me on a journey of discovery about natural selection and sexual selection. From being someone who was more focussed on social sciences at last I had discovered a more scientific way of understanding the world that made much more sense. The natural world, human societies and my own family relationships began to connect in a more comprehensible whole.

So the best parts of the book for me are those about natural selection and Family Values rather than the workings of the human mind, though these sections are also a very good read.

Having read widely since, I know there is far more that needs to be understood. Particularly with sexual selection there are a lot of women, like myself, who are aware that female sexuality throughout the animal kingdom is more complex than has been thought with female promiscuity far more prevalent than would be expected with the assumption that a female only needs to mate with one male.

Also, with human females having concealed ovulation a man could mate with vast numbers of females and never have a single offspring whereas it is the female who needs to be mating a lot when she is ovulating - and not necessarily with only one male.

It is only humans that have females producing all their offspring from a single father - in other species, though a male may have exclusive access to a number of females it is never for life and he will be replaced or the female will move to another male.

Pinker does make clear points about human males owning daughters, sisters and wives and enforcing monogamy on them, which naturally overrides female mate choice. He is not offensive in the way some male writers are when they write as if females are naturally passive and monogamous while males gleefully exploit one female after another.

In this book Pinker writes better about the sexes than he does in 'The Blank Slate' when he writes about rape.

Though I now know enough to be able to question points in this book, I still think it is an excellent read and would recommend it to anyone and everyone.

</review>
<review>

Look around you: Look at your computer, look at your keyboard - look at all the things which are the beautiful creation of someone else's thoughts! Thoughts can be powerful. But on the other hand they can be destructive.

James Allen gives you a small, effective and inspirational manual on how you can choose what world you want to create and how you want to perceive it.

This is one of the most powerful tools you can use. If you are able to master the given advice you will be able to achieve anything that your thoughts can create.

Everyday we are faced with dozens of decisions. Most of them are made unconsciously based on earlier thoughts that we have put into our minds. This can take us into an either powerful position where we control our life or into a devastating one where we are the victims.

In any case, you can choose to be the master of your own fate. No one can ever hold you back from achieving what you want to achieve, except one person: You!

</review>
<review>

What an awesome book. Some of the greatest things in life come in the smallest packages.  This book explains how thought leads to attitude leads to action leads to habit leads to character which leads to destiny.  It is my belief that this simple but powerful truth is one of the most overlooked principles in the world.  This book is literally a gold mine of awesome aphorisms and quotes including one of the greatest statements of all time: "Men do not attract what they are but that which they are".  This is one the most important pieces of writing to grace the planet earth.  I do not leave home without it

</review>
<review>

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "A man is what he thinks about all day long..." We are...we really, really are. But the sad fact of the matter is, most of us do not really know what we are thinking. In fact, I would say that most of us aren't really thinking at all. Most of us are just operating on unconscious reactions to things.

Does this make your butt twitch?
Does this make you a little nervous?

It should...but...don't get too nervous...don't go too much in a panic. If there is something from this review that I want you to remember the most, is this:

WHAT THOUGHT HAS DONE, THOUGHT CAN UNDO!!

Think about this for the next 25 years of your life. Meditate upon this powerful Truth. Who you are is simply the residual effect of what you have thought about in the past. This is is a new day! This is a new opportunity for you to turn EVERYTHING around! If you have been ill or sick, now is your time to claim health and wellness. If you have been experiencing lack or limitation, now is the accepted time to claim wealth and abundance. You see, the universe never holds anything back from you. Never! There is only a stream of well-being in the universe...you just need to come into alignment with it...and we do this with our thoughts...we do this with our feelings...we do this with the images we are holding in mind.

Think about only that which you desire to attract. Feel the feelings of how it would be to have those things you want to attract. Imagine having those things, those experiences, that beautiful, abundant, healthy, well-lived life now! And I guarantee that you will! It is always done unto you as you believe.

This book is incredibly inspirational and so well worth it. The book, however, won't change your life. Only you can do that. And I happen to believe that you can!

Know that this is your day. You are a blessing!

Peace  and  Blessings, dear reader..

</review>
<review>

Small easy read that has to be the best self-help, Sprititually helpful; but not at all religious.  Can read it in a couple of hours but each line is so powerful and easily understood that you want to study each one

</review>
<review>

When thoroughly digested and fully comprehended, the principles and their practical application of James Allen's classic will Change Your Life...and more importantly the way you think about it, instantaneously

</review>
<review>

The idea in the book is known to most of us, yet we don't realize how much impact it has on our life. I wish I read this book when I was a teenager. It might have changed the course of my life for better. but it is never too late.
The ideas in this book make you take charge of your life, inspires you to steer your own ship of life. it is truly life changing book.
I ordered the Audio CD. The begining was a bit confusing, but after I got used to their style, I started to comprehend it

</review>
<review>

1. Discuss the main ideas that you found most important in this book and discuss why they were important to you.

`As A Man Thinketh' by James Allen encompasses the idea that "All that a man achieves and all that he fails to achieve is the direct result of his own thoughts." James Allen eloquently explains how our thoughts create our reality and that "In a justly ordered universe, where loss of equipoise would mean total destruction, individual responsibility must be absolute. A man's weakness and strength, purity and impurity, are his own and not another man's." Before reading the book I was unsure to what extent our thoughts played in the creation of our experience. I have always believed we can do whatever we put our minds to, though I was unsure of what extent we could exercise control in the creation of our experience and by what means does one actively create? After reading this book I felt my questions were answered and life suddenly took on a whole new perspective. I felt as though I had uncovered another piece of the jigsaw puzzle of life, slotting into place a new perspective that not only helped uncover and concretize a new understanding of life but also shone light across the rest of the picture. A world of possibilities became apparent with the realization that through an effort in right thinking and observation of circumstance I could begin to experiment to see just what exactly I can create. This same observation would bring clarity to how my negative thinking affects reality and what role it has in my learning and progress.

Circumstance does not make the man; it reveals him to himself.

As each day passes the message this book puts forward becomes ever increasingly apparent. "Good thoughts and actions can never produce bad results; bad thoughts and actions can never produce good results." Mentally reviewing past experiences I can see and understand the correlation between thoughts I had chosen to entertain and my circumstances. Looking at my present situation I can see how my thoughts are synchronous with the reality I see before me. At an ever increasing pace I am now seeing how quickly my thoughts change and effect my present, my future and my past. The more I practice looking at life as a reflection and part of myself the more it seems like a game where we have to remain aware and look for clues as to how to best attune ourselves to the thoughts that will allow us to interact with our situation in the most harmonious way.

Until thought is linked with purpose there is no intelligent accomplishment. With the majority the bark of thought is allowed to "drift" upon the ocean of life. Aimlessness is a vice, and such drifting must not continue for him who would steer clear of catastrophe and destruction.

Reading this book helped me to understand that there is no such thing as chance and that we can all take responsibility for every occurrence in our lives. Through the acceptance of responsibility we can use our current experience to design a way forward which best serves everybody. If there is nobody else to blame except ourselves then we should be thankful to all those involved in revealing what we ourselves have created.

2. Can you relate the ideas or concepts in this book to your personal circumstances in life such as your relationships, your beliefs, your goals, your values, etc? Explain.

Since reading As A Man Thinketh one of my goals now is to help as many of the people around me, as I can, to think about and use the ideas put forth in the book to construct their own viewpoint from which they can then draw conclusions. Embracing the gift of responsibility for a power which grants us control over our circumstances would change the fundamentals of society. I believe this would push us all in a more positive direction. I can vividly imagine a world where people were encouraged to think outside the construct of the societal framework, frames which less binds us together as it does section us off from the world outside of the box. If our circumstances our brought about by our thinking then it would equate that global circumstances are a reflection of our collective global thinking. If we were to fundamentally change the way we think about reality, and even learn to positively influence reality, then the world will outwardly reflect this change in thinking. My goal in life is to attune my thoughts to ones that will help turn the vision I see of a world that works for everybody into a reality.

Reading `As a Man Thinketh' helped move me to one of the most exciting standpoints yet, which is that there is no such thing as chance. Looking from one angle it would not appear to me that everything is predestined. I do, however, think we co-create every situation in our lives through our thinking. Our thoughts assist in the creation of our reality and when we don't pay attention to our thoughts and feelings then the situations our subconscious mind creates might seem random and we may use the `chance' concept as a valid excuse and reason for not taking responsibility for the unwanted experience. Realizing I have no excuses for anything has been a huge turning point in my life. The idea to me makes life in my mind fair. At least for the experiences I can vouch for.

When I read the book much of what was said was immediately apparent and I had already come to a similar conclusion about some of my past experiences. About three years ago, just before I left England, I fell out with my best friend Huw who I had been friends with for ten years. One weekend in the summer of '02 after I had just come back from a holiday with Huw and some of our other friends. In the evening a group of us came together to meet and some rather unexpected events took place. The crux of the story is that Huw decided to take somebody else's word over mine with regards to a then recent situation. The information Huw had chosen to believe suddenly left our friendship of ten years in a less than an existent state of being. At first the situation seemed like a chance happening and I was perplexed by how such a situation could have come about, having arisen from decisions based on what I knew to be a fabrication. I felt powerless suddenly and life seemed arbitrary. I really didn't understand how such a situation could have come about. Could it be that sometimes life was unfair? For days I was caught up in a circular mess of thoughts, searching for the cause of the situation. I started with thinking that the person who had lied to Huw was to blame and that Huw had had issues anyway. I came to various conclusions, however they all included the idea that sometimes things happen that we have no control over. This stirred more confusion in me as it was something I did not wish to believe. After really stepping out of the picture, leaving the country for Cambodia, which for me really put a new and helpful perspective on life, and then thinking about my relationship with Huw retrospectively I came to see that just as 'Circumstance does not make the man; it reveals him to himself.' life was revealing to me what unfortunate circumstances could come about as the result of a build up and accumulation of unaddressed problems throughout our relationship. I asked myself how a friend of ten years would believe this person over me and with this in mind the actual truth of the situation is in my opinion irrelevant. If I had been a good enough friend to Huw then trust would have gone without question. I had lost the trust and faith of a friend. The deterioration of my relationship with Huw had gotten out of control and manifested a situation where I was forced to pay attention. The situation had happened in such a way that it forced me to pay attention to what was important. It wasn't anything to do with one situation. I had created my own fate way before that from all the things over the years which had built up and built up and probably already given me countless clues I should have paid attention to, until finally it was right in my face and I had to pay attention.

A man does not come to the alms-house or the jail by the tyranny of fate or circumstance, but by the pathway of groveling thoughts and base desires. Nor does a pure-minded man fall suddenly into crime by stress of any mere external force. The criminal thought had long been secretly fostered in the heart, and the hour of opportunity revealed its gathered power. Circumstance does not make the man; it reveals him to himself. No such conditions can exist as descending into vice and its attendant sufferings apart from vicious inclinations, or ascending into virtue and its pure happiness without the continued cultivation of virtuous aspirations; and man, therefore, as the lord and master of thought, is the maker of himself and the shaper of and author of environment. Even at birth the soul comes of its own and through every step of its earthly pilgrimage it attracts those combinations of conditions which reveal itself, which are the reflections of its own purity and impurity, its strength and weakness.

3. What are the most important new ideas or concepts you learned from this book? Please Explain.

One of the most important new ideas this book helped me grasp was the idea that there is no such thing as chance and that we are solely responsible for our personal circumstances.

After reading As a Man Thinketh it felt strongly apparent that this world of ours works in just the way it's supposed to, indeed quite perfectly, and it would seem to me that it is us who are playing the game of life some how unaware of the rules. James Allen has given a wonderful example and explanation of how life works in perfectly fair way.

If there is no chance and our situation is brought about by our thoughts then how does that relate to a situation in life such as being diagnosed with cancer? My understanding follows that smoking does not directly cause cancer, it creates the ideal environment where a cancer could grow. It is my feeling that our thoughts and actions are intrinsically related and our mind, body and spirit are intrinsically connected and reflect one another. I believe we all have what I can at best describe as a magical force inside us. Ever seen starwars? I feel the outcome of our life depends on whether we control the force, or whether it controls us. Where does cancer come from? I think we create it. I think through our thoughts and actions and choice of lifestyle and things we choose to expose ourselves to... and through our neglect of certain areas of our life, that we cause such a thing as cancer, and indeed everything else, to manifest.

We all have the power to create some really powerful things whether it is consciously and for the greater good, or unconsciously and perhaps for the worse. I think this also works on a global level reflecting our world wide collective consciousness. I think every single one of us is responsible for the state of the world - all the conflicts of the world, or the cancers of the world, so to speak. Take for example the conflict in Iraq or the Israeli situation, the problems in South Asia... I believe it's all a reflection of our collective state of mind and the conflicts that go on inside of us. We are in control... you, me... everybody. And we all have blood on our hands.

Paul Sartre once said that all human anguish comes from our individual responsibility for what each of us do and become. There is no fixed human nature, no predestination, no God that determines our course. And we suffer because we cannot handle this burden.

The power to think, feel, express, believe, will, do and progress is, from the start, all within our hands. This is an extremely dangerous distribution of power, and on some level we all know it. As a result, most of us sacrifice our liberties to tradition and majority in an effort to off-load that responsibility.

And we do it because we have a lot invested in our communal uniformity. Life in orthodoxy is comfortable, familiar and requires nothing of us to perpetuate it other than our silent complacency. We sell our freedom for some semblance of safety and the diaphanous concept of an establishment.

The world around us is an extension of the world inside of us. When we do wrong, we are only doing it to ourselves. I think our whole world has got cancer... and it could even look as thought it's dying, although I hope its getting better. If you look at satellite shots of the world and look at our major cities and the pollution cloud that engulfs them, our poor world even looks like it has cancers growing on it.

Thinking about thinking and the thoughts we choose to entertain is something we all need to do carefully. Ever since reading As A Man Thinketh I've been realizing more and more how our thoughts create our reality. I think As a Man Thinketh should be compulsory reading for the whole human race. The more I think about it the more it makes sense.

4. Has this book challenged or changed your thinking in any way? If so, explain how?

This book has entirely changed my thinking and now I look at life from a totally different standpoint, one where I can see how I am in complete control of my circumstances. Now when I look at seemingly problematic situations I ask myself why and how I have created the situation and I ask what can be learned from the situation. Reading this book has helped me to see that when planned situations do not come together as intended, I think we should remember that the perfect thing has happened at the perfect time to teach us exactly what we need to know for the greater good of everybody. Why was the outcome the most ideal thing that could have happened? If we create our circumstances then we obviously create them for a reason and by looking for that reason we can see how our circumstances serve to benefit us, no matter what they are.

I now realize how important it is to be selective with the thoughts I allow myself to entertain. Oftentimes I am quite unsure of where the thoughts in my head come from, but now when I find myself thinking something less than constructive I stop and reword my inner dialog to shape a more positive feeling.

He who cherishes a beautiful vision, a lofty ideal in his heart, will one day realize it

</review>
<review>

This book is a quick read on how your thoughts determine your life. It is shocking and hard for people to believe but your thoughts are the power that creates your inner and outer reality.This book shows how your thoughts cause your character,circumstances,health,purpose,ideals, and level of achievement. Start with this book to learn how to control your thoughts and create your life

</review>
<review>

The concepts are not new and hardly new-age. There are no new ideas in this book, Mr Allan was just the first to present them is all. James Allan emphsizes the importance of hard work and effort throughout the book. He states in the book "He who would accomplish little must sacrifice little. He who would achieve much must sacrifice much. He who would attain highly must sacrifice greatly." Effort and sacrifice are common themes throughout the book. James Allan makes the point that all your hard work will be in vain if your mind is filled with thoughts of failure.

</review>
<review>

Okay, it's a collection of Far Side comics, which is what I want, so it's awesome for that reason.  BUT, the actual final product in book form is a little disappointing.  First, all the comics are black and white.  Yeah, it's not about the art and you don't miss much without color, but come on, would a little color kill anyone (especially ones that were originally color)?  Second, it's pretty thin on strips, with 4 to a page most of the time (a good amount) sometimes 2 on a page, and even occassionally one comic on a single page!  It looks pretty silly with just one giant comic on a page.

</review>
<review>

Some of my earliest memories are filled with reading The Far Side on my father's lap after the evening meal.  Whenever I asked my parents for a one of the standard collections, they told me to wait, one day they would all be in one book.  Then, for Christmas one year, I got this book.

What can I say, but thank you Mom and Dad and thank you Mr. Larson!  The Far Side was, and still is, funny, original, and timeless.  This collection gives you some of the best of the original strips and lends itself well to watching the progression of humor up and through until the end

</review>
<review>

Gary Larson never ceases to amaze me. I've been a religious follower of The Far Side for as long as I can remember. I love the way he looks at the lighter side of life, yet some of the comics really hit home. My favourite still is the deer with the target as a birth mark! Go Larry - you're my super hero

</review>
<review>

LOL!!!!This is one brilliantly funny comic strip from one brilliantly sick (in a good way) mind. The Far Side is timeless. I laugh every time I read them, and that's a good thing.

</review>
<review>

How Gary Larson keeps coming up with this stuff I have no idea.  It seems like the more I read, the more I begin to laugh.  This particular Gallery is totally hilarious.  If you don't get the humor in "The Far Side", my guess is your brain is wired for something different than reading books. In fact, I heard the current President hasn't got a Far Side chuckle since 1991.

</review>
<review>

The Far Side is my favorite comic, out of all. It is positively loaded with randomness that will catch you off guard. Larson's comics are the kind that makes you think about what is going on, comparing the picture to the caption, and it is hysterical. There are scizophrenic kangaroos, plane driving sheep, duck relays, and pretty much any other twisted idea out there.

ANY Far Side book is one that will never fail to please.


</review>
<review>

Sick, absurd humor is Larson's specialty, and in this collection, Larson is at his best. Many of the cartoons involve reversals of the roles of species, where animals get their revenge on humans. Others are based on themes from popular culture, such as Tonto on his horse outside the outhouse telling Kemosabe that the music is starting. They are funny, but there are times where you have to spend some time interpreting the diagram. If you are a fan of Larson's unique brand of humor, then you will love this collection.

</review>
<review>

 and quot;Why not write a cartoon book that doesn't bother with a main character and where each joke is totally different from the next?! and quot; That must have been similar to what Gary asked himself when starting to write his hilarious comic books. Every joke is truly different from the next one! And every joke is refreshingly original! Each joke comes from a thoughtful, clever and of course playful mind

</review>
<review>

I don't know how the guy does it. They keep getting funnier and there are always ones I've never seen before, as well as the ones I've always loved. You won't be disappointed if you are a Far Side fan. If you're not a Far Side fan, well, then I can't help you

</review>
<review>

When I started work at my present job almost two years ago, I found that the place needed a little 'lightening up'.  It was casual already, to some extent, so on my next 'office supply' shopping 'trip'  I picked up this calendar for my desk.  Well, it began a new office ritual; everyone wants to know the  and quot;Far-Side-of-the-day and quot;!  Sometimes, it's the only funny thing to happen all day.  Larson needs to come out of retirement

</review>
<review>

This is one of those rare treats in the literary world that grab your attention, keep you enthralled, and refuse to let you stop reading.  I read this book and literally did not sleep one night because I was too busy trying to finish the book.  But what makes this book so rare is not because of how good it is, but it's because how good everything is until the very end.  That's right, the incredible cop-out of an ending made me mad enough to hate the entire novel.  This is "deus ex machina" in its finest form.  This is unexcusable in my opinion.  I just don't get it.  I just don't understand how one can (seemingly) work so hard on a work of fiction only to screw everyone in the final pages.  I gave it two stars (as opposed to one) for fooling everyone into reading through this book.  This is by far and away my most dissappointing reading ever

</review>
<review>

It's probably been 15 years since I read it, and EVERY person in the years since with whom I have discussed this book has said the same thing.

It was literally a book that kept me up until 3 a.m. - and THAT is how it ends?  I'm hoping Dr. Crichton had a publishing deadline or something.


</review>
<review>

Intriguing as always, exciting from the first page, strong for the first 2/3rds and less "editorializing" than usual, but it's just not as good as his higher concept novels. But it's still very enjoyable all the way through, and as always makes you think. It feels a little dated now, but I re-read it last week and enjoyed it just as much as the first time. Sphere should definitely be a part of any Crichton fan's library. Skip the movie, though. Here, the science is less "convincing" than in Jurrassic Park (which is mostly convincing, but stretched) and Prey (which is better writing and fun, but not convincing). But that doesn't matter, because Crichton can write an adventure like few others (as long as character isn't important--character's here take backseat to concept and science). Pace, as always is good. More a rollicking adventure than "something to think about" (typical of later novels) and quite enjoyable on that level. It's the kind of novel you'll tear through in a weekend at most.  And that's a good thing

</review>
<review>

I hope the ending is illogical at least and is fiction. If thoughts are that powerful, they need to be resrained earlier. I don't know who survivied but he might feel very guilty about the others earlier and question if he had to survive. Logic can be quite painful when left alone, but sometimes it has to be

</review>
<review>

This is my favorite book by Mr. Crichton...I have read every book by him that I can find...I just found the plot to be very suspenseful and mind-bending. Granted I am 15 so maybe my knowledge of literature is not as high as some adults but this is a great read!
-Blak

</review>
<review>

This 1987 thriller focuses on Norman Johnson, a psychologist who specializes in large disasters like plane crashes.  As the novel opens he is being taken to an undisclosed site by the US Navy.  Johnson learns that the crash site is located 1000 feet under the South Pacific and the craft is some sort of a space craft.  He was been included because of work he did sometime before organizing a first contact team for a previous administration, an assignment that Johnson would just as soon forget.

Once the team is taken to the Navy deep sea facility and begins to study the craft Johnson begins to find disturbing circumstances - that the Navy commander has been less than honest with both the team and his superiors and that the craft itself bears a remarkable similiarity to current human technology, labels and directions are even written in English, leading the team to question just how alien this technology really is.  The suspense continues to build as the undersea facility loses their support ships above due to inclement weather and then conditions in the facility itself begins to turn hostile.

This novel is quite predictable, just a few pages into the story it is obvious to anyone who has ever seen a disaster movie that there will be no comforting support ships nearby, that the undersea environment will become threatening, there will be many deaths, there will be sexual tension between the hero and someone else and so on.  While there is some slight redemption in the last few pages this book is a big disappointment, Crichton is capable of so much more.  If you are a fan read it but be forewarned, if you are unfamiliar with his work begin with anything but this.

</review>
<review>

This is one of the most enjoyable books I have ever read. It turned me into a Crichton fanatic. I have since read all of his books. He creates suspense like no one else. Forget the movie.
M.C. is notorious for ending chapters with such a cliffhanger you feel compelled to read on.

</review>
<review>

I'm amazed at how diverse a writer Michael Crichton is.
I really liked the concept of this book.
Man builds a spaceship in the future, to leap across space and gather data. It returns back to earth in the past due to an error.    The spaceship not only creates a paradox, it also brings something back from its distant journey.
Great story.

</review>
<review>

I am satified with the servic

</review>
<review>

I am pleasantly surprised by the readability of this useful book.  The book kept my attention, and it was very helpful and informative

</review>
<review>

Bryan Garner brings clarity and insight to the confounding world of legal writing.  "Legal Writing in Plain English" contains dozens of comments and guidelines that should be burned into the brain of every attorney.  Some of these are obvious (e.g., use a readable typeface), while others are more nuanced (e.g., delete perhaps the legal drafter's favorite legalism, "provided that").  Each suggestion urges the writer toward a simple yet difficult goal -- be a good writer so that your reader doesn't have to work so darn hard to understand you.

As everyone knows, a simple manual of rules can be maddeningly dull and preachy.  Garner has enlivened his book by including a number of practical exercises so that the reader can put these guidelines into practice before the next memo or brief.  These exercises range from "basic" to "advanced," and are well worth the time.

After reading this book (and attending Mr. Garner's one-day seminar), I submit that this book should be required reading for every One-L and associate.

</review>
<review>

Bryan A. Garner is leading what might be a Quixotic charge to make lawyers write clear, clean, unambiguous and even interesting prose.  This book is a recent addition to the Garner arsenal, which includes the excellent The Winning Brief and A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage.  The anonymous writer from New York who slams Garner is wrong.  He claims that traditional legal drafting has stood the test of time and is readily understood by judges, who ultimately have to interpret it.  If the writing were clear to begin with, the parties wouldn't get to a judge.  They'd likely settle.  And that writer ignores the fact that there are thousands, perhaps millions, of legal decisions over contract disputes, almost all arising from documents that were  and quot;traditionally drafted. and quot;  And different judges can decide differently about the meaning of a clause.  That writer askes rhetorically whether Garner would insist that mathematicians use prose to make their work clear to laypeople.  The rhetoric ignores the fact that mathematics is its own language.  Legal writing is written in English, the same English used to buy groceries, talk lovingly to your spouse, and complain to the doctor about what ails you.  There is no valid reason a contract should be beyond the comprehension of a layperson, other than lawyers' need to feel like they're elevated professionals with a grip on arcana.  And the writer's praise of  and quot;Notwithstanding anything to the contrary and quot; as an incantatory phrase in contracts overlooks an obvious improvement:   and quot;DESPITE anything in this agreement to the contrary . . . . and quot;  Garner is a brilliant, insightful teacher who cares deeply about the language and its highest and best use.  We know what happens with legalese:  litigation and contention and noncomprehension.  Give plain English a try, with Garner as your guide to Aquinas's trinity of wholeness, harmony, radiance, and of course clarity clarity clarity

</review>
<review>

EXCELLENT BOOK, ALSO MODERN LEGAL USAGE, 2ND EDITION.  ENOUGH SAID

</review>
<review>

Yikes! There is no longer anywhere to hide, and there are no more excuses. This book shows you how to drop the jargon, the gobbledygook, the archaisms, and the fluff. So your writing is exposed. Now you must think--and write--clearly, and Legal Writing in Plain English will help. Lawyers and law students have needed this book for a long time. It's superb. (From back cover.

</review>
<review>

Typical Danielle Steel fluff, but one of her better books. A little of everything: love, betrayal, tragedy, and hope.

</review>
<review>

What I love most about Danielle Steel is that her books are always the beginning to a better life for the main character, and this one is no different.  She has had, in my opinion, some ups and downs in her writing over the last few years but this is one of the ups for her

</review>
<review>

I usually don't even browse through a DS book. For some reason I bought and read this one. I couldn't put it down, could hardly stand to take a break to sleep. I did cheer for Deanna and Ben.  Cried my eyes out over Pilar, even though her character in the book was totally unlovable. I did get frustrated in the end with Deanna and her reasoning behind not contacting Ben about the baby. The visual descriptions make you feel like you're really there. I liked the fact that Danielle and Ben felt an immediate attraction to each other and didn't play games about their feelings. The ending is a let down though. The epilogue should have been set a few years down the road. I loved it when Marc realized he had gotten the short end of the stick after all. I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 because of the poor editing and the not-so-great ending.  Would reccomend

</review>
<review>

I loved this story!!!  The action is fast-paced and the romance sizzles!  Buy this one a nd then buy a few copies for friends they will be glad you did!!

</review>
<review>

I enjoyed this book very much. I'm surprised that this one wasn't made into a TV-Movie (i.e. Once in a Lifetime, The Ring, No Greater Love, Fine Things), but I still liked it. Deanna was very realistic. She was in a marriage that was slowly falling apart, and the only thing that was keeping it together was her daughter, Pilar, who died as a result of a motorcycle accident. She met Ben Thompson and found fullfillment with him; Marc-Edouard was already having an affair with a woman named Chantal. I thought that he was a jerk for doing that to Deanna. But when it was all said and done and when I finished reading the book, Deanna had discovered that she was pregnant and that the baby was Ben's. At last she could have a happy life with someone. Keep up the good work, Danielle!

</review>
<review>

I really really hate that she uses the same names in a lot of her books.  It drives me insane.  She is always using, Grace, Liz, Andrew..but dont get me wrong, I love danielle steel's books more that anything, but come one, can we just get a little insee weensee bit more creative and think of some different names for her books? please?  Im sure that other danielle steel readers will feel the same

</review>
<review>

This is the first Danielle Steele book I've read and it will definitely not be my last.  I really enjoyed reading this book.  By the time I got to chapter 25, I was wishing that I could read faster because I couldn't wait to find out what was going to happen.  I was torn between 5 and 4 stars.  I chose 5 stars because it has been 2 weeks since I finished the book and I'm still thinking about it.  Why I even entertained 4 stars is because the characters committed adultery.  From the very begining you can tell that this was going to happen and I didn't like that betrayal was involved.  As I continued to read the book, I fell in love with Ben.  It took a while to like Deanna because an affair is still an affair but I enventually started to feel for her.  Overall, I recommend this to anyone who likes a good love story

</review>
<review>

Whether you like Sandy Weil or not is not the issue here. This is just a fascinating book and one of the best books I have read in a while. You will not regret the time that you spend reading this

</review>
<review>

This book could be considered a corner stone foundation marker in understanding what makes people relevant, even when they are not.

Sandy Weill shows how consistentcy and planning directed to delivering real value for others will result in producing positive results. Monica Langley describes well how a strong basis in fundamental value wins over adversity and fills in a vacume.

The book does a good job in reflecting the transition from family to business and the process of creating an icon that Sandy Weill became with his challenges as a broker, American Express, Travelers and Citibank. As a reader, you can see how these companies needed Sandy's pivotal instincts to solve their problems and evolve.


</review>
<review>

As a person used to work in Wall Street and live now in China, I read the Chinese version of this book. It was as if I lived, breathed, angered, and cheered with Weill, Dimon, Prince.... One of the best books about wall street of past 10 years. I ordered this book in English and will read it again, for at least once

</review>
<review>

The top business journalists in the world are the ones that research and pen the groundbreaking Page A1 stories in The Wall Street Journal.  The Journal breaks these stories over and over again, and other news organizations simply trail in their wake.  Monica Langley is one of these trailblazers.  In 'Tearing Down the Walls,' she expands upon a lengthy Page A1 profile she had written about Sandy Weill and details his Horatio Alger story.

The title refers to how Weill "had torn down one wall after another - barriers based on religion, class, even the law - to get to where he was."  The cover blurbs refer to this book as 'riveting' (Forbes) and 'rollicking' (The Economist).  That seems close to impossible for a business book, but 'Walls' is a well-written tale of a larger-than-life character.  You'll blast through these 438 pages effortlessly.

It's also worth noting that based on Langley's reporting, Chuck Prince earned his stripes and was duly rewarded in getting tabbed as Weill's successor.  And, Bank One (and now Chase) made a great choice in naming Jamie Dimon as its CEO.  Dimon leaps off the page as the Crown Prince of Wall Street. Langley is clearly taken with the guy's obvious charisma and skills (Dimon seems to have this effect on everyone throughout the course of the book).

</review>
<review>

"Tearing Down the Walls" charts the ascent of Citigroup Chairman Sandy Weill, from lowly brokerage clerk to master of a globe-straddling financial empire.  What emerges is a picture of a man who is fiercely ambitious and terrifyingly astute - but  also seriously flawed.

Prone to fits of rage, Weill regularly unleashes streams of expletives on petrified subordinates, sometimes reducing them to tears.  He is quick to punish close lieutenants foolish enough to evince the slightest bit of disloyalty.  And his laser-like focus on cost-cutting tends to sow disaffection among employees.

But he is also something of an enigma.  Despite his fearsome temper, he has a tremendous capacity for empathy, often moved to tears upon learning of the plight of others.  Shy and unassertive in his early days, he later metamorphoses into a self-assured and forceful leader.

Langley is a skilled raconteur and her silken prose is a pleasure to read.  Her ability to glean the finer details of Weill's life is also impressive.  Without a doubt, this is one of the best business books of the year

</review>
<review>

The author could have done much more with her subject.  Many anecdotes in the book suggest Sandy Weill is a complex character.  For example, Weill is presented at the same time as a monumentally frugal, yet ridiculously lavish executive.  At one point he won't allow an acquired company to subsidize employee transportation to work, yet later insists it subsidize his own by maintaining a corporate jet.  Unfortunately she never addresses the question: how can Weill demand his troops run such an efficient operation while paying himself so exorbitantly?  Other, similar paradoxes also emerge which suggest Weill is a very complex individual.  But the author never treats him as such.

In the last analysis her book is a patchwork of news articles that discuss different chapter's of Weill's life and career.  To sew the articles together into a coherent story, the author suggests that Weill's stunning ascent is driven by his simple desire to be accepted by the WASPy Wall Street powerbrokers who won't let a Jew join their club.  Perhaps that is the overarching goal that has driven Weill for the past 40 years.  But it raises interesting questions that the author doesn't address.

I'm a Jew in finance and Jews have been very well-represented on Wall Street for some time now.  Weill is presented as having been driven to create Citigroup by his notion that he was still being excluded from the WASPy Wall Street club.  But by this point we're into the nineties and any exclusive WASPy club had long since been abolished.  So all of a sudden Weill comes off as pathologically insecure, which is intriguing.  But the author doesn't elaborate.

This is a good book if you want a run down of Sandy Weill's career.  No other author has compiled so much information about the man in one place.  But all that information confirms that Weill himself is a very complex man; to do her complex subject justice, the author would have had to do much more with this book

</review>
<review>

This is a very good book.  Very inspiring.  Langley is successfull in making a very human Sandy Weill

</review>
<review>

Monica Langley follows Sandford Weill, a shy Jewish boy from Brooklyn, through his youthful struggles against adversity, his journey to the absolute top of the financial world and his tainted success. Seen through the prism of Weill's tumultuous career, the financial world is small, despite its importance, internally more like a village than a city. The book just confirms your suspicions that practical finance bears almost no resemblance to what you learned in economics class. We recommended Langley for skillfully molding the saga of this titanic financier's career into such a compelling, well-constructed narrative

</review>
<review>

I listened to this tape while I was recovering from a back injury. The  meditation uses guided visualization and deep breathing to help focus on  whatever part of your body suffers from pain. I found it very helpful - it  decreased my pain and helped me calm down in general. I would recommend it  to anyone with chronic pain or muscular injuries

</review>
<review>

I really enjoyed this book by Nora Roberts.  It is set in the Carribbean which makes it a good book to read in summer, IMHO.  It has romance, treasure hunting, and a little magic....really great!  I liked it alot

</review>
<review>

This has got to be my all time favorite book...I could not put it down....I read it several years ago...

The Scenery, mystery, romance all intertwined makes for a great novel.


</review>
<review>

This is one of my favorite books by Nora Roberts. Setting is her specialty. She really knows how to take the reader with her on every adventure. You really come to care about these characters, and it's great to escape with them to the sunny ocean setting and go deep-sea diving for the very first time in your life! This one earned its 5 stars!

</review>
<review>

I took this book to Hawaii with me and found out very quickly it was a perfect choice.  I loved the relationship between the two main characters.  I felt like the ending may have been a little rushed, maybe because I did not want it to end! Also, I felt a bit of a personality change in the leading male character towards the end of the story. Matthew Lassiter seemed to became a bit passive towards the end of the book.  Other than that I loved the book and still felt it was worth five stars

</review>
<review>

With the chilly season setting in here in Washington State, the thoughts of a tropical vacation keep me going all winter long.  I must admit that what attracted me first to this book was the palm tree, the blue-green water, the sand and the longing of wanting to be there.  This is the first of Nora Roberts I have read, however I am an avid JD Robb reader.
This book was so well written that you could just envision yourself in the sea diving for treasure or aboard the boat in the warm sun.  How exciting!  The plot was wonderful, the characters were likable, the villians were nasty.  This is one book that I am going to buy for myself as a guilty treat, and I will read it again when the cold starts setting in, so that it can take me away again for a warm exciting adventure.

</review>
<review>

I am fairly new to Nora Roberts.  But this book is not only my favorite by her, it's one my favorite books altogether.  It was so well written it made me feel like I were diving and hunting treasures myself!  And it has such a sweet, romantic storyline.  I was really sorry to see it end.  I hope there will be a sequel.  I recommend any woman to read this book, whether you like romance novels or not

</review>
<review>

First, let me say that while I have read many of Nora Roberts books, more often than not I am somewhat disappointed.  While she is always a reliable read, her stories tend to be very formulaic, and too often forgettable.  I picked up The Reef almost by accident at a friend's, for lack of anything else to read.  Having read a few of Nora's books before, my expectations weren't that high; I was pleasantly surprised.  Unlike the predictability of her other books, this one went against convention in many ways, while still developing a satisfying romance and mystery.  Generally Nora sacrifices an intriguing plot for the central relationship, but she balances the two beauifully here.  Not only did she create an intriguing villain, but the love story was touching.  As other readers have said, I liked how she spread it out over the years, which made it slightly more realistic, and somehow much sweeter at the end.  The development of secondary characters was also a welcome change from typical Nora.  In short, if you're not typically a Nora Roberts fan, give this one a try!  Not the best romantic suspsense I've ever encountered, but definetly worth the read

</review>
<review>

I can't say enough good things about THE REEF! It shows a strong female character in a field that used to be dominated by men, and a strong sensitive male that isn't afraid to dream.

This is a fantasy come true and involves marine archeologist Tate Beaumont and Matthew Lassiter and their families. The families run into each other while treasure-hunting for Angelique's Curse - a treasure that has eluded everyone, and many think it is only a myth. But this artifact is worth everything to some, even worth killing another.

As this joint expedition continues, it holds all of the elements needed for a great story: mystery, romance, secrets that can't be shared, deceptions and threats. There are so many angles that could have been pursued the reader isn't sure which avenue Nora Roberts will take until she delivers them to it. This always keeps you on the edge of your seat, and gives you a first hand "view" of the undersea world of beauty and intrigue.

I highly recommend THE REEF and only wish it would have continued - or at least had a sequel in the works! Great characters and fantastic plot will hook the reader from the beginning. One of Nora Roberts better works!

</review>
<review>

This book is good, but not exactly what I wanted.  I received these books in excellent condition and in a timely fashion.

Thank you

</review>
<review>

This update is aces!  The added information on pregnancy/lactation safety came just in time (I had just started the L and D rotation).  The Quick Look-up feature is very helpful!  Overall, this Drug Guide is a MUST for nursing students and licensed nurses

</review>
<review>

While working as an office RN I am often asked by a patient questions about the "new" medication they are on.  This book provides the answers.  It's easy to read, each drug is broken into quick to find sections and it is very up-to-date.  Don't practice nursing without this book

</review>
<review>

This is one of the best drug guides I have found. It contains everything you need and then some. It also has a handy cd-rom with tons of information on it.

</review>
<review>

This book is very helpful.  It has lots of drugs in it, and a lot of valuable info for planning patient care and ensuring there are no medication reactions

</review>
<review>

This excellent package comes with both the hardcopy and digital PDA version of Davis's Drug Guide for Nurses, the best drug guide which I have used.

How many errors could be alleviated if more nurses looked up their meds?! However, since on most units, medbooks are only available in the medroom and a medbook is too bulky to carry in most cases, the sad fact is that meds are not looked up. My first PDA drug guide was Mosby's, which I have had for over a year; I now also own Davis's. I cannot tell you how many nurses have asked me to quickly look up their meds to see check on dosages, adverse reactions, or nursing considerations. More than one time the meds have been held or orders questioned as a result, but had I not been in the room, the med likely would have been given. How nice it is to have an entire med book electronically available in your pocket, searchable by both generic and brand names (no more flipping through indexes trying to find the generic name), always accessible.

So now you are convinced of the necessity of owning a PDA drug guide, but which one should you buy. Like I said, I have owned Mosby's Drug Guide for over a year and have just recently purchased Davis. I have found Davis's drug guide to be more thorough. Davis is also easier to navigate. Both Davis and Mosby have drop-down menus to quickly jump to the desired section of the med-entry (i.e. mechanism of action, adverse reactions/side effects, compatibility, nursing considerations, client education, etc); however since Davis has the content divided into more subsections, it is quicker to navigate to the desired content. So, my personal choice is Davis; however I do not think you would be remiss to purchase either of these. I only encourage you to move out of the hard-copy med-book and to the PDA version.

You may also like to know that you can integrate many other helpful resources such as lab value guides (such as Pagana  and  Pagana's Diagnostic Laboratory Test Reference, ISBN 0323033954; or the one included in Medical-Surgical Nursing Clinical Companion, ISBN 0323031994), medical dictionaries (Like Taber's, ISBN 080361408X), and more. I hope that more nurses are walking around with entire reference libraries in their pockets resulting in better practice, improved patient outcomes, and reduced errors.

http://www.hantla.com/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=20

</review>
<review>

For the first time, I ordered my school texts on-line to save money... I am so pleased with the results. Shipment was fast, product was perfect and I saved money. Great for a "forever" student

</review>
<review>

You can't go wrong with this fantastic drug guide! It is listed under generic names but if you don't know the generic name you can look up in the index at the back of the book for the trade name.  I had a nurse/lawyer professor for my first year care plans and she wanted it all.  This book delivered it ALL: classification, pregnancy catagory, indications, mechanism of action, contraindications and precautions, adverse reactions and side effects, interactions, route and dosage, availability, nursing implications and even potential nursing diagnoses! Also implementation, patient/family teaching and evaluation.  Wow! I've been very impressed.  It came through for me so I didn't have to go out and buy another drug book which is saying something! Davis's Drug Guide has even more in the back of the book with many appendixes including: recent drug approvals, additional drugs, combination drugs and opthalmic meds all that  include class, indications, adverse reactions and side effects, route and dosage and contraindications and warnings.  Appendix E  is about natural/herbal products which is as thorough as the drugs that make up the main part of this book.  There are pictures of the intramuscular drug sites, formulas helpful for calculating doses, routine pediatric and adult immunizations,  recommendations for the safe handling of hazardous drugs, schedules of controlled substances, food sources for specific nutrients (ie foods rich in K, Na, Ca, Fe, vit K, vit D, low Na, foods that acidify urine as well as foods that alkalizine urine), and insulin and insulin therapy.  Also throughout the book there is plenty of red lettering amidst the black for high alert warnings where drug overdoses have occurred in the past.  The organized, easily found references in this guide could save your client's lives.  Just because a doctor orders it doesn't mean it is ok to give, as a nurse we have to look it up and know the safe dose and contraindications and more and this book has it all! Highly recommended! Good luck all future nurses!
Soar!

</review>
<review>

The book I received was in good condition. It had a minor crease on the cover were it had been opened.  Overall I would buy from this seller again

</review>
<review>

I got this book when I started nursing school in 2003. This year (Fall 2005) as a senior, I wanted to get an updated drug guide, so I asked my Adult II instructor what she recommended, and purchased it. It was from another company, and was in shrink wrap, so I did not look at it before I purchased. The company is very reputable, but I found that the layout and content of the book not as extensive as Davis's. That was $35 down the tubes! I would like to see a newer editon of Davis's that covers the many new drugs. As soon as I do, I will purchase

</review>
<review>

Bill Rancic, the dashing winner of the first season of  Donald Trump's runaway-hit reality show The Apprentice admits on the back sleeve of his book You're Hired: How to Succeed in Business and Life that he never went to business school and that he doesn't believe that business theory can be learned from a book.  What then is the affable Mr. Rancic doing offering advice on good and  ethical business practices?  Making the most of his fifteen minutes of fame, that's what.  In two hundred pages, he lays out the formula for his own success that led to him beat out 215,000 applicants to become the Donald's first `Apprentice.'  The reader is privy to Mr. Rancic's early entrepreneurial efforts, businesses that whet his appetite for something larger.  Readers are also witness to his failures and mishaps that threatened to derail his ambition.  Through it all, Rancic recounts the lessons he's learned, persons he's admired, falls from which he's risen.  He offers opinions on Kwame Jackson, his fellow runner-up to the Apprentice title, and `deceitful' Omarosa, whom many believed was the cause of Jackson's loss.  He also details lessons he's learned on goals, values, strategies, leadership, vision, and success.  While business school grads may scoff at Rancic's straight-shooting and simplistic advice, it is less idealistic than The One Minute Manager series of books.  Here, Rancic seems to be offering advice to the everyman and everywoman looking to get a better hold on the direction and management of their lives in pursuit of their goals and dreams.  The result is one that is as memorable, yet as pleasing, as a tall glass of lemonade.

</review>
<review>

This is not the type of book I usually read, but the persona that came through was so engaging that after flipping through a few pages, I decided to buy the book.

Rancic personifies the American ideal; wholesome, grounded in a loving family that emphasizes hard work and integrity (and genetically blessed in the looks department!). This fortuitous mix of "apple pie" ingrediants have garnered him national fame, and this book outlines his experiences (along with the lessons he learnt along the way) that propelled him to be The Apprentice.

The accounts of his experiences are modern day fables, with the moral of the story encapsulated as life lessons at the end of each chapter. In addition, each chapter contains vignettes of wisdom boxed in grey shading. Many of these are commonsense admonitions we've been hearing all our lives to the point that they have become cliches.  Rancic shows that these tried and true maxims of the American dream still apply.

I gave the book four stars for two reasons. One, the editing is sloppy. Writing a book in a conversational tone does not override the need for proper grammar. Two, Rancic's references to himself sometimes tend to sound smarmy (as when he refers to himself as "master chef" in the pancake story from his childhood and later when he calls himself an eligible bachelor).Somehow, this takes away from his self-characterization as humble. Such relatively minor flaws aside, this is a book worth reading.

</review>
<review>

While lots of books give you high level theories on how to succeed in your business, they usually leave you hanging at the end of the reading not know what actions to take in order to apply the theories in your day-to-day operation. Rancic's book however has a step-by-step recount of how he did it with his cigar business. You will get specific actions that you can do tomorrow to generate sales. While other books give you general directions (and lots of bullsh and ts), Rancic tells you specifically what he had done to succeed his business, what radio station he called, how much he paids for, what's the account was, how much he charged.

If you are an entrepreneur starting out or already struggling with your small/medium size business, this book is your road map.

</review>
<review>

If you are looking for a book filled with tactics and ideas, this is not it... move along. If you are looking for an inspirational addition to your business collection, then this should be yours. Personally, I loved this book and read it in one sitting. It profiles Mr. Rancic, demonstrating the obstacles he has overturned on his road to success. "You're Hired" shows what can be, and motivates one to achieve

</review>
<review>

From the moment I picked up this book and started reading it, I could not put it down! Literally. Thank goodness my toddler was still sleeping in the early morning hours, which allowed me to do so. Bill talks about how he was brought up and how is entreprenral mind was formed. It was a very interesting and inspiring read. If you are thinking about going into business for yourself, read this book. It confirms the fact that if you do not go for it, it will never happen. Bill took his dreams and ideas and turned them into reality.

</review>
<review>

I don't so much mind the money I wasted on this book, it's the time that bothers me. Bill Rancic, you're fired

</review>
<review>

I really do congratulate Bill Rancic for being HIRED by one of the richest man in the world. But being hired does not mean that Bill Rancic just became the next Bill Gates or Warren Buffet.

Great to know that you take yourself VERY VERY highly Mr.Rancic. your going to fit fine in the Trump Organization, But seriously dont over do yourself.

I'd rather retake my 'X100 intro to business administration' class in my college than to buy this book

</review>
<review>

Bill is very boring typically talks about business tips you already know.  The show was much better, you should buy that.  Kwame is much smater and deserved the job.  I can tell that this book is another promotional tool.  Don't waste even a cent on this book

</review>
<review>

I really enjoyed this book and have purchase the next book in series.  If you are a fan of Dean Koontz you will not be disappointed.  I give it four stars only because it is one of those books where you have to get past a chapter or two before you are hooked in, but well worth the wait.  Whew, what a ride

</review>
<review>

This character is a very unlikely hero...A total Geek, who is absolutley likeable.The story fast paced and well written..This was my first Koontz book and it will not be my last I'm actually reading "forever odd" and that too is very good..Read this book

</review>
<review>

For me, this was one of starters of Dean Koontz's books. I really liked the book. Dean Koontz is my favorite writers, cause of him I am doing my own book. Pick this one up, really good characters, main character, really good story, and plot

</review>
<review>

I didn't know what to expect before reading this book, but after reading it, I recommend it to any and everyone.  One of the best I've read of Koontz, and I've read quite a few

</review>
<review>

Kirk's book is supposedly the bible of Conservatives. Not neo-conservatives, but Conservatives. He sets up the long standing debate between the French, and Voltaie, and the English, using Burke as it's spokesman Supposedly Kirk would limit the vote, have a professional class of government officials, reduce if not eliminate most taxes, and let each individual strive for success. This is the basic mantra of classical conservatives, and is all well and good as far as it goes, but only a few of the many ever succeed this way. One of the surprises is how young Kirk was when this book was written; it's as if he had some inspiration for on high (probably not), or was cherry picking history (probably closer to the truth).

After reading this book I had a better understanding of where the Conservatives are coming from, althohgh I still don't understand why an obscure Royalist politician from the 18th century should be their flag bearer. Royality as a form of government most likely will never occcur in the US, although we seem to flirt with it from time to time.

Conservatives seem not admit of a meritotocracy, as we currently have in the US: they would rather rely on accidents of birth, cronyism and college organizations to select administrators, rather than people who have succeeded in other venues. A very informative, albeit frightening, book.

</review>
<review>

This book has been a major inspiration to me and my way of thinking. It is not very difficult to go online and read any number of Conservatives talking about all of the issues of the day. But, this book stands alone in following and celebrating the history of Conservative intellectuals. Often times it is portrayed (not without some merit) that Conservatives are anti-intellectual. I have frequently heard that Liberals are just naturally smarter or more inclined to be an intellectual. But, The Conservative Mind blows a hole through all of that. Kirk examines major Conservative thinkers like: Edmund Burke, John Adams, George Canning, Benjamin Disraeli, John Randolph of Roanoke, Orestes Brownson, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John C. Calhoun, and T. S Eliot (amung many many others).

The most difficult aspect of this book is to accept John Randolph and John Calhoun as figures to be celebrated. They both were men who used their talents to protect an evil system of slavery. Although, as another reviewer elquently noted, Kirk was not endnorsing slavery or racism or anything like that. Just the fact that Conservatism is a The "negation of ideology," and that change will happen, in Kirk's prospective Calhoun was only following that line of thinking. I personally don't agree with it that far. As obviously slavery was antithesis of what the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution stand for. But, again stating, Kirk is not writing to argue that slavery should not have been eliminated- only that change has to follow the methods of that society.

I would recommend this to anyone- Conservative or Liberal. It is a magifnicent study of Conservativism. It can be a little dense at times, but that is to be expected and it shouldn't detour anyone from reading it.

</review>
<review>

The fatalistic view of Conservativism is expressed by Kirk even before the first chapter concludes as he states, "[Edmund] Burke, could he see our century, never would concede that a consumption-society, so near suicide, is the end for which Providence has prepared man".  But wait. The Conservative Mind was first published in 1953, the mythical golden age of America with Ward and June Cleaver and Normal Rockwell. Meanwhile, Burke, a contemporary of the 18th century is pining for the 14th century. What a depressing ideology to think that we always live in the worst of times.

There are certain ideological threads that carry throughout the book including a belief in the stratification of society. Voting should be the privilege of a small minority rather than universal democracy which Kirk saw as contributing to a degradation of society. Kirk writes, "What men really are seeking, or ought to seek, is not the right to govern themselves, but the right to be governed well" but what he offers is a lack of true representation. The author pines for the days of the aristocrat and although he defines the elites by wealth, intellect and lineage he clearly includes race and gender. Is it so surprising that Kirk lauds some of the worst racists in American history like Nathanial Bedford Forrest whom he describes as `magnificent' before quoting his racist vitriol? In a particularly galling move he referrers to pro-slavery advocate John C. Calhoun as a `defender of minorities' and praises John Randolph for, among other things, opposing doctrines of racial equality. Kirk goes on about Calhoun's support for states rights but his support only extended to southern states as he supported the Fugitive Slave Act which forced federal officials and law officials in Northern states to return runaway slave under penalty of $1000 fine. He supported laws that would make it illegal for northerners to even protest slavery. For Calhoun states rights were nothing more than a self serving attempt to keep slavery safe. Kirk shows his own racist stripes when he refers to northern `anti-slavery agitation' and supports Calhoun for choosing racial preservation over liberty, although Calhoun has an extremely warped view of liberty. One wonders if Kirk could even fathom the supreme irony in stating the Calhoun mounted a `strong protest against domination by class or region'.

Another thread is his desire to see the reunification of church and state. The duty of the church is to keep the unclean masses in line. Quoting Samuel Coleridge, the author makes it clear that the truth or falsity of the church is irrelevant; it is an institution that must be preserved as the primary means of social control. Sounding like the inspiration for disgraced Chief Justice Roy Moore, Russell Kirk urges that, "state and church ought never to be separate entities, true religion is not merely an expression of national spirit; it rises far superior to earthly law, being, indeed, the source of all law". Kirk sees a difference between the faulty laws of man and the laws of God but never draws a distinction. I have to wonder if, like the modern Reconstructionist, Kirk wanted to see the laws of Leviticus imposed including executing homosexuals and blasphemers. He never explains how one might recognize a law of God besides using prejudice.

The third thread would be Kirk's anti-intellectual (or perhaps pro-stupid) stance. He refers to human reason as `puny' and `impotent' and claims that we find the mind of God in prejudice and tradition. `Prejudice', he writes, `is of ready application in the emergency; it previously engages the mind in a steady course of wisdom and virtue, and does not leave the man hesitating in the moment of decision, skeptical, puzzled, and unresolved'. Actually what he is advocating is for the general population to turn over rational thought to the church and those higher up the social chain. Citizens are encouraged to exhibit awe and veneration for God and those in higher stations and authority.

In order to grab the golden fleece of populism Conservatives have lately had to abandon overt stratification although veneration of wealth is certainly still evident. Like Calhoun the support for states rights remains a complete faade. I found Russell Kirk's salesmanship of Conservativism generally repellent but recommend the book because it remains a fairly enlightening view of an ideology that continues to thrive to this day.

</review>
<review>

Probably most people reading this already know of this book's reputation and influence, so I'll skip over both the chapter-by-chapter analysis and the praise (I'd end up in what Kirk would call "overweening" praise, anyway).  But I do want to respond to a typical liberal caricature offered by a previous reviewer.  The caricature to which I refer is the idea that a conservative is anyone opposed to change.  In fact, the reviewer even argued that the Soviet Union could have been seen as a "conservative" system (an argument endlessly repeated in contemporary media).

Perhaps the reviewer missed or didn't understand Kirk's repeated references to conservatism as the "negation of ideology."  An ideologist is anyone who tries to rubber-stamp a system of premade ideas onto a society or culture.  Think of the "New Soviet Man" in the Soviet Union.  Think of the "Cultural Revolution" in China.  For that matter, although it wasn't imposed militarily, think of the "Great Society" in America (it worked out about as well as the first two).

The "negation of ideology," then, is the conservative idea that one takes societies as one finds them, and then tries to work out change organically from within those societies, rather than imposing it on them from the top.  (Think of the current liberal infatuation with attempting to rule America through the Supreme Court for a good example of the "imposing from the top" model.)  Sometimes this change can be quite radical, radical in the sense of "getting to the roots" of something, as in the American Revolution (which Kirk discusses extensively).  The colonists believed that the liberty they already knew was being circumscribed, and fought to extend it.

The reviewer also slanders Kirk in implying he would be in favor of accepting slavery.  No, our own Constitution details life and liberty for all, and the organic application of it (as we see in our subsequent history) extends that life and liberty to all.  Even the writers of the Constitution, some of whom owned slaves themselves, knew that the Constitution's principles would lead to freedom for all.  Lincoln (a Republican, let's never forget) certainly knew it.

If you really want to know about the intellectual history of conservatism, this book is where to start.  Don't be put off by reviewers whose lack of sympathy for the subject leads them as well to a lack of understanding of the subject.

</review>
<review>

I found Kirk's work to be an excellant antidote to the Religious Right and Neoconservative nonsense that the media and new intellectuals pass on as "conservatism" today. A good place to take back the Conservative philosophy, a philosophy of tolerance, respect, fairness, and progress, from the extremists bent on Right wing "Christian" tyranny

</review>
<review>

Kirk starts off with 6 basic tendencies that define conservatism.  Among them:
Pessimism.  Conservatives do not trust human beings to seek the good.  We believe human beings are concupiscent, and that government, as an institution made up of concupiscent human beings, is untrustworthy and corrupt.  A liberal believes human beings are essentially good.  Modern "liberalism," aka socialism, having failed to prove any of its theories as to where evil comes from, has turned cynical.  There is a difference between healthy pessimism and cynicism.
Anyway, Kirk begins by outlining 6 key points of conservative thought (which are forgotten by our current liberal Republican president).  Then he discusses the major thinkers who defined conservatism from the late 18th to early 20th centuries

</review>
<review>

This was by far the most informational book I have ever read on conservatism. I learned more about the history both the good and bad about conservatism. Also this book is very practicle and worthwhile. No hype just fact and purpose. Anybody who is a conservative should read this book so as to know the rich history we have and the future direction we are taking.
To those who are not conservative or dont know if they are conservative please read this book. It is a book that should not be taken lightly. The very history and future direction of conservatism lies within its covers. A must have in every library. It is in mine

</review>
<review>

What a charming story! This book is a perfect quick read for an adult over a cup of hot cocoa........or a great adventure for a young girl. It beckons to those who enjoyed The Secret Garden or Isle of The Blue Dolphins. I would heartily recommend this book to anyone wanting a good clean adventure into an old fashioned fantasy world.

</review>
<review>

This story is exactly what it is supposed to be - a good story for KIDS. I don't seem to recall JK Rowling saying anything about it having a single thing to do with Harry Potter - she loved the book as a child. Had she said she loved Green Eggs and Ham someone would inevitably launch into why the flying Ford Anglia was based on the blue car Sam I Am drove up a tree. Give it a chance and form your own opinion

</review>
<review>

I just found out about this book as an adult, read it and loved it.  I wish I had heard about it as a preteen or teenager -- it was exactly the type of book I read as a child.  While it does have magical elements, it is not full of "Harry Potter" magic if people are lead here by JK Rowling's comments.  It is more fanciful and mysterious, with a little bit of chaste romance thrown in -- a perfect escape from the real world for a bit.  It sounds like a movie is being made, which intrigues me.  I can't wait to see how it translates to the big screen.  Altogether, it was an absolutely lovely book, one I am going to recommend to others to read -- 'tween, teen, or adult

</review>
<review>

After reading some negative reviews of this book, I needed to buy and read it myself.  I couldn't believe that if the story was so bad, they would be making a movie of it.

I believe that this is a charming "old-fashioned fantasy" ... nothing more, so why make it anything else?  Let children read and enjoy the story.  After all, it is not meant to entertain adults.

Silver horses, magic, and peculiar circustances don't need to alarm the children who read the book or see the movie.  I, for one, am anxious to see how this story is transformed for the screen.  I will let my imagination run free with the little white horse, and simply enjoy the movie as pure and delightful amusement.

I recommend this book for children to enjoy and anticipate the plot as the storyline develops.  Their imagine will soar!

</review>
<review>

Based on a storyline from the 1800's, this book, in this day and age, is verging on child pornography, child neglect and promiscuous language.  I can see its value for literary purposes with much expressive language, however, the heroine of this book is 13yrs old at the beginning of the book, is treated as a child throughout, the story advances by just days at a time and yet in the end she marries in the next spring at the age of 13 or 14yrs.  Some of the language used is so 1940's and has developed alternate meanings over the time frame of 60+ years.  Some very good escapist scenes, however, it will be interesting to see what they do to this novel to clean it up for the 21st century movie that is planned. When there are so many other thousands of good storylines to choose from, why did movie makers choose this one

</review>
<review>

My mother read me this book nearly 30 years ago.  I remember being totally drawn in by the magic: Maria's special room with the star ceiling, the big cat who turns out to be a lion...  so wonderful for a budding brain.  All children should read it

</review>
<review>

I recently purchased a new copy of this book. I read it years ago, in 7th grade.  I enjoyed the book the second time and I'm glad I have it for my future children to read someday.  The story is a pretty heartwarming one.  Everyone gets along pretty well and there really isn't too much unhappiness in it.  Everything gets wrapped up pretty neatly without anyone getting hurt.  This is mainly a story about learning to compromise.  I would recommend this book for children (primarily girls, since the main character is a girl) ages 10-13.  Younger children would probably enjoy having it read to them.  It's a nice story for adults too, for the child within.  It's very funny how everyone refers to the lion as a "dog", and the unicorn as just a "little white horse".  I must say that I prefer the picture on the cover of the first book I read.  It was of the girl either standing between a lion and a unicorn or she was riding the lion who was standing next to the unicorn.  I think that one was much prettier than the current cover art.

Also, a suggestion for parents or teachers...when I originally read this book, it was for a school book report.  Part of the assignment was to create a board game that went along with the book.  It was actually kind of fun, though maybe these days 12 an 13 year olds may not enjoy it as much as I did.

</review>
<review>

If blood and gore is your preference do NOT read this book.  It is a simple story with a touch of magic.  I first read it when I was about 12 and have been looking for it ever since.  It has joined my home library for neighborhood children and my grandchildren.

</review>
<review>

I agree with the reviews that consider this book a pretentious, self-indulgent, ego-fest. Wallace is obviously highly intelligent, and every minute of this book seems designed to remind us of that.

It all starts off well enough. The characters are quirky and interesting. At first. And Wallace does a good enough job of setting up a curious chain of events to keep the reader reading and wondering what's going to happen. But nothing ever really happens. And at some point I just grew sick of the characters and their weird little lives.

Ultimately, this just felt like what happens when a really smart person decides to write something as a way to experiment with and exhibit his own intellect. And while that exercise may have been rewarding for Wallace, it wasn't so terribly rewarding for the reader.

</review>
<review>

After literally stumbling across Wallace's "Brief Interviews With Hideous Men," I immediately purchased "Broom Of The System."

Through a series of lough-out-loud dialouge and absurdly detailed passages, the story of young Lenore Beadsmen unfolds before the reader's enchanted eyes. Among the funnier characters, there are Lenore's violently jealous boss who is coincedently her lover; Wang-dang-lang, a friend from college; and Norman Bombardini, an obscenely obese lone-wolf with an unhealthy obsession for Lenore.

Although there are really no key plots, the story is never dull and a lot of the short stories within the book (critiqued by none other then Lenore's boss who runs a publishing company) are reason enough alone to buy this paperback edition.

Although I think the ending was overly abrupt, it fits in well with the context of the character, especially considering his apparent fixation on "words" (the word itself is the word that should appear as the last word in the book, if this made any sense to you whatsoever).

Nonetheless, this book is a definite must have for any Wallace fan, and an excellent introduction to him which will not give you a workout every time you pick it up to read like the hefty "Infinite Jest" undoubtedly will.

blog.myspace.com/mattyp24

</review>
<review>

I hate DFW. I love DFW. And so it goes. This appears to be the tenor of the reviews as well as the general reaction that David Foster Wallaces writing seems to induce. I became interested in reading the late 20th century "greats" and began with Infinite Jest. One hundred pages later, I was sufficiently confused and decided to back off and read some early or shorter works by my authors of interest. Thus, I read Delillo's Body Artist and DFWs Broom of the System. Despite the fact that DFW is clearly more intelligent than me, I managed to finish the Broom of the System. It is more approachable than Infinite Jest, funny, and entertaining. If you are new to DFW, I would say that this book has a similar "feel" as the films The Royal Tenenbaums or I Heart Huckabees.  Is this a perfect book? No. Is the writing outstanding? Yes - but not completely perfected. Is the plot compelling? No - then The Historian and DaVinci Code are compelling but thats all they offer. What is it that makes this book worth 4 stars? It is simply DFWs ability to capture the irony and lassitude that characterized the youth zeitgeist of the late 20th century. He does this with humor and zest that are rarely matched. It may be DFWs lack of driving plot that makes people so frustrated. However, recall that the "Greatest American Novel," Moby Dick was panned commercially and critically when first published. Was Melville ahead of the collective curve? Probably. Is DFW also ahead of the curve? Given the equal number of people who dislike or love his writing, it is not unlikely. Either way, The Broom of the System offers an approachable starting point to one of the great writers of our time. March onward, Delillo, Wallace, and Pynchon

</review>
<review>

This novel provides an interesting angle for fans of David Foster Wallace- a great book, but clearly the product of a fascinating and inventive writer who is still figuring out the true extent of his voice. Thus, while the book has many of the hallmarks of his writing (the "must....describe....everything" of his subsequent works), it also has a kind of- dare we say- brevity, that is refreshing and works in the book's favor. While it stops short of the brilliance that followed, this is still a wonderful book, full of amazing characters, amazing situations, and is just plain an amazing read

</review>
<review>

There might be a good idea for a joke - but it just does not come out funny. That's about all I can say about this amazingly overrated book. Seems to have all the ingredients to be good: Great Ohio Desert (G.O.D) - funny, the names of the people - funny, and so on. Came out to be - just boring. Pretentious dull dialogue. Pretentious dull characters. I was reading it in a morbid disbelief, that lasted for more than half of the book. It is very unusual for me to stop reading a book once I passed the halfbook mark - I usually want to know "what happened". It kept me going here for some more pages - and then I decided: nothing of it really happened, does not matter, waste of time. None of the characters, surroundings or events were in any way interesting

</review>
<review>

One of the best non-fiction books available on the subject of what is really happening in America. Recommended reading for those over the age of 18 thhat truly wants to understand what is happening to our country

</review>
<review>

With William Cooper now dead killed in a shooting. I feel it shows he was right trying to pass on this information. He gave his life so we would know the truth.

</review>
<review>

Alot of folks love to criticize Bill Cooper. I personally think he was reporting truths from his experiences  and  information he got his hands on.  He claims right up front that some info may not be accurate.  He NEVER claims to be 100% accurate, and gives you his sources for the info, not just opinions.  He took a stand to expose secret information he felt the public should know.  Whether you agree with him or not, you've got to respect the man. He fought to get this book published  and  ultimately lost his life holding on to that "stand".  It's risk-takers like him that gives us knowledge  and  information to see hidden truths.  Thank you  and  God Bless you, Bill.  Rest in Peace.

</review>
<review>

This book is not for those who wish to continue living their monotonous and stressful lifestyles. This is meant to make you aware and to further draw your own conclusions.  Critical thinkers only!!
Also, this is for the reviewer Robert, from jacksonvile, Florida.  You stated that you know the 'truth' about William Coopers death... uhhm  were you there?  No, all you did was research on the internet and all of a sudden these truths emerged from the files revealing cooper's death.  You stated that he was shot and killed by deputies (like the govt.) for resisting arrest.  Right, okay then.  Aparently, you did not extract any information from this book and you are a waste of life.  Watch these movies:  The Island, The Matrix, V for Vendetta  and countless others

</review>
<review>

It's not too difficult to understand how "Behold a Pale Horse" has become "the best selling underground book of all time"(according to a blurb on one pro-Cooper website)--after all, people want to(and do) believe in outlandish things. The problem with the late Bill Cooper's book is that it damages any serious attempt to examine the reasonable premise that every aspect of world affairs is controlled by a handful of wealthy, powerful men. Cooper believed this, Cooper was a nut...therefore it follows that everyone who agrees with the basic hypothesis is a nut, too. Rightly or wrongly, this is what people believe. (If you're looking for a serious treatment of this subject, albeit from the POV of someone who thought it was a good thing, take a gander at Carroll Quigley's monumental "Tragedy and Hope".)
To all the "if you can't handle the truth, don't read this book!" reviewers who know little to nothing about Bill Cooper: I invite you to do a Google search on the man and acquaint yourselves with another truth, the real truth. Milton William Cooper was a certifiable headcase. Numerous former friends and acquaintances have described him as a hard-drinking, ill-tempered, violent man who was incredibly easy to fool. Cooper's contention that John F. Kennedy was killed by William Greer, the driver of his limo in Dallas, is of course well-known...but he also believed, and told audiences at his lectures, that the aliens on the Fox television show "Alien Nation" were real aliens. He wasn't kidding. Cooper would hear or read an outlandish tidbit of information, then take it--and repeat it!--as gospel. Fellow "fringe" writers and researchers like Bob Lazar shunned Cooper after he accused them of being government agents who were out to discredit him. There was, of course, no need for anyone else to discredit him: he took care of that himself. Nowhere in this rambling patchwork quilt of a book(mostly documents and articles from other sources, really, with a comment here and there by Cooper himself) is there a shred of proof to back up his extraordinary claims. Cooper made no attempt to verify the info he included, and it would have been impossible to do so in almost every instance, anyhow.
I'll go on record as saying that I believe the circumstances of Cooper's death were suspicious. I feel badly for the man because he came to such an ignoble end, and because his affection for his wife and daughter is so evident in the foreword to "Pale Horse". This was a human being with real feelings...but he was very, very disturbed. There are countless other books which examine this subject more rationally; so many that "Behold a Pale Horse" should NEVER become any conspiracy theorist's bible.


</review>
<review>

There is some who would say that Bill is a right wing gun waving nutcase like one reviewer below. But I just think he/she/it is a liberal dupe. There is also lots and I mean lots of conservative dupes. I'd say Bill is eccentric and some of this book is blather. To dismiss it on the whole because of a couple of space cadet ramblings would be wrong. There is concrete proof that there is a cabal of men in high places mainly the international bankers who are bent on world control and domination. Their arm is the unconstitutional private bank the Federal Reserve who has a strangle hold on the econmy and can cause recessions and depressions with edicts. Do your homework and you'll see the crash of 29' was no accident. The IRS is also illegal so is the income tax which is used to pay the interest on the debt to the international bankers. Now I don't know about the Illuminati  or Skull and Bones stuff but it is a big possibilty that their connected. This book covers it all. Not for establishment liberals or conservatives who wish to believe whats on the surface. This is for people like me who want to dig where the dirt, slime and worms are. As for Bill's death its up in the air there is a possibilty that the cops shot him because he shot first. Theres also the other that the authorites shot him as a undesirable and some say the court records concur with this. Either way this book is a good and informative read.

</review>
<review>

and every american should read this book then pass it on to bush his friends and family members

</review>
<review>

Pay no attention to reviews about this book. Read and dicide for yourself what is going on in these 500 pages of mind boggling information. You can't really take the book as proven fact, though, as Cooper has mentioned this in a disclaimer in the front of the book, himself.

"Behold A Pale Horse" is really just a collection of information that Cooper had been distributing for many years. He faxed news letters, held public lectures and debates, and dedicated his life and perhaps even his death to revealing the truth about the people that rule our nation, and possibly our world.

If he's not "one of them", as he states several times in the book, then William Cooper is a true hero.. or puppet, I'm really not sure. The thing that I liked about the book, though, was that he simply proposes several "conclusions" through-out the book, based on whatever information he'd found.

He attempted to verify everything that he came across, and I think that Cooper honestly felt like he had a real chance at hendering whatever might be coming. However, what affects might this book have had on the world? If you're on a search for truth, this book is the origin of a lot of the information that people will hand you. I couldn't even begin to think about all of the ways that this book, alone, might have inspired people. Heh, or the number of watch lists I could have put myself on for posting this review.

</review>
<review>

Type Cooper's name into Google and learn about what a nut job he really was.  He allegedly threatened a neighbor with a hand gun.  A court issued an arrest warrant.  When two deputy sheriffs attempted to serve the warrant he shot one of them.  They returned fire, killing him

</review>
<review>

A friend of mine recommended this book and he could not have been more right. It is one of the most underrated books out there. It's a good read for my commute once in a while and it never gets old. The real life examples in the book are a great way to learn and shape our lives. One of the best aspects of this book is its simplicity. Buy it, read it and pass along to your friends and family.


</review>
<review>

If you don't have it then buy it.  Everyone should own a copy

</review>
<review>

I recently came across the title as cited by several different people as a book that was important in their life, and I'm grateful that I did. It encompasses all of the ideas expressed in many other books of its type, however it doesn't leave anything out, while addressing each topic in a succinct way. It is not new, and a few of the examples given will be dated. That doesn't lessen it's messages in anyway.

</review>
<review>

Written around 50 years ago this book still holds true. It is incredibly easy to read and will help your gear your mind towards success. Like most 'success' based books the concepts in here won't make your jaw drop in shock and awe as they are all essentially pretty simple - Think Success and Gain Success. The belief in your ability to achieve something is the first and most important step towards success. Believing you can, will spur your mind to support your belief with reasons, it will find a HOW so you can achieve your goal. Conversely, if you believe you can't, your mind will find reasons to support your claim,

The application is always the challenge but this book definitely inspires you to tap into the innate potential within. Coincidentally this book arrived a few days before I had an important job interview and put me in the success frame of mind. I passed the first interview easily, nailed the second one and got the job! It's the sort of book you will read again and again to keep the concepts fresh in your mind. It's also a book you will want to lend people you care about.

Highly reccommended. Buy it!

</review>
<review>

This book has made a huge difference in the way I react, work, play and think about things that come up all the time.  The highlighter flowed throughout and my inner lightbulb glowed regularly when reading this timeless marvel

</review>
<review>

I am not sure I would have used the word "Magic" in the title.  Actually there is no magic in thinking big.  But the results of following the advice given by Dr. Schwartz might seem like magic.

The simple truth is that most people have very self-limiting beliefs.  And as a result, think in terms of small achievements.  Change your way of thinking and you change your life.  As Schwartz points out, success is achieved "by following conscientiously and continuously a plan for self-development and growth."  And he gives you a plan.

The book is well written, full of interesting stories and great advice.  If you implement just a few of the ideas he puts forward, you will make considerable improvement in your life.

Some of the more notable bits of wisdom:

"We learn nothing from telling.  But there is no limit to what we can learn by asking and listening."

"Others see in us what we see in ourselves."

"People who tell you it cannot be done almost always are unsuccessful people ..."

"Before you start out, know where you want to go."

The book contains a wealth of great information and wisdom.  However like any great advice, it is useless unless and until the reader takes action.  For the words to benefit you, you must take action.  A great blueprint for taking action, but taking action is up to the reader.



</review>
<review>

Refreshing audio, letting yourself be open-minded and then relate and apply what you hare to your present situation. This audio cd will is good for those people that are constantly on the go

</review>
<review>

This book is a classic just like Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich.  The idea is basic and simple; you have to think and believe in yourself to be succesful.  It does not matter what degrees you have if you are not going to think about how to overcome your problems be it social, economical or whatever problem, you must take action. As stated in this book action cures fear. So, If you fear something then do something, and the fear is gone...

</review>
<review>

I enjoyed this book very much. The author was very clear about her research and the conclusions she reached. It really helps explain the cultural setting of belly dance in Egypt better than any other book I've read, and it's fascinating reading as well due to the little details she tells us about dancers living in Egypt. A must-read book for those interested in Egyptian belly dance

</review>
<review>

Too many books about Oriental/belly/Middle Eastern dance lean toward fantasy rather than scholarship.  Van Nieuwkerk's book explores the seemingly paradoxical love-hate relationship many people have toward Egyptian belly dancing and dancers and  details the history of the dance over the past few centuries

</review>
<review>

While probably not the best handicapping book even from the Beyer set, this is one of the more entertaining handicapping books around.  You should read his earlier stuff first to see how he evolved as a handicapper to incorporate some ideas such as pace, trip, and form cycles, where earlier he had largely dismissed those.  Where I spent a lot of time taking notes from other handicapping books, I spent more time turning pages and just enjoying a good read here

</review>
<review>

A very well written book. Easy to read, entertaining and full of useful information, this book makes otherwise complex theories easy to follow. The use of anecdotes and real life examples allow for easier understanding of the ideas presented. This is a useful addition to the library of any horseracing fan. The serious student of horse racing handicapping should easily recover several times the price of the book from using the information presented - that is a safe bet

</review>
<review>

Andrew Beyer is the godfather of speed figures in thoroughbred racing. In preparing to bet the Kentucky Derby and other races this year I read Andrew Beyer's fantastic book "Beyer on Speed" and Joe Cardello's book "Speed to Spare".  These two books fundamentally changed the way I handicap races. It is simply careless to handicap races without understanding Beyer Speed Ratings and use them to your advantage. This book explains the origins of the Beyer Speed figures and walks you through an understanding of how the speed figures are calculated and how they work. I used the information on "Beyer on Speed" and "Speed to Spare" this year (March, 2005) to hit a big trifecta at Santa Anita - without Beyer Speed ratings and the information they provide, I would have never made the bet I made.

Andrew Beyer is not only a great author, but he is at the forefront of making a day at the races enjoyable to all.  "Beyer on Speed" is a book that will absolutely make your trip to the track more enjoyable than you can imagine.  Beyer doesn't sugar-coat the various elements that make handicapping a less-than-perfect science, but he does help you understand the fundamentals in a very concise way.

I appreciate Andrew Beyer's commitment to racing/handicapping that is so evident in this book and in all his other writings. Andrew Beyer remains at the forefront of the war against doping in racing and other honesty/integrity issues. Andrew Beyer is one of the reasons that horse racing is such a great sport. This book is for anyone wanting to know how to quickly understand the joys and pitfalls of handicapping - and why thorougbred racing is so much fun.

</review>
<review>

This book is not for the beginning handicapper, but has some of the best information in it of any handicapping book I have read. Most books just give you information about how smart they were to make certain picks, but little knowledge is given to the reader. Beyer tries to pass on information from many years as a professional handicapper. I wish he would write a handicapping book that would have racing forms for 4 or 5 days, then show you how they break down the races to make their selections, not with programs they want to sell. It would be interesting to see the steps a professional handicapper goes through to handicap all races for a track, if they would bet it or pass it

</review>
<review>

Reading Andrew Beyer is at once informative and entertaining, which anything on handicapping has no excuse not being.  While his first book introduced speed figures, and his second mixed the application of them with an appreciation of other aspects of handicapping, this book revisits the holistic approach - always emphasizing speed figures - in an era when everyone has access to more information than ever, and many even know how to use it.  What makes reading Beyer so fascinating is that one is made to see, vividly, the endless testing and working out of new ideas and approaches, in the stories - one might call them lessons - he recounts (the chapter on turf betting is a classic of sports writing).  Beyer, like Bill James, is a scientist, and thinks like one, to the edification of all who choose not to keep recycling the same old bromides, and making the same old mistakes.  People like Beyer and Steve Davidowitz are largely responsible for the ever-escalating arms race which parimutuel bettors are fighting amongst themselves.  It's a wonderful game, but if you don't want to get left behind, better read this

</review>
<review>

Having never read a book by Danielle Steel but seen and liked a few of the movies adapted from her novels, I was looking forward to reading Answered Prayers, since I usually always find the books more deep and interesting. Sadly, I couldn't have been more disappointed... The first thing that bothered me about this novel, was the amount of repetition it has. I was just through the first few pages of the first chapter, and I was already being told things (usually insignificant) which I had just read a few lines before.
Secondly, the moment Brad is introduced into the plot, I could foresee with certainty, how it was going to unravel and how the book would eventually end. So as not to dampen my enthusiasm and continue reading, I reasoned that if the plot was going to be so predictable, the book couldn't possibly be Danielle Steel's "Number One Bestseller" as the cover proclaims...seems like I have a grave misconception regarding the criteria needed to make a book a "bestseller".

The major flaw of this novel is that it desperately lacks imagination. Even the main characters themselves and their situations are mirror images of each other. Faith is sweet and caring, has two daughters who have grown up and left to live on their own, leaving her feeling lonely and sad. Her husband is cold, unreligious and gives her no attention.
Brad is sweet and caring, has two sons who have grown up and left to live on their own, leaving him feeling lonely and sad. His wife is cold, unreligious and gives him no attention. Even Faith's "deep dark secret" is too unoriginal, and it is revealed to the reader at the very early stages of the book, leaving no room for curiosity and suspense.

Halfway through the book, I was so bored that I considered giving up reading it altogether. However I kept pushing on, praying that some twist to the plot would miraculously materialize somewhere, to at least make reading Answered Prayers worthwhile... Unlike Faith however, my prayers remained unanswered... It's going to require a lot of will power to attempt reading a Danielle Steel novel again...

</review>
<review>

Normally I don't take the time to write a review, but this book just bugged me.  When I finished I felt like I had run a marathon.  The book was just too drawn out and I felt the descriptions were long winded.  Faith was a little too unbelieveable even though she was abused and had little self esteem.  The plot was good, but moved slowly.  I am typically not drawn to Danielle Steel books and probably with good reason that I never seem to like them very much.  I am glad that this book was in a box of 30+ books that I paid $15 for at a used book store.  I would have felt like I wasted my money had I actually paid full price for it

</review>
<review>

Faith is a beautiful older woman that puts up with her husband's coldness in their marriage just because she doesn't realize what he's doing to her. She has two daughter's Ellie and Zoe whom mean the world to her. It's not until she decides to go back to law school that her husband begins to treat her worst by the minute. Both of her daughters are no longer at home and it's not until she meets up with a childhood friend Brad that she begins to see what she could have. Coming back from a trip a day early she finds out that her husband has been unfaithful to her and she finds hope for her future in the childhood friend named Brad whom happens to be married. Faith and Brad get closer as time goes by and the rest is a fairytale come true. In my opinion this book was one of  D.S.'s best

</review>
<review>

Read the first few chapters and the last few pages.  As usual, the remaining 300 pages were just repetition.  Danielle Steele should come up with a new "formula" (as mentioned in previous reviews) or tuck her pen away once and for all.

</review>
<review>

Wonderful yet so very sad at the same time.  I am a HUGE Danielle Steele fan.  This book, along with all her others are tops

</review>
<review>

The people in Faith's life are dying or moving away. At her step father's funeral, she sees an old friend she grew up with. Her brother's best friend Brad Patterson. They talk, exchange e-mails. And Brad goes back to San Fransisco.

When she gets home she can hear Alex upstairs in their bedroom. She needs to get ready for a dinner party. Alex is a investment banker. He tells Faith to hurry up. In a half an hour she's ready to go. Alex looks at her and thinks she looks like his daughters.

Faith has so much time on her hands. One daughter is in London and the other is at Brown. She starts thinking about going back to law school. She knows she has the time, with Alex always gone on business trips, and her daughters away. She has e-mailed Brad several times. He encourages her to go back to school. She brings it up to Alex. And he thinks its a terriable idea. She needs to be home to cook for him and be his wife. Not a full time student at her age. She tells him she needs something to do. "Learn to play bridge or take a class at the museum" he tells her. That sounded boring to her. She sends off for brochures from some of the local schools.

More e-mails between her and Brad.

At Thanksgiving their daughters come home. Everything is going good. Until Alex tells the girls about the ridiculous idea that their mother has about going back to school. Zoe thinks its a great idea. Eleanor thinks mom should be home for dad.

Around Christmas, Faith learns that Eleanor is not coming home. Shes upset about it. And Alex finally tells her school is up to her but he will not support her. In January Faith starts school. One of her classes is going to Washington, on a four day feild trip. On the third day the teacher has to leave for an emergency. Faith comes home a day early. She stops at the store. She wants to suprise Alex. When  she walks in the house, she notices a pair fo shoes under one of the kitchen chairs. There not her style. She then goes upstairs to find the bed not made. She pulls back the comforter and finds a black thong and a black bra in her bed. She leaves. She returns the next day as scheduled to find everything the way she left it when she left for Washington. Alex is in the same mood as when she left. Faith tells Alex what she had seen. He told her it was her fault. And moved out. Can Faith and Alex work things out or do they divorce and fall in love with someone else

</review>
<review>

This book is very good..gives an excellent description of a woman who is in a bad relationship and feels trapped. Interesting how she manages to wiggle free and start her life over again

</review>
<review>

This has to be one of the worst written books I ever read.  I can't believe there are so many ways to say the same thing. So far, Danielle Steel has found a way in the first third of this book.  I just can't read the rest of it. Generally, if a book isn't very good I can suffer through.  This one has gotten on my last nerve.  I had stopped reading her books because they had become so predictable.  But, I don't think I will be reading anymore of her books.  It's an insult to Nora Roberts and Sandra Brown for her to be ranked with them

</review>
<review>

This is the third edition of this book that I own.  As a dual diagnosis counselor I have found this book to be an invaluable resource.  The psychopharmacology of both drugs of abuse and mental health medications are explained in a detailed manner that is very accessible.  I find it a valuable resource in helping me educate clients about drug action

</review>
<review>

A Primer Of Drug Action is a nontechnical guide to the actions, uses and side effects of psychoactive drugs which will prove important for any psychology or health library collection. A Primer Of Drug Action covers everything from herbal applications to clinical treatments of psychological disorders, revealing the latest findings in the applications of drug therapy to various conditions

</review>
<review>

I first read a friend's copy of this book, which he had used as a text in a psychopharmacology course.  i soon acquired my own copy, and a number of my friends have read it--it's a very accessible introduction to  mind-affecting drugs, with generally good pointers into more specific  literature.     Julien's strengths are in the area of legitimate,  prescription use; i feel that the recreational sections are somewhat less  complete.  the chapter on psychedelics is, unfortunately,  nigh-on-useless--errors and omissions here mar an otherwise excellent book.    this book has been an indespensible reference for me

</review>
<review>

I became aware of this book because it was used as the textbook for a recent upper level biopsychology seminar.  It was one of the best books I have ever had to use for a class, and I believe is an extremely valuable  reference for anyone with interest in the way drugs affect the brain.  The  writing is clear, concise, informative, interesting, and complete.  Each  chapter gives an overview of the family of drugs and then goes into detail  on a few of the most common examples.  Everything from delivery to  half-life to molecular action to side effects is  covered.  Many of my  friends went out and bought the book after looking at my copy to learn  about either their recreational habits or prescription drugs.  A background  in biology would be useful for understanding all of the information, but  there are also appendices which explain the basics

</review>
<review>

This book offers a great way to approach difficult conversations.  There are several templates in the book to show the reader how to do this.  However, after reading it, it does tend to repeat certain aspects of the material.  I am sure that some of that is for effect; but for someone who is capable of applying material quickly it can be somewhat boring.  I still recommend it as a read, but I do not recommend that you need to completely read the book to get the overall message

</review>
<review>

The information and the examples in the book are easily applied and really do make a difference.  I used the book as a reference working with first line managers; it is especially useful to them in confronting passive aggressive communication styles

</review>
<review>

I kept thinking that this book was about business and wouldn't be applicabable to me, but boy was I wrong.  This is an amazingly insightful book that helped me in every area of my life, business and personal.  Take Susan Scott's advice and apply her suggestions to all areas of your life and you will be living at a much heightened level.  As she states it, it helps you come out from behind yourself and become real

</review>
<review>

I've just come back to Fierce Conversations for about the tenth time.  Scott has developed the clearest instructions on open, direct communication I've seen in 20+ years of working with clients around communication issues.  She gives easy to understand guidelines and supports each with excellent examples.  Anyone who has been around long enough to have read the early texts on Action Science will appreciate Scott's ability to put complex concepts into understandable action.  This is a must-read for anyone wishing to practice communication at its best

</review>
<review>

If you've ever wondered about how to have a single conversation that will make a difference, this book will provide the guidance for that conversation.  Scott is quite skilled at creating a simple approach to difficult situations.

One caution that I would offer is that this book is not a magic silver bullet.  You have to do some work and actually call upon some courage on your own.  The tools that this book provides is only have the battle.  That which you bring will provide the missing link.

There is great value here.  This book is truly a gift that you will find valuable.  I recommend it highly

</review>
<review>

This is a worthwhile book for personal and leadership development.  It contains practical tools such as:

1) The Decision Tree for delegation and professional development
2) A confrontation model
3) Questions for one-to-ones (fuel for discussion with colleagues and direct reports)
4) A Leader's Stump Speech:  Where am I going? Why am I going there? Who is going with me? How will I get there?
5) The concept of our "Emotional Wake" - worth reading and pondering about. "An emotional wake is what you remember after I'm gone.  The aftermath, aftertaste, or afterglow."
6) The image of the crucible to remind us that our job is "simply to hold, so that whatever needs to be said, what needs to be heard, can safely be said and heard."

And much more....

There are also many fresh metaphors -- one is tempted to keep highlighting the book.   Rich quotations, references to books, music, poetry.... good examples and stories.

I also appreciated the "Assignments" and Brief Summaries at the end of each chapter.


</review>
<review>

I bought the book on CD, listened to it, and immediately listened to it a second time.  It contains invaluable information for self-help, business and/or leadership development.  Practical examples that stress the importance of being earnest with yourself and in your day to day discussions.  I assumed from the title this was a book about confrontation - it was not, it was about encouraging (and accepting) honesty and constructive feedback in all your human contact.

</review>
<review>

Susan Scott has written an outstanding book on how to use everyday conversation to cut through the politics of work relationships and start talking about what we are all "pretending not to know".  I was consistently impacted while reading it, not so much that the material is brand new, but that it is presented in such a way that the opportunities and misses of my own interactions were obvious.

One of the topics discussed is called "Mineral Rights", a type of conversation designed to get deep, past the surface and into the truth of what is going on.  The approach accomplishes four purposes:  Interrogate reality, provoke learning, tackle tough challenges, and enrich relationships.  It has been my experience that this rarely happens in corporate America, and is rarer still where I work now.  The book uses examples from various companies that have identified their core values and been honest enough with themselves and others to start acting on them.  The many questions posed throughout the book, and the sections at the end of each chapter are a great way to start interrogating reality in your workplace.   The answers usually are "in the room" if we can really get honest and start looking for them.

In addition to some great business council, much of the book focuses on how we get honest with ourselves.  Often we are the problem, and our own inability to truly understand where our own issues lie, is an essential journey to better facilitate the kind of change we want in our business or relationships.  Another great approach used is the "Decision Tree" to help build empowerment in others.  Communicate clearly what decisions can be made and what must be communicated to others.  (Page 252).  Her insights into how silence is an effective communication tool, both internally and in interactions with others, were right on.

While this was all excellent, and perhaps the most well written summary of engaging communication approaches, what was the most powerful for me were the sections on our "emotional wake".  We all leave an emotional wake behind us as we engage in conversations with people.  The question is, what kind of wake do we want to leave?  How do we want people to feel?  This served as a great wake up call for me while reading.

Overall, this book is so full of great wisdom and insights I couldn't begin to do it justice here.   From the opening examples to the very useful questions in the back and the study guides throughout, I believe this to be one of the best books on business and personal communication I have read.  It is both deep and practical, both academically sound and real world tested, and is written in such a way that it felt like a conversation itself.  Highly recommended!


</review>
<review>

A must read. A possible next target for the US or Israel (check today's news). Let's
hope our new Congress is able to make the right decision,after getting the best unbiased
intelligence. They should make sure Scott Ritter (who was very accurate on Iraq. He;s
not as knowledgeable on Iran-but who is) is thoroughly involved in their discussions.
Before any military action,strenuous efforts at real diplomacy with all the players
in the region are essential

</review>
<review>

Scott Ritter and Seymour Hersh have made at least two appearances at The New York Society for Ethical Culture in the past year to discuss US foreign policy issues concerning Iraq and more recently Iran.  The October 16, 2006 appearance covered the issues of Mr. Ritter's current book Target Iran.  Transcripts and podcasts are available.

It is Mr. Ritter's contention that the Busch administration's primary tool of foreign policy is that of regime change.  Any efforts by those nations that are so targeted to engage us in diplomacy have and will be rebuffed.  This administration will not talk to those it considers it's enemies.  This has been challenged in the media by the James Baker group, but it remains to be seen if they will effect any changes.

Target Iran, according to Mr. Ritter, in based on press coverage in the Middle East and private confirmation of those stories by members of our intelligence community.  The story is that America is already working inside Iran with dissidents to identify targets.  We are also said to be negotiating the details of staging areas for our base of attack for this widening of the Middle East war.  Once that is completed, this administration intends to attack.

The public is and will be sold the same scenario in which (ala Downing Street memo), the facts will be fixed around the policy.

Why will this happen?  One element is the influence of Israel.  Iran is perceived, and not incorrectly, as a major threat to Israel.  But Ritter makes the point that Israeli and American interests are not identical.  After the recent events in Southern Lebanon, watching our congress and our administration give their complete support to whatever Israel was going to do, it's hard to see much separation.

Whatever the threat to us from Iran, Mr. Ritter says it's very much overblown at this point and should not lead to war.  Iran, according to Ritter, approached this administration several years ago to normalize relations and limit it's nuclear research.  They were rebuffed.  Mr. Busch can only visualize regime change.

If this goes forward as Mr. Hersh and Ritter both seem to think is inevitable, what are the chances of success?  According to these gentlemen, the results will be utter catastrophe.  Iran will immediately shut off the oil spigot.  Venezuela will create a hemispheric crisis by acting in sympathy and fail to honor their US contracts.  US troops in Iraq will be under attack by the Shia and possibly because of a religious fatwa in response to our attack.  Iranian missiles will be directed against the Saudi oil fields to further disrupt the world markets.  The world economy will be plunged into a massive recession.  This could lead to a ground invasion of US troops most likely from Uzbekistan that could easily turn into a trap.  Our ground troops are seriously depleted and under equipped at this point already.  Here is where Ritter says this administration could use field grade nuclear weapons to break the back of Iran.  He thinks this is the ultimate deal breaker because it absolutely assures us that radical Arabs will find a way over time to deliver a nuclear bomb to an American city.

These scenarios seem outlandish, except there are so many radical Republican sources cheering on war with Iran, that one cannot expect this administration to not once again respond with a military solution as the first order of business.  Of course, they visualize success not the failure predicted by Ritter.

The massive failure of our government during Katrina and the fiasco in Iraq are both symptoms of the same problems in the Busch administration.  What if war with Iran leads to the doomsday scenario that Ritter and Hersh talk about.  This book is a sober assessment of these issues and should be read widely by the public.

The potential of a Democratic House of Representatives in the near future will not change the scenario described by Ritter.  American militarism is ascendant.  As Ritter says, if the war in Iraq were going well, the public would be very satisfied.  The fact that the war is against all tenets of international law and was an immoral act on our part is not something that most of us seem to worry about.  Too many Democrats only talk about running a competent war

</review>
<review>

Scott Ritter provides chapter and verse on how conflict with the Axis of Evil nations could have been avoided with direct negotiation.  The mullahs of Iran sought to negotiate with everything on the table, including nuclear weapons and a treaty with Israel. North Korea still wants direct negotiations.  So did Saddam. We don't negotiate with regimes we want to remove.  Bush prefers to "take them out" no matter how many Americans die

</review>
<review>

This could have been one of the most important books of the year. Scott Ritter provides important, but tangential, information related to Israel's influence over U.S. foreign policy, the history of the IAEA in Iran, and the theory of regime change as the real reason for U.S. "concern" over Iran's nuclear weapons infrastructure.

Unfortunately, Mr. Ritter misses on two counts. First, he offers little direct insight into the Bush administration's policy-making process. And second, someone forgot to edit the book. We are talking about gross grammatical errors, periods in the middle of a sentence, and even a sentence that is punctuated with both a question mark and a period. It is painful to read some of the paragraphs because they are so poorly constructed (at first, I thought my eyes were tired).

At least this book attempts to offer something better than the pablum provided by major media and NPR. It does provide some real insights into the workings of the IAEA, Israeli intelligence and exiled leaders-in-waiting who often lead U.S. policy astray.

Mr. Ritter is at his best when he stays close to his area of expertise - weapons inspections. This topic requires far more than that

</review>
<review>

First published in 1999, and its still going selling strong! This manual has a lot going for it.
It is a practical step-by-step manual with clear pictures illustrating every posture, with a descriptive teaching of the postures.
David covers the basics, intermediate, right through to the full flow with 263 pages of Davids yoga and teachings.
I reccomend this book to anyone starting out in yoga, (in particular) because it does give visual learners good pictures to grasp and learn from.

</review>
<review>

This book is the best book on ashtanga yoga on the market - a must have for any person interested in ashtanga yoga. It covers all aspects, showing easier versions of the poses so that the beginner can also follow it.
The back of the book has shorter versions of the full primary series so that when you are limited for time, you can do a shorter workout.
The only thing about this book that is not so great is that when you have used it for a long time, the edges of the pages start to tear due to the way it has been bound. It has been bound this way so that the pages stay open while you are practising a pose

</review>
<review>

This was recommended to me by my Ashtanga teacher. It has great photos and really complements what you hear in class. I understand more the drishti (eye gazes) and what the modifications to the poses are. When I think about it, I open it up and read about a particular pose that I am having some trouble with. It's really nice to have around.

I do wish it had the Sanskrit counting in it, but that is a minor thing

</review>
<review>

This book is a fantastic guide for your Ashtanga Yoga. I would recommend reading Yoga Mala (Pattabhi Jois) first, and then using this book as a guide for your practice. Illustrations are clear, vivid and easy to follow. The binding of the book allows for propping while praticing. David Swenson does a fantastic walking through step by step how to get into each pose. I use it everyday

</review>
<review>

Do you look like this person on the cover? If not, you may want to rethink this book. I got it as a gift but plan on "regifting" it soon. It makes yoga a game of accomplishment rather than an honest practice for normal people. Interesting Asana is fine for those who are truly moved and have a body that is capible of accomplishing it, but the real goal of yoga is to help you do a practice that enhances your life, not to spend your life trying to accomplish gymnastics designed for young Indian boys. For a different view, take a look at "The Yoga of Heart" by Mark Whitwell.

</review>
<review>

David Swenson offers an excellent book to support building a personal Ashtanga practice.  I have been doing Ashtanga yoga for 3 years now and have been inspired by David's Primary Series DVD and this book since I first began my practice.

For anyone who does not have Ashtanga experience, cannot find a teacher in their area or want to practice outside of a yoga class, David's DVDs are incredible and instructive.  This book is an excellent companion to learn the finer points of the practice at your own pace.

This book is also phenomenal for those experienced in Ashtanga who want to create a Mysore practice.  A Mysore practice is a quiet practice.  The only sound is your breath, while you go through the sequence at your own pace.  It's a profound opportunity to "hear your own voice" and in my experience, builds a deep inner trust.  Swenson's book not only lets you look at one asana at a time, but it also provides an "at-a-glance" sequence for a kind of "cliff notes" effect.  This was excellent to have by my mat as a reminder of the sequence while creating my at-home Mysore practice.

I have had the great fortune to take a class and teacher training with David Swenson.  He has a down-to-earth style, humor and an incredible knowledge of Ashtanga that shines through in his book and DVDs.  I highly recommend his work to anyone interested in Ashtanga yoga.


</review>
<review>

As an Ashtanga enthusiast, I am always on the look out for new things to add to my collection. My first Ashtanga teacher made copies of this book for me years ago, and I loved those few pages. Now that I have bought the entire book, I see just how wonderful it really is! It explains each posture in both the Primary and Intermediate Series in simple to understand language. Plus, David Swenson includes various modifications for difficult poses, which is always helpful.
Also included in this book are a few short practices sequenced togethery by Swenson, lasting 15, 30  and  45 minutes. These are excellent as well!
This is a wonderful Ashtanga book that any yogi or yogini who practices Ashtanga needs to own! Good for all levels - beginner through expert. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

</review>
<review>

I've reviewed most ashtanga books out there,and this is by far the best!!! The fact that it can sit on the floor with the spiral binding is a real bonus to any student or teacher.I really like how Mr. Swenson gives options to many poses giving accessability to everyone that can't stretch like "Gumby".Highly Recommended

</review>
<review>

This is an excellent look at Ashtanga Yoga. Swenson uses good descriptions of the asanas and the vinyasas that link them and his analogies are a creative look at Yoga: Standing Series and Finishing series as bread slices in a sandwich, with the Primary Series as the filling in the sandwich; and the idea of a vinyasa as the "etch a sketch" which clears the slate for each new asana, and his "physics of flight" and "ground transportation" as a means to jumping forward. My only wish for the book would be that it would contain a fold-out page with a diagram of the whole series on one page so that it could be a quick reference rather than having to flip from page to page. It would make moving through the series much easier after one has gotten the basics down. Also, (Ok, I have one more wish)I appreciated the break down of the Sanskrit word into meanings, but it would be even better with a pronounciation guide too. Otherwise, it is nearly perfect

</review>
<review>

This book is a classic and David Swenson is well loved by the yoga community. I'll admit that I find the design of the book and the quality of the black and white photos a little too rough and homespun for my tastes. (David did the design and layout himself). But, you can look at the excerpted pages and decide for yourself if production values are of import. Overall, I find David's voice friendly, supportive and unassuming. He does provides alternatives and modifications of poses for lesser able students. This book covers a lot of information, including Primary Series and Intermediate Series.

Between owning this book and "Astanga" by Jean Hall (0754810747) which has lots of luscious color photos featuring a variety of models, especially Jean Hall,  I have access to a balanced presentation of Astanga.

</review>
<review>

Alterman tries to deny the obvious left-wing bias of the media through fallacious arguments. For one, he compares complaints of liberal bias with complaints about media bias against minorities. In actuality, at one time, minorities were in fact seldom shown on TV, and then almost always in negative, stereotyped roles (e. g., black maids, Asian coolies). But those times have changed. Not so with the liberal bias. In fact, I sensed the liberal bias of the media even as a child, long before I knew what a liberal even was. I saw the constant glorification of hippies and those who protested the war in Vietnam, while there was complete silence on the cruelties of the Communists. At that time, I wondered why. Now I know.

Alterman tries vainly to ridicule the expose of liberal media bias by stating that there would have to be some sort of conspiracy in order for there to be a bias. In actuality, since most journalists are liberals, no conspiracy of any kind is necessary for a liberal bias to exist. Liberals simply do what comes naturally to them. As it stands, when a new set of Democratic phraseology arises, it almost simultaneously is spoken also by members of the mainstream media. This proves that there is some degree of organized collusion between the media and the Democratic party.

Every election cycle, it is the same. Every charge against a Republican is publicized, no matter how trivial. Democrats are coddled-unless their conduct is so egregious that it cannot possibly be ignored. Whenever Jesse Jackson opens his mouth, especially against Republicans, he gets profuse, uncritical coverage, no matter how racially inflammatory and baseless his accusations are. Conservative blacks get almost no coverage.

Alterman tells us that "when it bleeds, it leads". Nice try, but this does not absolve the media of its left-wing bias. There is a double standard against violence. Violence against homosexuals is reported, while violence by homosexuals is not. Right wing violence (e. g., abortion clinic bombings) is demonized, while left wing violence is not. The persecution of Christians worldwide has received almost zero coverage in the mainstream media, because it does not fit their agenda of who a victim is. One can go on and on.


</review>
<review>

To "Hinkle Goldfarb's" review, I would like to add several observations.
Alterman claims that the drop in viewership of the network news was due to the rise in cable news and the dividing up of the same audience among more channels, and not to any liberal bias. He leaves unanswered the question why a significant number of viewers would shift from network to cable. Could it be that the interviewers at Fox, for example, were asking questions that network reporters were not?
I also picked up on Alterman's assertion that the MSM's inclusion of conservatives is proof they are not liberal. William F. Buckley's "Firing Line" was considered conservative, but virtually 50% of the time was given to liberal guests to express their views, especially in the formal debates. Fox's Special Report With Brit Hume has Maura Liason (a reasonable liberal) and the ridiculously insufferable Juan Williams (both of PBS), but is also considered by Alterman to be a conservative program. I was completely floored by his statement that Cokie Roberts of ABC is a conservative!
Bottom line on this book is the same liberal attitude: liberals are moderate; conservatives are extreme rightists.

</review>
<review>

Even for the already-converted, this is a great book.  Normally I'm not too sympathetic to lefty books that will cleary be read by a number of conservatives that you could count on your hands and maybe one foot.  But even the choir will find this a well-researched, even-tempered, fair assessment of the liberal media myth. And best of all, the American public comes off looking like a culprit as much as a victim.  Ultimately, people vote with their eyes, ears, and wallets.  If the public demands and devours media slop, then that's what they'll get and, to a large extent, deserve.

This is great read.  He's a talented writer who knows his stuff.  And he is very clear about his background, potential conflicts of interest, and personal relationships to those about whom he writes.  No exaggeration to call this a great book

</review>
<review>

If Mr. Alterman just watched a nightly news cast of CNN, which are full of liberals and how they blast any and everything that does not agree with their limited perception of reality, then he would know that this is standard for all news on cable and web, tear apart the truth and just form a limited perception of reality. Uneducated viewers eat this liberal trash up like McDonalds fast food, however those who know better, avoid it because it can be damaging to one's mental health, but then again Mr. Alterman just wrote this book for the money, even if he makes a fool of himself doing it

</review>
<review>

As a student at Oklahoma State University, I am very interested in journalism and broadcasting.  Eric Alterman's book opens my eyes to many new ideas about conservative and liberal media.  The purpose of the book is to inform people of the different bias parts in the media.  Alterman does a wonderful job of showing both the conservative side and the liberal side in the media.  After reading through the book, I came to discover that the liberal media is looked at differently than I look at it.  I recommend this book to anyone that is interested in learning about the different views in the media

</review>
<review>

Other reviewers have pointed out the errors Eric Alterman makes in this book, like saying that the U.S. was under the Kyoto Protocol.  That was particularly annoying.  He needs to stop writing his books on the back of cocktail napkins

</review>
<review>

After having lived in NYC for 12 years, I finally read this book.   It had been recommended as a must-read for anyone who had ever lived in the city.  Many reviewers commented on the "leisurely" pace of the story, and I agree.  The description of the event in the climax of the story, though, I found too long and almost unbearably tedious, especially since such care with detail was missing from a lot of the other events in the book.  The time travel part was especially troubling to me; I wasn't at all convinced of its process.  However, I still enjoyed the book and was very satisfied with the ending.  As many have said, stick with it.

</review>
<review>

This book was on my summer reading list, and I was thinking that it
was going to be horrible, but it was the exact opposite. I love the book and enjoyed every minute that I read it! I love how Finney uses pictures in the book, it helps you to grasp the changes that occured in the scenery of Manhattan.

</review>
<review>

Others have summarized. I'll add that this novel is one of the best I've read. Slow starting, but stick with it. Read the sequel. Also try to find "The Third Level," one of Finney's lesser known short stories (also about time travel/NYC).

</review>
<review>

The descriptions of 1882 New York smack of reality more than anything I have ever read. The reactions of the protagonist are the best of any time travel novel I have ever read - truly amazingly authentic. The tale starts out slowly, but brings the reader to an awesome action-packed, never-rushed conclusion.  Extremely satisfying. A beautiful, thought-provoking story. There is everything here, science fiction, mystery, action, philosophy, and a bit of romance.  Highly recommended.

</review>
<review>

I bought this book in 1970 when I had just started college. It is one of the few books I have kept for all these years and have re-read regularly.  The premise for the story is a young man, Si Morley, who joins a government program to go back in time to the NY of 1880's. The past is bought to life in a richly detailed and meticulously researched story.  Not only is it entertaining, containing romance and mystery, but it is also a commentary on how modernity has changed the city and its inhabitants something even more significant today.

This is a book you'll enjoy reading, one I can't recommend highly enough

</review>
<review>

While I enjoyed reading the first half of this book, the second was pure agony. I actually started to skim through most of the pages until I reached the end.  It is dense with detail; almost too dense. For instance, Finney spends way too much time describing an office building ablaze in fire. His descriptions are interesting for about 3 pages, but by page 10 of the fire, I was completely and totally bored. Now, I'm not saying fiction should always be a "quick, easy read". Quite the contrary. I found Finney's writing to be refreshing. But c'mon folks, this book should have been 100-150 pages shorter. (Strictly for over-the-top romance lovers).

</review>
<review>

A Quantum Leap of reading.  How his man managed to take old pictures and form a believable, and personal, story around each one is an amazing feat.  I found myself wondering if he did travel back in time - was it possible - could I do it?  I even tried the self-hypnosis he told about - picking the civil war as my target.  No -- didn't work for me - yet!  Would I love to do it!  The ending of this book shook me - he turned a time travel into a mystery and then the last pages shake you around the other way.  It's amazing.  Read "The Mirror" , read Diana Gabaldon's time travel series -- but please don't miss including this book as your number one, best dog eared copy of your library.  You won't be sorry

</review>
<review>

This book starts out slow, but once you get past the first few chapters you won't be able to put it down.  If you know anything about New York, you will find it fascinating.  I'm not sure if it would be as appealing to someone who has never been to New York but the story is good regardless.

</review>
<review>

The sense of actually being in the mid-1800's was so strong, that I felt I had to decompress to bring myself back to my own time.  And I did so very reluctantly. A wonderful story with amazing images! Highly recommended

</review>
<review>

I love O'REILLY

There are aspects of his personality that I do not like but Bill is a voice in the wilderness of cable news today.  He yells and screams as much as the next guy but he actually does research to back his ranting points up.  This separates him from everyone else cable news (and radio) weather those people are liberal or conservative.  I honestly don't know what side of the aisle Bill sits on.

Overall-I think reading this book is worth your time.

</review>
<review>

My husband brought this home, and reading some of it, it reflects some very common sense realities about politics, along with some fairly harsh criticisms of many of the  and quot;players and quot; associated with campaigns and elections. A long time Boston resident and close to the action in most cases, the author exhibits an uncommon knowledge of more than a few  and quot;events and quot; and cautions the readers to try and look beyond the momentary hype to assess the value and the progress of our American political campaigns to see who really winds up on top, and too often, who really winds up on the bottom, and often screwed. A highly informative read, and one that appeals to logic as the ruler by which American democracy is played out, and its relation to  and quot;ordinary citizens. and quot;

</review>
<review>

I find Bill's books to be easy reads, which is important if he wants to reach a diverse audience. This book is a great motivator for personal growth. I finished it feeling much like I did after reading  and quot;The O'Reilly Factor. and quot; I wanted to improve myself and my life.

I would recommend this book to anyone, regardless of their interest in Bill's show on Fox News. I have a friend who dislikes Bill and she would benefit from reading this book. It's too bad her mind isn't open enough to give it a try. Don't make the same mistake. This book is extremely informative, motivational, and eye-opening

</review>
<review>

If you are a fan of O'Reilly and are interested in his personal anecdotes and their place in his life's journey, then you'll enjoy this book.  Don't expect any startling revelations, but do expect a good dose of common sense and a challenge to apply it in your own life

</review>
<review>

Thought the book was great and factual.  Certainly worth the time and money

</review>
<review>

I'm like many of the statistical women described in the book who found themselves living well while married and then found themselves divorced and broke with little to show for years of sacrifice and hard work. It was then I discovered how dependent I had become on someone else to provide for my financial future. I call it "marital welfare" -- and I do agree that we are a culture of dependent creatures -- and this fact usually smacks a woman right in the face through circumstances she least expects. Part of rising above all of this has been a dawning awareness of how important it is to take the financial responsibility for my future into my own hands. Kim Kiyosaki has put into words what has already been placed in my heart -- it was the "you're on the right track" message that I needed to hear to further my resolve -- not just in finances but in every area where self-sufficiency needs to evolve. The good news is that I am remarried to someone who supports my financial plans, goals and dreams and shares in the excitement. This book does not give a step-by-step how-to, but what it does do is bring about a birthing process that can literally change your life because it provokes you to change how you VIEW your life. For many people, that's all it takes, and in that regard, this book has accomplished wonders

</review>
<review>


Combine this information 1) statistically women live longer than men and 2) knowledge pays; that, in a nutshell, is the strongest argument for reading this book. Rich Woman is a great book for women of any age. Chapter by chapter, the author challenges the excuses that many women resort to for why they avoid dealing with financial matters. Packed with valuable and timely advice, this book will give any woman the confidence she needs to take ownership of her financial future.

James Lange, CPA/Attorney and author of Retire Secure! Pay Taxes Later: The Key to Making Your Money Last as Long as You Do


</review>
<review>

This was not the book I expected it to be, but it has won me over.  Kim isn't saying that the mechanics of investing are different for women, but the motivations, rewards and value of investing groups are.  That's why there's so many references to "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" etc. - go there to learn more about pure investing.

This book is about defining yours goals, motivations and getting some tips - and if you DO SOMETHING you're probably going to succeed.  The stories of the group of friends are sometimes distracting, but they serve an important purpose of letting you identify with situations - activating your empathy and getting the message across.  Much more effective than a dry, objective HOW-TO book.  I'm telling my friends about it

</review>
<review>

Rich Woman is great for women who are just beginning to take control of their financial future and step out into the world of investing.

It is set in easy to read "ladies lunch" type conversations, and addresses some issues that are unique to us as women.

I have had the opportunity to work with Kim Kiyosaki, and she is the real deal.  This book is not about selling anything- it was born out of years of seeing the urgent need for women to take control of their finances.

</review>
<review>

Kim shows how investing for women can be very real and her approach is down to earth. She triggers thoughts with stories and examples shows the reader that no matter where you are at in life YOU CAN DO THIS

</review>
<review>

I thought this book was great for my first book on investing.  My husband and I are getting ready to invest in our first property and I wanted to be a part of our investments so I am starting with educating myself.  This book was really inspirational and motivating which helps when taking a risk.  It shows that anyone can invest no matter what income you have to start with.  I would highly suggest reading this book if investing is something your thinking of doing.  I hope you enjoy!


</review>
<review>

Don't waste your time with Rich Woman. Just read Rich Dad Poor Dad. The book Rich woman is nothing but a advertisement for their books and seminars. F

</review>
<review>

90% of this book is about Kim and her husband and how they got to where they are. There is very little information on how to actually go about investing. She's a good cheerleader, not so good on passing along good advice

</review>
<review>

"RICH WOMEN is a great book for men!" Men, buy this book for the women in your life. Women have the potential to be excellent business people and with training and practice can beat men at their own game. Most have a subtle advantage over men and don't have to deal with the big ego problems of having to, "know it all." They just want to be winners and successful. Many just don't know where to start or how to get help. RICH WOMEN is a great start and savvy guide to financial freedom written for women

</review>
<review>

This is a good read.  This is what happens when you work hard at something and belive in yourself, just like Tavis has

</review>
<review>

I am white, grew up in a small Ohio town with no blacks, went in the Marine Corp, my first exposure to the black community you might say then spent a couple decades in Corporate America as our country has moved along from the sixties and the appropriate black activities of the time. I have to say this book is a pleasent surprise. It has no big discussion on the whites that cause all their problems, it is just a downright honest book about one life lived well. Sometimes Tavis arrogance comes through and I imagine there are those along the way that would have some say about that but it doesnt matter. This book outlines a black success story against incredible odds but more importantly it is an American success story. You can all learn alot about growing up black and growing up impoverished in America as I did from this. More importantly Tavis outlines how we can forgive and love one another which is most important.
Great book and a greater person.

</review>
<review>

Tavis is a man that puts God first and he has never made him last.  The book is truly remarkable. Just when I thought he had reached his highest potential, here he goes again.  Just like the man, the book intrigues the mind to think outside of the box. He tells of his strengths his weaknesses, his successes, his failures and each lesson that was learned along the way.  Keep it coming Tavis, keep intriguing the mind to think. This is story about how he became the man he is today....! I just gave my teenage son the book and i will be purchasing copies for each of the young men in my family.

</review>
<review>

The most creative power given to the human spirit is the power to
heal the wounds of a past it cannot change.

We do our forgiving alone inside our hearts and minds; what happens
to the people we forgive depends on them.

The first person to benefit from forgiveness is the one who forgives.

Forgiveness happens in three stages: we rediscover the humanity of the
person who wronged us; we surrender our right to get even; and we
wish that person well.

Forgiveness is a journey; the deeper the wound, the longer the
journey.

Forgiveness does not require us to reunite with the person who broke
our trust.

We do not forgive because we are supposed to; we forgive when we are
ready to be healed.

Waiting for someone to repent before we forgive is to surrender our
future to the person who wronged us.

Forgiveness is not a way to avoid pain but to heal the pain.

Forgiveness is the only way to be fair to ourselves.

Forgivers are not doormats; to forgive a person is not a signal that
we are willing to put up with what he does.

Forgiveness is essential; talking about it is optional.

When we forgive, we set a prisoner free and discover that the
prisoner we set free is us.

When we forgive we walk in stride with the forgiving God.

</review>
<review>

After I read Sen. Obama's book, I chanced to check out what other black writers were writing.
That lead me to Tavis Smiley s What I know For Sure, and The Proper Criticism of Some Decent
People, by Dr. Theophilus Green.  Obama's critique of American politics and Dr. Green's
evaluation of black American politics and their leaders, combined to give me perhaps the most
comprehensive review of modern American politics that I have ever read.   After reading
Smiley's book, I had a more personal perspective, and most certainly after reading his Covenant
with Black America.

What I found most telling about Sen. Obama's book was his honesty and straight forwardness.
Dr. Green's book was honest in an irreverent, directness that stimulated as much thinking about
America as it did the definition of American.   Smiley's book wrapped it up with a personal
reflection on all that was hoped for, dreamt for and needed to have happen.  All three are must
reads, preferably at the same time.

</review>
<review>

What I Know for Sure is that Tavis Smiley's testimony and transparency through this book was a refreshing read.  He is a prolific speaker and a voice for this generation. I applaud him for allowing us to share intimately into his life. I was deeply moved by his honesty in retelling the experiences that shaped the man we now see today. The candidness expressed in each chapter allowed us to witness the forces that birth his purpose and propelled his drive, ambition, and advocacy. His love for people was greatly evident. This book is a must read not just for African-Americans but for anyone who has faced adversity, challenges and trying circumstances in life.  Greatly inspiring

</review>
<review>

Who is Tavis Smiley?  Initially Tavis' prominence in the media led me to think this guy was just a 'talking-head' - a person simply trying to find a means to move up in this world.  However, years have shown me I was wrong.

Tavis Smiley is a man of conviction.

I have witnessed his passion and service and have been an indirect recipient of its affects.  His book "What I Know For Sure" shows that he is indeed a man of great determination and drive - and yes, he is in fact trying to go somewhere.  Yet, the beauty of the story and his life is that he desires to take a nation of folks with him.

I greatly appreciate Tavis for having the courage to share his trials and triumphs with the public.  It was refreshing to read a story where a Black man's battles were not with drugs or sex, but with deeper elements that tend to birth destructive surface habits that deceivedly garner too much of our attention.

The deeper issues are: How do we navigate our spirituality and poverty, or better yet, our spirituality and our God given gifts?  Is one married to the other?  Does one negate the other?  Are there gifts to be used in religious confines, and then others meant for worldly consumption?  How do we as African Americans mature in mind to understand that "God so loved the WORLD..." that he gave gifts? Gifts to be used to open college doors, and business opportunities, and platforms for change -for a freeing of His people...

"What I Know For Sure" is a great, easy-flowing story.  I am requiring my 17 year old son to read it.  I will give it as a gift to my nephews, brother, and brother-in-law.  I plan to send it to my childhood friend who is now in prison.  In fact, it is my hope that everyone who struggles to define, understand, or find evidence of " Black MAN" in today's society, might read this book, read "Yellow Black" by Haki Madhubuti, "The Pact" by Davis, Jenkins and Hunt, and Denzel Washington's new book, "A Hand To Guide Me."

These books speak to contemporary situations, and will undoubtedly prove to be as relevant for this period of time as "Souls of Black Folks", "Black Boy" and "Invisible Man" were for theirs.

Great work Tavis!


</review>
<review>

I've always dug and Respected Tavis Smiley big time. I've always respected his Vast Knowledge and Ability to communicate and be direct and just do his thing. this Book takes you back to his upbringing. this Book pulls no punches about what he dealt with as a Young Black Man growing up in a Household of a Large family,also dealing with getting whippings(this was the Pre-Pre Time-Out Era which back in the day only applied to Sports Games)and dealing with his own self in the Process. everybody sees and Hears the Success,but not many people are aware of the struggle this Man had to endure and the many lasting images and things he had to deal with Mentally.  I applad Brother Tavis Smiley for not being afraid to settting the Record Straight.  this Book will hit you in so many ways and depending on your own upbringing it might be close to your own story. I can relate to it big time.Tavis doesn't back down to BET or NPR Either.Tavis without a doubt is one of the most Important Voices out here.  he keeps it real and this Book is very direct and real.

</review>
<review>

Barbara A. Nadel. FAIA creates the resource for architects for security design.  Nadel empasizes owners assembling a security team at the beginning of a project when design professionals can plan for and budget good security strategies.  Most of the text is very informative and uses examples as well as compiles articles developed by security consultants in the field. In this unparalleled book Barbara A. Nadel, FAIA creates the source for security design. A must have resource for all architects, planners, landscape designers, lighting consultants and engineers in a security conscious design era; post 9/11

</review>
<review>

Since 9/11, the security industry has been evolving.  The need for standards in the industry is imperative and this book discusses a varity of industries and their standards of care.  This book is a great reference for anyone in any industry that is looking for information on security. Building Security: Handbook for Architectural Planning and Design is a must have.

</review>
<review>

Nadel's Building Security: Handbook for Architectural Planning and Design is the final word on the creation a safe built environment. From broad case study analysis (Oklahoma City) to engineering details and protocol checklists, this tome provides owners, the entire design team and safety officials all the information they need to secure a structure and plan for responses to incidents. Building Security is simply the best work on the subject out there and I highly recommend it.

</review>
<review>

I'll never look at my clients' nursing home facilities the same as I did before I read this handbook!  I'm a healthcare attorney, not an architect. There are some chapters that are more applicable to my role with clients than others; nevertheless, I found this book extremely informative and thought provoking. Clearly this book was a labor of love for Ms. Nadel.

</review>
<review>

If you've read any of the reviews, you'll already know how influential this book has been for decades now.  I was fortunate enough to first read it when I discovered a 3rd edition original printing at a budget bookstore: what a find!

This edition stands out, as the accompanying "Action Pack" section is a real hands-on guide into how to read the book, how to discover more about yourself, and how to apply what you learn.  I carry around in my backpack a set of 3x5 cards with notes and thoughts captured while reading the book.  That way I can revisit certain areas "on the fly".  You'll probably want to do something similar.  At any rate, if you get this edition, make sure you find the first page of the Action Pack section, and follow from there, as it gives you very specific instructions on how to go through the book.

If you only purchased one book in your lifetime on self-development, and it was this book, you'd be in fine shape

</review>
<review>

I just finished Think and Grow Rich for the 3rd time.  The first time I read it, I was a twenty something and didn't fully grasp it; the next time I read it, I was a forty something, and I reaped great benefits by implementing these principles into my life and career; now, I am almost sixty, and I finally  understand the book.  Napoleon Hill was clearly correct when he stated that it is very seldom that a young person can grasp the master keys to riches.  After completing this book for the third time, I am looking forward to an even more satisfying and productive future...  I highly recommend this book to those who want to find the keys to success and riches as well as peace of mind.  There should be a college curriculum built around this book.  In today's U.S. society, the concepts of self-determination and individualism are dying concepts.  This book will teach you how to use your mind to achieve anything that you desire.  Everyone desiring success and riches should read this book...  Please do not take offense to the masculine references contained in the book.  It should be remembered that this book was completed almost 70 years ago and society was "different".  It's principles apply to both genders and all races and ethnic groups

</review>
<review>

"Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve."
-Napoleon Hill
If you asked me to recommend to you the single best book I have ever read, my answer would be a very definite "Think and Grow Rich".
First published in 1937, this is the end product of two decades of research conducted by Napoleon Hill. His research started when Andrew Carnegie (the steel tycoon who was then the richest man on earth) gave him the assignment of organizing a Philosophy of Personal Achievement. Hill, who was a poor journalist, armed with just an introductory letter from Carnegie, set out to interview over five hundred successful people including Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, John D. Rockefeller, George Eastman, William Wrigley Jr. and Charles M. Schwab. Hill then revealed the priceless wisdom of his research in the form of the thirteen steps to success (in Think and Grow Rich) and the seventeen principles of success (in courses and lectures he conducted).
The concepts taught by Napoleon Hill transformed my life. Some of these include developing a definite purpose, building a Positive Mental Attitude (PMA), channeling the power of the sub-conscious mind and dealing with adversity. Everything he wrote about or talked about is thought provoking. He was wise, humble and funny. His philosophy is universal; he did not mix it with religion. The riches he referred to were more than money, for the Philosophy of Personal Achievement can be applied to anything in life.
This is a classic, and hence the examples are old (not to be confused with outdated). But they are as relevant today as they were in the early twentieth century. Here is an example from T and GR in the chapter on Desire:
On the morning after the Great Fire of Chicago (1871), a group of merchants on Chicago's State Street went into a conference to decide whether to rebuild their stores or leave Chicago. All but one decided to leave. The merchant who decided to stay pointed a finger to the remains of his store and said "Gentlemen, on that very spot I will build the world's greatest store, no matter how many times it may burn down." His name was Marshall Field and his store still exists, and in Hill's words is "a towering monument to that state of mind known as a burning desire." I lived in Chicago from 2002 through 2004 and worked three blocks away from this impressive store on State Street. Sometimes I would visit it or stand outside it to derive inspiration and be reminded of the power of desire. It is amazing that Hill describes "burning desire" with a story based on the Chicago Fire.
There are thousands of self-help books out in the market and hundreds of self proclaimed "gurus" who have made a living by copying the wisdom in Hill's books. As I went through some of those books I realized that there was not much in them that Hill had not already written about. I recommend quality over quantity. Instead of reading through many books, I recommend that you study the following works of Hill and internalize his wisdom:
1. Think and Grow Rich (1937) - I recommend the Action Pack edition,
2. Napoleon Hill's Keys to Success : The 17 Principles of Personal Achievement - this is an excellent guide to his principles,
3. Your Right To Be Rich [Unabridged] - this consists of 12 hours of live lectures covering the 17 principles, that Hill conducted in Chicago in 1954.
By internalizing, I mean studying in depth - analyzing the ideas, making notes and summaries. I own more CDs by Hill, but I believe that these 3 items make the perfect study plan on the Philosophy of Personal Achievement.
Some have criticized Hill's work by stating that his research was unscientific. They pass him up for Jim Collins (whose "Good to Great" dedicates 76 out of its 300 pages to research methodology and notes that hardly anybody ever reads) or Marcus Buckingham (whose "First Break..." similarly uses 25 pages for Gallup's Meta Analysis and what not). These people don't know what they are missing.
I am greatly indebted to Napoleon Hill. The purpose of my writing this is to spread awareness of his work so that more people can benefit from it. This, I believe is the best way in which Hill would have liked to have been repaid.
If my review was helpful to you, I request you to select "Yes" so that the rating is improved and more readers will get to read it. For more information on this author please read my "So You'd Like To... Guides" on the best management books and my other reviews (select my username to get to those pages). Please also see the website of the Napoleon Hill Foundation, naphill dot org, which has helpful resources.


</review>
<review>

I have had the isbn 0449214923 version of this book for a number of years and as it has travelled many miles it's got rather tatty.

So I purchased this edition.

Within the first 1/2 hour of reading, the spine split into two.

Also, it is a shabby printing as the subheadings in bold have the centers of the characters filled in.

I recommend the book, but not this edition/printing

</review>
<review>

I have always taken good notes and tested myself on anything that I have read to make the material come to life. After reading Think  and  Grow Rich and after reading so many positive reviews here, I decided to go out and buy this one as well. To tell you the truth, it was sort of anticlimatic. The exercises were good, but I pretty much figured that out for myself without the guide.

I had already read Think  and  Grow Rich at least a dozen times so thought I knew this material cold..and I did. BUT....when I went to the back of the book and took the 5 examinations, I had to admit that I knew what Napolean Hill wanted as answers but couldn't truly say in all honesty that I was where I needed to be or wanted to be in the five categories listed.

So I went to work on my weak areas which I thought I didn't have before reading this book. This part of the book alone was for me, well worth the price of buying this version of Think and Grow Rich.

I think a lot of people will benefit from the Action Pack because so many people I know will read the book once and think they've got it. The action pack will make you roll up your sleeves, clear the mental cobwebs, learn the material but even more importantly, make the material bring out the qualities inside you that lead to success

</review>
<review>

I am a huge fan of Napolean Hill and this book in particular. This book is Think  and  Grow Rich PLUS an action guide. When I first read the book Think  and  Grow Rich, I got great results. But when I used this book with the action guide, my results were greatly magnified.


</review>
<review>

Seems that anyone who's anyone worth knowing has read this old classic. That usually sets me off - I don't like being mainstream.

Yet so many successful entrepreneurs told me to read it and I knew I'd be spending hours at the beach last summer anyway so I snatched up a copy.

This book was the start of a new way of thinking for me. A new way to think about business, relationships, money, my own power and the world.

The exercises in the back were at times cumbersome (I was really hoping that this book was an actual workbook that I could pen in.). Even still the exercises were a necessary part of my growth. I suggest everyone should get the Action Pack instead of the standard edition.


</review>
<review>

The Think  and  Grow Rich Action Pack is a phenomenal book that will help you to reach your maximum potential, achieve your goals, build your character and develop your leadership skills. The Think  and  Grow Rich Action Pack is a great guide on how to "personalize" Think  and  Grow Rich to your walk in life. I discovered Think and Grow Rich when I read Former Heavyweight Boxing Champion and International Boxing Hall of Famer Ken Norton's autobiography "Going the Distance." Norton shared in his book that he read Think  and  Grow Rich and it changed his life. Norton's book states he was prescribed to read Think  and  Grow Rich after he suffered his first boxing defeat and had to start over. He then went on to beat Muhammed Ali for the title. Norton shares in his book that he read Think  and  Grow Rich repeatedly during his career and he became a stonger person for it.


</review>
<review>

I still have my original copy.  It's very tattered and worn after the 100s of hours of reading and re-reading, but it remains an important part of my life.  This book has had the most significant impact on my life than any other book I've read (not including the BIBLE).

Many years ago I fell into some very difficult times.  I went from riches to rags.  By a stroke of luck, this book jumped off the bookshelf and saved my life.  It lifted me up, got me positive and helped me reshape who I was.  It has been my source of strength ever since.

It taught me how to take my dreams and make them a reality.  How I could focus my energy and teach myself how to become what it was I dreamed.  It taught me how I could organize my life, make a decision about what I wanted to do with it, and go after my goals with persistence.

Itstead of being depressed, I could establish a state of mind that could overcome any obstacle and go after any desire with confidence.

Napoleon Hill interviewed the most successful people of his time and extracted the secrets that made them rich, successful and happy.

I highly recommend this book.  If you're down in the dumps, it will lift you up.  If you're rich in money, but unhappy, it will show you how to refocus and join the riches of money with happiness.  Or even if your life seems perfect, it will revitalize you and help you realize the potential you didn't even realize you possessed.

So pick up this book.  The cost is insignificant when you see what it does for your life.  It will change it forever.  And the action pack reinforces the concepts and helps you apply them to your life.

</review>
<review>

After graduating from college I questioned my education.  I guess I wasn't happy with the path that I chose.  Too bad that I realized that right after I graduated, however just by chance I read Michael Gerber's The E Myth Revisited.  The book completely geared me towards a different goal.  Instead of going into education I decided to pursue the idea of starting my own business.  That's when I decided to research books about success and what it takes.  I stumbled upon Think and Grow Rich, I read all the reviews on Amazon.com, and instead of buying the book I decided to rent a copy from the library.  I took few days to read it.  Right after I finished reading it, I decided to purchase my own copy.  It was possibly the most important decision I've made in my life.  I'd like to claim that the book changed my life, in addition I read several other books written by Napoleon Hill, Og Mandino, Zig Ziglar, Jeff Keller and many more.  However, I found that Think and Grow Rich served as a template to everyone else's work. Napoleon Hill presented his discoveries quite clearly, and if applied correctly these ideas were meant to change anyone's life.  Ever since then, I've found a way to buy a successful window cleaning franchise based out of St. Louis.  I'm proud to say that I couldn't have done it without the help of Napoleon Hill and his book Think and Grow Rich.  This book was not only written to get rich, but also to change people in a positive way.  Whether you want to make millions or be a better athlete, this book will definitely help you achieve any goals.  Like Napoleon Hill said, "Whatever your mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve," these are the words to live by!  This book should be your starting point towards life's riches, you can then follow up by reading Napoleon Hill's other books, as well as books written by other authors on the same topic

</review>
<review>

I am a personal growth coach and I do some work in the area of sexuality.  There are many people that are inhibited around their fantasies or feel guilt for having normal sexual feelings.  I feel this book is useful because it provides a wide array of different types of fantasies that are common in themes in the female population.  This can be a very helpful book to help people normalize their feelings of shame and guilt around their innocent fantasies.

I also like that this book provides some psychological interpretation of female fantasies and is organized around themes.  The content is erotic, but tasteful.  On the other hand, people's authentic experience is captured and the content is not necessarily sugar-coated.

I think this book will appeal more to women than to men.  Among other things, it will help women to realize that they are not unique in having certain desires that they don't fully understand or want to have happen in real life.

Two other great books that describe the psychology of sex and sexual fantasy are THE EROTIC MIND by Jack Morin and THE EVOLUTION OF DESIRE by David Buss

</review>
<review>

If we can get beyond the fact that all of us guys get super turned-on by this and love to read these fantasies, then we can objectively take a look at this book.

What is interesting to note is that women down deep have the same drives, basically that men do.  They may have been taught to repress them or express them differently, but we are sexual beings-all of us male and female.  Nancy Friday does a great job of reminding us of that fact.  Yes, some things you read here are shocking and maybe unsettling, but remember, she just took the information sent to her and compiled the book.

I found this book fascinating for many reasons

</review>
<review>

I found this book on a shelf at a library over 10 years ago. It was a hardcover book and the artwork was rather nondescript. What I browsed through within though is seared into my conscience and really opened my eyes to the world of female lust thought. I admit, NOTHING has ever aroused me like some of the entries inside - even hardcore [...]. It's all about intent, motive, desire. Is it real? Is it sincere? You could put the most flat out gorgeous woman in front of me and she might not have anywhere near the erotic intensity of a woman who society might deem "less than perfect" looks-wise. It almost always is the look in her eye, or the pitch of her voice, something that conveys warmth, you know? More than anything, seeing and feeling a palpable HUNGER, an aching so deep it hurts for satisfaction. I found a lot of that energy in this book and it was DIVINE. I wish Ms. Friday would release another compilation of this material

</review>
<review>

Let's be straight. This is a book full of real people's sexual fantasies. It's not guided by some moral code the world imposes on us, nor is it subject to the same code when being read. It is individual's fantasies. Escapism, exploration of the mind where boundaries have no place. The reader is supposed to have reactions evoked, because some of what happens within a world of fantasy is so outside the real worlds acceptability that when looked at form the real world, it seems alien, and stimulates our ingrained sense of right or wrong. It gives an insight into the women who've contributed psyche, often how women as sexual beings have been repressed by the world around them, and unable or unwilling because of their confines to rebel in the real world, have conjured in their minds elaborate and amazing ways to escape mentally, which in turn, has enabled the conscious self to accept who they are, and apply their OWN morals and values to their lives, rather than ones given to them by their parents and religions and upbringing! An uplifting book for those who aren't afraid to explore themselves

</review>
<review>

I read this as a relatively young woman, and Lord did it make an impression on me.  It features many passages endorsing beastiality, something I find morally reprehensible.  If you agree, then BINGO! You now know to steer clear of this garbarge.  I'm not an advocate of book-burning, but I wouldn't mind throwing a few copies of this on a bonfire.

</review>
<review>

These three works are wonderful in themselves, and fascinating in their anticipations of Crowley's visionary masterpiece--and one of American fiction's handful of true masterpieces--Little, Big (1981).

Perpetually warring factions on a distant planet are thrown out of equilibrium when a stranger appears among them...The Deep is a gnostic parable ingeniously hidden in a just-this-side-of-cheesy '70s sci-fi adventure novel plot. Its secret concern is with the origins of the Renaissance, historically and as an emblem of personal rebirth. The ending is really, really something.

Beasts hides itself a bit also. In the dying America of a future Earth, biologically engineered man/animal hybrids attempt to throw off their chains and find a place in the world. They are variously aided and opposed by the novel's human beings, each of whom proves to be a very much distinct creature as well. It is a story of violent revolution, but also of our turning toward one another, from truly different perspectives, for the first time.

Engine Summer shrugs free of all adventure plot conventions and delivers the first dose of full Crowleyan power. It's a hair-tearing shame that this most perfect of books is buried away in genre fiction, to be sniffed at absently by seekers of pedestrian escapism now and then, but discovered by so few of the millions who would love it...The setting is the future again, but who cares? Well, Crowley, in a sense: the question here is what remains when all else has passed away. A young man chases a lost love and lost civilization across a world of painfully mortal beauty. Where beauty and pain merge completely we are completely alive, we learn. Words stop, there; but, somehow, not Crowley's.

And then Little, Big...



</review>
<review>

Again I bought this book because of the outstanding reviews and am sadly disappointed.  This is junk.  Not one of the three stories is entertaining.  The only positive I can say is that it has a similar feel to Gene Wolfe but that is like saying an ant is similar to a man because it has legs, so just forget it, this blows

</review>
<review>

Crowley has made a career of being one of the most underrated masters of American fiction.  Only one book, "Little, Big," has ever been a modestly big seller.  His "Aegypt" tetrology, not yet complete, is a piece of visionary work on an epic scale.  His only fault is that the writing is unclassifiable, so it has fallen between every conceivable crack.  Bad for sales.

"Engine Summer" is the first of his novels, though the last of the early three to be published.  It leaves the others behind as a work of astonishing originality and almost hallucinogenic vision. (Crowley admits that his first draft was written at a time when he was smoking a lot of, well, you know.)  In this elegant and beautifully understated work (if it goes a little slowly at first, stick with it: it will sweep you away) the Crowley themes have a true beginning:  a world constantly transforming in which the only way that the history of the human as the strangest of races can really be kept alive is through the stories we tell.

He has an enormous talent for inducing laughter of utter delight and rolling tears simultaneously.  His gift is in his humanity, his innate understanding of the deep pathos and utter ridiculousness of being self-conscious creatures in a world that is not and will never be wholly comprehensible.  Thus it is our stories that keep us sane. Barely.

The future which he envisions (this is not the kind of future fantasy that even pretends to forsee the world as it might actually turn out) is one in which the split between the natural, instinctual half of our human dichotomy and the mental, synthetic one actually become separate species, with no real capacity to comprehend the other.  How this plays out through his richly detailed imagination and alchemical control of the Engish language is something to be experienced, not described.  The narrative device, which leaves us guessing until a breathtaking revelation at the end, is alone, worth the price.

Get this book.  Read it.  Please.  The later Crowley may be greater, but never more brilliantly imagined than this.

Oh, yeah.  "Beasts" and "The Deep" are mighty fine, too

</review>
<review>

John Crowley is a treasure.  He combines gorgeous, haunting writing with a wealth of intelligent, thought-provoking ideas.  Otherwise collects his three early novels, all nominally science fiction but so far from the stereotypical forms of that genre as to almost deserve their own literary classification.  In each of these small but perfectly formed jewels, Crowley demonstrates complete control of his medium.  In barely 200 pages, he creates and destroys worlds, makes us fall in love with his characters, and leaves us wanting more.

Crowley's first novel, The Deep, takes place in a semi-mythical world in the throes of a war of succession.  Two factions, the Reds and the Blacks, are vying for the throne, and another group, the Just, have sworn to end the tyranny of all ruling houses.  Into this war comes a visitor, something not entirely human.  Due to injuries (or perhaps malfunctions) it is unable to carry out its mission, and ends up being drawn into human existence.  There is a dissonance between the two halves of the story - the medieval palace intrigue and the visitor's search for its purpose - that keeps The Deep from being a complete novel, but still one can't help but marvel at Crowley's skill.  Other authors writing about elaborate wars of succession and courtly machinations will sometimes fill thousands of pages without creating anything close to Crowley's instantly believable world and sympathetic characters.  Although it is ultimately not a completely successful novel, The Deep is beautiful and engaging.

My personal favorite, Beasts, takes place in the not too distant future.  America has fractured into numerous autonomies which eye each other nervously and prepare for war.  Some decades previously, genetic experiments gave rise to animal-human hybrids, who now walk the earth as outcasts.  In Beasts, Crowley examines the animal in the human and the human in the animal by assembling a diverse and fascinating cast of characters - a human-lion messiah and the humans who flock to his call, a super-intelligent dog trying to fight his devotion to the race that made him, a tame hawk set loose in the wild.  Crowley examines the two-edged sword of intelligence and asks - is it better to be tame or wild?  Some reviewers have complained about Beasts' sudden ending, but to me it seems right, as the question can never be answered and there's already so much in the book to ponder.

Engine Summer is my least favorite of the three books.  Its protagonist, Rush That Speaks, lives in a post-industrial world only vaguely aware of the technological society that preceded it.  Driven by wanderlust, curiosity, and love, Rush leaves his comfortable home and ventures out into the world.  Through his eyes, we discover the different societies and ideologies that have arisen in the wake of some great destruction, and eventually Rush brings his wisdom to the survivors of that destruction.  Although as beautiful as the other two books in its prose, I found Engine Summer cold and uninvolving.  There was no plot to speak of, and no characters that I could care for.

Otherwise is a good introduction to Crowley's writing (although new readers might also begin with Little, Big, arguably Crowley's masterpiece).  These three short novels epitomize his strengths and weaknesses as a writer, and clearly demonstrate the promise that he's since lived up to.  A reader emerging from the depths of these three worlds can have no doubt - John Crowley is a treasure

</review>
<review>

I really am finding this book to be chocked full of valuable information on gettings ones art career in motion. I recommend this one for anyone thinking of moving past the hobby stage of their career

</review>
<review>

WOW, WOW, WOW. Get this book! This has (just about) everything you need to be professional. The only thing I didn't like is that most of the resources listed were geared to NYC residents, but there was good direction as to how to locate similar services in your area. I especially liked the opening that deals with how artists are helping to perpetuate their own "starving artist" myth, and the ways to stop that. It made me realize that I am the one standing in the way of my own success! Well, no more--thanks to Caroll--I am taking all of the steps listed. I wish my graduate school had this information available

</review>
<review>

this book was really helpful in understanding how much marketing work is involved with doing art. it's a little intimidating to think that you will need to write press-releases for everything you do. but thats' the truth i guess if you want to play the game. that is if you want to play by and set your own rules instead of just being a tool for the whims of gallerists and dealers

</review>
<review>

I have never been one to read self-help books, but, as an artist just beginning to market my work, I felt helpless and uninformed. I am so glad I bought this book - Ms. Michels demystifies the business process in a pragmatic and often humorous way. I now feel I have a clearer picture of where I'm going and how I'm going to get there, as well as having more confidence in myself and less awe of the art world.
This book will be well-used as I move forward

</review>
<review>

I thought this book was helpful in how to write a cover letter and a resume. I haven't read the whole book yet but so far it's decent

</review>
<review>

This is an absolutely essential book for all artists with all of the nuts and bolts information you need to prceed with art as your full time career.  The authors attitudes and insights into the "myth o f the artist" are nothing less than inspiring.

The only criticism I would have is that several of the weblinks in the very extensive appendix are dead, including the link for the authors site!

But all  in all a MUST have

</review>
<review>

Book came on time in good condition

</review>
<review>

Everything was fine.  It arrived very soon

</review>
<review>

This book is a great basic book for entry into the art business. It has alot of good reference materials in the back and good advice

</review>
<review>

For an artist who is serious about selling my work and making money, Caroll's accumulation of contacts, facts, sources and a collection of years of experience is helping my work enhancement and marketing expertise.

An artist must pay attention to the experiences of colleagues who have been successful in this business.  This book provides the tools to make an art career financially productive

</review>
<review>

One could right an honest right-wing history, I suppose, by sticking to the facts.  Paul Johnson's propaganda is simply lying.  As just one instance of this, Paul Johnson assures the reader that President Johnson was reluctant to escalate the Vietnam War.  He further assures us:  "There is no evidence, as was later alleged, that the incident was contrived, to get America deeper into the war."   And further:  "But congress, by an overwhelming majority, passed . . . the "Tonkin Gulf Resolution' authoring the President to take vigorous measure to protect US forces."  One would think that if he going to make such a claim that he should at least explain why the Pentagon Papers so explicitly state that the official account of the Tonkin Gulf attack was a deliberate deception.  In the October HARPER'S article, "The Next War," Daniel Ellsberg claims to have had drawerfuls of critical working papers, memos, estimates, and detailed escalation options revealing the evolving plans of the Johnson Administration for a wider war, expected to commence soon after the election."  Though far more inclined to trust Ellsberg than Johnson, either Paul or Lyndon, I admittedly have no way of knowing who is telling the truth, but I have not heard that the Pentagon Papers were not genuine.

When Johnson is not simply lying, he uses facts to support a viewpoint which he himself must know to not be true.  "Support for intensifying the war was always greatest among the under thirty-fives," (at least prior to November 1968, "by which time the decision to get out had already been taken)."  (By whom)?  Considering that the young had been nursed on heroic World War II movies, trained in blind "patriotism" and educated in such a manner as to preclude questioning governmental authority, what else was to be expected?  Once we woke up to what had been done to us, we, the American People, most definitely lost our stomach for the war.  With "historians" like Paul Johnson, it is not surprising that another generation has been duped.
(Peter Payne, author of CAPTAIN CALIFORNIA BATTLES THE BEELZEBUBIAN BEASTS OF THE BIBLE)

</review>
<review>

In this work, Paul Johnson gives a historical overview of the 20th century, from the 1900's to the 1980's.

In this work Johnson doesn't just recount historical events, but also interprets and in many places, offers a very strong view on them.  Being both a Catholic and a political conservative who strongly believes in the existence of a well to do middle class, Johnson is searingly scathing of much of 20th century Communism, as well as socialism and other Leftist movements.  He is also highly critical of many Communist dictators, such as Stalin, Lenin, Mao, and Pohl Pot, who all effectively wiped out the middle classes in their country, and also the third-world revolutionaries like Chinua Achebe who argued strongly for violence to be used for political ends.

In the conclusion, Johnson reserves his poison for the advocates of applying ideas from modern evolutionary biology to social problems, feeling this will result in several social disasters (however one can't help but feel Johnson's Catholicism at work here).

Johnson is as usual not afraid to speak his mind when he feels it is right to do so.  In some works, this is a weakness, but in this one, I feel many of his points are spot on, especially when it comes to the awful tyrannies of too-powerful states, who were only too willing to wipe out entire sections of their people for political aims.  The price of political goals must never be genocide

</review>
<review>

An extremely entertaining and readable book. A pleasing eye for the small detail, an efficent prose style. He has extreme selective memory - the Spanish Civil War or Castro's Cuban revolution with no mention of crushing poverty just one example. In some cases he's flat out wrong - Cuba a 'rich country' under Batista. His dismisal of Ghandi smacks of racism. In general he has come to praise the colonialist English, Vichy France, Franco and Nixon; to savage FDR, JFK and labor unions.

Much of his savaging is Monday morning (or Wednesday afternoon) quarterbacking. He claims 'moral relativism' as the scourge of the twentieth century while turning a blind eye when events don't fit his 'white mans burden' theory of post-colonialism. He blaims Leninism for everything but earthquakes and is ruthless in his hatred of state communism, state capitalism. He swings numbers around to trash post-war labor enough to deserve Twain's over used saw: Lies, damned lies and statistics.

Blind of course to the morally relative shenanigans of Reagan and Thatcher, he doesn't come off as a revisionist so much as a self important old man settling old scores (take that, Roosevelt!) while remaining blissfully ignorant of the grey areas around his heros.

However, he can write and he knows his subject. With less axes to grind, this would be a great book. He's unrelenting in his hatred of the Bolsheviks and Nazis, and as I agree I find much of his real-politik analysis very interesting and in many cases accurate.

There are much better surveys of the 20th century, Martin Gilbert's comes to mind as his right wing spin doesn't kick in until 1968, but for the flavor of the times this is a tasty read. Just don't take his opinions, or even some of his 'facts', at face value

</review>
<review>

Paul Johnson is opinionated and a good writer and this history is very readable.  "National Review" named it one of the top 100 books of the century and, although I'm not a political conservative, I found myself in agreement with much of what Johnson says.

"Modern Times" begins with the end of World War I and focuses on the personality of actors on history rather than impersonal trends or philosophies of history.  Johnson sums up his own  philosophy with a quote from Alexander Pope: "The proper study of mankind is man." His opinion of the 20th century cast of characters is scathing more often than not.

He trashes Woodrow Wilson -- a sound judgment in my opinion -- defends Harding, claims Coolidge was a good President, is lukewarm toward Hoover, considers Roosevelt frivolous and empty-headed, favors Truman, and adores Eisenhower. Churchill is his great hero.  The totalitarians -- Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler -- are depicted as venal gangsters.  Johnson is unflinchingly anti-Communist throughout, an opinion that proved sound when the rot of the Soviet Union and its satellites became obvious in the late 1980s.  (The first edition of this book was published in 1983.)  Nehru, Gandhi and many other third world personalities get tossed into the category of lawyer/politicians with little to recommend them as leaders of countries.

Fault can be found with Johnson; minor errors of fact and questionable statements dot the book -- and he rushes breathlessly on without defending many of his opinions.  However, if he argued them all out the book would be 10,000 pages long and dull as an airline steak knife. It is perhaps his tendency to be provocative that makes this history interesting -- as so many others are not.

I found particularly informative Johnson's description of how the Cold War started and his view that Hoover and Roosevelt's policies prolonged the Great Depression rather than eased it.  Many other interesting gems are hidden in "Modern Times."  Read it.  If you're a liberal you'll be infuriated now and then, but this is an intelligent and stimulating book about 70 years of the most violent and eventful century in the history of mankind.

Smallchief

</review>
<review>

This is how history should be written. The author thesis that "ism" has been the monkey on Mans back for the most of the 20th century is steel on target. This book has a lot for one to ponder on.

</review>
<review>


William Manchester turned me on to 20th century narrative history with the Glory and the Dream and the Churchill biographies.  I have been looking for someone comparable for years.  Keegan, Gilbert, Schlesenger and others don't do it for me.  Paul Johnson does.

Johnson is not just a lively and entertaining writer.  Like Manchester, he offers informed judgments and backs them up with facts.  For anyone wanting to understand today's left/right dichotomy, there is no better tool than 20th century history.  The state vs the individual, socialism vs capitalism, central planning vs the markets.  It's all there.  Today's politics is yesterday's politics.  Nothing is new.  What's amazing is that the same ideas keep getting recycled despite the judgment of history.

Perhaps the most sorrowful aspect of today's society is our historical illiteracy.  How can you understand the present without an understanding of the past?

</review>
<review>

I'm trying to read all of Mr. Johnson's books, because this one was so good. Some are not available. MODERN TIMES is a sweeping history of the 20th century that should be read by students everywhere. Armed with the facts, they'd be less prone to falling for historical lunacy later on.

Johnson writes from a point of view (as do all writers), but his perspective is clear, well reasoned and backed by facts. He is British, and sometimes his national bias shows through, but he lays out a history that squares with the perspective that time allows for. His histories make sense, and more than that, his use of the English language is just a marvel.

Paul Johnson is the only living writer I'd care to meet in person. I love all his books and keep them on my shelf, but this was the one that had the most profound effect on my thinking.

God bless him. I hope he lives to write many more books. Here's one Yank that has learned much from my favorite British cousin.

</review>
<review>

I was given this book by a friend. I am here on Amazon to buy 8 copies to give to acquaintances I know will enjoy it as much as I did. It's amazingly thought-provoking. And apparently controversial, I had to write a review after I read the one that gave the book a low rating, though the reviewer admittedly hadn't read it. There's a reference to folks like that around page 750 referring to wayward 'intellectuals' at Smith and Stanford.


</review>
<review>

Accurate "History" is always difficult for reasons that are obvious to anyone that has ever tried to either study it or write about it.  Paul Johnson has blended a good balance between presenting the complexities of 20th century history with the relatively simple cause and effect relationship between certain leaders, movements, and policies and their results on the peoples of the world.

The author has a moderate conservative bias, but he doesn't try to hide it like so many authors on both sides of the aisle.  His research is thorough enough to force one to seriously consider his conclusions.  All in all, this was a very enjoyable, interesting, and enlightening book and I would recommend it to anyone.

</review>
<review>

"Night" is a frightening book written by a man who saw the horrors of the Holocaust firsthand. Elie Wiesel survived years of torture, malnourishment, and dehumanizing conditions as he was forced to travel from one concentration camp to the next during the height of Nazi control. He was separated from his mother and sister and never saw them again. He watched his father gasp his last few breaths before authorities took him away during the night and disposed of him in a crematorium.

This book is a scary and very real. It is like reading the words of a young boy's diary- a young boy who is frightened and appalled at the acts of violence taking place around him; a boy who cannot understand why this is taking place but knows that he must reach for every ounce of courage within him to survive this living nightmare.

The scenes Wiesel describes in this book will stir up all sorts of emotions in every person who reads them. Adults, kids, and even young babies are thrown into fire pits by the Nazis. Thirsty prisoners eat snow in the hope that it will provide some thirst quenching relief. Near- naked people are forced to sleep without any protection on frigid, snowy winter nights. Wiesel describes the events vividly; going from a naive youngster to a hardened prisoner as he is sent from one camp to the next. He is sometimes emotional at first. But after witnessing so much inhumanity he becomes emotionally numb to the injustice around him.

The arrival of the allied forces brought an end to the nightmare for Elie Wiesel and other prisoners. Wiesel's family members were not so lucky and he dedicates this book in memory of the three of them. He never saw his mother or sister after they were separated from him and his father so there is no way to know how they died. No one will ever know exactly how each person perished and the author doesn't offer any predictions. It really doesn't matter at this point anyway. His immediate family is gone, dead at the hands of a government out of control.

This book is short, but it packs a tremendous punch. It serves as a reminder of the potential brutality of some people. And it also serves as a tribute to the human spirit: A tragic book that is also full of hope; showing how one young man was subjected to one of the most terrible human tragedies in history and lived to tell his painful story. It's a powerful read and a page turner from beginning to end.

</review>
<review>

what an honest author.  he had a difficult life that most people would choose to forget rather than share.

</review>
<review>

Beyond and essential read, Night speaks to the reader about fundamental questions at the heart of the human condition.  A powerfully moving autobiography, the story of this teenager's journey through the most horrific death camps of Nazi Europe, strips away discussion of anti-semitism and hatred, to present the raw suffering of individual humans, stuck in situations beyond their control.  From the establishment of a ghetto in Elie's home town of Sighet, the reader can only watch with growing horror as the young man and his family are swept up in the Holocaust.  Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Gleiwitz: some of the most infamous places in modern human history, rise around Elie, as we watch him stripped of absolutely everything.  The reader is swept along helplessly, as Hitler's "Final Solution" unfolds - death marches, starvation, selections, cattle-carts full of people, torture, floggings, mass-murder - and as Elie is gradually reduced to nothing more than a 'hungry stomach'.
What will humans do to survive?  How important is loyalty, trust, family, faith, when one is faced with the grim reaper?  If we cannot even answer these questions ourselves, what chance did a 15-year old boy stand?
Despite its horrific and heart-wrenching subject, "Night" is an essential read for absolutely everyone; something that once read will never be forgotten.

</review>
<review>

this is a disturbing work in that it recounts a man's experience of the nazi death camps. Warning: this book will shake you up mentally, and emotionally.  It is not for the faint of heart.  Yet, it is a must read because of the exposure it gives to humanity at it's worst and humanity under it's worst

</review>
<review>

The short novel Night has emotional power not only because of the dark subject matter, but because Elie Wiesel is a gifted writer who deftly reveals the spiritual and mental anguish of the main character.  Generally considered autobiographical, the account follows a young man who feels he is losing not only God, but his humanity as the Nazi machine ravages Europe.  The novel itself deserves 10 stars.

However, the original translation deserves -1.  Wiesel's skill as an author is blurred by a clumsy translation.  The worst part is when the translator chose the lighthearted "siesta" as a description of Wiesel's first sleep in the labor camp.  There is a much better translation out today by Marion Wiesel, and its worth the extra few dollars.  This book is more than worth reading; buy the better translation, and you'll understand why Wiesel deserved not just the Nobel Peace Prize, but also the Literature Prize

</review>
<review>

No matter your religion, ethnicity or basic beliefs, everyone should read this book because it is about hamanity and how it can change from mundane to total hell for no reason.

</review>
<review>

What more can be said which already hasn't of this extraordinary book written by an extraordinary man of courage?  With 900+ reviews, I will not make this an overly elaborate review, as the book simply does not require it.  Elie Wiesel's story is one of one man's courage, will and fortitude to push on when all around him was lost; friends, family, belongings, even basic human dignity.

What struck me more than anything else from his personal story was the retelling of the hanging of the three men (well, two men and one boy) while he was in one of the concentration camps.  Millions perished, but the way the boy who suffered during the hanging stayed with me.  His story is the story of millions who perished and who never got to tell their tale, and one of the few books I would call a must read.

Different instances in the book I am quite sure will strike readers differently.  One of the things which struck me and stayed with me was how he kept on looking for God, even amidst the enormity man sometimes will carry out on his fellow man.  What also struck me was the woman on the train who was saw the flames at the camps even before they arrived.   And the times he scolded and questioned himself and his ethics for even thinking selfish thoughts even though he was dying.  I still think would I (could I?) do the same if I was in his terrible position?

This book shows the worst of mankind, and sadly this terrible event known as the holocaust is not entirely unique in man's history since the freeing of Elie Wiesel.  We have witnessed Rwanda firsthand in the 1990's, and have been told by world authorities that "this will never happen again."  Yet in modern day Sudan(and North Korea, and Tibet.....), we see much of the same.....the world turning its back on millions of people.  There may not be furnaces involved, but the crime of complicity through inaction is little different than a world which allowed human beings to be fed into furnaces.  I guess the final question I come away asking from his book is "Will mankind ever learn?"

</review>
<review>

Night is Wiesel's personal memoir, which relates his personal story before and during World War II, as he and his father are separated from his mother and sister and interned in a series of concentration camps.

"Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never."

I read Night in high school, and always think of it as being a particularly long book, which it is not. Wiesel manages to pack more than I would think possible into a little over a hundred pages, which relates the story of himself and his family during the Holocaust. It is a beautifully written work that relates a terrible story. I found the story of Wiesel's loss of faith and the relationship he had with his father particularly memorable. If you somehow missed this in high school, pick it up, if you didn't, find it again. It's worth it

</review>
<review>

I always wonder what makes a book a good story to nominate for a Pulitzer prize? Even though I knew NIGHT was about the holocaust I still wondered what would make this book a winner.
My son had a copy of the book and loaned it to me. I read it in one sitting and not because it is only about 100 pages long, but because I was able to get under the skin of a man who endured unspeakable experiences and survived and found some humanity in all the horror. I love the last line of the book...priceless

</review>
<review>

I read Michael Masterson's EarlytoRise e-zine at least once a week, more when I have time.  So I thought I had a pretty good idea of what to expect from Power  and  Persuasion.  And it didn't disappoint.  Without knowing a lot about Masterson's specific career path, I can guess that he's had a great number of successes in a number of different fields.  I say that because the ideas and principles that he presents for persuading others seem to transend specific job situations, so I can only assume that he's used them within any business situation in which he's found himself.  Obviously, if you have the ability to persuade others, you'll have a great source of power at your fingertips.  Having never been one to try to browbeat anyone into taking my side in a discussion, I look forward to putting the more subtle aspects of Masterson's persuasion techniques to work for me.  It'll be interesting to see where I am career-wise, in a year's time, to see if I have indeed been able to leapfrog up the corporate ladder putting Masterson's Power and Persuasion to work for me.

</review>
<review>

Michael Masterson is one of my favorite writers.  His book "Power and Persuasion" hits the nail on the head when he describes the characteristics of successful business leaders (especially in chapter five).  He puts into words what I have learned and believed for years.  I found his thoughts about establishing communication routines and following up on goals to be on target.  Too many leaders try to micromanage their employees and business associates.  His comments about true delegation and recognizing different expectations of individuals increase both the leader's power and the power of those they associate.  It takes very little time to acknowledge someone's accomplishments while increasing that person's self-worth.  The result is a strong business team.  Of course a regular routine of firing the weakest performers is best when needed.  Pruning your hierarchy usually strenthens your business.  And hopefully, those individuals will learn from the experience and succeed in another business.  It is impossible to be liked by everyone, but strong leaders are usually respected.  "Power and Persuasion" is a must read!!!  Buy it now!!!  I know several leaders who will receive Michael Masterson's book as gifts.  Some who already have these skills and some who should learn and practice these successful business traits

</review>
<review>

I did notice two typos, and I'm deducting a star for that, but the book was good -- an energizing, informative series of essays on leadership and communication in business and also in personal matters.

Masterson uses a combination of personal experiences and research to support his arguments and insights. Most of what he said struck me as true.

</review>
<review>

While I have not finished the entire book, I find it ironic that in a book on success and accomplishment there are at least 1 or 2 typographical errors in each chapter.  While the business concepts appear sound, I am concerned about the lack of editing that apparently went into this book.  I have also read Automatic Wealth by this author and there were few if any typos

</review>
<review>

I expected a well written book from Masterson, and was not disappointed.

Subjects covered from the full spectrum of what it takes to be a great leadser, from manners, to public speaking, to handling a crises or making a decision. While I've read hundreds of books on these subjects, I appreciated the fresh approach, and had several new ideas while reading.

All great advice, more than a sales/persuasion book. a compendeum of leadership advice

</review>
<review>

Michael Masterson is a money-making genius and the ideas he presented in Automatic Wealth have changed my life. As soon as I heard about the release of Power and Persusion I ran out and grabbed a copy... and was not disappointed.

In P and P, Michael reveals the 2 universal rules for power and success that the world's most successful people seem to know and the rest of us missed out on... until now. Concise, easy-to-read, and extremely informative, Michael's P and P action plan will have you headed for success in no time.

I highly recommend this for anyone looking to improve their personal and professional life

</review>
<review>

Michael Masterson has had success in many businesses.  One of them which I am part of.  So I can tell you first hand how his leadership has had a profound impact on my business and personal life.  And he has close to 400,000 Early to Rise readers who would probably agree.  If your looking for a leadership book written by silver spoon CEO's who have never built a business from the gorund up, don't buy this book.  However if you want actionable leadership advice that you can use in your everyday life, Masterson is the one who can teach you

</review>
<review>

In the five years I've been following Michael Masterson's advice, my business has gone from an "idea" to an $8 million endeavor with 25,000 customers world-wide . . . 18 loyal, hard-working employees who surpass every challenge I give them . . . and a very healthy bottom line.

I credit this success to the persuasion and leadership skills I've learned from Michael Masterson. I was amazed that he could put all his best strategies and advice in such an easy-to-follow format, but that's exactly what he did in Power  and  Persuasion.

</review>
<review>

This author was recommended to me by a breeder who competes with his dogs in hunting trials. The breeder is a firm believer in gentle methods and a trusting relationship. However, before I ordered the book,I read reviews of Mr. Wolters other books on Amazon and was prepared for the worst old fashioned, fear based, compulsion methods. I was wonderfully surprised!

This is one of the finest books on choosing and working with very young puppies I have ever read (and I have read MANY). The author's experience and love of dogs is evident throughout, as well as his very clear admonishment of EVER being too harsh, or pushing any pup past his comfort level in exercises. The goal of the exercises with very young dogs is to build trust and confidence in the dog he will become.

The book IS a little dated, very little is said about spay/neuter and crate training, and if there are any New Yorkers still tying their puppies to parking meters outside a store, they must not be very bright. But I thought the references to "Women's Lib" were cute. Its now VERY un-PC to say that to get the dog you want, you are best off with a young, good pup instead of an adult rescue, but its true. "Spanking" is also VERY un-pc. While the author refers to it, he also repeatedly states that NO harsh discipline of any sort is appropriate for young pups. Considering it was written THIRTY years ago, I think its brilliant. He was actually saying back then that people confuse dog breeds "train-ability" and "intelligence"!

Mr. Wolter's experience is obviously tilted toward more "eager to please" breeds (most training books are) but because the book deals with very young puppies who haven't really developed into the more aloof specimins they may become, the advice is still excellent. Your loving tone may be enough for a middle of the road retriever pup, but keeping focus for more independent types may require a treat or two and this can easily be worked into the exercises.

The author assumes that it is being read by a dog lover who will make loving decisions. The format is such that the book MUST BE READ, not treated like a recipe book where you can just open to chapter SIT STAY. But its a great read and his style is easy and clear.
The heartbreaking true story of a sweet pup that was subtly pushed too hard should be required reading for anyone working with a puppy.

And just to be clear, the "Protection" part of the title means bark like hell and be VERY scary on command, or when strangers approach and nothing more. The author feels very few people can handle pets that willingly attack and bite human beings. Its a good call and very expected from a dog lover who works with the public.



</review>
<review>

A new approach which in fact is so easy but psychologically so difficult to accept. We have tried it out and and observed companies doing it since 16 years: to design and market low end products for the "Bottom of the Pyramid" (BOP) with high profit margins at low cost. We have developed a tool which we call MMP or Multiple Market Positioning which shows step by step how to implement this BOP idea successfully. Regards, Dr. Peter Oertli, OEC Oertli Consulting, CH-8142 Uitikon-Zurich, Switzerland

</review>
<review>

Tons of information backed by practical means. There is a ton of contemporary and useful information, statistics, charts, and analysis in this book.  Equally important are the lists
of specific steps and methods to implement these practical ideas.

In "Bottom of the Pyramid," C.K. Prahalid details the critical
realities that are witnessed and experienced in our radically
changing world today.  Especially for those that are living in LDC nations, or those on the lower end of the Per Capita Income scale, and/or those that are not experiencing sufficient economic growth. "BOP" is also quite relevant to high economic growth nations such as China and others, as these countries evolve (or is that devolve)?

Several concepts are examined and advocated in "Bottom of the Pyramid by Prahalad.  MFIs, and Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) at the Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) are relevant examples of purchasing parity.  The author's concept of these populations being "value conscious by necessity" is real.

As practical as the means to implement these concepts are in this
book, often aided with specific models, examples, and instruction - it also takes - local people to accept it and do it.  Many of the means and methods proposed for these areas at the BOP at times seem visionary and over-idealistic and also, too consumer-oriented. Prahalid does note the impediments, and is realistic about them.

Supplying market needs is helpful to people by providing them access and affordability to the products they need.  Beyond this, what can be achieved once these market niches are filled?  Again, Prahalid uses a lot of charts, graphs, and stats to outline current challenges, and also the specific ways to address them.  Prahalid lists logistics, payment methods, transportation, etc.

One concept advocated is "creating the capacity to consume" in these poor countries, facilitated by the "single serving revolution."  This single serving marketing approach is for sales of smaller packages of products instead of larger ones because lower income people in BOPs can't afford to buy larger packages and quantities and put them on the shelf at home for later use.  Good value for a good product, with a good portion-to-cost ratio. Some small packaged single servings specifically listed by Prahalad are: "ketchup, tea, shampoo, coffee,
and aspirin."  Trivial products, many of us in the world use.  Going farther and beyond these items would help, however: and, Prahalid does.  In addition, his concept of the "Three As" is realistic in this approach to marketing: Affordability, Access, Availability.

Some of the bureaucratic policies and private industries noted:
citizen-centric governance, e-governance, the salt industry in India, landmines and prosthetics, eye care, rural kiosks, training, deliveries, and supply-chains, etc.

Prahahlid noted the challenges to implementation.  Ideas and words are quite different from implementation. (The doing.)  This book's ideas can be helpful in certain circumstances and in many areas of the world.  There is opportunity to implement these concepts, There are however, many hurdles to implementing them and achieving success.  Will people at the BOP make the behavioral changes needed?  Changing mentalities is where it starts.  Are these recommendations, a form of cultural imperialism to some degree?  One obstacle is corruption;
it's rampant in many of these BOP countries.  A high percentage of aid and investments are stolen throughout the world.  Multi-national companies (MNCs) are often squeezed.  Theft, corruption, and judiciary systems are built to work against foreigners and obstruct them, while these BOP nations depend upon them. NGOs acquire and spend a lot of money.  What do they actually do?  Not much, as a whole.  NGO corruption and embezzlement is endemic.  Aid is used by governments of the "developed world" to push forward its own agenda
in these nations.  Aid, is a carrot and a stick at the same time.

In these nations there is no concern for individuals.  Governments of BOP nations care about large corporations that dump millions of dollars of FDI into these countries. These MNCs often flush millions down the drain to get into these nations to get market share, reduced labour-costs, and to often export what they produce in BOPs nations to consumers in highly developed countries. Outsourcing is the latest motivator for the globalized competitive world where MNCs wield enormous power.  Where do the 4 billion people Prahalad mentions as living on $2 USD per day fit into this?  at the BOC (Bottom of the
Company).   Author Prahalid states: "The process must start with
respect for Bottom of Pyramid consumers as individuals."  Consumers? Target marketing aspirin, coffee, and shampoo.

If foreigners can be the saviour, how long will they have to stay? This sounds like a business oriented financial quid-pro-quo with the time-consuming and often ineffective Peace Corps approach: "We can do things better than you can.  So let us come.  Let us in.  We're doing you a favor, while we're furthering our interests at the same time. Mutual benefits to some degree, but what is the ratio?  Different parties want access to the pie. If the entire pie grows and greater
pieces and access of it are available to those who have less, those who have nothing or little, will in theory get a larger piece of the bigger pie.  An element of Game Theory, perhaps.

There are 6.3+ billion people on this planet, and the population is contueing to rise rapidly.  Water and food will take prevalence over economic growth if something is not done about it. Lack of these basic necessities needed for basic survival will obstruct the prospect for economic growth and better quality of life.  And, developed nations plunder world's the environment and harm the lives of those with less political and economic power. We live in one world, not three.  What we do, more than ever, affects the entire population.  This is a very positive book, with realistic means to achieve its aims.

Ideas, facts, and realistic methods are superbly tied together in
"Bottom of the Pyramid."  The biographies at the back of the book add depth to the people involved.  A Highly recommend book for everyone, and in particular those in Internationally Development, Intl. business, MNCs, and government.  Great book.


</review>
<review>

On the one hand this book is endorsed by Microsoft's Bill Gates and Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.  That ought give the prospective reader some idea of its value.  On the other hand, it might be asked, what kind of book is this that purports to tell businessmen how to make money by selling goods and services to the poorest people on earth?  After all, the poorest people that have any disposable income at all make something like two dollars a day.

First question then is, how big is the market at the bottom of the pyramid (BOP)?  Prahalad writes that China's per capita gross domestic product of $1000 really represents a dollar purchasing power parity (PPP) several times that, resulting in a $5-trillion dollar economy.  He sees the Indian economy as being worth about $3-trillion in PPP terms. (p. 10)  It's easy to see that even the apocryphal "two dollars a day" multiplied by two, three or four billion or so results in a whole lot of money.

The second thing that might be asked is, is it really moral for the business world to turn its considerable powers of inducement and persuasion on people who have so little to begin with?  What kind of person would aim to exploit those least able to afford the exploitation?  The answer given persuasively by Prahalad is that by making products and services available to the poor, two good things will happen.  First is the fact that goods and services hitherto unavailable to the poor will actually become available.  Second, these products and services will increase their standard of living and allow them to "acquire the dignity of attention and choices from the private sector that were previously reserved for the middle-class and rich." (p. 20)

How might this work?  Presently people in the poorest neighborhoods in the world ironically often pay a premium for what little goods and services they get.  Prahalad points out that this is because they are paying a "poverty penalty" which is the "result of inefficiencies in access to distribution and [because of] the role [played by]...local intermediaries."  By "local intermediaries" he means the line of middlemen--some traditional, some corrupt, some both--that presently stand between the poor and their products and services.  These middlemen add no value but have their hands out and therefore artificially increase prices for the people at the BOP.  Products using modern distribution methods will undersell the old ways.

Prahalad emphasizes targeting products precisely to the needs of the poor.  BOP people are "value-conscious by necessity," he argues, and contrary to what might be assumed are "very brand-conscious."  They are interested in "aspiration products"--brand names--since these products symbolize a higher standard of living and a better way of life.  We can see this in our own poor neighborhoods where brand icons like Nike and Sony are almost worshiped.  Prahalad notes that the "poor have unpredictable income streams.  Many subsist on daily wages and...tend to make purchases only when they have cash and buy only what they need for that day."  Consequently a good marketing strategy is to offer "single-service packaging--be it shampoo, ketchup, tea and coffee, or aspirin..."

This may work I believe if, and only if, the products that big business makes available to the people at the BOP really do improve the quality of their lives.  If they are persuaded to buy, say, cigarettes which they would not otherwise buy, clearly this will not improve the quality of their lives.  If they are persuaded to buy soft drinks and other artificial "foods" consisting of empty calories, it's doubtful that they will benefit.

But is all of this more "globalization trickle down"?--that is, the rich get richer and the poor get--well, somewhat less poor?  Prahalad believes that turning the people at the BOP into consumers will raise their standard of living and in the long run eradicate poverty.  He uses the phrase "creating the capacity to consume" as a means to this end.

The unstated assumption behind Prahalad's idea (and the consumptive economy in general) is that there is great wealth in the world that only needs to be created by human ingenuity, and then efficiently distributed by the capabilities of the modern corporation.  If we can find an energy source as cheap as oil and make a smooth transition to an oil-less economy, I think there is a good chance that Prahalad's vision will be realized.  However, if we don't solve the coming energy problem, Prahalad's idea will gather dust and decay like so many abandoned SUVs alongside roads that we can't afford to repair.

In a sense then, this could be a visionary book well ahead of its time

</review>
<review>

As Prahalad explains in his Preface, he wrote this book to suggest and explain a new approach by which to solve the social and economic problems of 80% of humanity. His approach would mobilize the resources, scale, and scope of multinational corporations  (MNCs) -- their investment capacity -- in a co-creative partnership with localized nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in order to formulate and then implement "unique" solutions to the problems of 4 billion people who live on less than $2 a day at the bottom of the "pyramid" to which the book's title refers. "The process must start with respect for Bottom of Pyramid consumers as individuals. The process of co-creation assumes that consumers are equally important joint problem-solvers....New and creative approaches are needed to convert poverty into an opportunity for all concerned. That is a challenge."

Prahalad carefully organizes his material within three Parts. First, he provides a framework for the active engagement of the private sector and suggests  a basis for a profitable win-win engagement. He identifies all manner of adjustments, accommodations,  and (yes) sacrifices each of the "players" - MNCs, NGOs, and the poor themselves -- must be willing to make to ensure the success of the process. Next, he carefully and eloquently examines 12 case studies which involve a wide variety of businesses,  each an exemplar of innovative practices, "where the BOP is becoming an active market and bringing benefits far beyond just products to consumers." All of the companies share the same concern: "They want to change the face of poverty by bringing to bear a combination of high-technology solutions, private enterprise, market-based solutions, and involvement of multiple organizations." As for Part III, it is provided as a CD which consists of 35 minutes of video success stories filmed on location in the BOP in India, Peru, Mexico, Brazil, and Venezuela.

Of special note is the fact that the various stories are told almost entirely from the perspective of BOP consumers, the so-called  poor. As Prahalad points out, they get products and services at an affordable price, "but more important, they get recognition, respect, and fair treament.  Building self-esteem and entrepreneurial drive at the BOP is probably the most enduring contribution that the private sector can make." As this book's subtitle correctly suggests,  the ultimate objective is to eradicate poverty through profits...initiating and then sustaining what will be in fact, a win-win-win engagement of MNCs, NGOs, and the poor themselves.

Of special interest to me is what Prahalad has to say about innovation for BOP markets which must become "value-centered" from the consumer's perspective. He  identifies and then rigorously examines  12 principles for innovation in those markets such as "creating a new price performance envelope" and "education of customers on product usage."  The BOP focuses attention on both the objective and subjective performances of the given product or service. Moreover, it must "also focus on the need for 30 to 100 times improvements in price performance. Even if the need is only for 10 to 20 times improvement, the challenge is formidable."

Although Prahalad has a compelling vision, he has neither illusions nor delusions about the difficulty of fulfilling that vision when undertaking the "new approach" he recommends in this book. His vision is bold, indeed of global proportions. However, his feet are planted firmly on the ground at the bottom of an enormous pyramid, one whose complexities are exceeded only by the unprecedented entrepreneurial opportunities it offers to help solve the social and economic problems of 80% of humanity. Given the importance and the urgency of the various issues which Prahalad explores so brilliantly in this book, there seem to be no acceptable alternatives to the approach he proposes.

Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out Vijay Mahajan and Kamini Banga's  The 86 Percent Solution: How to Succeed in the Biggest Market Opportunity of the Next 50 Years and Kenichi Ohmae's  The Next Global Stage: The Challenges and Opportunities in Our Borderless World.

</review>
<review>

What is really good about this book is that it proposes a framework and then illustrates it with case studies. Aside from the thesis that a profit motive can be the driver for economic growth, improving the capabilities and lives of the poorest it also shows that developing economies does not equal low technological maturity or lack of opportunities to innovate with business models, distribution channels, product development or business processes.Having grown up and worked in India in the mid 90s it was clear that this kind of thinking and business models were not actively pursued.

However, the case studies suggest this has changed and in many ways as far as India is concerned this is visible by strong anecdotal evidence. Also in many ways there is anecdotal evidence to suggest that people have realised that the government will not solve all that makes doing business difficult and have been using this kind of thinking as a driver for entrepreneurial business which also have a positive impact on the people at the bottom of the pyramid.

Will The framework and ideas apply in all developing economies , specially with smaller populations ? This question is harder to answer and no doubt time will tell

</review>
<review>

This is a well researched book in which Prahalad explores how disruptive innovation if harnessed properly can lead to huge profits for the corporations involved and high impact social well being. The key however is to get the ground breaking idea there is no set approach to getting the same, but he has  done a good job of explaining how the idea can be scaled.
The book will be phenomenonal if it could have concrete numbers and a comparative analysis of what the value add was by each idea. Certain approaches for decreasing costs etc. are explained but the lack of numbers hurts.
All in all a great read.

Mayank

</review>
<review>

This is a fantastic book! 112 pages of theory and advice that really makes sense. You easily internalize the message! This is then followed by 5 VERY thorough and down to the detailed examples of how the theory has been practised by fore running companies in the field of 3rd world integration. It is very illustrative and initiate thoughts on how this could be followed up in your own compan

</review>
<review>

This is the intense, profound, almost unbearably sad story of Swede Levov, brought to life in the audio version by a mind-blowing performance by Ron Silver.

The Swede was the hero of narrator Nathan Zuckerman's youth, the "household Apollo of the Weequahic [New Jersey] Jews."  The Swede's blond good looks and athletic prowess became "the repository of all their hopes" -- and allowed the neighborhood to forget the war.

To Zuckerman, the Swede had been the embodiment of the hero of his favorite childhood book, "The Kid From Tomkinsville."  The Kid was a star ball player, a "modest, serious, chaste, loyal, naive, undiscourageable, hard-working, soft-spoken, courageous" boy, who, in the final pages of the book, was struck down on the field and carried off inert through the mob on a stretcher.  Zuckerman had secretly viewed this story as an augur of the Swede's own life.  Zuckerman had wondered if it had occurred to the Swede "that if disaster could come and strike down the Kid from Tomkinsville, it could come and strike the great Swede down too?"

The Swede's mythic power stays with Zuckerman throughout his life.  Forty-five years later, out of the blue, the Swede contacts Zuckerman -- now a renowed writer --  and invites him to dinner, ostensibly to talk about the Swede's father.  Zuckerman accepts the invitation, but is incredibly disappointed in how the Swede has turned out.  Although he still had the face and physique of a God, the Swede seems to be almost unbearably bland -- every word from his mouth is good natured and unobjectionable.

Zuckerman sadly concludes that the Swede has turned out to be "the embodiment of nothing," but soon finds out that his assessment of the Swede is wrong.  A few months after the dinner, Zuckerman runs into the Swede's younger brother Jerry at their forty-five-year high school reunion. Jerry reveals that an unbelievable, unthinkable tragedy had befallen the Swede twenty-five years before, and the horror of that event had destroyed the Swede's life.

For the rest of the book, Zuckerman explores "the brutality of the destruction of this indestructible man."  Zuckerman imagines the Swede's internal life over the course of a half-century.  The Swede's story unfolds in a spiralling structure that goes back and forth through time, as the Swede obsessively tries to make sense of the inexplicable.

Through the Swede's ruminations, Roth explores incredibly weighty themes: a parent's love for a child, the nature of perfection, the randomness of life, the delusion of control and moderation, and the helplessness and hopelessness of trying to figure out why things are. Most of all, Roth seems to struggle with the notion that there cannot be depth without suffering, and that without that depth, life would be meaningless.  You get the feeling that Roth wishes he could appreciate the ordinary guy -- the bland, honorable, decent people who live their lives with relative equilibrium.  Roth seems to regret that it is only the Swede's tragedy that makes him interesting, and that it is only in imagining the Swede's excrutiating pain that Roth can identify with him.

Overall, the book's tone is intense and dark, but there are moments of humor that are funnier than just about anything I've ever read.  Roth's description of the Valentine's gift that the fifteen-year-old Jerry makes for his secret crush had me laughing for days.

</review>
<review>

The first three-quarters of this novel are absolutely captivating and "unputdowanably" good.  And yet just when I thought it was about to get even better, Roth shifts gears and peels away another layer of the onion to show us these people and their friends and family through the main character's eyes.  While eventually the story picks up again, this radical shift took away some of the enjoyment for me.

Nevertheless, Roth is his typically, excellent self here, providing great prose, excellent character development and a gripping plot.

The Nathan Zuckerman character doesn't play as much of a role in this novel as he did in, say, The Human Stain.  Here, it's frankly an unnecessary device, even though it doesn't get in the way of enjoyment.

My only quibble is that I was far more interested in Merry, the main character's daughter, than in the range of emotions Swede Levov -- the main character -- experiences.  I wanted to see Merry more, especially as she was doing, seeing, thinking, and ultimately developing into the radical protester she would become.  Instead, it is all given to us second hand, from Swede's discoveries and we experience his emotional turmoil instead of hers.  True to life in that way, I suppose, as few of us really experience the center of the storm.  We mostly hear about others doing so.  Still ...

</review>
<review>

American Pastoral was repetitious to the Nth degree. I read the Human Stain a few years ago, and it was good.  But, in Pastoral, the reader is put through a zillion permutations of possible dialogs between the Swede and a psychoanalyst, and between his daughter Merry and a psychoanalyst, but absent the psychoanalyst: Roth is our psychoanalyst. What he misses, however, is that we simply have to realize that interpersonal dynamics are sometimes beyond our control. The Swede never failed as a father; rather, he failed because he couldn't let go of his sense of responsibility for her

</review>
<review>

I just finished reading American Pastoral, my first book by Philip Roth. Since it is my first Roth, I think I provide an unbiased perspective. I know he has written some other stuff, but my mind has not yet been corrupted by it. OK, so what is my opinion of American Pastoral?

For starters, I think the style is a lot like that of Joseph Conrad in Lord Jim (the only Conrad I have read). There are pages  upon pages of diversions from the main plot; lengthy descriptions of people sitting around at dinner tables; single events that are analyzed and re-analyzed from every possible angle, and then re-analyzed again. This type of literature is often fascinating but can quickly become tiresome, so I am not surprised that some of the Amazon reviewers were not able to finish the book. As far as readability is concerned, this book gets a B+. Delicious in places, starchy in others.

Now, what about the main point that Roth is trying to make?

He wants to tell us something fundamental about the All-American Man. He wants us to re-think our concept of the Successful American. He wants us to examine the American Dream closely and see what lies beneath its surface. He wants us to look behind the facade of beauty pageants and country clubs and face lifts and Little League and white teeth and football and big muscles and all that other good stuff we cherish about America.

In this book, Roth tries to lift the veil and show us the real America.

Is he successful?

Sort of. For example, the fetid mess that propels All-American Swede toward insanity is masterfully portrayed. The mental breakdown of our All-American Hero is wonderfully choreographed. The Hero's slow descent into hell is captured page by page in exquisite detail.

However, depsite all this terrific stuff, I came away with the odd notion that Roth himself may be slightly out of touch. This book is clearly written from the perspective of an older generation. The younger generation is seen as infantile, petulant, irksome, depraved, and so forth. Adolesence, to Roth, apparently has few redeeming features. Youth exists simply to torment the elderly, the Establishment. Roth, and his cast of bittersweet characters, are sadly on the wrong side of the hill. I don't want to say that Roth comes off looking like a grumpy old man. So I won't say it. I'll just think it.

Lesson I learned from reading this book: if you are lucky enough to get a chance to live the American Dream, live it by all means! Enjoy! But, if you do decide you want to live the American Dream,  go in with your eyes wide open. The American Dream is more complicated than it looks!

Read the book if you have already lived your American Dream and you want to compare notes with somebody else who has been there, done that, too.

Pass on this book if you are youthful, optimistic, and your Dream is still alive. You can always read this book afterward, once things settle comfortably down and you want to reflect on what it all meant

</review>
<review>

I agree with the reviewer who said this work is boring. It seems Roth is trying to glorify Philip Roth and not the characters. He goes on and on describing the overwhelming feelings zuckermann has for "the swede", without letting us know who the Swede really is. Roth should let the characters tell the story or try to use less erudition in his narration.
It gets to the point where the reader loses interest in finishing the book. I loved the plot against american because it was more character based than philosophizing about about the historical context of the times

</review>
<review>

I am not a fan of using the same protagonist in many novels.  I tend to think that it's a result either of laziness on the part of the author (the protagonist being so close to his own voice that to strike out with another character would be too difficult) or the desire to cash in on the success of previous novels with the same character.  I put those issues aside to read this book anyway and I was very happy that I did.  Thankfully, there was no need to be familiar with the other books.  The details in this book of the politics of Zuckerman's youth, the glove factory, and the anguish at losing his daughter to the world make this a great novel.  I have a terrible memory for the characters and events of stories, but this one remains with me.  I've added several other of Roth's book to my future reading list

</review>
<review>

This astonishingly insightful tragedy shows the unreliable outcome that can stem from almost any (?all) of our American contemporary civil virtues, demonstrating that outcomes can't be predicted from input.

The structure of the book convincingly shows us the "The Swede" first as a fortunate simpleton, hiding the intense, multi-dimensional tragedy of his life and his spirit.

Later we find that Seymour is overwhelmed by the failure of his own well-intended efforts to save his daughter, his community, his family and his profound decency. The reader suffers along with the character as he simply refuses to save himself from the mystery, pain and layered consequences of an explosive event that consumes all he loves.

The portrayal ( and  betrayal) is told in entirely convincing prose, with flawless ethnic insight and painfully realistic anguish. Reading this was overwhelming

</review>
<review>

I had my doubts about this book. I am a professional dog trainer, and a animal behaviorist. I would not recommened this book for your average reader. However it covers the basics of canine behavior very well and I would recommend it to anyone who trains dogs, or works with groups of dogs and wants a deeper understanding of their social interactions.
Reads a bit on the scientific side, so if your reading for entertainment you will probably be bored. If your reading to learn and increase your knowledge, you will probably enjoy

</review>
<review>

I doubt that some of the examples were true to life.  Some dogs were at first presented as knowing as much as a 3 year old human child.  These dogs were presented as responding to long sentences and did things that dogs just cannot do.  Then the book analysed these impossible canine responses.  And I do not accept the book's analysis.  These fantastic canine responses could not have happened as the book asserts.

However, the material presented seems sound enough in principal.  I guess the author was taking artistic license to amplify the points of his thesis.  Whatever, it doesn't matter.

This book does support many of my own observations and has given me insight into dog behavior that I was not yet aware.

I am 67, a lifetime dog owner who spent a year working full time for a Veterinarian when I was 17, and presently have a 5 year German Shepherd.  If you are a typical dog owner you will gain much from this book

</review>
<review>

I don't agree with all that he says, but it is all interesting. Lots of information to integrate with practical learning

</review>
<review>

I have a "special needs" dog and I have been searching for a book that will give me practical ways to work with her.  This book has given me a lot of helpful information without reiterating the obvious.  Great find!

</review>
<review>

While I can't pretend to have gotten inside the mind of Stanley Coren, I am willing to speculate that he wrote this book as a way of taking a very specific scientific controversy out of the realm of academia and bringing it to the people.   The controversy: do dogs have a true language or do they not?

Having recently rewatched Miracle on 34th Street, I recall Kris Kringle's attorney's comment on the controversy over belief in Santa Clause.  "Some firmly believe in him, others just as strongly deny his existence."  In keeping with the spirit of the season when we're a little more likely than usual to believe that animals speak, it's a great time to buy this book as a present for a serious dog lover on your list.

It seems obvious to me that Coren takes the controversy seriously; taking it to the people is not a cop out.  Rather his singular achievement is to bring a body of evidence, if you will, to pet owners who normally would not be part of this academic jury. While reading How To Speak Dog, again and again I'd find myself exclaiming "Wow, that's Oliver's call to be let in, or so that's what Emmie is saying to Hannah."

After completing my first read, I kept the book on the end table having dog eared (sorry, couldn't resist) the section entitled "Doggish Phrase Book".  This Doggish-English dictionary is a must-have for your next visit to the park where Doggish is the language of the land.  Stanley, "May I call you Stanley?", has organized the phrasebook by sounds, and by ear, eye, facial, tail, and other body signals.  Then for each phrase he provides the human meaning, corresponding emotions and conditions of the dog when the phrase is uttered.  Basically, "This is what the dog is saying when you see and hear this behavior."

Often, for weeks after I finished the book, whenever I'd hear a bark, a whine, a howl, or see a crooked tail I'd pop open the phrase book and compare Coren's interpretation to my own.

I've often found myself recommending this book to friends, psychologists and other dog lovers. As a sociologist myself I've always been interested in cross cultural communication.  Over time, little by little I came to realize I'd become even more interested in cross-species communication between people and dogs. Progress has been slow.  I guess it's hard to study cultural differences when you don't understand the language.  But I digress.

So, back to the basic question.  "Oh, yes", Stanley concludes, dogs have a language. There are four generally accepted key requirements for language and dogs show all four, one to a lesser extent than the other three:

* Meaningfulness - canine sounds and signals are not random, but convey a specific meaning
* Displacement -- the ability to target things not currently in sight "Go get the ball in the kitchen."
* Display rules of combination -- some combinations are not meaningful when used together. Dogs don't lay down to get a tummy rub and seriously growl at the same time
* Productivity - the ability to put words together in novel ways.

Stanley acknowledges that productivity is weak (though it does exist) in Doggish.  But the same is true in human toddlers and few would argue that toddlers have no language, just that they understand far more than they can express in words.

So, while at this time of year, I'm especially willing to believe in Santa, I find that all year long I'm willing to believe dogs have a language.  Thanks, Stanley.  I won't be surprised if my peers in the jury decide to vote the same, "Yes, Virginia, dogs do have language.

</review>
<review>

this book was not only full of information, it was fun to read also!! it gave alot of the background of todays canine which is important to know in order to understand what your dog is "saying". Wonderful book!!  I recommend it to anyone who has a dog or wants a dog or just likes learning about dogs!

</review>
<review>

As a lover of dogs for over 50 years, I own dozens of books about canine care and behavior, but Stanley Coren's 'How to Speak Dog' is definitely my favorite. I originally found this informative dog communication book in my local library after adopting a lovable but fearful mixed breed from my local humane society five years ago. Since then, I have bought at least six copies of this same book online, just to have on hand to give to friends and family who decide to bring a dog into their life or who don't understand the behavior of a dog already living with them. I especially like the book's detailed descriptions of a dog's specific body language (ears, eyes, mouth, tail) and what each means--as well as its guide to the messages a dog is sending when he barks or whines in a particular way. Not unlike a driver's training manual which must be read by those who wish to become licensed drivers, 'How to Speak Dog" should be required reading for every person who decides to share his or her life with a dog.

</review>
<review>

Very good book. Very informative. Easy to read and easy to learn from. I would recommend this for anyone working with dogs in any capacity and for those who just want to have better comunication with their dog

</review>
<review>


Do dogs understand language?  Do they have their own syntax and grammar?  Stanley Coren thinks so.  Or maybe, as with many of his other books, he's only pretending to believe what he says in order to pique people's interest and sell more copies...

The words we use in dog training are actually irrelevant.  Since I train dogs in Manhattan, I often find myself on an elevator with one or more dogs.  When the door closes I'll say, "What do we do on an elevator?" and they'll all sit.  This often charms and surprises the other elevator occupants who may say something like, "Look!  They understand every word you say!"

Not really.  I trained the dogs to do this by first saying "What do we do on an elevator?-we sit."  Once that pattern was established, the dogs were able to make the leap from "What do we do on an elevator?" to "Sit" quite easily.  In fact, I could have as easily trained them to do this by using nonsense words, gobbledygook, ridiculous sounds that have no meaning at all.  So it isn't my words or syntax the dogs are responding to, it's my intent, my body language, my tone of voice (all carrying emotional information), and a previously established pattern of behavior.

Stanley Coren should know this better than anyone since one of his dogs is deaf, yet still obeys him.  Why?  Because of his body language and a previously established pattern of behavior, not because the dog "understands" his words.  Coren would say that the dog understands his hand signals the same way the hearing-impaired understand sign language.  But looked at objectively it's far more likely that the dog's response to hand signals is still just part of a previously established pattern of behavior, not a linguistic or cognitive process.

Coren would still disagree.  He claims that certain vocalizations made by dogs can be grouped together, which he takes to mean that there's a kind of syntax or grammar at work.  I'm sorry, Stan, but real language doesn't operate on such a simplistic level.  And while it may seem brave and controversial of Coren (who has a degree in psychology, not linguisics or animal behavior) to disagree with Noam Chomsky about the nature of language, at this stage in the development of linguistic science that's a bit like a high school sophmore disagreeing with Sir Isaac Newton about gravity.

Look, it's fairly obvious to anyone who really understands dogs that the reason certain yips, barks, growls, etc. are sometimes used together and others aren't (which isn't always true, by the way -- it depends on the dog), is that each vocalization comes from an emotional, not a cognitive state.  In other words, certain emotions -- like fear and aggression -- may be felt by the animal simultaneously, while others -- calmness and fear -- can't be.  It's not grammar or syntax, it's emotion, pure and simple.

Even if Coren hadn't thought this through from an emotional point of view, if he'd spent any time at all studying comparative neuroanatomy he'd know that a dog's brain has no Broca's area, which makes linguistic ability totally impossible.  But as with other books he's written (his LEFT-HANDER SYNDROME was notorious for being based on false data), Coren doesn't seem to care much about the truth.

Still, I have to admit that it's hard not to buy into this myth because as human beings we're constantly explaining our feelings and experiences to ourselves through our thoughts and inner monologues, or to others through conversations, letters, etc.  As a result we're almost forced, by the way our brains work, to supply a similar linguistic medium for a dog's feelings and behaviors when no such medium or ability exists.

I trained my dog to respond in a certain way whenever I ask him a certain question.  And I have to admit, I like the way it feels when I say to him, "Do you love me?" and he wags his tail, comes over, puts his paws on my chest, and licks my nose.  Does he understand the meaning of that sentence when I say it to him?  Of course not.  But I know he understands the emotion.

It's a shame that Coren doesn't get this fundamental difference between real linguistic understanding and pure emotion, particularly when the misinformation he disseminates in this book can be detrimental to the relationship between you and your dog, a relationship that SHOULD be based on real and, quite often, wonderful emotions, not on any imaginary ability to use and understand language.

If I could I'd give this book no stars at all

</review>
<review>

Very well written. It connected a lot of dots for both my wife  and  myself, bringing better understanding about us as well as our dog friends. We've always believed that when you train your dog you also are training yourself. We have loved all of our 'friends' that have shared their lives with us  and  are just now beginning a new bond with our third Dalmatian puppy. Anyone that has had any experience around this breed knows the special Aura they wear  and  this book is a 'must read' for You.
Sincerely
John Steen Sr

</review>
<review>

I'm new at reading about energy healing modalities, so I have little to compare it to.  I found this book to be a really nice book to learn more about Healing Touch and how to be a practitioner.  It has some wonderful stories, some that even made me cry.  I still have a long way to go to make this work for me, but it's the beginning of a new awareness in my life

</review>
<review>

This devotional is well rounded, and very complete for day to day study. You can take a half hour or as long as you desire and it is truly food for your soul. I look forward to my devotional time and am so excited by the growth this book encourages

</review>
<review>

I suggest this prayer guide to anyone who is trying to mature in their Christian faith. It is simple to use and straight forward in design. Focused weekly topics that are supported by scripture in each daily reading. Being in the Word daily is the best way to grow close to Jesus Christ, the Son, our God. Would make a great gift too for someone you love

</review>
<review>

This guide to prayer is just one more in the continuing line of beneficial products offered by Upper Room Publishing.  Many people look for ways to deepen their time spent in spiritual growth and development.  Too often we focus so heavily on ourselves that we forget the contributions of the past.  The guide to prayer series offers insights that have been gleened from the spiritual practices of the church throughout the centuries.  The format is simple and concise taking the reader on a journey of daily worship including invocational prayer, spiritual readings, scripture, meditation, prayers, hymns, journaling, and benediction.  The readings for reflection pull in the insight of spiritual leaders both past and present and take on both a theological and inspirational tone.  This particular version is adapted for use by pastor's and laymen alike.  Upper Room is to be commended for this work.  It is a must have for all persons who long to deepen the spiritually formative moments of their day

</review>
<review>

Job 5:8 "But as for me, I would seek God,And I would place my cause before God."

Psalm 9:10 "And those who know Your name will put their trust in You,For You, O LORD, have not forsaken those who seek You."

Psalm 14:2 "The LORD has looked down from heaven upon the sons of menTo see if there are any who understand,Who seek after God."

Psalm 22:26b "Those who seek Him will praise the LORD Let your heart live forever!"

Psalm 70:4 "Let all who seek You rejoice and be glad in You;And let those who love Your salvation say continually,"Let God be magnified."

If you seek an ardent devotional life, if you want to have a life of prayer, if you are looking for a guide on how to dwelve in the Word and reap the benefits of the Bille's wisdom, than look no more.

Here is what I wrote my relatives and friends as a result of one morning's Bible reading of 2 Tim. 1:1-14 (suggested reading for that day).
"I'm not here to push this book, but I want to say that my spiritual walk with God, on a day to day basis, starting the day and ending the day, has been very enriched as a result of reading the Scripture passages, meditating on the excerpts from spiritual writings and poems, and praying, with the help of this devotional book."

The structure of the book is fairly simple.  Week by week (according to the Christian calendar).  Each week's daily devotions and texts are broken up in the following 8 categories:
I. Invocation (written),
II. One of the Psalms (as a prayerful reading material)
III. Reading for Reflection (various numbers of little excerpts from spiritual writing from the whole rich treasure chest of Christian history and from all various denominational and traditional Christian faiths),
IV. Daily Scripture Readings (Mon.-Sunday.; some of them are long  like a whole chapter; others very short)
V. Reflection: Silent and Written
VI. Prayers: For the Church, for Others, and Myself (no prayers provided but one is asked to pray for these three areas)
VII. Hymn (written)
VIII. Benediction (written).

You will not be sorry you invested the money in this book.  The challenge is making the time to devote your life, heart, mind, soul to God and reap the benefits of your closeness to the divine.

Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox - friendly.  The authors come from the Methodist tradition but are very ecumenically minded

</review>
<review>

we bought this as a gift but have been using it for years as a devotional book.

this is great to use for people from various denominations!  i am a die hard presbyterian who married a Catholic and have now converted!  this book's methodist roots keeps the big picture of God's Truth and Jesus, the Light, in focus!  it has meat, and one can apply it to one's daily walk

</review>
<review>

This book fed me richly for a period of two years, and I am not easy to please

</review>
<review>

Provides a wonderful outline and schedule for getting into or maintaining the habit of daily prayer and devotions.  The themes that permeate this book are Worship, Forgiveness, and Servanthood.  This is a great tool to grow with

</review>
<review>

I've used this book for about two years as a simple, predictable structure for prayer and bible reading.  Each week, new area or faith is explored, following the lectionary used in most churches today. A simple invocation (or opening) prayer is presented, followed by a Psalm reading. Next is a reading on the subject, which is borrowed from other resources (these readings cross all boundaries in terms of geography and date written), followed by a Scripture reading.  Next is a time of reflection, where one is encouraged to journal and reflect upon the topic in light of the information presented from man and the Word.  Next is prayer time, a hymn, and a closing prayer.  A weekly  and quot;recipe and quot; with some ingredients provided, the book has a life span of 4 years, with the current edition 2001-2004

</review>
<review>

December 1986 my family presented me with this book. I enjoy readings of William Barclay, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Carlo Carretto, Richard Foster, Carl Jung, C. S. Lewis, Henri J. Nouwen, Mother  Teresa, Elton Trueblood, John Wesley, to name a few. But to have writings  by these great authors compiled in one book is unimaginable. On top of that  there are the lyrics of some of the most well known and loved hymns  included in this book. There are monthly retreat models that can be done  individually or with a group. The story "A Doll of Salt" by  Anthony Bloom is a wonderful simile of our developing relationship with  God. I have highlighted, written in the margins, and dogeared so many pages  that I had to get a second copy because the first one is falling apart (and  it was the leather bound copy). The readings are so inspiring and uplifting  as well as thought provoking for the layperson as well as the ordained  minister. If you are going to get this book I encourage you to get the  leather bound for you will discover you will use it on a daily basis along  with your Bible

</review>
<review>

This book was easy to read and divided into segments that allowed for user-friendly access.  I have referred to it numerous times since I received it and would recommend it to those homeschool parents facing the teen years.  The best part of the book was the resources at the end of each section.  It helped me see what parts in our curriculum needed improvement and which parts were right on target

</review>
<review>

This is the second book I have read from Cafi Cohen. I find her writing straightforward, exciting, and relaxing at the same time.
This book contains lots of good resource information which can appeal to all sorts of homeschoolers.
I am pleased that Cafi Cohen writes with regard to all homeschoolers, not just religious ones. Unlike some other authors, Mrs. Cohen does not pepper her writing with her own religious beliefs

</review>
<review>

I have been homeschooling for 11 years now and I must say this has been one of the most useful publications I have come across.  I have already struggled through two teens with little help and not knowing where to turn for resources.  There is a great deal of information for the younger years, but very little for teens.  This book not only give you insightful information to make your teens education well rounded and interesting, but it also provides a wealth resources to turn for further information.  No homeschool should be without it

</review>
<review>

I got my copy of Homeschooling, The Teen Years and read it through immediately. It was such an encouragement. Although we have been homeschooling for more than five years, sometimes I get cold feet and fear  that we are not doing enough.  Cafi's book points out the many ways we  educate our kids every day and gives suggestions for new things to try. I  highly recommend this book to people who are considering homeschooling  their teens, and especially to those who are already doing it

</review>
<review>

This is a great book for anyone homeschooling teenagers. In a wonderful, easy-to-read format, it discusses concerns of every family member -- mom and dad and teens and younger children. The author answers questions that  new homeschoolers have, such as  and quot;How do we get legal? and quot; and   and quot;Where do we find curriculum? and quot; and  and quot;What about a  diploma? and quot;   In addition the book contains a wealth of information for  experienced home educators. Drawing not only on the author's years  homeschooling her own children, but also on the experience of dozens of  homeschooling families  worldwide, this title contains an incredible number  of fun, creative, practical, and money-saving suggestions for all subjects  -- writing, foreign languages, advanced math, history, science, and so on.  Based on a survey results compiled by the author, you will find lists  throughout of homeschoolers' favorites -- from software to historical  videos to authors teens love.   One chapter discusses part-time  homeschooling and afterschooling, that is, using homeschooling resources  and approaches with schooled children. This is perfect for those families  who want to use tried-and-true homeschooling resources to improve their  child's math abilities or to enrich their teen's school history curriculum.   Afterschooling offers ways to try homeschooling  without jumping in  full-time.   Above all, the book emphasizes that there is no one right way  to succeed. Instead it details many paths to success -- traditional  approaches, unit  studies, interest-initiated learning, and eclectic  approaches -- and invites you to select those options that best fit your  family

</review>
<review>

"Catch Me If You Can" follows the life of Frank W. Abignale - one of the greatest con men of all time who single handedly lived his life on fradulant checks and scams that just leave you thinking how amazing he was. This book is the autobiographical account of Abignale's teenage years from when he first created a scam on his father's Mobil credit card. There are so many times in this book that I had to step back and think about the air of confidence that Abignale displayed, yet curiously inside he was often paranoid and worried about the authorities catching up to him.

Some of the stories are absolutely outrageous. I loved them all! This book also talks about his time in prison across seas in Europe and how terrible he was treated in the French prisons.

If you liked the movie then you should definately read this book. It further explores his adventures and exploits in greater detail and includes many capers that were not in the movie. A must read

</review>
<review>

This book was very well written and so much fun to read.

Frank Abagnale tells his story with the same flare and finesse that he pulled off the cons of his criminal career.

Entertaining from start to finish

</review>
<review>

We all know of Frank Abagnale's personality; arrogant, yet kind with class. Among all the different characters that he chooses to play, whether he's a pilot, doctor, lawyer, or a college professor, i believe that Frank is somewhat confused of who he is. Frank "ran away" from home at 16; the age of teenager who is only halfway through high school. At 16, most people don't know where they are in life or what to pursue in the future. One thing was for sure; Frank wanted money and women.
I believe Frank's unique personality came from the way he was brought up. Having endured his parent's divorce at a young age was a life changing experience for him. It all started with his father; Frank Abagnale. During the process of his(Jr.'s) parent's divorce, his father still loved is mother. So Frank(Sr.) would try to get his son to say things like "Talk to her son...tell her I love her. Tell her we'd be happier if we all lived together. Tell her you'd be happier if she came home, that all you kids would be happier." His(Jr's) father led him to the first step of manipulation.
Frank stayed with his father after the finalizing of the divorce. Since his father was quite a rich man, he had a whole variety of rich friends and Frank(Jr.) would come in contact with his friends quite often. This is where Frank learned the "attitude of the rich", with confidence.
Finally when Frank did his first con with his father's money, Frank(Sr.) forgave him. "Look, son, if you'll tell us how you did this, and why, we'll forget it. There'll be no punishments and I'll pay the bills." Frank probably felt that he could get away with anything at this point and without any punishment, he didn't believe this to be a huge mistake.
With confidence, manipulation, some class and little fear of breaking the law, we come to Frank Abagnale Jr.

</review>
<review>

Frank Abagnale Jr. stands as one of the greatest con artists of all time. The story is inflated at times (in the introduction he claims to turn on the autopilot of a commercial jet liner, a task that in fact requires the actual ability to fly the plane to begin with). Still, the Catch Me If You Can is engaging, and Abignale's scams combine inventiveness and good humor. Enjoy

</review>
<review>

If you, like me, have seen the film with Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks and are playing with the idea of reading the book, you are reading the right review!  If you were in front of me, I would look at you with a grin (as if to show that I knew something you didn't) and encourage you to do so.

Frank Abagnale is less likable in the book, which is to be expected, but is still far from what we would consider a true villain.  It caught me by surprise about halfway through how I was so fascinated by a crook with little or no moral values.  I suppose this is how we live out our own bit of villainy.  Overall, a fun read that may possibly help you appreciate the film even more

</review>
<review>

I read this book after watching the movie (staring Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio). Before I started I knew I liked the story, but I didn't realize how much. I loved reading Abagnale's account of his life of crime. I enjoyed hearing of his exploits as an airline pilot, a doctor, a professor, and a lawyer. I also liked the novel's open frankness about the author's misdeeds.

However, I thought the book was not especially well written. Abagnale recounts his adventures dryly and with little emotion. I also felt somewhat deprived with the novel's ending. Frank Abagnale went on to work for law enforcement and securities firms, but that is only mentioned in a question and answer with the author after the story. I would have liked to have heard more about how he crossed from the wrong side of the law to the right.

All in all, I would recommend this book as an easy weekend read

</review>
<review>

Many people became aware of Frank Abagnale Jr's story until the movie starring Tom Hanks and Leonardo Dicapprio was released (even though an earlier movie based on this story was released).

While not as flowing as the movie, the story told in this book seems much more realistic and true too life, containing many of Abagnale's earlier mistakes  and  lessons we  don't get to see in the movie. On the other hand, many parts of it do seem to be missing - such as why Air France would take such an interest in catching Frank, even though the airlines he was cheating seemed to be mostly American based?

This is an interesting read as a background to the movie, and to those who would like to learn what had inspired many of the movie's major storylines

</review>
<review>

Not a reader of fiction, fantasy, sci-fi... therefore picked up a copy of "Catch Me If You Can" from a bookstore yesterday...
Seen the film more than 10times.. loved the film, loved the characters, loved the plot... LOVED the book even more... can't put it down... the story just flows perfectly...
Makes you wonder what Franky can do at the age of 16,17 etc.

A real inspiration... the book's plot is BY-FAR better than the movie... Would have been great to read it before watching the film.. still good to read it after watching the film..

Overall, it's a great book
finished it in a da

</review>
<review>

Ideal for anyone with an interest in evading capture

</review>
<review>

First, I want to say that this is the paperback version of The Cooks Illustrated Complete Book of Poultry (different title, different cover design.) This is a great book especially for those who eat a lot of chicken and are looking for a variety of ways to prepare it, like me. There are recipes for dishes from many different traditions, which I like, and all are tasty. If you look at the table of contents, you'll see that they are arranged by cooking method, which is handy. And the book has all the explanations and clear directions typical of Cooks Illustrated books. My absolutely only complaint is that I appreciate it when an entire recipe is printed across two open pages, so I can put it in my cookbook stand and leave it there, and that is not the case here: I have to turn the page. But that's minor. Highly recommended

</review>
<review>

This is the sort of cookbook that grows with you.  If you're a novice cook, or you cook only because you have to put something on the table every night, you will find this book enlarges the number of fool-proof chicken dishes you can put on the table without much fuss.  Each chapter suggests several variations, so you can adapt to what you have on hand or what's fresh at the store.  There are also handy chapters on soup, leftovers and turkey breasts.

If you're a more seasoned or adventurous cook-or you'd like to become one!-you will appreciate the scope of the book, which provides basic recipes in 37 chapters, including what to do with duck, goose, quail, squab, and pheasant.  With a proven "method" at hand, you can experiment with seasonings  and  vegetables and feel confident that your new creation will at least be edible.  Or if you prefer to stick to the book, there are more complex dishes here, such as Sauted Butterflied Chicken with Tomato, Olive and Caper Pan Sauce and Grilled Squab with Red Chile-Pumpkin Seed Sauce.

If you like America's Test Kitchen or Cook's Illustrated, this book is a guaranteed winner.  Even if that's not you style, you might find the abundance of recipes makes this a winner anyways.  Best of all, it's affordable

</review>
<review>


The books are indeed a masterpiece collection of sorts. Very racy and laced with black humor and the sort of a plot which you can put into a perspective, for instance, the reference to mob psychology harks about to blacks burned/lynched in 1930's America, to many such instances in third world countries like India and Pakistan where many a woman, child and man have been victimc of such outbursts born out of sheer greed or religious intolerance. For instance there is a Muslim Religious leader in Australia saying that women invite rape by exposing their body parts. WOW! Count Olaf, indeed!
The writer is not shedding tears for the children here or is presenting a bleak picture for us to salivate on but is really afraid for us and trying to make us careful in our decisions and largely he is trying, most explicitly, to say that a family should bond well together - for all other relationships are transitory. A very practical one! Should I say!

</review>
<review>

Plot: interesting.
Suspence: present.
Entertainment: keep.
Hidden messages: a few.
Book ranking for series: 5th
Mysteries: Hospital related only

</review>
<review>

Dear Reader,

Unlike previous books in the series, THE HOSTILE HOSPITAL takes place immediately after THE VILE VILLAGE.  The three Baudelaire children are all alone walking across a large empty space when the reach The Last Chance General Store.  The children had just escaped from V.F.D. the evening before and were now wanted by the police for the murder of Jacques Snicket.  Mixed-up and misrepresentations of the deeds were going to appear in the morning edition of THE DAILY PUNCTILIO.  Hungry and without another chance in the world, the children enter The Last Chance.

It's too terrible to describe what horrors are inflicted upon them there.  Somehow the escape and make their way to the Heimlich Hospital where they join with a group of singing people known as the V.F.D., Volunteers Fighting Disease.  It's not the V.F.D. that their parents were members of, but this V.F.D. inadvertently assist the Baudelaire's in finding new information about their parents.

Oh, my.  But that was before Violet was captured by Count Olaf, before she was supposed to have her head removed, and before a major fire.  Oh, those poor children!  I can't write about them anymore at the moment.  Read about them yourself.

I think I'll go buy a heart-shaped balloon to make me feel better because my stomach feels queasy.

Sincerely,
Uncle T

</review>
<review>

The first seven books of A Series of Unfortunate Events followed the same formula. The Baudelaire Orphans are with the banker Mr. Poe until he can find a new relative willing to care for the siblings. Things go badly and the evil Count Olaf shows up with another nefarious plan to kidnap the children and somehow steal their inheritance. In the end they get away and Olaf is on the run from the authorities. The ending of The Vile Village changes this. The Baudelaires are on the run, suspected of the murder of Count Olaf despite the fact that he isn't dead and that there is no way they could have committed the non-existent crime. The Hostile Hospital opens with the orphans trying to find a place where they can learn about VFD, the Quagmire triplets, and some clue that will help keep them safe and stop Count Olaf from coming after them ever again. This time there is no Mr. Poe and no new distant relative to live with. Count Olaf is in much less of this book than we have come to expect, though he and his cronies play major roles in instigating the action.

Author Lemony Snicket (an assumed name as the author is as much a character in the story as the Baudelaires are) does an excellent job in presenting the story of the Baudelaires experiences at a hospital trying to research in the records room what the truth behind the events of the past several novels and once more running afoul of the minions of Count Olaf and being placed into mortal danger once again. Snicket sets up the next volume very well and tells the story in such a way that the novel flows into the next book while telling an independent story at the same time. The breaking of the formula of the series is a refreshing change and spices up the action quite a bit. The Hostile Hospital is one of the best of the first eight volumes in this series.

-Joe Sherr

</review>
<review>

This book is a concise well written guide to the core issues of buying, owning and selling multifamily buildings. It was extremely valuable in evaluating our first purchase of a multi-family structure

</review>
<review>

As a real estate investor and author myself, I read a lot of real estate books. Many, if not most, are written by folks who do not invest in real estate themselves; they only write about it. Berges is not one of them. He knows his stuff and it's clear that he practices what he preaches. I have read three of his books and, I must say, he's one of my favorite real estate authors. You can trust what he says. Experienced investors may want a bit more detail from Steve, but what he does say is accurate and safe. This is a good book on buying apartments. In fact, in my own book, "Investing in Duplexes, Triplexes  and  Quads," I list the best books I've read on different areas of real estate. This book is the ONLY book I recommend on investing in commercial multifamily (ie, apartments of 5 units and up) properties.

Having given those accolades, here are a few of my constructive criticisms:

1. On pages 37 and 38, Steve gives nice charts illustrating the long-term financial benefits of investing in multifamily properties. On page 39, however, there is an error in referring to the big numbers shown. The reference is made to Investor A's "equity" of $2.1 million and Investor B's (the multifamily property investor) equity of $92 million. I just don't think Steve caught this, but those numbers don't refer to the investor's equity, but to the fair market value of his collective assets (his properties). The investor's equity might be in the range of 20% of that. I do like the charts, however, and I used a similar analysis in my recent book. One other note on the charts - they presume selling and buying exactly at the end of one year - a difficult task as Steve would surely admit. On average, I think 18 months to two years is a better time frame for flipping apartments.

2. Refinancing - Steve didn't give a chart showing the long-range effect of the "buy, hold and refy" strategy (using proceeds to buy again, but retaining the first property). In addition, Steve only mentioned the general banking guideline that you can only pull out cash up to 80% of the new appraised value (i.e., the bank has an LTV of 80%). However, you can get around this. I've done it. It requires a second lender giving a second mortgage, with a CLTV (combined loan to value) of up to 90%. As such, you can pull out much more cash.

3. GRM - gross rent multiplier. In his financial analysis section, Steve doesn't give much detail or provide real life examples on this crucial analysis factor. Granted, the cap rate is the analysis primarily used for commercial real estate, while the GRM is the one used for residential multifamily (2-4 units) real estate. Since many owners and selling brokers will "fudge" on expenses, a cap rate can be very hard to verify. The GRM, however, is fairly simple - just look at the lease agreements.

4. Lack of coverage on residential multifamily apartments. In fact, this is why I wrote my book on this topic. If Steve had covered it here, I would not have written mine. I like Steve's writing style and he knows his stuff. But for investing in small multifamily properties (certainly on residential, but probably up to about 10 units), we really have to cover valuation and selection of properties using the GRM. That and I felt like the "buy, hold, and refy" strategy needed much more coverage.

But for investing in commercial multifamily properties, I recommend this book as the only good one on the market.

Larry Loftis
Author: Investing in Duplexes, Triplexes and Quads: The Fastest and Safest Way to Real Estate Wealth

</review>
<review>

Excellent and reasonably comprehensive introduction to the
business of investing in multifamily properties

</review>
<review>

This is the second Steve Berges book that I've read.  I read his book, "The Complete Guide to Real Estate Investing".  He focused on obtaining value once you make the purchase.  That is very sound advice.  With so many people investing in property hoping to make a profit after they fix it, Steve urges you to pursue profitability prior to making any modifications.  Do not pursue property that requires capital investment or upgrades prior to a positive cash flow.  That's very basic but sage advice

</review>
<review>

This was the first book I have purchased on the subject of real estate investing in multi-family properties.  I have been and interested in the subject for some time however.

I found the formulas and rules the book includes to be invaluable, and used them to create Excel spreadsheets to quickly analyze the hundreds of multi-family listings available.  I found the book to be easy to read and understand.

</review>
<review>

This book is very informative if you are a beginner to the multi family world.  For anyone that has already dealt with multi family, then you do not need this book.  However, Berges other book, real estate finance is a good review for the seasoned apartment owner.  In that book he goes over some key performance and efficiency ratios that everyone should be aware of when dealing with multi family properties.

The book covers the general ideas behind multi family properties but of course it will differ by region slightly.  The cap rates that he speaks of are not available in say california but might be available in indiana.  Overall a good book for beginners to intermediate but definitely not seasoned investors

</review>
<review>

Out of all of the real estate books I've read over the years, this is by far one of the better ones.  The author stays focused on the topic of buying and selling apartments and does it in a way that is easy to understand.  Let me emphasize that when I say the book is easy to understand, that is not meant to imply that only the basics are covered.  Not only does Berges do a great job of explaining the mechanics of the process, but he also mixes in a lot of personal examples which help the reader to connect the dots between pie-in-the-sky theory and real world applications.

Steve Berges concludes the book with an inspiring and motivational chapter he refers to as the 5 Keys to Success, which he points out are not limited to just real estate, but can be applied to any business or profession, as well as to one's personal life.  I thought this section was very well written and gave me cause to reflect on my own course in life.

I've read several of the author's other books as well, all of which were good, but I particularly enjoyed The Complete Guide to Real Estate Finance for Investment Properties.  Wow...what a great read!  It's about time somebody wrote a book that really deals with the financial aspects of real estate (see my review)

</review>
<review>

The author, Berges, provides unique insight into investing in apartment buildings.  There isn't much written about this topic, and what is, seems to be very generic.  This book, however, provided lots of good examples with specific advice on what to do and what not to do.  In addition, Berges sprinkles various tidbits of information throughout the book that while not directly related to real estate, are nevertheless quite relevant to being successful in it.  I just finished another book of his, The Complete Guide to Investing in Rental Properties, which I also found to be very enjoyable

</review>
<review>

I found this book to be an excellent "primer" for the novice investor who wants to learn about the basics of investing in mutual funds.  Bogle describes the various types of mutual funds in simple plain language

</review>
<review>

I first became interested in this title because of the positive review by Warren Buffett. There's so much hype in the investing field that you'll save hundreds of hours of wasted time and thousands of dollars in lost money by consulting a genius to separate the wheat from the chaff. It's not always an exciting, easy read but it's essential knowledge if you're investing or planning to invest in funds. Its simple concepts that take some mental work to understand. Those that make big money in individual stock investing normally invest a tremendous amount of time understanding their field AND the particular companies they're risking their money on. If you don't have the time or inclination to do this, mutual funds are one safe way to go.

For my money, your number one investment is in becoming valuable in whatever field you have a passion for. After enough money starts flowing and you want a relatively safe approach to investing and compounding excess funds (above what you need for a comfortable--not extravagant--lifestyle), Bogle explains the simple concepts for compounding your money over time. Don't take my word for it. Read the back page of the book for the brilliant investing minds that have given Bogle's ideas their stamp of approval.

</review>
<review>

My first and final book on mutual funds. I've read several others, but keep returning to this one. The end of chapter summaries are invaluable. It is a tougher read than most and Mutual Funds for Dummies ins easier and in the same vein

</review>
<review>

I read this book when it first came out ten years ago at the beginning of the bull market. At the time the book had mixed reviews. One of Bogle's warning, and probably the best advice, is to watch out for funds that charge high fees and to study all the fees charged in all funds. I remember one reviewer feeling that Bogle was overreacting to the fees that funds charged and that fund managers are really on our side. Fast-forward to today, we have the mutual fund scandal and we learn that mutual fund managers aren't really working on our best interests. Though reading this book can't help you spot all the bad apples ( the Janus family has alot of no-load funds and it was implicated in the scandal) it can help you be aware and thus be more weary. In a nutshell, this book is comprehensive,honest and prescient. John Bogle is the conscience of the mutual fund industry

</review>
<review>

Bogle provides an excellent guide to the world of mutual funds. He begins with an introduction to three primary classes of investments namely stocks, bonds and cash reserves and goes on to provide an excellent insight into analysing and selecting a mutual fund. A must read for anyone who has invested or is planning to invest in mutual funds

</review>
<review>

Most of the reviews that I have written for Amazon are based on the books, the DVDs, and the CDs that I already own. I occasionally buy a new product via Amazon, but I mostly review the stuff that I already own.

I own this book...this play because I read it while in a Humanities course in college. I went to college rather "late" in life...whatever that means...and yet I derived more from the experience than I probably would have had I gone right after High School. I am one of those people who believe that it's not college that makes a "well-rounded" indivividual, but life experience. If colleges and universities handed out degrees based on Life Experience, I'd probably have a doctorate three times over...

We were given the assignment of reading this play and seeing the live production that the college I was attending just so happened to be putting on. With my primary focus being on philosphy, I embraced the Existentialism Unit that we were now focused upon. My best friend, who was/is an "atheist" was less receptive of these Existentialist ideas he considered strange and elusive. You think he, being an atheist, would have been more open to them than I who had already been bitten by the Metaphysics/Spirituality plague. Truth be told I think the only reason he says he's an atheist is because he's a cheapskate and doesn't want to shell out extra money for Christmas gifts.

So we go see this play and people were getting pretty agitated. In this play everything goes round and round but never arrives at any final conclusions and I noticed how we, as a society, love our answers. We are not soothed by questions and proposistions and "what if?" scenarios. We feel the need to latch onto something because something is better than nothing.

Isn't it?

The Existentialists believe that the universe is random, chaotic, and ultimately meaningless and so in a sense they "give" meaning to meaninglessness. Just like an atheist believes in non-belief. You see, the human species cannot not give meaning to his/her life...we cannot not believe...we can "pretend" that life is without meaning and that we don't believe but everything that falls onto the screen of our perception, will take on the shape of our perceptions.

I loved this play. I loved the merry-go-round type dialouge. Isn't this what we all do? We get a belief so engrained in our heads and we think that it is the only way to believe and so we spend a lot of time trying to convince someone who may not be as receptive to our point of view as to why it's valid. What I have learned over the years is that the only reason why a belief is valid is because we are the ones who validate it. It doesn't make us "more right" than the person who doesn't believe it, it just makes us believers of the belief. And contrary to popular opinion, the more people you have who also believe the same way you believe does not prove that it's any more valid than if only one person believed it.

This play did not dissolve me into a puddle of desperation and futileness, in fact it added more meaning to my life which would probably make Samuel Beckett gag. It made me fall in love even more with this crazy life that only I can live. Nobody lives by proxy. Each of us are liberated and imprisoned by our beliefs. The best we can ever hope to be is determined by what we are willing to believe at any given time. This is why it's a good practice to sit down and journal about your beliefs from time to time and question why you still believe what you believe. You may have outgrown certain beliefs, certain ideas, certain ways of being in the world but don't be like the two "bums" in the play, don't keep postponing what it is that you eventually desire to see; see it now, live it now, be it now. If you are going to be an atheist, be the best atheist you can be. If you are going to be a Christian, be the best Christian you can be. If you are going to be an Anarchist, be the best Anarchist you can be. Just don't think that everyone is going to believe exactly as you believe and don't make others wrong simply because they may have another point of view. In the end, none of us truly know what's on the other side. Yes, we've had people with Near Death Experiences, but nobody has ever come back after being completely dead with a report, we just have reports from people who have been "mostly dead".

Take life with a grain of salt and enjoy the ride.

Peace  and  Blessings.




</review>
<review>

Waiting for Godot was dubbed a "tragicomedy" and there doesn't seem to be any other word better suited to describe this play.  The random and wandering personalities of Vladimir and Estragon, the main characters, lend an amusing air to the entire work.  However, their inability to accomplish anything or even grasp what is really going on around them inspires some sympathy (and irritation), though it may be weaker or stronger depending on how strange the book strikes the you.  Unless one goes into Waiting for Godot expecting the existentialism it can be somewhat confusing, and may seem a bit more pointless than it is meant to be.  Knowing a little bit about Beckett and his beliefs will probably make it more enjoyable, but it is interesting and well written enough to stand on its own.  What I love the most about this book is Beckett's ability to make the absurd seem so close to reality.  Vladimir and Estragon are most certainly not your average Joe, but a lot of what they say seems familiar and most of the time rather humorous.  Waiting for Gogot is really what you make it, because while at its core it is a just a story of two confused homeless men, it is also a meaningful and slightly endearing tale.  Go in looking for a meaning, and knowing how Beckett means to get things across, and I think that this play will end up reading much better than if one goes in just cold.  A short read, and worthwhile, I would say, at least for its originality and humor

</review>
<review>

Samuel Beckett's play seems to endlessly perplex reviewers: they want to see in it concrete associations that it generally denies them. Is Godot God? Are Didi and Gogo heroes for their seemingly indefatiguable faith he will arrive, or fools for hinging all their hopes and dreams on a man who never seems to arrive to help alleviate their suffering?

Waiting for Godot, in proper Modernist fashion, strips away all the layers of narrative and form and leaves nothing but the naked husk of a play, which Beckett no doubt felt revealed the human condition at its most basic. But the play's power doesn't really come from that. Rather, what makes Waiting for Godot so compelling is its wide applicability: it's a story about random oppression, brutality, and dreams deferred by harsh realities. It has been performed as an allegory of apartheid South African, the Jim Crow South, the horror of the war in Bosnia and about every other possible situation imaginable. Why? Because as Benjamin Kunkel pointed out in a piece in The New Yorker not so long ago, "[N]ot everyone has a God, but who doesn't have a Godot?"

Beyond the metaphysical implications of the play, though, it's popularity stems from its near-perfection: for all the philosophical meaning people see in it, the action progresses with virtually no direct reference to it, and every line which seems to suggests some sort of grand significance has a very concrete meaning in the action. Take the infamous opening: Estragon, the first of the tramps, struggles to pull off his boot to relieve his swollen foot. Unable to get it off, he gives up and announces "Nothing to be done." Vladimir, wincingly wandering onto the stage and grasping at his crotch (precious few readers and actors for that matter seem to grasp that one of the play's running jokes is Vladimir's venereal disease, which causes him immense pain when urinating), thinks Estragon is commenting on his own ailment, and announces, "I'm beginning to come round to that conclusion myself. All my life I've put it from me, saying Vladimir, be reasonable, you haven't yet tried everything! And I resumed the struggle."

On the one hand, the lines relate concretely to the action of the play; on the other, they have become representative of modern man's ambivalence towards a cruel and uncaring world, and such clever cynicism has linked Beckett to the French Existentialists in whose circles he moved after the Second World War. But seen merely as declamatory statements of world-weary cynicism, the lines lose all their power; Beckett's achievement comes from his ability to link such nihilistic sentiments to extremely comic moments, and it is the humor that carries the reader or the theatergoer through what would otherwise be an unbearably cynical  play. Steve Martin, who played Vladimir in a famous 1982 production at the Lincoln Center in New York, put it best when he said that he sought to serve the humor of the play, because the meaning could carry itself but the humor could not. That's a lesson which, sadly, precious few theater directors seem to grasp, but which the careful reader discovers in Beckett. Definitely a must-read, but read it before seeing it, because few productions do it justice

</review>
<review>

Some think Waiting for Godot is an argument for existentialism. Others believe it is about man's eternal struggle for the answer to the ultimate question. Neither seem correct.

In short, this is a play for those who prefer to strip everything down to the most basic form of language, to strip life down to a mere game of waiting. That is, in essence, what this is all about. We have two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, who both wait for a man who may or may not ever show up. They don't know why. They don't know exactly when he will be there. Still they wait, eternally, by the tree, by wherever they think he said he would show.

This isn't an absurdist play, although it has been labeled as such. Absurdism, though, seems such an insulting way of labeling such a masterpiece. We oftentimes go thorugh our readings with the idea that everything has to be complex, that there has to be a theme placed deep within a convoluted story, but with Waiting for Godot, we have a simple theme: waiting.

The two characters symbolize nothing. They are, quite simply, not waiting to be analyzed. They become, in effect, victims of Samuel Beckett's own game: they are his quotation, and he only says what needed to be said at the time, and so he wrote it, whether people would catch on or not, whether they would label it absurdism or not.

If you were to take every line of this play and utter it aloud, very slowly, word by word like a robot in a very monotone fashion, you would probably capture the idea. If it's any indication, he wrote everything in French first--his second language--and then translated it in to English, just so it can be simple. I don't assume, of course, that this work should be cherished simply because it's an exercise in simplicity. But I submit that it should be cherished because it's a genuine, themeless--somehow--masterpiece about two people waiting for the most unimportant, unknown thing that may or may not ever come. It is frequently hilarious and constantly frivolous, but somehow, it manages to charm. It is like one of those songs that you can listen to over and over again, and it has no lyrics, and no meaning--as far as you know--but it still makes you feel good under glaring adversity

</review>
<review>

I'm not a big fan of existentialism to start out with, but I began this play expecting at least to find an interesting theme or philosophy concerning the nature of life and existence.  This work, however, is pure tripe.  Critical appraisal should not even be attempted for this drivel- it's akin to the random scribblings of a two-year old or a mud-splattered canvas.  The drawing on the front cover has more artistic value than this play.  In my mind, it doesn't merit serious consideration and analysis, because it is by nature pure absurdity and nonsense.  Beckett sure accomplished his goal though- look how many reviewers commented on the "extremely difficult themes" and "brilliant artistry" of the play

</review>
<review>

WAITING FOR GODOT is somewhat akin to a conceptual artwork, in which the concept behind the artwork is more important than the sensual aesthetic experience or the entertainment value. In this case, however, what is behind the artwork is a non-concept, the impossibility of creating a masterpiece. After the monumental impossibility of Joyce's FINNEGANS WAKE, what remains for the serious artist? WAITING FOR GODOT is about the impossibility of a masterpiece in the modern world. In that sense, this play is the last masterpiece of "high art." The torch has now passed to movies and popular forms.

Many critics have tried to convince us that WAITING FOR GODOT is very funny and entertaining. I remain skeptical. There are a few moments of wry humor, but not enough to make up for the emptiness of "waiting." There is literally "Nothing to be done" in this play. "Waiting" is a non-action. What's interesting about the play is that the inconsequential dialogues and trivial actions are presented as significant; there's something like an "alienation effect," or a "defamiliarization," as we are invited to ponder how and why this drama is meaningful.

Why is there "Nothing to be done"? Is it simply because it's all been done before? Or is it because life in the modern world is without any serious purpose or meaning? In many ways, WAITING FOR GODOT is a reaction to the Holocaust and Hiroshima. The characters who have "something to do" in this play are Pozzo and Lucky, who by their stupidity illustrate the futility of action in the modern world.

</review>
<review>

Samuel Beckett's, soon to be classic, drama about two men, Vlad and Estro, transcends stage-play drama. Beckett's relatively short story is a pioneering foray into the mixture of a dramatic, literal story.

Most drama should be seen on stage, so that the performers can give their characters shape, bring in an audience, and produce a night of dramatic arts. That is not how this story seems to go; not at all, indeed.

Beckett's story can be seen as a naturalistic look at the life of the poor. Here are two men, both obviously at the end of their ropes, but each keeps this asinine hope that "GODot" will show up. But, he never does. Extra characters, like Pozzo and Lucky, simply add to the intended confusion.

As several previous reviewers have taken note--there is not action. While this idea is spurred by "The Threepenny Opera," Beckett takes postmodernism another step further. The characters' are so disillusioned the question becomes, Godot isn't coming, so did he ever care? Could Godot actually exist he allows these poor fellows to exist in such a state.

A fantastic read, and one of the best dramas ever written. This fairly short play should be read by EVERYONE.

</review>
<review>

Many readers of 'Waiting for Godot' obsess about the identity of Godot and whether he represents God or any other almighty being. It is unlikely that Beckett was referring to God as the man for whom the characters are waiting, as religion is only ever mockingly referred to in Beckett's theatre.

Although Beckett was not referring directly to God the name is not without importance. Godot is seen as a messianic being by the characters who will bring salvation for those who believed he would come. The wait for God is not represented by the play, but is used as a template.

'Waiting for Godot' is essentially a sustained metaphor for how most if not all human beings spend their whole life waiting for something that isn't coming. Beckett was not able to identify Godot because of the subjective nature of such a being. As critics have written, this play is a written ink-blot test and a failure to see any coherent meaning says more about the reader than the play.

This is yet another example of Beckett's chilling insight into human nature, and his readiness to state what others are unwilling to accept

</review>
<review>

Waiting for Godot, a play about two men who cannot communicate and always wait for something that never comes, attempts to show us the futility of waiting for that phantom message or meaning humanity is obsessed with--it is a call to action. This play is packed with nonsensical dialogue. The plot does not exsist. Yet, once we realized that Waiting for Godot is a parody of human existance it starts to make sense--at least in subtle ways. Much of the play cannot be interpreted in any finality, but, that is what has kept this play alive throughout the twentieth century. It's enigmatic, a puzzle of words, poetry, and philosophy. I recommend this to anyone who wants a challenge. The play is short and does not take too much commitment. Take a quiet evening and give it a shot. What are you waiting for

</review>
<review>

This book is just what it advertises - it is good down-to-earth and practical advice for those just starting out on their teaching careers.  I've been teaching for several years but I found a good number of ideas in here to help orient our new faculty.  I have just pulled every book in the library I could find on preparing faculty to instruct and this one was the best of the entire pile.  I think it should be read by everyone just starting their teaching career.

</review>
<review>

Considering the size of the book I was disappointed in the lack of information and meanings given. They are mostly one word meanings, if there is a meaning at all. Mostly it seems like it wants to take you in a big circle of reference from one name to the next never quite giving you what you are looking for. It wasn't helpful for me. I found "The Babyname Wizard" book A LOT more informative and helpful

</review>
<review>

I received this book as a gift and at first I thought 100,000 names would be too many to look through, but the lists really helped me narrow things down. Plus, my husband and I had a lot of fun flipping to random pages and seeing what we'd find!

</review>
<review>

If nothing else, this book is great fun -- all the names from different cultures and countries are fascinating (though I'm not sure I'd want to name a daughter "Osiris"), especially since every name has a short description of its origin and meaning next to it.

Lansky has clearly done his research -- there are lists of the most popular names from 1900 to 2004, and the big trends in baby-naming in the past few years so you can decide whether you want to go with or against the trends.  Lansky has a few quick, easy articles about picking a name you and your baby will love -- it seems like so many people today forget to pick a name that will actually suit their child; a name that the child will want for the rest of their life -- and the impressions names make on people, as well as the legal aspect of naming (did you know that in the United States it is against the law to use numbers in names?).

It's a huge book, a great resource.  I don't plan to have kids of my own for a few years yet, and I don't think I'll use a baby name book of any kind when I do, but I have a few friends who've purchased this book and really loved it -- and I enjoy reading it, too

</review>
<review>

I suspect the previous review from "Mom Of One" must be unnaturally biased or somehow associated with a competitor's title because it appears that she only exists sporadically enough to tout her chosen title, and then belittle its competitors. Nothing else currently seems to exist for this entity. Worst of all, "she" disclaims this book as being a copy of a title published in 2005 (first edition 2003), when a quick look-up shows that  this publisher: Meadowbrook / Lansky, has been making baby name books since the late 70s/early 80s and is clearly one of the leaders in the field.

This book is great as a resource, names neatly alphabetized with their origin and meaning, in an astounding range of ethnicities and languages. 100,000 names! I think that's more names than any other title on the market of this subject, and I love that it has French, Greek, Japanese, Hawaiian (!!!), African, Latvian, Spanish, Chinese - you name it! So you're not limited in any way, even names and their offshoots (i.e. names evolved from other names) are included. A pretty great resource for would-be parents and writers alike. I'm still a year or two off from family planning with the significant other, but I've browsed through this for the future ...and of course everyone looks up their own name. I've used this title as part of a gift basket to two of my planning  and  expectant friends, and they've both loved it and used it extensively. One of the gifted copies seems to be a permanent fixture on a coffee table and considerably dog-eared. Great gift on its own to 'soon-to-be' parents, or put it in a basket with some bottles, a couple of bibs, baby t-shirt and plush toy and you've got a pretty terrific baby shower gift.



</review>
<review>

this book bears an amazing similarity to 50,001 Best Baby Names, by Diane Stafford. But hers is better because it's the original. Shame on you

</review>
<review>

The recipes were fun to make and very southern.  Book is worth having in your kitchen, including for yankees

</review>
<review>

After watching Paula Deen on the Food Network and then visiting her restaurant, The Lady and Sons in Savannah, I knew this cookbook collection was a must for our home.  Her recipes are simple and delicious.  There is something in there for everyone with new creations that delight the palette.  Her chicken recipes such as Chicken Georgia, Chicken and Dumplings and Chicken Casserole are easy and delicious.  The Corn Casserole was probably the easiest dish I have ever prepared and was gone immediately.  It is a great sign in my home if you do not have leftovers.  I do not have leftovers when I cook with Paula Deen.  The only downside is we are having to exercise more because of this delicious food.  I figure that it is a small price to pay for having enjoyable sit down dinners with the family.  I would definitely endorse this collection for any home.  This would be a great gift this Christmas season.

</review>
<review>

FORGET what e brown says. What was this person thinking???? I will tell you that these are recipes that for the most part include ingredients that any southern cook will find on hand at any time. Simple, easy, and very tasty recipes that your family will love. If some appear to have a high fat content and that bothers you then use your brain and take measures accordingly. It really is that easy.

</review>
<review>

To the lady who gave Paula's book a 1 star because it's all fattening  and  salty foods--puhleeze!  She said she watches the show--do you really?  Paula is a southern cook and southern cooking is full of rich food; she always says her favorite food is butter! Her cookbooks are fantastic; every time I make something to bring to the office or to a potluck, I use one of her recipes and they always get rave reviews and requests for the recipe.  She's the tops

</review>
<review>

Tried  and  true favorites, along with some new ones. It doesn't get any more tasty or simple than the recipes in this collection. The two books together are a great deal  and  cover just about anything you'd ever want to whip up in the kitchen. Even if cooking is not your thing, Paula's recipes are so yummy, they might help change your mind

</review>
<review>

I cannot bring myself to cook anything from these books.  The recipes include too much fat.  Recipes that include large amounts of butter, cream, cheese and creamed commercial soups are both too rich and salty.  I'll bet they taste wonderful, however. Creating such fattening dishes is irresponsible.  Also I resent having to use Paula's prepared mixes as part of her ingredients, eventhough she does offer the recipes to create substitutions for them.

I have watched the TV cooking programs and enjoyed them.  The food she cooks has always looked delicious though rich.  Paula's accent is lovely to listen to, and her presentation is beautiful.

Photos of the finished dishes would have been extremely welcomed.  Also, the quality of book paper was poor.  I really should simply return the books and might do that.  Only 1 star from me, if that.

Disappointed.


</review>
<review>

I bought this for my husband, but we both enjoyed it very much

</review>
<review>

These two books are amazing. you want great southern food look no where else but paula deen.  i love her show so much its  set in the Tivo. if anyone is ever in savannah a visit to the lady and sons restuarant is going to be the best stop ever made. long lines so make sure to get there early to put your name on the list

</review>
<review>

These cookbooks cover it all, Paula Deen is simply the Queen of southern cooking. I highly recommend this set to anyone who loves to cook! Only exception would be people who are really watching their weight, because Paula is also the queen of butter, and it's really hard to eat small portions :)

</review>
<review>

This is the best cat care book i have ever read it really helped me with the deliver of my cats kittens and then the after care of them. It also halped me train my cat not to do cetain things like scratching the carpet and couch....you should get this if you have acat it really helps alot......

</review>
<review>

I read this years ago when it first was published and recommended it to friends and family. We all agreed that despite the unusual format, it was wonderful and we found ourselves quoting it to each other for months. Steve Kluger is an incredible write

</review>
<review>

I've read this book countless times now. It is w/o a doubt my favorite read. I own 2 hardcopies and I've just ordered more paperbacks to give out as gifts. At $4.99 it is a steal.

</review>
<review>

Let me state, for the record, I'm not a fan of baseball unless, of course, it's my husband or boys out on the field (and even then, I keep my mouth shut because I really don't know what I'm watching).  That said, I wasn't sure how I'd do with this book, but I found myself heavily engrossed in it right from the first word and loved every bit of it.

Kluger's humor and imagination kept me turning pages late into the night. Heck, I didn't even do that with the chick lit books I usually devour! I adored the way he told the story, through dialogue and letters, a pleasant twist that I really enjoyed.

It took a great deal of courage, in my opinion, to bring the plot to its climax the way Kluger did. It could have gone in a number of other ways and brought back around to the conclusion just as easily without taking it to that extreme (nope, not going to give it away) -- but the fact that he did do it and was able to keep me reading to the very end despite making that move deserves a standing ovation.  Job well done!

Whether you're a big fan of the game, a baseball widow during the season, man or woman, this is a delightful, poignant coming-of-age story to add to your summer reading list ... or any other season's list.  I highly recommend this book.

</review>
<review>

If you read for pleasure, then this book is for you.  A page turner in which you may ignore your favorite television show just so you may read the hysterical and brazen letters between the boy and his chosen recipient (the White House, a major league baseball player, etc). The book illustrates the development of father/son relationship between the boy and the baseball player. Charlie Banks, the Gentile baseball player, demonstrates true love for the boy by assisting him to prepare for his Bar Mitzvah.  While reading this book, one could envision a movie depicting this wonderful story

</review>
<review>

"Last Days of Summer" is a thoroughly moving novel.  It reminds me of the movies "The Sandlot" and "My Summer Story," and of the play "Brighton Beach Memoirs."  I'm not a fan of baseball, but that didn't stop me from loving this story.  It's told through a series of letters, teacher/parent notes, flyers, posters, and newspaper clippings over the span of two years during World War II, and it was a smart way of telling the story. The humor is sarcastic and delightful, and you'll become engrossed in the relationships and friendships made.  Because of this, you won't be able to stop crying (or at least get misty-eyed).  I recommend

</review>
<review>

So many books with boys as the central character have plots that center around athletics or some sort of heroic action.  This one manages to keep those themes (baseball, a major war) and still make the story about a friendship.  This book is very funny, but more importantly it is a special window into how people can make a difference in each other's lives.  And a bonus is that the "letters to each other" format (who remembers what epistolary means anymore?) makes it an easy read

</review>
<review>

I have been looking for this book for a while after my boss suggested we read this.  I enjoyed it and I wanted to share it, but I couldn't remember the name, just the style and subject.

Needless to say, I am getting it now, and sharing it often

</review>
<review>

I read this book twice in the same week.  I read constantly - anything and everything - but I've never done that before.  I laughed so hard several times that tears were running down my face!  I have recommended it to every person that I talk to that is a "reader."  When working in a bookstore years ago, the publisher sent the book to us to read before it went on sale.  I have no idea how many I actually hand sold, but it was a lot

</review>
<review>

This is a great book i recommened for anyone in the 8th grade or in high school.  I read this book because the cover and tittle sounded good but i read the first letter to Charlie Banks and I was hooked if you dont read the entire book you will miss it so don't just try spark notes read the book.

</review>
<review>

I enjoyed the characters in this book. I loved the feelings you got from Sarah. And felt her feelings of just sticking with something because you don't want to rock the boat in case there isn't anything better for you! Moving on can be a scary spot to be in

</review>
<review>

The pretentious photo of the author in a flowing ballgown on the back cover should have been the first warning.  I've never read a Danielle Steel before and I won't be speeding to the nearest Barnes  and  Noble to get another one.  Other reviewers have commented on the annoying amount of repetition;  I picked up on that before reading the reviews.  There have also been suggestions that Steel needs an editor.  For gawd's sake, she writes for one of the biggest publishers in the world!  They must have hundreds of editors but perhaps, just perhaps, they are intimidated by the prolific Ms. Steel.  Then there are some worldclass gaps in credibility.  Nobody could be as eccentric as Stanley and run a powerful (and megarich) conglomerate. There's no way a house as large as The House (in the center of San Francisco, no less) could ever be bought and restored for $750,000.  The oh-so-happy ending is as predictable as the setting's weather.  Ms. Steel has made a lot of money from her readers.  They deserve better than this

</review>
<review>

Danielle Steel used to be one of my favorite authors. However, Wanderlust was the last book of hers that I really liked. I bought The House hoping maybe she had found her "style" again, but alas it was not to be. I do not understand how a bestselling author can get away with combining points-of-view within one paragraph, "telling" not "showing" the story, and repeating the same things over and over and over until I just want to scream! It seems that perhaps because she is such a big name, her work is not copyread anymore. I think it might be time for her to put away her pen, or get back to the basics of good writing. I will not be buying another of her books anytime soon. I chose to rate this book with one star, because no stars wasn't a choice

</review>
<review>

It's summer, and my reading matter always lightens up significantly! I spotted this book at the library and figured, why not!  I know, I said never again for Danielle Steel, but the plot interested me.  How bad could it be, right?

Well, there's good news and bad news.  The good news is that the plot is different for DS, and held my interest enough so that, unlike Impossible, I actually finished it in one day.  The bad news is that this book seems entirely devoid of any attempt at editing.  The repetition is maddening. When reading becomes a chore, and you can skip entire pages and not miss anything, it's time to start some serious editing.

Here are some suggested areas of improvement:

- Shorten up the paragraphs.  They should not exceed a page!
- Try spending a little more time developing the characters.  I couldn't "see" Sarah - when I read, I want to be able to clearly visualize the people and after hundreds of pages, I never had a clear vision of the main character
- Pay attention to style. Every time she spelled out 30,000, I wanted to pull my hair out.  Small thing, but numbers over nine should always be written in numerals unless they are at the beginning of a sentence.

As I've written before, DS needs a good editor. This book could have been one of her best to date.

</review>
<review>

After chapter after chapter of the gal lamenting over her dead-end romance, she finally buys the house.  Aha, I thought, the story begins.  But alas, not much happens.  Then she finds a picture of her grandmother in the house, and I think, OK here's the story, but not to be.  Then there is the architect that enters - a good love story - no.
Danielle Steel had the makings of three great story lines but failed to develop any of them.  The story of the grandmother's life in the house would have been tremendous.
I think maybe she had a Visa bill to pay and had to get a book out quickly, because she did not put any thought into this one.  Where was the editor on this one?  It was a bummer.  Virgini

</review>
<review>

Don't waste your time or money on this book.  It was about as interesting as watching paint dry!  Maybe Danielle Steel should take a break from writing if this is all she can churn out

</review>
<review>

I just finished this book, and thought, "I could see where someone would say it was boring."  But I just loved the story, loved the history of Sarah tracking down her great-grandmother, loved the details of the house (and was very jealous of such a nice house!), and all in all, this was one of the better of Danielle Steel's recent works.  Yes, there was some repetition, but not as bad as "Impossible."  I would say if you've been hesitating to pick up a Danielle Steel book lately, as I have, this one might actually be enjoyable!!  Is she on her way back?  I know we all hope so as we know she is capable of great work, that's why we stay her fans

</review>
<review>

I wasted time reading this book that I will never get back.  It was repetitive, predictable, and drawn out.  I only finished the book hoping for a twist in the ending, but it turned out the way I thought it would.  Buy this book if you want to feel good about yourself for finishing it quickly, and for predicting how the story goes.  But, I would not waste the time if I were you

</review>
<review>

I read a lot. A LOT. And rarely have I read a book that I really, really didn't like, but this is one of them. There is such a lack of dialogue, and the author repeats her same thoughts over and over. I swear, if I would have had to read the words "four years" one more time (referring to the main character's failed relationship) I would have hurt somebody. There was so much that could have been done with this book. But, by the time she actually gets the house, you've been bored stiff for four years and don't much care. It seems to be that it was poorly edited, and there is a lot of awkward grammar. I was really disappointed.

</review>
<review>

Kubler-Ross teaches us how to understand the death of a family member or loved one and how to cherish the final moments with them

</review>
<review>

This book is one of the first great books that Dr. Kubler-Ross has gifted us with.  Her insight and compassion are unremarkable.  I am sad she won't be writing any more books though.  Her latest book, "On Grief and Grieving" is a wonderful book also.  There are some case studies to go by and it truly touches your soul.

</review>
<review>

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross once again inspires us to learn how to care for those dying patients and their family members. This book assists our care and compassion through true life experiences of those dying. This book grabs at your heart and pulls you in!

</review>
<review>

Each time people around me lost their family, I gave this book.  Most of them said that it was a great help to recover from grief.  I, myself experienced a hard time to accept mentally a familly member's death and the book gave me a relief, though I do not believe everything written in it

</review>
<review>

Though written back in the 60's, this was a very interesting, thought provoking read on treatment of and interaction with people who are terminally ill. It gives valuable insight into why people act or do not act in certain ways and as to how they want to be treated when they are dying, children as well as adults. It also covers family interactions which are so critical to the patient's emotional  and  physical state of being

</review>
<review>

A book by one of the most eminent writers on the psychology of death and dying, this volume goes through what the dying have to say to doctors, nurses, clergy and their own families. Other than the introductory chapters on the stages of denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance, this volume is devoted to the interviews given by severely ill and dying patients to a class of medical and pastoral care professionals and those studying to fill these roles. The course was a collaboration between the medical school and college for the clergy; thus there is a strong Christian element. First, this grated on me a bit because of its exclusivity, but I soon realised that patients who chose to be interviewed by a psychiatrist and a chaplain would probably do so because of an already existing faith, which put things in perspective.
Munch of the information provided is enlightening and eminently current; much of the rest is dated - after all, this book was written in the late 60s.
I was particularly interested in the reactions of staff and other professionals to course and its results - I would hope that, with the evolution of medical teaching, there would not be a little less resitance, but I cannot judge that.
The second revelation were the family relationships and patterns revealed by the patient interviews - I'm currently studying family therapy ["Families and How to survive them" Skynnewr/Cleese] and this was highly relevant

</review>
<review>

I haven't had a chance to read the book in its entirity, but have enjoyed what I have read.

</review>
<review>

For most of us, the area of thanatology is something quite new, despite the fact that death is such an intimate "companion" that can come at any moment of our lives, whether by degrees or instantaneously, irrelevant of our ethnic, social and economic backgrounds. It is a plain truth that can not be avoided, and no technological advancements can make it go away. I would personally like to consider death as the ultimate best friend who would never desert you, despite what your feelings may be. And as a child has the innocent ablity to humanize a doll or a toy soldier, the adult must equally do so with death, not shy away from it and be totally uncommunicative to what it means: the total cessation of physical life, for if one denys its existence and its inevitability, the person could not only suffer from added unnecessary physical heartache, but he or she could also augment the physical stress with mental, spiritual and religious grief as well. Submission to and acceptance of the truth, no matter how difficult it would be to hear, could be the highest catharsis that medicine could not come close to healing. In Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's classic study of the dying process, she interviews patients of various age brackets who teach the living what dying means to them. But even though the experience is individualistic to that specific person, the process of dying has a universality to it which connects us all. Hence, how do you take the sting from the wound? In On Death and Dying, you remove the sting by communication and by simply being there to let the patient say what he or she has to say, to let them vent, and at their own pace, go through the classic defined stages of the dying process: denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. The patients become our teachers. We learn of their fears, their possible financial burdens, in one woman's case, the fear of the worms, et cetera. But we also learn about what the families go through, their own anger and disbelief and guilt. It is about pacing and the opening up of repressed fear for all the people involved. Sometimes there is cohesion in the shock and anger, other times not. The United States is one of the most death-denying countries out there, a fact most evident with plastic surgery on the rise and chiseled bodies to reverse the aging process, for going foward means only one thing: death. Ross's overall message is that death does not have to be and is not the horror that we all think it is, the grim reaper with the skeletal hand and the sharpened scythe. Death has issues for everybody, doctors, faith-filled people, even Ross heself. It is a step that we are all going to take sooner or later. But it is comforting to know that we are all in it together.



</review>
<review>

This book is very helpful to understand the overall grieving process.  From counselor to doctor to family and ultimately, to a terminally ill patient, this book can be very helpful.  Recommended highly

</review>
<review>

Bereavement:  Counseling the Grieving throughout the Life Cycle is a compact little book that covers the basics of grief counseling.  Author David A. Crenshaw Ph.D. presents his theory of the tasks of mourning that must be accomplished in order for the grieving individual to attain a healthy resolution to the loss.  These tasks appear to owe an acknowledgement to the five stages of grief proposed by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross.  Crenshaw goes on to apply his seven tasks to six identified life cycle stages:  preschool children, school-age children, adolescents, young adults, adults in midlife, and the elderly, using abbreviated case histories as examples.
The book provides an overview of the grieving process and some basic suggestions for interventions with people in the various age groups.  It does not, however, give the amount of in-depth information and hands-on detail that would be required to help a counselor develop proficiency in counseling the bereaved.  In attempting to cover such a wide array of populations in a small book, Crenshaw sacrifices specificity.  The longest chapter is devoted to the preschool aged child with the main thrust of his recommendations being monologues that the counselor delivers to the child.  He only minimally mentions play therapy, arguably the most effective type of therapy for children in this age group.  This reviewer finds the omission of play therapy techniques for the bereaved child to be the most serious lack in this book.
Bereavement is an interesting and highly readable book that gives some good basic information.  The counselor interested in developing effective grief resolution therapy skills would do well to use this book as a starting point from which to begin building her skills and then follow it with more in-depth publications devoted to the specific population she is counseling.

Reviewed by:
Kathleen C. Higgins, M.S., LPC
Mental Health Counselor

</review>
<review>

My husband and I are lawyers who have recently returned to reading Shakesepare, decades after college. We wanted literary criticism that was qualitative superior to the plot summary readers guide--criticism that would help us explore the imagery, themes and metaphors of the plays. Marjorie Garber is the answer to our prayers. We recommend to readers returning to Shakespeare that they purchase a paperback edition of each play with good notes to help with line specific language issues--the Arden series is the best-and then supplement/enrich the experience with Garbers insights. It is a pleasure for us to carefully read each play and then see what treasures she has mined based on her own reading and that of prior critics. We considerably prefer Garber to Bloom as a single compendium. Garber  packs an enormous amount of insight into a single 30 page chapter. Shakespeare is surely worth the detail she provides. I would also suggest that you purchase the Ambrose DVD set of tapes of the great BBC plays--after you have read the plays it is wonderful to watch Jacobi et al. The DVD format enables captions which is very helful to savoring every line.

</review>
<review>

William Shakespeare's immortal words will live forever. In this excellent book of criticism Professor Garber of Harvard
examines each of the 38 plays from "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" through "The Two Noble Kinsman." Her work is detailed and insightful for anyone who seeks more knowledge and understanding of Shakepeare and his plays. As we explore Shakespeare we also learn more about what it is to be human being in the world!
Garber writes about each play as she analyzes the characters and their motivation; the history of the play's production and how the play is related to other plays and characters in the Shakespearean canon. Along the way we learn the derivation of words used by the bard; what was going on in England and the world at the time the play was written and such various topics as sumptuary laws (dealing with clothing); class structure and the growth of the English language.
Shakespeare's life is covered in an insightful introduction.
Marjorie Garber must be a brilliant person to listen to in the lecture hall! I wish these insighful looks at each play would be available in tape format! Her book is a classic which should be required reading for anyone teaching Shakespeare in high school, college and adult education classes.
I was fascinated by her depth of scholarship and ability to relate Shakespeare to our day. My highest appreciation to this wonderful book on our great treasure of poetry and the art of
drama William Shakespeare

</review>
<review>

This is a monster of a book packed full of insight into the plays of William Shakespeare. Another reviewer has criticized the way Professor Gerber tackles each play, but I think she pitches her analyses pretty spot on. As she describes a play she will stop and detour into some aspect of the cultural mores of the England of Shakespeare's day and come back. I find ( as a layman ) that is exactly what I wanted. I wasn't looking for Heavy Textual Criticism that might only be understandable to other Eng Lit Professors. This is an excellent book for the layman - if you are prepared to concentrate and forgive Professor Gerber when she does occasionally throw in a semantics term that you have never heard of - USUALLY she explains them. But not always.

</review>
<review>

This is a wonderful, rich, exploratory book that holds nothing back; a meditation about the Shakespeare canon that resonates in all planes at once. It is certain to be [...] by college teachers everywhere, and so it should be; together with Shapiro's 1599 as a biography and a solid encyclopaedia like the Oxford Companion to Shakespeare, this is one of the only supplementary volumes you'd ever want to shelf next to the Complete Works. This is the kind of full-service critical homage and investigation Shakespeare has been waiting for all these years. I hope he and Marjorie Garber meet in Heaven, and that someone leaks the resulting sonnets

</review>
<review>

Marjorie Garber's "Shakespeare After All" is first-rate scholarship on Shakespeare's plays.  It is a 'must have' for anyone interested in Shakespeare's works - whether the person has a casual interest or a scholarly background.  The information is conveyed in an accessible style.  I have purchased a number of copies and given this work as gifts to friends.  One should pick it up and read it
before seeing any performance of the plays.

Kudos, Ms. Garber!  EXCEPTIONAL WORK ...

MJ Moore
Detroit

</review>
<review>

As a fan of Shakespeare (both on the stage/screen and written page), I have added to my appreciation by reading various works about this playwright.  First there was Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare, which was a well-written commentary on the historical contexts of the plays.  Then, there was Harold Bloom's Shakespeare, The Invention of the Human, a scholarly work offset by a tone of high-toned intellectual snobbery and condescension.  Now, there is Shakespeare After All, a work that fits between these two in quality.

In Shakespeare After All, Marjorie Garber's 900+ page tome on the Bard's plays, we are given an opportunity to learn more of what makes Shakespeare Shakespeare.  As a long-time Harvard and Yale lecturer on Shakespeare, Garber certainly has the credentials and experience to back up her extensive essays on the plays.  If there is a problem with the book, it is only that she is perhaps too familiar with the plays and is unable to be truly critical of them.

The book begins with a lengthy introduction which serves as a biography of Shakespeare and provides a bit of historical context for his body of work.  Then we get a chapter on each of thirty-eight plays, including The Two Noble Kinsmen, which is not always included in Shakespeare collections.  The plays are presented in rough chronological order and focus only secondarily on plot, with a greater emphasis on character and the use of language.

Garber is a good writer, and each chapter is insightful.  As this is written more as a collection of essays, there is not always perfect continuity between chapters and there is more than a little redundancy (which I suppose does make this easier to read this work in portions or out of order). As stated before, however, the principal flaw in her writing is that she refuses to say anything really critical about any of the plays.  In Garber's view, Shakespeare batted 1.000, all hits and no misses.  Henry VIII seems to be just as worthy of merit as Othello or Hamlet.   Furthermore, there are no mistakes; any apparent contradictions or omissions are cleverly intended, not just an error.

Certainly, Shakespeare is worth a lot of praise.  When you consider what he did - writing over three dozen plays with an adeptness that is readily apparent - he is definitely deserving of the title "genius," but he wasn't perfect.  It would be nice if Garber acknowledged this, but her strengths clearly outweigh her weaknesses, and if you are interested in learning more about Shakespeare's plays, this is a worthwhile way to get that education.

</review>
<review>

I bought this book on the strength of Marjorie Garber's excellent past Renaissance scholarship. I was expecting something more theoretically informed and original, but as it is this is a very worthwhile book, and I predict it will be an essential reference book for teachers and students. It's a BIG book with a substantial chapter on each play (but not the sonnets), as with Harold Bloom's book on Shakespeare. Garber, however, is less idiosyncratic than Bloom; She synthesizes the best of recent scholarship, but without footnotes or extensive theorizing a la Derrida and Lacan. Garber combines close attention to language with valuable historical background and context. For example, in her chapter on Macbeth, she relates a "new critical" analysis of the clothing imagery to  sumptuary laws regarding clothing (laws which served to enforce the social hierachy of Renaissance England). The strengths of this book are her comprehensive discussions of the play, which sum up what we know for sure about the plays including the relevant historical contexts, and her brilliant analysis of Shakespeare's language, i.e., close reading. While her work is illuminated by recent scholarship, she avoids the Stalinesque imperatives of political correctness. Compare Garber's intelligent discussion of the problem of gender in Macbeth with Stephen Orgel's "introduction" in The Complete Pelican Shakespeare, in which he reductively reads the play as a "misogynist fantasy." The only reason I docked the book one star is that, based on the chapters I've read so far, she doesn't really make a  major original contribution to Shakespeare studies (in contrast to, for example, Greenblatt's recent bio of Shakespeare, Will in the World) so much as synthesize what we already know. All in all, a very valuable reference book that I will be consulting regularly in my college teaching. Highly recommended for high school teachers, English majors (undergraduate and graduate), and all fans of Shakespeare

</review>
<review>

Clear and Present danger is an action packed and informing novel by Tom Clancy. It places you into the United States government fight the war on drugs. The government is stepping up its assault on teh druggies after the director of the FBI is killed in Bogota. A young staff sergeant Domingo Chavez joins the fight as a scout in an elite group of soldiers fighting the druggies directly.
This book is excellent, both in its exciting storytelling and realistic twist. I would reccomend this book to anyone who enjoys very technical writing, or anyone who enjoys a good action story.


</review>
<review>

I'd go as far to say this is better than The hunt for Red October. Compared to the dire offerings Clancy serves up now such as Red Rabbit, this book is good enough to make you wonder if it was not written by a different author.

The plotting is very tight, and action is nicely placed. At 600 odd words this is still a long book, but short for Clancy. The asassination of the American ambassador is as a couple of reviewers pointed out, not until about 300 pages in, but there is more than enough to keep your attention until then. Clancy's strong point was never characterisation, and some of his books I feel just sag with the weight of words (and extraordinarily long chapters). I remember reading other novels of his and skipping paragrapahs here and there. This one I didn't put down until I had finished it.

Politically, it's his most sophisticated as well. I always feel that sometimes Clancy was too comfortable painting a picture of the US as whiter than white - here, he brings in elements of moral ambiguity as an illegal war is started in Columbia.

There is still enough military hardware and action too keep you going as well - and not too much to overload you. Overall, I feel this is his best work, his most balanced and clever book. If he could produce something half as good as this, it would still be better than the tripe he has served up recently

</review>
<review>

The Story of the book goes a high ranking U.S. offical is killed in Colombia, and the socking covet U.S. response. This is the fifth book in the Jack Ryan Series. Would recommend to anyone

</review>
<review>

The book begins like modern headlines and top stories in the news: a Coast Guard boat discovers several dead bodies on a drifting boat out at sea ... piecing together the scenes ... the Captain and his crew understand the grisly details which became all too clear. Before the discovery, they announce their intention to board the boat, only to find two Columbians who speak little and look guilty as sin. The Captain and crew have the presence of mind to record on film permanently what the encountered. They nearly gag at what they find. Contrary to usual procedure, they create a "justice at sea" bogus trial based on some ancient mariner's manual. It is just the right scenario to create fear in their prisoners which extracts a confession from them that the Coast Guard believes will stand up in court and get them prosecuted.

In Washington, DC clandestine operations are executed for a secret American plan to use the most talented night warriors the US Army has ever produced to fight the drug cartel in Columbia, on their own turf. The select group all have Spanish roots and were salvaged from a life on the streets, where they would surely work against the system, to build a clean life in the Army ... the better alternative.

This book shows how power politics, secret hand-shake decisions, and behind the scenes operations occur which could shake up the core values of a country. Clandestine activities work outside the boundaries of national and international law. If they were made  public, there would be a huge outcry from USA citizens and of the world judgement. It is at this time that Jack Ryan becomes Acting Director of the CIA. The CIA Director is in the hospital with a terminal illness ... The current president has not a clue of how the drug war is being fought and won. He is only aware of the results: drug cartel airplanes are being shot down and the US is winning. It is an election year, his main concern is gaining a positive standing in the polls and with  world opinion. He knows very little of reality ... Meanwhile when the second in command of the drug cartel is discovered to have acted on *highly* classified information, known only to a *select* few, the accusations in Washington, DC fly. An insider investigation begins to discover where the leaks occured ... This book is nonstop action and difficult to put down. Each chapter reveals another complex episode which adds another layer of under-handed deals and shady activity, all of which make this a most satisfying reading experience.

Although at times this novel is difficult to follow, the subject matter is contemporary and the unfolding events are highly plausible, making it one unstoppable page turner. The planning and execution of the ninja-styled warrior commandos is superb, the covert operations highly ingenious, the political subterfuge and communications are labyrinthine, shocking in their believability. Expect only the best from Tom Clancy ... you will never be disappointed.
Erika Borsos (erikab93

</review>
<review>

Well first off, I did not like the book nor the movie, both have enough plot holes to make a swiss cheese look like art.     On the other hand, I take excption to some of the neagtive reviews listed here, as some sound very anti-american in their reviews.  We being good Americans are intelligent enough to read good books and tell what stories make good patriotism and what does not.   We do not have to justify this to anyone who lives outside of the American experience for that.  If you do not understand this, TNEN BE QUIET ABOUT THINGS YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND

</review>
<review>

Veteran voice performer J. Charles is not only one of the most accomplished audio book narrators working today, he's also one of the busiest.  Both listeners and publishers seem to know that if Mr. Charles lends his narrative skills to a production it's going to be highly listenable.  An example is his rendering of this techno-thriller by the unparalleled Tom Clancy.

Once again, Mr. Clancy tears his theme from today's headlines - our country's fight against drugs.  As the story opens our commander In Chief isn't at all pleased with the progress being made in this battle.  So, a formidable team is dispatched to Colombia to put an end to the struggle. It doesn't work as planned.

Drug lords, as is known, show no mercy and they retaliate by killing civilians.  A beleaguered President gives orders to not only end the original plan but to erase it.  It should look as if it never existed.

When Jack Ryan, now Deputy Director of for the CIA discovers that this aborted plan has been going on unbeknownst to him and some men have been stranded, Ryan decides to rescue them.

In true Clancy fashion it's Ryan to the rescue, but it's a heart stopping struggle.

- Gail Cooke


</review>
<review>

Clear And Present Danger is OK at points, but the rest of the novel is boring with the CIA work, the action between the Commandos don't feel realistic, the story drags on on for hundreds of pages, the boring details of how big a ship is, that is boring! If you want to read a REAL and exciting novel, read Bob Mayer's Eyes Of The Hammer. Bib Mayer is a former Special Forces officer, the action is there, and is VERY EXCITING unlike this book where you have to go through hundreds of pages to get to the action.

</review>
<review>

I'm a big Tom CLancy fan and i just loved every minute reading this book very well done. Very well written couldn't have been done better. Mr. Clancy always kept me on the edge and he is able to put in alot of great info and he knows soo much about alot of what he writes in his boo

</review>
<review>

With some interesting twists and a complicated plot, this author grips the reader. Baseline story involves a good cop, a failed one who makes a living after resigning from the police force and struggles with a drinking problem, and a retired one who become involved after a murder hauntingly familiar to an unsolved one from many years ago by a serial killer who was never caught. In the course of attempting to solve the murder, a dirty cop is unearthed. The violent ending resolves part of the mystery. Along the way, good insight is offered into the lives of the police and their everyday struggles with the overwhelming crime rate in D. C. This author is widely admired for the pace of his novels, making them hard to put down. Crisp dialogue, excellent settings, and believeable characters as well as sharp observations about today's world make the book an excellent read.

</review>
<review>

As far as crime dramas go, this is firmly mediocre.  The story is okay and requires suspension of disbelief only sporadically, but the author's writing style is sometimes a distraction.  Why do the African-American suspects always ask for Slice soda to drink?  And they repeatedly make a point of asking for Slice.  (Do they even make it anymore?  I thought it was replaced by Sierra Mist).   And another distracting detail is the author's way of giving so many people nicknames.  You don't need to tell me that a guy's name is Ed "Smiley" Jones if you never mention "Smiley" again or there's not something significant from a story perspective about that nickname.  That said, I liked the use of DC as the backdrop and if I was going on a plane ride, I would probably pick up another book by Pelecanos (but I wouldn't let anyone see what I was reading and then I'd leave it in the seatback when I deplaned)

</review>
<review>

I love to read and listen to books on CD but I have tried to listen to this a couple of times and I am disgusted.  The language and the sexually inferences are so vile and gratuitous that I can't get past the second disc.  Very disappointed

</review>
<review>

IN THE FIELD OF CRIME NOVEL WRITERS, THERE ARE 5 CURRENT ONES WHO MAKE IT TO MY "A" LIST.
TO QUALIFY THE WRITER HAS TO HAVE A UNIQUE WRITING STYLE
ALONG WITH EXCELLENT CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT AND,FINALLY, A PLOT TO DIE FOR.
THE FIVE WRITERS,IMO,WHO HAVE BEEN MOST CONSISTENT IN REGARDS TO THE ABOVE
ARE GEORGE PELECANOS,JAMES LEE BURKE,JAMES ELLROY,ANDREW VACHSS,AND ELMORE LEONARD.I'VE READ EVERYTHING THESE FIVE WRITERS HAVE WRITTEN AND BECAUSE THEY'VE RAISED THE BAR SO HIGH, IT'S DIFFICULT TO READ ANYONE ELSE.
HOWEVER, I WILL ADMIT THAT BOTH ROBERT CRAIS AND DENNIS LEHANE ARE
CLOSE TO BEING INCLUDED

</review>
<review>

I haven't read every crime author's work, but I have read works by a number of those considered to be top echelon writers and, for my money, Pelecanos is the hands down best of the bunch.  And of his work, The Night Gardener is one of the best novels.

If this were a sporting event instead of a crime novel, ESPN would make it an "Instant Classic".  It has great characters, a great plot, outstanding settings and surprises.  It's a solid effort by a very gifted author.  If you like crime novels, get on it.  You won't be sorry

</review>
<review>

In 1985, three teenagers are murdered in Washington D.C. Each of the victims have names that form palindromes - Otto, Ava and Eve. At the scene are T. C. Cook, hard-boiled Detective Sargeant and two near-rookies, Gus Ramone and Dan "Doc" Holiday. The Palindrome murders are never solved despite the obsession and skills of Cook. Flash forward to 2005. Gus Ramone is married now and has two mixed-race children. Dan Holiday left the police force under a cloud. T. C. Cook, long retired, has been forgotten by nearly all, along with the Palindrome murders.

But Asa Johnson, 14, is found dead with a bullet through his brain. No gun. No witnesses. Could the Palindrome murderer be back after a 20 year absence?

The hunt for the murderer of Asa Johnson is the leitmotif for this compelling, if sometimes very quirky,police procedural.

Gus Ramone is the central character. No superman, Ramone is career cop. Not burned out, but not an over-acheiver either. Ramone, of Italian/Hispanic ancestry has a black wife, Regina, and two kids: Diego, 14, and Alana, 7. Gus loves his wife and children dearly. His love for them and the problems of bringing a mixed-race male through the storms of adolescence form the second leg of the story.

Holiday and Ramone have a "history." Holiday is convinced he was a great cop and would have become a legenday cop if it weren't for the straight-laced Ramone in the Internal Affairs Division. Holiday discovers the body of the teenage Asa Johnson and phones the police anonymously. Holiday then teams up with the real legend, T. C. Cook to prove that the Palindrome murderer is back - and to capture him. This is the third leg of the story.

The fourth leg is an unsparing tale of the black criminal subculture. This is not for the overly sensitive.

These four themes support some of those most masterful storytelling I've seen in a long time. Pelecanos has the workaday world of the police down pat. No superheroics: just hard work, persistence and some specially skilled people like Bo Greene, who is able to talk murderers into confessing.

Ramone has a special interest in the murder of Asa Johnson, not because it is his case - which it is not - but because Asa was a friend of his son. Ramone's work on the case leads down some dark paths, which also brings Pelecanos into some very strange and frankly hypocritical sermonizing. Saying anything more than that would be a spoiler and I won't do that. Concurrent with Ramone's investigation, is the work of Holiday and Cook. Ramone and Holiday seem to bewalking down the road to a showdown.

Despite the unwelcome and unnecessary excursions into cultural politics, "The Night Gardener" is a terrific police procedural and a social commentary as well. Well worth reading.

Jerr

</review>
<review>

I have read everything Mr Pelecanos has written and generally find his work to be thoughtful and original. The Night Gardener is his best work to date. The stories are interesting and well paced. But it the characters and the subtlety with which they are drawn and brought together that makes this book special. The conclusion is thought provoking and important. It is true to the characters and believable. All in all a great book - Mr Pelecanos has packed so much into 372 pages, in itself this is an impressive feat.

My previous favorite Pelecanos book was Shame the Devil

</review>
<review>

When you think of crime fiction you think of cities and the writers who depict them in their books; Michael Connelly, Robert Crais, Walter Mosley-Los Angeles...Carl Hiassen-South Florida...Lawrence Block-New York....Ed McBain-a city like New York and so on. No writer does Washington DC like George Pelecanos.

He grew up there. He knows those gritty streets. This new book is a real departure for the author. Its the story of 3 cops who are trying to solve an ancient crime. one retired, one fired, the last, a veteran cop.. a family man. Years ago somebody was killing children and leaving their bodies near community gardens. Then it stopped. The three cops who were on the original cases went their separate ways.

Then it starts happening again. Pelecanos crafts a noir thriller. Well worth the read

</review>
<review>

Well guess what its Harry's second year at Hogwarts.  He's back with Hermione and Ron.  He's just discovered that he can talk to snakes but doesn't know why, until after a while they tell him he can speak parsel tongue (able to speak to snakes).  This gets him into trouble because he goes into the girl's bathroom and starts to speak parsel tongue and  it opens a secret door to the chamber of secrets.  There he faces Tom Riddle and wins by destroying his journal

</review>
<review>

An elf appearing to Harry Potter warned him not to return for a second year to the school of sorcery. The Chamber of Secrets, he said, had been opened and a  monster is lurking. Harry goes anyway and is the only one who can hear the monster, challenge it and save students who have been "petrified" by the monster. Age group interest: early teen. I wanted to see what all the rave was about. Lots of action, not much morale.

Trish New, author of The Thrill of Hope, South State Street Journal

</review>
<review>

Still amazed by J.K.Rowlings writing and still in love with the book it's well worth the read. Too bad the movie kind of ruined it for me after.
Thsi is one of the more scary Harry Potter even though i find it more suspensful and eventful. Read it . You'll like it.

</review>
<review>

Great information and easy read.  I learned more in one book than the other 5 I read on the heart and the things we can do to help heal.  As a yoga instructor I will recommend this to my ailling students

</review>
<review>

The view that all types of medicine (western and eastern) working together makes sense.  This book seems to encorage a balance between both.  I enjoyed it

</review>
<review>

I think Dr Oz is a fantastic doctor and I have heard him speak on tv but I did not find any useful information in this book for my life

</review>
<review>

this is the worst book i have ever read,,it is very dull and unuseful..i9 bought it because i have read about the popularity of the surgeon who wrote it. i wish i can return it and get a refund..but i have threogh it in the tras

</review>
<review>

What is impressive about this book is the author's concepts of healing both heart and mind as he points out just how closely the two are interconnected.  The writing style is one that will grasp the reader's attention from start to finish.  The approach to holistic health is a welcome approach to healing. It is a concept that is gradually increasing in the health care field, but one that still has a long way to go before it is universally accepted by all physicians.  More education and information needs to be provided in this area to all health care providers. Using the holistic approach,  there can be fewer side effects from medication, less depression and a general feeling of well being during the most trying and difficult times.  There is much to be said on combining Western and Eastern traditions in the process of healing.  Our world can benefit dramatically from this approach and the author vividly explains why throughout the pages of this well-researched and superbly written book.  It is highly recommended reading material and most deserving of a five star rating

</review>
<review>

though need to get out the dictionary sometimes:
mythopoetic gestures, profundity, epitome....

this is really excellent; looking forward to rereading the 20 cent copy of all the preety horses i just ordered with my girlfriend and this book's insights into this great writer (my favorite

</review>
<review>

I like typing.  I like seeing my words in print on the internet.  I have a lot of time to waste.  But all in all, it is a good book that is in ok shape for its age and was at a good price.

</review>
<review>

This book if full of helpful information and is organized in a way that makes it easy to use for reference purposes.  Give it a once through and then shelve it for reference purposes.  This one is worth having in your management collection

</review>
<review>

Any manager with hiring authority knows that selecting the "right" candidate for any position is a nerve-wracking task. Professional processes can help you screen, interview and review, but the final choice is often as much art as science. Author Martin Yate's basic book can help inexperienced managers hire effectively, although this useful primer on interviewing and hiring is a little wordy. Yates provides great detail about key steps, such as when to schedule a phone interview, what to ask and how to conduct an interview. He even provides numerous sample questions for each major job category, from entry level to management. Is it a little too basic? Perhaps for some, but we recommend it for new managers who are inexperienced at hiring. Although this book covers the fundamentals of hiring, it can't guarantee that you'll make the right choice every time. Then again, that book probably hasn't been written

</review>
<review>

Like many small business people, I was a complete bozo at hiring for many years.  Fortunately, at some point I woke up to that fact and decided to educate myself.  I took classes, read books and did everything I could to become a skilled interviewer.  Without question, one of the most helpful tools to escaping Bozoland was this book.  Although I am now a freelance business consultant and have no employees of my own, I frequently assist my clients with their own hiring processes, and in so doing I still refer extensively to Martin Yate's excellent book

</review>
<review>

This is an extremely well written and very useful book on hiring techniques and methods. The author analyzes all aspects of the hiring process beginning with the different types of resumes and when each type is used; what flags to look for and how to evaluate an applicant's overall resume. Chapter five focuses on short-listing through a `phoner' while the subsequent chapters are devoted to interviewing techniques and the science of asking questions.

The author introduces four different interviewing techniques - Situational; personality profile; stress; and  and  behavioral - and also gives a very useful and informative analysis of the different types of questions that can be asked in a hiring interview like half-right reflexives; hamburger-helper questions; and question layering. In the following chapters, the author focuses on evaluating the candidate's ability and willingness to do the job as well as manageability. The questions and the author's commentary on what to look for and red flags in an applicant's answer are informative, highly usable, and extremely useful. These are not your 'standard' interview questions (though there are some pretty standard questions included). They are well formulated and clever probes into the applicant's skills, knowledge, personality, and background.

The rest of the book is devoted to functional areas with a chapter devoted to clerical, management, sales, contingency workers and law hires. Again, I found the advice and suggestions relevant and informative. In formulating the hundreds of question suggestions scattered throughout the book, the author has given a lot of thought to the qualities, experiences, and areas of concern that hiring managers and HR people focus on

</review>
<review>

I use this book both for interviewing techniques and for preparing to be interviewed.  Its a great book for interviewing because he presents the pros and cons of different techniques and gives what I consider to be a good framework for identifying quality candidates.  Its a great book for preparing to be interviewed because it helps you identify the objectives of interviewers and make a better case.  As a hiring manager, you should be able to pass an interview with flying colors, shouldn't you?

Perhaps the most enlightening wisdom I got from the book was the enumeration of the qualities of a good employee:

1.  Ability to do the job
2.  Willingness to do the job
3.  Manageability of the candidate

Most interviews focus on the abilities of the candidates and stop there.  Big mistake!  Mr. Yate gives you guidance on evaluating the whole candidate, and in general I like and agree with his advice.

Other good ideas are evaluating the cracks in resumes, phone screening, and lunch.  Never hire anyone without checking background, verifying employment and education, and seeing if they can carry on a conversation at lunch.

I draw ideas for interviews from several books, but this one is the overall framework that I have worked from.  I feel the style is readable, the length is appropriate, and the content is excellent

</review>
<review>

If you are looking for a solid foundation of your interview process, take a look at this book. It provides helpful ideas on how to approach your job candidates. Can they do the job, are they willing and can they be managed.  It provided lots of helpful questions and processes for a successful hiring  process. I have to say, that I am not a professional recruiter just someone  that needs to hire and evaluate his new employees

</review>
<review>

This book has that unique ability to make you feel as though you are learning something while, at the same time, make you feel like you knew nothing until you opened the book. Schaeffer is a good writer and has good observations

</review>
<review>

Schaeffer adds yet another book to the "this is why christians have it right" category of literature.  Though Christians, nor Schaeffer, by no means have a monopoly on such an approach; I found it to be especially unsettling in it's lack of insight into modernism.
Picasso, we are told, failed. His artistic goal, to paint the unpaintable, the sublime, was never realized. First of all, to really understand 'modern' painting, we would certainly want to ponder the birth of photography and its influence on illustrative painting.  Illustrative painters were experiencing an identity crisis brought on by the industrial revolution, much like the rest of the entire world except good old Schaeffer.  Artists turned to the 'sublime' because they needed to discover what painting could do that photography could never do: show the unshowable.  And so Picasso's paintings become less 'realistic;' they imply movement, they imply other ways of seeing than the symbolic boxes the modern and postmodern worlds are born into (again, except Schaeffer).  To say Picasso failed suggests no appreciation for any of this, nor does it seem Schaeffer took the time to really analyze a cubist painting, how is it different from what came before? Why? What does it show that a photograph could not? What does it 'IMPLY'! etc.   The analysis of Picasso suggests not an inkling of thought as to why cubism came about FOR CUBISTS (and modernists in general) except for how it makes no sense to a Christian. Thus, the "this is why Christians have it right" feel of the critique. I cannot imagine anyone who has appreciated a modern painting or read anything about modern artists swallowing this. Rather, it is for people who find modernism pointless to be able to say, "oh, they're lost, that's why it makes no sense."
Lastly, Paul himself claimed that "we see through a glass darkly." The Jews of the Torah (read Old Testament) could not even utter the name of God because of that being's supreme mystery. Composers from Palestrina to Bach attempted to 'imply' something above and beyond their actual art. That is what good art does, Mr. Schaeffer.
To say someone failed because they never actually got to the sublime, they never actually clearly illustrated it, never fully understood it, is to indict Paul himself.  Paul admitted his limitations, it is a shame Schaeffer did not turn some of that powerful insight in on himself. Why do you criticize the speck of dust in your brothers eye, when you have a log in your own?

</review>
<review>

The idea of the project How Should We Then Live?, both as a film documentary and as a book, was conceived in 1974 and completed in 1976. In the Acknowledgments, Francis Schaeffer writes about the idea behind the project: "Using my study, over the past forty years, of Western thought and culture as a base, we could attempt to present the flow and development which have led to twentieth-century thinking, and by so doing hope to show the essential answers." The subtitle to How Should We Then Live? is "The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture." Starting from ancient Roman times, tracing man's development throughout the Middle Ages, going to the Renaissance, Reformation, and Enlightenment, he shows the steps which led to the modern era.

CHAPTER SUMMARIES

Chapter One-Ancient Rome
The finite Graeco-Roman gods were not a sufficient inward base for the Roman society: Rome crumbled from within, and the invasions of the barbarians only completed the breakdown.

Chapter Two-The Middle Ages
The Middle Ages were the post-Roman age: a time of uncertainty in which there were great advances of the church but also great distortions of Biblical truth, eventually leading to the Renaissance and the Reformation.

Chapter Three-The Renaissance
Although the Renaissance revived the realization that man and nature are important, it went overboard by making man the measure of all things-and by that destroyed the importance of man.

Chapter Four-The Reformation
Like the Renaissance, the Reformation sought to bring freedom to man, yet unlike the Renaissance it did not lose sight of the Bible and absolute values.

Chapter Five-The Reformation-Continued
The impact of the Reformation on society at large was the opportunity of freedom without chaos.

Chapter Six-The Enlightenment
The Enlightenment believed in the perfectibility of society, and sought to bring it about mainly by the means of revolution.

Chapter Seven-The Rise of Modern Science
Modern science could only have arisen from a Christian foundation: namely, that man is not part of a closed system but can observe and act into the system.

Chapter Eight-The Breakdown of Philosophy and Science
The foundation in Philosophy and Science was changed from antithetical thinking to dialectic thinking-and because of it reason became more and more pessimistic.

Chapter Nine-Modern Philosophy and Modern Theology
Due to the pessimistic view on reason, Philosophy and Theology started to seek meaning in the irrational.

Chapter Ten-Modern Art, Music, Literature, and Films
What began in Philosophy now made itself felt in the Arts: the abandonment of reason and increased fragmentation.

Chapter Eleven-Our Society
We have come full circle, since our society has become like the declining Roman Empire of old: it is marked by the love of affluence, a widening gap between rich and poor, an obsession with sex, freakishness in the arts, and an increased desire to live off the state.

Chapter Twelve-Manipulation and the New Elite
Because our society stands on the verge of chaos, we are in danger of coming under an authoritarian elite which will increasingly manipulate our lives.

Chapter Thirteen-The Alternatives
The only plausible alternative to authoritarianism is to align ourselves to a Biblical worldview-a worldview which produces freedom without chaos.

CONCLUSION
Whether or not one agrees with all of Schaeffer's points, his passion to be a Christian who engages secular culture has laid the foundation stone for much of Christian thinking in the past three decades.



</review>
<review>

While my own convictions are not reflected in Schaeffer's books, he always presents a thoughtful challenge to those who would disagree with his positions.  This book is no exception.  For a broader view of the nature of morality, see my "Morality: Does 'God' Make A Difference?" where I show why and how belief in God makes a difference--for good or ill

</review>
<review>

In this book, Schaeffer illustrates that the reason the world is in such disarray is because we no longer have a moral and ethical foundation to build upon.  This book explores the paramount philosophic, religious, and scientific ideas from the decline of Rome until the 1960s.  He claims that in order to understand where we are today we must trace these three lines in history.  He begins with the decline of Rome (with its amalgamation of Greek values) and proceed through the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, Romanticism, Industrialism, Modernity, and the post-modern world.  Not only does Schaeffer explore the history of Western philosophy, religion, and science, but also history art, culture, cinema, Christianity, humanism, and communism. Furthermore, there is a flow to history that is rooted in people's thoughts.  Their thought-world determines how they act.  The results of this thought-world (or world view) impact the external world.  Schaeffer points out that individual people throughout the establishment of Western culture impacted the external world with their lives.  These impacts led to the present culture that we live in now.  Many of these individuals shaped our culture to reject a Biblical foundation with absolute morals and ethics to live by.  Instead of this moral foundation, the West is now functioning on top of a feeble, relative foundation.  Schaeffer asserts that this is the reason our culture is in its current hysteria.  He basically divides man and his view on the world into the two categories of belief in an infinite God (Christianity) and belief in the absence of an infinite deity (humanism).  The book provides evidence proving that the Christian belief promotes a solid basis for morals, ethics, and order; however, humanism promotes relativism and chaos.  It is on this basis that Schaeffer proves that without Christian principles, a culture is doomed to failure.  He points out that Christianity gives meaning and beauty to all individual and corporate life.  Anything Short of it brings death to every aspect of life.  Because of this, Schaeffer is not hesitant to point out that the cure for society rests in Christianity alone.  This book was written so that we would "turn from the greatest of wickedness, the placing of any created thing in the place of the creator, and that this generation may get its feet out of the paths of death and may live."

The style Francis Schaeffer adopted is straightforward and logical.  He openly admitted that his book does not make a pretense of a complete history of western culture, but enough historical evidence is used to prove his point effectively.  Schaeffer developes his arguments based on the basis that ideas (or worldviews) act on the cause and effect theory.  He also compares and contrasts the Judeo-Christian worldview with secular views to further develop his argument.  Overall, the argument presented is proved in a coherent way.  Although flow of the book is smooth and easy, it also includes a logical message that is vital to the western world.

How Should We Then Live? Is a book directed at the West.  As the people of the Western culture we would do well to listen to the message this book portrays.  As Schaeffer effectively points out, if we do not take heed and return to a Biblical moral foundation, the world, as we know it, will continue to spiral down a one-way path to destruction.  I highly recommend this book, and if the intended audience would take caution, and listen to that it is declaring, then it would save us from turmoil and destruction.  This book points out the problem and the remedy.  It would be foolish for a person who has cancer to turn down a remedy that would heal him.  It would also be irrational for is to ignore the cure for our disorderly culture.

</review>
<review>

Not many people know that there was a 10 episode film series with the same title, and that there is a paper back study guide that compliments this book. I first read this book 22 years ago when I was trying to figure out why the world was going to hell in a handbasket. It answered a lot of my questions and made me ask more questions. I rate this as one of the 10 most important books I've read in my lifetime, and I'm getting to be an old lady now. I'm getting ready to read it again because I feel it has a new relevance for our time in light of the persecution of Christianity in the public arena. I also bring to your attention his book, A Christian Manifesto. If you seek true wisdom born of knowledge, this is your book

</review>
<review>

Francis A. Schaeffer covers a lot of territory both geographically and in terms of subject matter in this book. Chronologically he starts with ancient Rome and goes to the 1970s, the time the book was published. Illustrations are included to assist in making his case. Schaeffer contends there is a flow or pattern to history and in this book he sets out to explain the flow of Western culture. On page 52 he discusses the role philosophy had in separating the influence of divine revelation as found in the Bible from man-made epistemology. He uses Raphaels' painting of  and quot;The School of Athens and quot; (c. 1510) to illustrate the separation. Symbolically the painting depicts two viewpoints, one looking upward toward God, the other viewing lower sources such as man. In Europe this gravitation toward one or the other direction took the forms of the Reformation (God) and the Renaissance (man). He discusses the philosophies of the prime movers in each of the two schools of thought. On page 108 he notes  and quot;Many good things in England came from Scotland. and quot; One of them being the concept of  and quot;Lex Rex: Law is King. and quot; The concept was that no one was above the law, that it was the same for everyone regardless of rank or position. He traces the idea for the American Revolution back to these seeds planted in the minds of those of English ancestary. The reader is carried up to the 1970s. This is a thought-provoking book that helps a person see cause-and-effect consequences over the long haul. It reminds one of the observation of Russell Kirk,  and quot;ideas have consequences. and quot

</review>
<review>

Far from reducing the Islamic Republic of Iran to some kind of timeless expression of Islamic culture, tradition, or identity, the author demonstrates the competing ideological influences that shaped the Islamic Republic -- not least of which were Western notions of political particpation. The author does a good job of showing how these tensions are reflected in the reform movement, and in the struggle for power currently unfolding in Iran. Thus I found the book very useful. I would only add that the author may have given insufficient attention to the power of the conservative clerics

</review>
<review>

Despite the breathless headlines about the latest billion-dollar merger, most mergers don't work. In fact, more than half of all mergers fail, derailed by a common set of pitfalls. Companies merge without considering how they'll integrate after the deal; they don't communicate properly with their employees, and executives don't make decisions quickly enough to placate frightened workers. The executives who navigate mergers effectively are those who communicate well, deal with ambiguity and make decisions in times of instability. Author Price Pritchett offers an easily digested primer on the hazards of mergers, and lists hints for avoiding common problems. The authors provide plenty of concrete examples showing how such companies as Sony, Wells Fargo and the Chicago Sun-Times suffered from the dilemmas that accompany mergers. We ... recommend this comprehensive guide for managers on both sides of a business marriage. Caution: Read After the Merger before you merge

</review>
<review>

This book should have been an short magazine article. The authors basically dissect one concept over and over and over: change is disruptive. There is very little useful information in this book. It points out all of  the obvious and frequently-stated problems that come with change -  productivity suffers, commitment is lost, etc., etc., etc., but gives no  insight in how to fix the problems (unless you count these golden nuggets-   and quot;Keep your eye on the ball and quot; and  and quot;Provide direction and quot;).   The one chapter that I hoped would shed some light on tactics -   and quot;Integration Project Management and quot; - was pure fluff. It offered  such pearls of wisdom as  and quot;It is helpful to look at the integration  process as a logical sequence of steps designed to help bring the two  organizations together. and quot; Not only is this a  and quot;Duh and quot; statement,  but it shows up in chapter 8! I would expect to read something like that in  the introduction. And chapters 5 and 6 state that you should evaluate key  talent in the aquired firm - but no where in these chapters does it tell  you how to do it! I guess you have call up Pritchett  and amp; Associates (and  fork over big $$) for the details. My only guess is that the authors kept  the book generic on purpose so that companies would call and ask about  their consulting services. My advice: save your money for a real book, and  just call up Pritchett  and amp; Associates for their marketing literature

</review>
<review>

I find it suprising how so many people can not like this book? I read it immediatley after reading book 1 and still thoroughly enjoyed it. I love the details the author gives...it makes you feel like you are right there, and understand and see things as well as the characters do.

I can't wait for book 3, and hope everyone at least gives this book a chance and enjoys it as much as I did. Despite the reviews..

</review>
<review>

I don't know why some people are criticizing this book as badly as they are.  Like all fantasy books and stories, if you strip them down far enough you get the same basic story.  Characters are whats important in these books, and, while Eragon has much in common with Luke Skywalker they are different people with different personalities and experiences.  To give this anything less than 3 stars is pure hateration.  Lay off the haterade, this book continues the trilogy very well.  The training was a little dull and the romance subplot leaves a lot to be desired, but this is a good, well-written (especially for his age) novel.  I look forwarded to reading the 3rd and final installment

</review>
<review>

"Eragon" was a great book, and much like a previous reviewer said, I read it rather quickly. It was action packed and suspensful. Eldest does a good of furthering the trilogy, and has a lot of action. Paolini leaves many questions unanswered, so you can expect an amazing final book in the series. However, despite the action, Eragon's training is incredibly boring, dull, tiresome, any other adjective that is synonymous to "zzzzzzz". The worse part is, that his training is half the book! There are a few good training sessions, but these are actually outside the training (if you haven't read the book you might not understand what I am getting out). Overall, it was still a good novel; and I really don't know why someone would even consider giving it anything lower than 3 stars

</review>
<review>

Eragons journey continues in this 2nd book from Christopher Paolini. Although a great deal of time is spent in the politics of the different races the storyline progresses fairly well. I have been reading this series to my boys and with the exception of having to explain quite a bit of the vocabulary, they have been enraptured by the story. We can't wait for book number three

</review>
<review>

The story continues, with Eragon being trained by the elfs, his brother Rowan becoming involved, leading up to a great battle with a surprising twist. Delightful read. You learn a lot more about the humans, elfs, dwarfs, dragons, and urgals. Can't wait to see how it all ends

</review>
<review>

Yukio Mishima is, sadly, known best for the circumstances of his death. He committed seppuku (ritual suicide by sword) after finishing the final book of this tetralogy--The Sea of Fertility. He, along with Kawabata and Murakami, is one of the most prominent Japanese authors that actually gained attention during his life. Mishima was called a radical, a right-winger. Some think that this stigma affects his writing greatly, but hearing someone say that makes me wonder why they're reading him to begin with.

SPRING SNOW is the story of Kiyoaki Matsugae, and his Imperially sanctioned and revered family. I thought that it was clear early on that Kiyoaki was an interesting character. He is the image of adolescence in this novel; Honda, Kiyo's best companion (I don't go out of my way to call him a friend), is, I think, more respectable. I'm not sure if Mishima, in writing this novel, was masochistic with Kiyoaki and more level-headed with some of the other characters, but it certainly gives us a great perspective in what goes on in Kiyoaki's mind.

Kiyo and Satoko were childhood friends; after his interest in her wanes, he's given notice that she is to marry a Prince. "The grass always looks greener on the other side"--this is what I think of, looking back on Kiyo and his decision to tell his father that there was "absolutely nothing" between himself and Satoko. He goes on to become more infatuated with her presence; "doomed as it was inevitable" is what the synopsis says of this romance.

The reason I give this 4 stars? I really felt the book could've been 50 to 75 pages shorter. I couldn't help but get tired of it in places. Another reviewer mentioed that Mishima isn't very inventive, but is very skilled. I agree with that totally. The story itself is not enough to warrant a reading (seriously--I've read countless other Japanese novels with the exact same romance-based-on-family-strain plot). It's the way that Mishima tells us of his characters, and the settings. I might go as far to say that--yes, I think that he is one of the greatest writers of the 20th century.

All complaints aside, this novel is amazing, and I feel that I'd appreciate it even more if I paged through it again. Mishima writes with a beauty that is hard to categorize; it's not really comparable to Murakami or Tanizaki, or any other famed Japanese authors who are still hailed today.

Mishima carried with him demons. And angels! And their chorus is in these pages

</review>
<review>

This is the first of a group of four novels by Mishima called The Sea of Fertility. Taken as a group they are excellent novels or even what one might call a literary masterpiece. The four books are:

- "Spring Snow,"
- "Runaway Horses,"
- "The Temple of Dawn," and
- "The Decay of the Angel."

I asked another reader if Mishima's book "Spring Snow" was a universal story or a period piece unique to Japan. They were a bit uncertain. The good news is that it is both. It is a modern 20th century version of Romeo and Juliet - or a similar type of theme but not identical to Shakespeare's drama by any stretch -  but having said that,  there are many parallels. It is set in Tokyo around 1912; it involves two families and two lovers; there is a problem betrothal involving the female protagonist Satoko (Kiyoaki is the male); and there are outside forces at work - the Royal family. To say more would be to give away the plot. I am not an expert on Japanese literature but I thought that it rated 5 stars.

It is a clear and compelling read, and I sat down glued to the book and read 270 pages the first day. For that reason - along with the beauty of the story and the scenery and the characters - it deserves 5 stars. As I reached the end of the book, I thought that the story faltered slightly. Also, the author is great but perhaps not brilliant nor very innovative. He is touted as being "like Dostoevsky" on the book jacket - a quote from the Christian Science Monitor. Yes, there are some fabulous scenes and excellent writing that transports the reader to Japan, and a rickshaw ride through a snowy spring afternoon. But, before reading the book, I had just finished reading the masterpiece Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky, and some short stories by Chekhov. In comparison, Mishima's love story seemed a bit light compared to Dostoevsky, but perhaps on par with Chekhov. That is not a bad comparison.

In reading the prose, I had the same feeling reading this book as I did when I read some of Saul Bellow's books, especially Herzog. Mishima seems to put a lot of emotional energy into the writing and he says things that are a bit on the edge of social norms. In a society such as Japan, the book must have been a bit racy when it came out.

Is it a world class masterpiece? Probably not on its own, but it is exceptional. Taken as a group of four, The Sea of Fertility group might be a masterpiece series. This is an excellent book and I highly recommend the read.

As a final note, this book has no introduction or extra notes on the author or the book. It is just the basic book, but it seems to be an excellent translation

</review>
<review>

This tetralogy is the best source I've come across about the Consciousness-Only School of Buddhism.  In a doctrinaire-free, passionate and beautiful story, you come to really understand what Budhist doctrines about reincarnation mean.

Top rating

</review>
<review>

"Spring Snow" is unquestionably one of the finest Japanese novels ever written, as well as being a masterpiece of world literature in its own right.  It is an eloquent, moving story with a "tale as old as time," that of star-crossed lovers who's love transcends social roles and obligations.

In another culture, with another writer, this would be a romantic, if not happy, story.  But this is Japan, and the writer is Mishima Yukio.  In his hands, the lovers Kiyoaki and Satoko transcend literary stereotypes, and become agents of their own happiness and destruction.  By the very nature of their relationship, raised together since childhood, playing a complicated cat-and-mouse game of love and sexual tension, their future is never in doubt.

It is impressive that a writer such as Mishima, known for his right-wing politics and his samurai dreams, could craft such a tender love story.  While knowing the eventual conclusion, the reader savors and hopes for each stolen moment of happiness between Kiyoaki and Satoko, and knows that even their despair is something to be treasured because it is shared.    Not that it is a clear path.  Even knowing Japanese literature, and the road it usually takes, there are surprises on the way.  Things do not turn out the way one would expect.

I was incredibly moved by "Spring Snow."  It is a novel that affects the heart of the reader, and lingers long after the last page is turned.

</review>
<review>

This is not an intent to (summarize) mishima's sea of fertility... rather it's an approach into analyzing it ... a sort of reading between the lines...

Then ... again, what are we exactly trying to portray?

we would say we are ( intending ) to  deliver a semiotic vision of what the sea of fertility represents ... we are not trying to ( read ) it for our reader , rather , we let him read , and help him amidst it , by presenting a cluster of  signs , keys , semiotics , call it whatever you want , that would - at the end - clarify the road , and that can be grasped by the reader so he can get a wider vision , and a better comprehension of this gigantic universe , which mishima called ( sea of fertility ) ...

But first, why is this bizarre title (sea of fertility)?

mishima himself is going to answer this question , to give it the first ( leading ) sign , that we should know it doesn't crack secrets for us , but merely provides us with a minimum limit , which we can begin our journey from ..

in a note mishima sent to the famous American criticizer Donald Keene , he clearly admits that the reason for choosing this title for his tetralogy is a hint for an area of the same designation on the moon's surface not so far of ( the sea of silence ) ... the reason for this reference is to aim at a ( contradiction ) between this vivid and colorful name , and the wasteland it stands for in real ... we can go further on saying that this title combines the image of universal nihilism with the image of ( sea of fertility ) ...

in summer 1945 mishima wanted to write an immense oeuvre that would sum up Miller's famous trilogy ( the rosy crucifixion ) , and that would stress more and more on that ( dark ) side of art ... to write a novel that would take six years of his life , and that would cover - chronogically - those sixty years from 1912 and on ..

That decision , which was the most important one in mishima's practical life , obliged writing this novel in four volumes , in each an individual story , for each a special protagonist , but these characters would not be totally separated from each other ...

How?

The figure in the first volume is the lad kiwaki, the noble descent of the wealthy family of Matsugai, lives a love story, one of its kind that memory would not forget easily, and his friend Honda stands as an eye witness for this superb experience of his...

From that point on , in every volume that succeeds, we can notice that the hero is merely the first one, but after being (reincarnated), to start a new cycle of life, and to let Honda only figure out the connections that ties these four characters...


Mishima Knew very well that his Tetralogy is a rich threshold for everything he learned as a writer ... he told his friends, that when he finishes it, there is only one thing left for him to do ... (suicide) ...  and by taking his own life in November 25th 1970, he fulfilled his final quote: the life of men is short, I want to live forever...

( The sea of fertility ) is not an easy read nor its a happy one , it is a lament melancholic presentation of life ... rendered by an artist ...

</review>
<review>

For a Japanese nationalist, Yukio Mishima seems to have had an appreciation for European literature, as demonstrated in his wonderful novel "Spring Snow," the first part of a tetralogy.  Taking place in Tokyo in the years following the Russo-Japanese war and just before the first world war, it has the atmosphere of a richly detailed nineteenth-century epic with an almost Tolstoyan sense of national history and the scope and melodrama of a Stendhalian romance.  Appropriately, one of its themes is the gradual influx of Western influence on Japanese culture, which Mishima, himself loyal to the Samurai tradition, might well have resisted.

Most of the novel's characters are members of the aristocratic society of imperial Japan.  One of these is Kiyoaki, the eighteen-year-old son of the Marquis Matsugae, a noble of the royal court.  Kiyoaki is a handsome boy who attracts many girls but is too sullen and withdrawn to make many friends at school; as it is, his only companion is a bright classmate named Shigekuni Honda who works hard to please his strict parents by studying law.  Kiyoaki has a tutor named Iinuma who secretly disrespects his pupil because he feels that Kiyoaki, representing the moral decadence of the new era, dishonors his ancestors and the dignity of old Japan.  There are also two Siamese princes who through diplomatic channels are acquainted with the Matsugaes and attend Kiyoaki's school; they make a comical duo, at least until the tragedy that calls them home to Siam.

The story pertains mainly to the troubled love affair between Kiyoaki and Satoko, the daughter of Count Ayakura, whose family is close to the Matsugaes and lives on a nearby estate.  Kiyoaki and Satoko were playmates in childhood, so it is no surprise that adolescence has brought mutual romantic feelings.  However, her assertive and unsubmissive attitude offends his pride; he cannot envision her as his wife.  After he spurns her, she accepts a marriage proposal from Prince Harunori Toin, a high-ranking military officer; the engagement is formalized by receiving official authorization from the Imperial Household Ministry.

Satoko, aware that Prince Harunori is a dispassionate drone, consents to continue seeing Kiyoaki, their trysts aided and abetted by Honda and her maidservant Tadeshina, until one day when she wakes up with morning sickness.  Imagine the imminent scandal--a young lady soon to be a princess in a marriage sanctioned by the Empire, pregnant by another man before her wedding!  How could she be so irresponsible, and how could Kiyoaki have such contempt for imperial honor?  This volatile situation involving the reputations of both the Matsugae and the Ayakura families advances the story to a nearly Shakespearean plateau, particularly when Satoko, heeding Hamlet's advice to Ophelia, gets herself to a (Buddhist) nunnery.  Kiyoaki's desperate effort to visit her in the convent during the unseasonable weather indicated in the title ends the novel with a delicate poignancy.

"Spring Snow" is a masterly composition that portrays a picturesque Japan in transition from the grand ceremoniousness of the imperial aristocracy to the new Europeanized etiquette.  The wealthy Japanese are teaching English in their schools, driving British cars, wearing British clothes, listening to German music on German gramophones, even celebrating Christmas without ostensibly observing Christianity.  Mishima, perhaps identifying himself with the discontented Iinuma, may have seen this as cultural degeneration, but his chronicle implies nothing disastrous about the beginning of the century in which his country, bolstered by the prosperity of its elite, was to become a world power.


</review>
<review>

Mishima's Spring Snow is a rare jewel of a work! The passion, tragedy and intensity of this novel left me wanting to pursue the entire 'Sea of Fertility' series.  I will shortly be reading 'Runaway Horses' which follows it, but have been forewarned not to expect anything quite on the scale of 'Spring Snow.'  Luckily, this doesn't concern me, Mishima's writing style is visual, entrancing and magnetic.  He takes hold of your imagination, curiosity and emotions from the very first chapter, and you just can't stop till the final page. I myself was dreading reaching the final page of Spring Snow, as I knew that to read such a glorious book again may not come for a long while.
To me the book could have been twice the length and it still would have been too short. But that's the problem with things of such beauty and magnitude - you never want them to end. Sadly, you know they will - and they must.  What they leave you with is unforgettable!

GREAT!

</review>
<review>

Most of what I read is modern. The stories take place in the here and now, and are dialogue-heavy. It's nice to read something "old-fashioned," where the words are important. If this were a story of privileged young Americans, I wouldn't be interested; but change the country and the era, and the same story becomes interesting

</review>
<review>

This is the beginning of the posthumous work of Mishima.  You will follow the lives of four people who got reincarnated in different time and in different place with Honda.  His flowing and elegant style hits the highest and psychological descriptions, that even characters did not realized themselves so well, are so elaborated and sometimes scare us.  It seems like weaving beautiful tapestry and you can feel the person of genius and bliss for enjoying the output of the genius.  But you may lost at the end like this story and come back to this story again and again

</review>
<review>

I would give this book a zero, if it were possible...
Anyone that wants to follow this book is more than likely screwing up their child. I would consider "Doctor" Ezzo's philosophy a form of child abuse. This thing is the most awful, upsetting piece of parenting literature I've ever read!!!!!!!!!!! I don't understand, WHY would parents not want to go to your baby at night when he is crying?  WHAT is wrong with loving your baby, cuddles, and attending to their needs???  Oh, yeah I forgot....American parenting seems to given way to the form of training your baby like a puppy, fitting "convieniently" into your lives, with alot of distance, no empathy, No trust, little to no communication, little emotional bonding, and in the future, this results in children who have attachment problems in later life, trouble regarding relationships, and practically seem to be teaching them to be independent and self sufficient from the time they are brought home from the hospital....
How heartbreaking.
Sorry, I don't beleive in the form of abuse as this book is about. and I wish more parents felt the same as I do.

</review>
<review>

This book has made me a more confident mom. Every thing my son goes to do is so easy and I believe it is because of Babywise. He slept through the night for the first time at 6 weeks and was consistently sleeping through the night by 11 weeks. He naps great and is so easy to take care of. I have the 2nd Babywise book and about to purchase the 3rd- Toddlerwise. I recommend this book to any new mom who is seeking to get her baby on a schedule and it also contributed to me nursing my son for 7 months. I was about ready to give it up when I read the book b/c I felt like a human pacifier. This book will encourage your baby to take the feedings at scheduled times.

</review>
<review>

Hi I am the mother of twin preemie fraternal twins which are now 8 months old. My oldest twin weighed 2.4 and the youngest 4.8 lbs. My boys were hospitalized for 6 weeks. When we brought them home I thought wow, I really have them on the right track. My youngest boy would whale everynight no matter what. I tried swaddling, holding, everything, nothing worked. Until, someone gave me this wonderful book.

I applied this book the night I recieved it. I saw results immediately. This book has taught us how important feeding on a 3 hour routine schedule everday, was super important! in the length they would  sleep at night. Had my boys had healthy weights, they would of been sleeping all thru the night starting at 7 WEEKS. Instead, we had them sleeping thru at 3 months old. We have such happy boys. They smile all the time and to everyone they see. So well mannered no tantrums. This book is a god send and I recommend it to anyone. If it works with twins it will work for anyone. Stick with it and you will be amazed. I order every book they have written and it fantastic

</review>
<review>

This book is highly recommended by our church and all of our friends SWEAR by this method.  It is a little on the "strict" side, as far as scheduling goes.  We also read "The Baby Whisperer" (which is more relaxed- less rigid) and are planning to take what works for us from each book, as they both offer some great principles.  They both follow the same pattern routine of Eat, Activity, Sleep, then time for Mom  and  Dad.

</review>
<review>

After observing many parent friends and the sanity of their homes I decided BabyWise was definitly worth reading.  My friends with the happiest well adjusted and well behaved children use BabyWise.  My friends who oppose BabyWise and feel it is wrong or evil have never personally read the book from cover to cover but have only adopted the opinions of naysayers.  Also, many of these have children sleeping in their beds between mom  and  dad until they are 4 years old, are cranky, needy chilren and live chaotic lives.

My husband and I read the book during my pregnancy and found it to be very balanced.  We implemented the suggested guidelines with flexibility, as suggested, and we've had fantastic results.  Our son has slept through the night in his own bed since 8 weeks.  When we lay him down for naps or bedtime he goes right to sleep.  When he wakes up he is full of smiles and giggles.

In the 8 months he's been alive we've flown with him 7 times and been on multiple road trips.  Everyone we encounter says, "Wow, he is the happiest baby I've ever seen." and "Does he ever cry? He travels so well."

Through our travels and our business we've met many Docs and one child Psychologist whom have expressed the same compliments about our son.  When I tell them we use BabyWise they often raise an eyebrow and express their disdane for this book and their opionion of it's rigidity.  I recommended that they read it for themselves and not simply the opinions of naysayers.  The proof is in the pudding.

Thank you Gary Ezzo for such a fantastic book!!

</review>
<review>

First off: My wife and I tried Babywise several years ago because we were sleep deprived beyond all belief.  Please don't make the same mistake.  Your baby will start sleeping better, I swear.  Other parents we know have tried Babywise and the results of ranged from abandoning the philosophy to seriously altering their children's psyche.

Babywise may "work" for many families in the sense that you *might* get your newborn to sleep through the night.  But it is a very rigid and inflexible parenting style, and over the long run I have seen it result in resentful children.  In the short term it is very hard on both baby and parent because the baby will be miserable, and you will feel guilty.  Before buying into this philosophy, remember that has been subject to widespread criticism, and while it *might* work in the sense of getting your baby to sleep, it is, in this reviewer's opinion, very dangerous over the long haul and shortsighted on the part of tired parents.

At the very least, please ask your pediatrician for their honest assessment of this book before trying it.

If you are looking for a far better, and far more credible, book on parenting, try either Doctor Spock's Baby  and  Child Care, or the American Academy of Pediatrics Caring for Your Baby  and  Young Chil

</review>
<review>

I strongly recommend new parents thoughtfully consider Baby Wise in developing your parenting style.

Now parents of a 5-month old, we used parent directed feeding (PDF from Baby Wise) from the day we left the hospital and have been pleased with the results. BabyWise claims that that the PDF method will often result in happy, well adjusted, satisfied, children that are pleasant to be around. We have found this to be the case.

My one gripe with the book is the lack of scientific, empirical studies on the PDF parenting style. Unfortunately, the book (and I) can only give anecdotal evidence of the merits of PDF based on personal experiences.

Born in the 25th percentile weight/height, our little one was on a predictable schedule within a week, consistently sleeping (7 hours) through the night within 7 weeks and has been sleeping 11 hours at night since 12 weeks. When in public, we often get comments that our baby "is so happy" and "content." We go out to eat several times a week - without more than smiles and laughs (we have only left a restaurant once - but were able to do so before he cried). We house-hunted 9 hours a day for a week (in and out of the car 10-15 times) and our real estate agent never heard the baby cry - no pacifier. We have been on five multi-hour plane trips without any more than a giggle and coo. One friend was reluctant to hold our baby because she said that "babies always cry when I hold them." Our little one was pleasant and smiley. Does our baby ever cry? Of course! He cries at least one time every day (usually during his predictable "fussy time" - a 45 minute stretch before bedtime.) When he does cry, diagnosing the problem is pretty simple with PDF (I'll let you read the book to find out how) - and I still haven't figured out how to differentiate types of crys as the hospital suggested. Just as indicated in Baby Wise, after being put to bed at 9pm, our little one wakes up at about 6:30am singing and cooing and goes back to sleep within 30 minutes. At 7:45am, he wakes up again and greets us with a smile when we walk in the room. Our baby gained weight and height predictably throughout his first few months, moving into the 50th percentile weight/height at his last visit.

My sister and several of our friends have used Baby Wise with similar results.

Is Baby Wise for everyone? - Probably not. If you enjoy structure and organization and are accustomed to being on a regular schedule yourself, your parenting style will probably mesh nicely with Baby Wise. If you consider yourself a free spirit who enjoys responding to the unpredictability that life often brings, then you will probably find Baby Wise to be restrictive to your parenting style. In fact, we have friends who did not use Baby Wise and ended up with happy, pleasant children as well.

Does Baby Wise CAUSE babies to be pleasant and happy? I don't know, but it did work for us and I can only imagine how difficult parenthood would be for us without the principles explained in the book.


</review>
<review>

This is the BEST baby book I've read.  I would highly recommend it.

This book shows how your baby will naturally sleep through the night by following the simple routine of: baby eats, baby has awake time, and then baby sleeps.  It's so simple.  It's not any type of a strict routine.  You read your baby's signals, but at the same time teach the baby to eat, play and sleep in blocks of time.  Then your baby will naturally sleep through the night.  It's that simple, and it has helped me soooo much.

When I had my first son, I had not heard of this book.  I thought I was doing the best thing by demand feeding, co-sleeping etc.  Unfortunately, that resulted in my son not being able to sleep through the night until he was one year old, eating multiple times at night, and needing someone to lie down next to him so he could get to sleep.  What in the world was I thinking!!  He could have been sleeping through the night in his crib by 3 months old.  Instead, I was totally sleep deprived having to wake up throughout the night to feed him, give him a pacifier, or by simply being awakened by his constant restless sleeping.

I now have 4 month old TWINS, which both sleep through the night in their cribs.  Life with twins (and now my first son is two) and using the BabyWise method is soooooo much easier than when I had my son and was using Attachment Parenting methods.  Its amazing.  I didn't read Babywise until the twins were about 8 weeks old.  I was feeling stressed and had no structure for the babies.  I was just trying to "get through the day."  One of the babies would cry every 2 hours, and I kept thinking he must be hungry.  Then I would feed him, but he wouldn't eat much and then he'd cry again 2 hours later.  After reading the book, I learned exactly what the problem was: my son was tired, not hungry.  He was waking up from his nap too early and needed to sleep longer.

I don't know what I would have done without this book.  Now when one of my babies cry, I know exactly what the problem is.  And actually they rarely ever cry.  As the book explains, just like you and me, when babies get a good night sleep they feel refreshed and happy the next day.  My babies are rarely EVER grumpy or fussy.  I've had so many people act amazed at how content and happy they are.  I then just explain to them the simple routine of eat-play-sleep from BabyWise.

Some people act like "the baby knows best," but they don't!  They're just a baby.  You as the parent need to help teach the baby how to sleep.  If people claim their baby wasn't getting enough to eat, then they were not following the book.  The book clearly teaches you if and when there is a problem.  My babies are chunky, alert and happy.  Now, when I read about parents demand feeding and co-sleeping, I just feel sorry for them because they're making life alot more difficult for themselves.  Eventually they won't want their kids sleeping in bed with them anymore and then the little guys don't know how to go to sleep on their own.  When my twins start yawning, I just lie them down in their cribs and they go to sleep.  I don't have to "help" them get to sleep.  And demand feeding....CRAZY.  You're just teaching your baby to snack all day and night.  Then the baby doesn't get a good sleep and so they wake up cranky and tired and want to sooth themselves by eating again.  Its a bad cycle.

This book really is amazing.  There are also other books in the series that target specific baby ages, as they get older.  I would also recommend Baby Whisperer by Hogg, but only as a supplement to BabyWise.  Baby Whisperer is not complete about the specifics of the eat-play-sleep routine.

Don't get mislead about some of the Ezzo bashing.  Its ridiculous and has nothing to even do with the content of the book.  I've noticed that alot of demand feeding parents don't like to be reminded that they or they're babies are not sleeping through the night

</review>
<review>

To those who think this book recommends ignorning a hungry child just because he ate 2 hours ago rather than the prescribed 3, I suggest you read the book a little more carefully. The feeding schedule is just a guideline, and the book does emphasize (in several places) that when your child is hungry, food should never be denied, hunger cues should never be ignored. Parents: read the book, then make up your mind on whether or not this technique is one you want to adopt. If you haven't read the book, keep your opinions to yourself. No one cares to know what you learned after doing a google search on the author. If the information in the book makes sense to you, and your pediatrician doesn't disagree, does it really matter in what subject the author earned his master's degree?

</review>
<review>

This book is about setting boundaries for your child at a young age.  I read the book in one sitting because it was fascinating and the next night after following the advice, my son slept for 9 hours (he was 4 months old).  He has  consitently been a very well behaved, happy, and well adjusted child.  A routine, established boundaries, and yes... even discipline gives your child confidence (mommy actually knows what's up!!).  I've met moms who thought babywise was "terrible" and "cruel", but interstingly enough not a single one of them had actually read the book... and guess what??  The same babies that decided their own schedules turned into toddlers and children that ran the household.  If you don't teach your kids the rules and boundaries, they will learn them the hard way; by testing you....
The idea that this book is about starving your child or corporal punishment is just plain ridiculous!!
Don't fall victim to the media venom!

</review>
<review>

Seems like an easy enough subject.  But so many books like this are just fluffy ideas for employers to rah rah, and lie, to the employees.  Said to say it's true.
I've known a lot of people who have really strugged with the career thing.  I knew a girl who went seven years without taking a vacation to impress her boss.  She got laid off the eighth year.
I read the transcript of an interview with this author (www.firstvoicebooks.com/yerks.html) and she just seemed to have something to say.  She even mentioned that people need to be paid for their work, a tonic for all the b.s. of people who say working for free will get you good attention.  If you work for free, your work is worth nothing.

</review>
<review>

I'm Donald Freeman, former General Manager of Operations for Sprint call center in Phoenix, AZ. (Read more about Don in Fish Tales by Charthouse).  This books is a must for anyone currently involved in bringing Fun into the workplace and a good book to place beside the book  and quot;Fish and quot; by Charthouse.  I got real examples from companies and employees in this book that provided me with great ideas to use in my own business.  This book provides many detailed examples from companies who have found  and quot;being productive is fun and quot;.  It provides real examples on how companies become a place where people care and where people count. The book demonstrates the importance of celebrations that are honest and really are celebrations of being happy!  She provides a lot of insight and their are shared ideas that can be used that have little cost but really make a difference in terms of caring and making work fun!  It gives feedback from individuals who found the value and success in bringing  and quot;fun to work and quot;.  If anyone has been challenged with using the Fish philosophy as a tool for fun at work, this book may be the ticket for making it all come together

</review>
<review>

Begins with an ominous warning by ancient historian Herodotus.  and quot;If a man insisted always on being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun and relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it. and quot; The rest of the book is an attempt to prevent these dire things from happening especially in the workplace. The book is bubbly. Bubbly excitement prevails. But near the end, the author cautions us that,  and quot;excess is too much even when it comes to fun and quot; And I'm sure a man as smart as Herodotus would also say that if you have fun all the time with no seriousness at all, that could be dangerous too

</review>
<review>

If you're looking for a book that will give you a concise and easy to remember strategy for integrating work and fun--FISH! is the one I'd recommend.  In FUN Works, the author presents ELEVEN principles that are supposed to help us  and quot;understand the importance of the Fun/Work Fusion. and quot;  With eleven principles, this book is all over the place, and somehow misses the mark. I fervently believe that work should be FUN, but I didn't find this book particularly helpful in understanding how to make it that way

</review>
<review>

I do not know where to start.  I read Nora Roberts all the time and this is by far my favorite of her trilogies.  There is a little of everything.  Sorcery, vampires, witches, time travel, battles and of course romance.  Do not even think about it just get the book and find a quiet place to settle down and get started

</review>
<review>

Some of the negative reviews would have turned me off this book if I had read them first. I have enjoyed this book, the Vampire, Geall setting did not turn me off. Actually It was a nice change.
I enjoy contempory, historical, mystical and I guess Vampire. Yeah Nora for having more of a read than in some of your latest books

</review>
<review>

I've been a Nora Roberts fan for years...but originally was turned off by a review I'd read for this book.  You see, while I can deal with sorcery, witches and the like as in the Key Trilogy and the Island Trilogy...I have a hard time with fantasy worlds.  Tell me we're in Scotland, and I have an appropriate mental image...but, tell me we're in Geall...and, well, I'm really lost.

Vampires...or should we say vampyres.  I read "Interview with a Vampire" when it was originally published...years before other people seemed to discover Anne Rice.  So, I'm okay with vampires, too.

And the fantasy world thing...don't want to be a spoiler, here...but in this first book of the trilogy, not much time was spent in Geall.

I loved this book.  In fact, I read it pretty much in one sitting.  I'm surprised at some of the negative reviews.  Glenna, Hoyt, Larkin, Moira, Cian, King and Blair...what an army!  I instantly liked them and think their characters were well conceived and presented.

Okay...so, maybe the romance was a bit on the quick side...but, it is fiction, after all...and given the types of men we're talking about here (I was thinking McSteamy)...I think we can all believe in love at first sight!

Only thing that could have made this book better, is if I'd known there was a glossary in the back...before I finished!

I have the next two books in the series tucked away in a drawer...can't decide whether or not to continue on, now, or wait a while.  Actually, I think what we have here is a 1,000 page novel...so maybe I'll end this review here...and go get "Dance of the Gods" and settle in for a long afternoon of reading...in a fantasy world!

</review>
<review>

This book has been summarized often enough that I don't think it will be necessary for me to give yet another summary.

I have to say that I am very surprised by so many negative to luke-warm reviews for this book.  I loved it!  I found the "Key" trilogy unreadable, but the first book in this series was simply fantastic!  I think that the problem that people are having is that this book blends a couple of genres, notably urban fantasy/fantasy with romance.  Therefore, this book is neither an urban fantasy nor a romance, but a story that contains elements of both.

I loved Hoyt and Glenna as characters, but really other than the "bad" guys most of the people in this book are really well drawn characters with likable characteristics.  The introduction to the world and the characters was well done without being simply an "intro" book.  A story complete in itself, this book drew me in and was impossible to put down!

I say that you should ignore the bad reviews, unless you are romance purist or a fantasy purist that expects all of the conventions of those genres to be adhered to strictly.  If you like a great story with great characters, action, and romance then read this fantastic addition to Nora Roberts' already outstanding booklist

</review>
<review>

This is book one of the Circle Trilogy

Hoyt Mac Cionaoith is a wizard that has failed to kill Lilith, a vampire queen that has turned his twin brother Cian into one of her demons.

The goddess, Morrigan appears to Hoyt, telling him this was only the beginning and that he will have to find the five others that will help him with his quest to destroy Lilith and her demons from taking over all the worlds.  She sends him to 21st century New York where he is to find the witch, the warrior, the scholar, one that shape shifts, and the one that you lost.

The team: Hoyt is reunited with his brother Cian.  Moira, the scholoar and Larkin, the shape-shifter time-travel from Geall where Lilith's band has already terrorized their land.  Glenna is the witch, who has dreamed of Hoyt.  Last to join them, is Blair, who is a demon hunter.

Along with trying to work together so that they may defeat the vampires before Samhaim, it is also Glenna and Hoyt's touching story of love.  The tale concentrates on these two characters as they both deal in the magical aspects of protecting the team.  The casting of their spells was done honorably, without ever misusing the craft.

Ms. Robert's has penned a tale of myth, magic and love all into one.  This paranormal romance will surely bewitch you.  I look forward to the next book in the series, where I am sure we will learn more about the other characters of the circle.





</review>
<review>

Nora Roberts's books are my escape, and usually a blissful one.  I love the magic, character development, strong women overcoming obstacles, and romance found in her novels.  Morrigan's Cross disappointed me.  Vampires are a little over the edge for me, but what made me close the book was the 10-year-old vampire with the protaganist.  I spend my days with children who have been abused in every way imaginable, and reading this put me in a bad mood.  King was a comic relief, but he got killed.  That was when I did something I've never done with a N.R. book - closed it, put it in the closet, and later sold it.  I'm not reading any of the others in the trilogy.  Instead, I took out the Three Sisters' trilogy and enjoyed myself.

</review>
<review>

I am a big fan of Nora Roberts.  I love the ones that she writes with a touch of magick in them, and this time she delivers in a big way -- witches, vampires, shift-shaper, time travelers, and of course, romance.

This is the first of a triology centering around Hoyt, a wizard, and his vampire brother Cian.  They are brought together by Morrigan, the pagan goddess of war.  She gives them a mission -- save the world from Lilith, a 2,000 year old vampire who just happens to be Cian's sire.  She tells Hoyt that he must gather four more to complete the circle of heroes who will travel to Geall, another world where they will do battle with Lilith and her army of vampires.  They have a very short time to train and prepare for this war which will take place on Samhain, the pagan name for the present day Halloween.

Hoyt meets his true love, Glenna, in modern day New York City.  She is a witch with tremendous power.  Together they prove to be an indomitable foe of the vamps.

Usually Roberts centers her stories around the romance, but this time, it is more about the situation that they are in.  The first book is mostly about how the group comes together and how they prepare for the mission given them.  I grew a little bored when they were training and such, and that is the only reason I gave this book a four instead of five stars.  I would have liked a little more character development for each of them.  I didn't seem to connect with Hoyt as much as I usually do with the heroes of a Roberts book.

I really liked the description of Glenna's spells, and her belief system.  She prefers the safety of a circle when casting her spells, and Roberts does a good job of describing her magick and the dangers of mis-using your powers.  Being Wiccan and a practicing witch, I am appreciative of how Roberts is careful of how she presents the craft and the old religion.

My daughter is reading the second one, and tells me that it is really good, too.  Hey, how can you go wrong with a book by Nora Roberts?


</review>
<review>

I just love Nora Roberts, but I have to say she has truly outdone herself with the latest The Circle Trilogy. They are hard to put down. Great reading

</review>
<review>

Just not my cup of tea.  Well written but as I said not my cup of tea..I will not purchase the others in the series

</review>
<review>

When I heard Nora had written another trilogy, I was excited. Normally I can't wait to finnish them. However, I have only managed to get about halfway through this book. I found it hard to from the past to the present, and vampires just aren't my thing I suppose. Knowing me, I'll leave this for a couple months, then try to read it again.
Who knows, I might end up liking the book after all

</review>
<review>

As a middle-aged gay man growing up in a California suburb, I felt isolated and alone during my formative years.  Had I seen a book like this and learned that far from being alone I was part of a rich and wonderful  cultural tradition I think it would have made a huge difference. Thanks to  the authors of this book

</review>
<review>

Lehane is a master of his genre and this offering is one of his best.  The story moves with riptide speed, and each page brings new surprises and plot twists.  Lehane is good because he goes the extra mile to spin for his readers a yarn that keeps them reading and doesn't insult their intelligence -- at least most of the time.  Bubba, for example, is a caricature and totally unbelieveable but what the heck, Lehane couldn't resolve some of the plot situations without a guy like Bubba.  A plot so rich and full could easily spin out of control but Lehane is a journeyman and keeps things focused.  That's why I like him and intend to read all his books

</review>
<review>

I really liked this book. Lehane has great character development. You feel like these people are real (Patrick, Angie, Bubba). Gotta love that Bubba!! More please Mr. Lehane

</review>
<review>

Lehane has outdone himself on this one.  Starting with a seemingly sad unconnnected event (the suicide of a client Kenzie only spoke to once, and then forgot to respond to her phone message), Kenzie begins a search for truth.  It will lead him back from the depressive edge of insanity that resulted from the events of 'Gone,Baby,Gone' and once again into the arms of Angela Gennaro (hopefully for good).

What makes these five Boston based mysteries, so amazing, isn't the tight plotting, but it is the detailed descriptions of what his characters do and think.  There are very few throw-away characters, and almost all of them are represented as real people.  The motivation, to present everyone as more than just a shell, is one of the hallmarks of Lehane's writing.

This is a well structured, and even plausible story, that builds to a climax, just when it should, but with Lehane, the ending always takes you back a step, reminding you that there are no fairytale endings.  Your never sure if anyone will live, happily or be the same after it's over.

</review>
<review>

When a former client of Patrick Kenzie kills herself mere months after he warned off her stalker, Kenzie, out of a profound sense of guilt, investigates.  After reconciling with his former partner and lover, Angie Gennaro, the two stumble upon a the truth: that the client was systematically stripped of everything in her life until she committed suicide.  The responsible party is a man who does not like to be crossed, and has now set his sights on Kenzie and Gennaro.

After the ambiguous villains of "Gone Baby Gone", Dennis Lehane returns to a more traditional type of villain for his fifth Kenzie/Gennaro book, "Prayers for Rain."  While nowhere the monstrous serial killer Lehane created in "Darkness, Take My Hand" (the second book in the series), the villain of "Prayers for Rain" is sinister, smug, brilliant, and sadistic, inflicting pain and death because he can.  Kenzie and Gennaro, in turn, want to stop him out of a sense of justice and vengeance.  The tension mounts as the detectives must struggle to protect their own loved ones and safety while finding a the key to bringing down an invisible and brilliant killer.

As with the rest of this series, Lehane explores the basic theme of power: who has it, why they want it, what they do to get it, and what they do when they have it.  At the beginning of each novel, the most powerful character is the villain.  They exercise their power violently, harming people because they can, and because their victims cannot fight back.  It falls to Kenzie and Gennaro to exact revenge, which is usually pretty gratifying, if problematic, since our society generally frowns on revenge.  Nonetheless, sometimes justice is not pretty, and it's understood that Kenzie and Gennaro are in the best position to fulfill that justice.

While "Prayers for Rain"is the last Kenzie/Gennaro book for the time being, Lehane has not written a "last" book in a series.  It would be easy for him to pick up this series if he so chose.  I hope he does, as I have enjoyed Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro's company for the past couple of years.  "Prayers for Rain" embodies much of what is great about this series and Lehane as a writer.  It's sharp, taut, intense, funny, and gripping.

</review>
<review>

Lehane strikes gold once again with this kenzie/gennaro adventure. although, the reader must have realized by now that his titles don't really have anything to do with the plot (except, gone, baby, gone, mystic river and shutter island), one can't deny the fact that Lehane is one of the very best there is

</review>
<review>

I got hooked on Lehane after Mystic River, and his thriller Shutter Island was absolutely gripping and completely mind-twisting. I had to stay up late one night to finish that, and I couldn't sleep afterwards, so I had to read a Dave Barry book to take my mind off it! I should have learned my lesson, because as soon as I got into Prayers for Rain, I couldn't get the creepiness and mystery out of my head, and I once again had to stay up late to finish the entire book.

I'm a snob who usually avoids genre fiction, and I have a sneaking suspicion this might be found in the mystery/crime genre section, but Lehane is really a league above the other mytery writers I have read. Lehane is a masterful storyteller and has a rock solid plot here. He's very talented with the psychological aspects of crime (very much so in Shutter Island...I fear my review is becoming a big ad for that book!), and I wished he had further developed some of the psychological aspects in this book.

The lesson I've learned about Lehane is that he is such a good and creepy storyteller than I'm no longer reading any of his books in bed late at night. They are only to be digested when I am lying on the beach.  If you enjoy thrillers, definitely get this book, and be prepared to be blown away by a well-crafted plot

</review>
<review>

This was by far the best Genero/Kenzie novel of the series.  I loved this book.  Everything about it.  In this one, you really got to see the emotional side of Bubba.  Made him more likeable.
The storyline kept me riveted and not wanting to put the book down.  I was happy to see Angie and Patrick back together.  The ending was very good and left you thinking the character could possibly come back in a future book.
I'm scratching my head wondering why this was the last book of the series and why Lehane hasn't published another. It's been 5 years.  I will be watching for it

</review>
<review>

The only thing I can say about Dennis Lehane is: "When's the next one going to print?" For myself, I thought 'Prayers' dialogue was a bit snappier, more colorful, than the others but that's me. One of the many things I enjoy about Lehane's writing is that he puts as much effort into the last ten pages as he did the first ten. In detective and mystery stories, that's rare indeed

</review>
<review>

Love this cookbook!! I already put post-its in all of the recipies I want to try...which is almost half the book! =) I just made the Carbanara and it was AMAZING!!! I even have leftovers so I can have lunch tomorrow! And it really only took me around 30 minutes to cook...I was skeptical, but I did it!!! And trust me, I DO NOT COOK! This is all pretty new to me and something sparked in me to start cooking, Rachel Ray was recommended and now I love her!! I think I'll be purchasing all her books because I bet they are all just as wonderful!! I highly recommend this book to everybody and anybody!! I love the layout too...I don't have to look for sides because they are already there

</review>
<review>

This is a cookbook everyone should own.  My son who is normally picking loved the recipes in the book.  Very easy to follow and have dinner ready in 30 minutes

</review>
<review>

Great book and recipies.  However, I need more simple recipes.  I should have purchased 30 Minute Meals-1.

</review>
<review>

I love her shows and so I got this book. I really love the recipes and they really are as easy to make as she says. The only think I don't like is that a lot of her ingredients are expensive. I just can't afford all the gourmet ingredients her recipes call for. That really disappoints me because I just can't make a number of her recipes.

But still a good buy

</review>
<review>

So far this book is as good as the first one. I love Rachel Ray and her receipes.  I am retired and have recently takes a part time job again and find these tips she offers to be super easy and very healthy

</review>
<review>

Just love this girl and her cooking and the book just adds to her recipes

</review>
<review>

This cookbook is just like her TV program (on the Food Network -- easy to understand and the food is very yummy!)  Or as Rachael would say: "Yummo!

</review>
<review>

My brother bought this cookbook for me 2-3 years ago for Christmas and I have yet to crack it open. You can go online to the foodnetwork website and get all her recipes for free (but why would you???) after seeing some of her more recent episodes, I am ready to toss the book in the trash without even taking a glimpse of the inside. Her recipes scare me and I wouldn't feed half of what she makes to my dog. Don't waste the money. If you think you wanna try her recipes, print them free from the web first before you go investing money in her empire.

</review>
<review>

I got this book as a gift and at first I was a little skeptical (she is sometimes a little too creative with the ingredients on her show for my liking). When I finally got around to looking through the recipes, I found myself bookmarking A LOT more recipes than I ever thought I would. There are fun recipes like fresh mozarella bites (make sure to add a pinch of salt). Then there are some classic recipes like sloppy joes, however, she adds vinegar to the recipe, which I had never heard of and after trying the recipe would never add again (I would also add a little less brown sugar than she calls for). And the cream cheese mashed potatos are delicious. All-in-all I would buy this book for myself if I hadn't received it as a gift

</review>
<review>

I love this cookbook.  I try a new recipe just about every other night, and so far I have found only one dud.  It is fresh,has lots of taste, and delicious. I also love that the book is set up as meals, so she provides the main course recipe and also recipes for sides and dessert to go with the main course. There is a "make your own takeout" section, a "healthy eating" section, a "fancy meals" section, and a section of foods that kids will eat. There may be other sections too that I dont remember. The food is generally OK for you, but I modify a bit by using low sodium broth and skimp on some items she suggests to add to the dish. Also, I am on a budget, and ingredients required are very simple... nothing too fancy or exotic/expensive! The best cookbook I ever bought! ...but beware, it takes more than 30 minutes.

</review>
<review>

It has some over the top moments but all in all a new
mother will be able to relate to a lot of it

</review>
<review>

I thought this book was well worth the read.  I Passed it on to my other mommie friends (who drink) and they thought is was good also.  There were plenty of parts that I could say "Yes! that's me" and other parts that were laugh out loud funny and shed a tear sad.  This would be a good book club book...for mommies

</review>
<review>

This is hands-down the BEST "mommy" book I have read.  Forget all the parenting magazines, forget all the girlfriend guides...anyone who has become a mommy and wonders where the wild girl she was before went MUST read this book.  I listened to the audiobook and it had me in stitches.  Thank you Brett Paesel for your brutal, raw, and much needed honesty

</review>
<review>

This is the funniest, best book I've ever read about the thoughts and emotions of new mothers.  Brett Paesel has had the courage to publish thoughts that I don't even admit I have.  Even my husband, who endured my reading it aloud to him, enjoyed it and totally relates to the scenarios Brett paints about her own husband.

I laughed and I cried.  And I recommended it to all the young women inside and outside my family who have babies

</review>
<review>

Any adult can relate to the core story: How does one resolve a decision your heart knows is right, but which threatens the rest of your being? Here, Brett knows having a husband, child, and family was the right choice, but she'd like a second opinion. What follows is a story of a woman searching for the answer she knows it out there. The answer that is, "yes. Yes. Yes!"

I also recommend the audio book version as read by the author

</review>
<review>

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It literally made me laugh out loud several times. In fact, I lost track of how many times. My husband kept asking me what was funny.

This is a memoir where parts feel a bit exaggerated, but are hilarious nonetheless. The supposed main subject: Brett (the author's) coming to grips with motherhood, struggling to hold onto her pre-baby self, and remaining her own woman with ideas and thoughts independent of motherhood. Yet a lot of it is about the bizarreness of raising a child in Hollywood: preschool auctions where face lifts and breast jobs are up for grabs, getting "points" to get into competitive magnet schools, and there is a priceless scene where she and her husband get stoned out of boredom at her in-laws' and end up raiding their children's Christmas stockings.

This is motherhood at its irreverent best.

</review>
<review>

I don't have children myself, but I have several girlfriends with children. The sweet relief I feel is knowing that the madness my friends experienced (and I viewed with worry and concern) is common and to be expected and, who knew, freakin' hilarious. I finished the book in one day. I could NOT put it down. I lauged at every turn of the page. I can't wait to read it again.

</review>
<review>

Truly affecting.  It's a book that crosses genres as I'm not a parent, but I was consistently moved and often laughed out loud.  I don't often find a book that is actually "difficult to put down", but Paesel keeps your attention with her insight and delicious wit.  It's excellent

</review>
<review>

In a field littered with shoddily written confessional memoirs, Mommies Who Drink stands out as an excellent book across the boards.  It goes without saying that it's funny and topical, but there's more to it than that.  I finished the book in one sitting.  A couple days later I picked it up and started again, paying close attention to the writing.  In addition to her deadpan hilarity and keen eye, Paesel brings tremedous skill to the page.  There's an economy of language and precision in the composition that strengthens the humor and pace, but also rivets the reader's attention when she moves seamlessly from comic narrative to poignant observation.  In fact, the realizations offered flow organically from the comedy; the one depends on the other.  I was thankful to discover that the book is completely free of cynicism and hipster attitude.  It is, instead, an open and big hearted book that is filled with sentiment, but not at all sentimental.  This funny, tender, expertly written memoir stands up to, and invites, repeat readings.  A sure sign of quality writing.

</review>
<review>

Loved this book.  Not only the wry observations of what happened but the touching, poignant love of her children.  Loved the quip about why do people think that not talking a lot when you're in small town is a virtue.  Zipped through it and laughed out loud

</review>
<review>

If you are looking for love, romance, witty banter and everything else that has made Suzanne Brockmann a hit....don't expect it from this book!!  The romance is undeveloped, sparse and stale.  The suspense is based on gore and the end is abrupt.  A great read if you're looking for nightmares.

</review>
<review>

I used to love SB novels, but the last few have been so very disappointing and "Into the Storm" is, by far, the worst.  There is no character development so we don't understand why couples who are formed in the book would be attracted to each other.  Basically, they've known each other, at best, casually through work - they sleep together - having the most amazing sex ever! and they suddenly decide they care deeply about each other.  Hmmm, that may work at 17, but the characters are in their late 20s and early 30s.  They have very responsible, professional careers and by now, should know that love is based on far more than casual sex.

The situations SB keeps coming up with are becoming more and more amateurish and bizarre.  All of these factors caused me to quickly lose interest in the book and I began skimming pages hoping that something, somewhere would grab my attention.  No such luck.

I used to love reading SB novels.  I couldn't wait for new books to be published and I'd stay up late into the night reading.  No more.  In fact, I think I'm done with Brockmann.  Granted, I never read SB for the suspense.  I loved the character development, the character interaction and the adventure that made sense to the story.  If I want suspense, which appears to be where SB would rather go these days, I'd much rather spend my time and money reading Tess Gerritsen or Karin Slaughter.  They do suspense so much better

</review>
<review>

I have previously enjoyed all of Suzanne Brockmann's books but this one is a departure from her usual interesting fiction. I have struggled to finish it but it is so tedious with stupid situations and circumstances, I really hate it. What a yawner and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone unless they like to be bored and frustrated

</review>
<review>

Excellent storey. Suzanne Brockmann stays true to the contiuation of the navy seals. Haven't read a book yet by her I haven't enjoyed

</review>
<review>

Ms. Brockmann is absolutely one of my top 3 authors. This book delivers another great combination of story lines and characters. The current and former members of Seal Team 16 are revisited and in fact pitted against each other. This book focuses on Mark Jenkins, who has only been peripherally involved in some of the other books in this series. Also, there is a new installment on the relationship between Sophia Ghafari and Lawrence Decker who were the focus of a previous book.

</review>
<review>

the pace was a little slow to beginn but picked up.i couldn't put the book down once it picked up and read it in 1 day.seems everybody got wet at some point and time and the banter was out loud funny and shocking.but when will we stop the short stories and get another book on Sam and Alyssa thats what I hungery for.To pass the time  this will do, pull out the past books on troubleshooters inc to keep up with whos whos

</review>
<review>

Suzanne Brockmann Never disappoints.  Her story lines are always original and her romance always steamy.   Brockmann has built a family of characters her readers have learned to care about. It just keeps bringing me back again and again to find out whose book will be next.

</review>
<review>

This was a great book. It has page turning suspense and some comedy. This is one of the best books I've read in a while. I really enjoyed Lindsey "Linds" and Mark "Jenks" but Izzy definitely added fun to the book

</review>
<review>

Read this book you'll know the reasons why people succeeded in the 20th, 19th, 18th century, and will keep on doing so in the 21st century: Their people skills, not technology

</review>
<review>

Although the title does not quite do the book justice, this book more relevant for today's business world than any in the past five years. "Networking" has taken on a negative connotation in the recent past, but Ferrazzi shows how sincerity is the most important aspect of bringing people into your own network.

</review>
<review>

I do a lot of networking around town.  It is often that I will meet people and share coffee with someone and then I will not continue to keep in touch with them.  In the book Never Eat Alone Keith Ferrazzi writes about how to keep in touch with the people you know.  He has creative ideas about working your circles, having productive social gatherings, networking properly and always seek out to meet someone new

</review>
<review>

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to these CD's.  They are full of good information and practical suggestions.  My husband and I both enjoyed them and are now hosting our own dinner parties

</review>
<review>

Overall this was a really good book.  Like any business book, you need to apply what you read, rather than just read it for the advice to work, and everything in this book will work.  The only reason for this not receiving 5 stars was the name dropping began to get a little old, at least for me.  I understand that it drives the point home about what someone who came from humble beginnings can accomplish through networking, but not everyone wants to hear every famous person the author is friends with.  And Ariana Huffington is the last person I would be bragging I had over for dinner

</review>
<review>

I'll be honest, even though I chose this book myself I was very skeptical when I first approached it - there is something in the title that challenged my status quo. I am introvert and our society tends to value extraverted nature; I was afraid that this book would repeat this extraversion mantra all over again, and I couldn't have been more wrong, what I found was volumes of invaluable advice!

Keith Ferrazzi is most definitely an extrovert of the most extreme kind, but his philosophy is invaluable to both camps - he argues for building relationships, not contacts. It is not a quid pro quo process, nor a one way street, it's going out of your way to expand your own horizons and to appreciate other people - relationships are about what you give. Charm, as he points out, is simply being yourself. You need to have a dream, you need to be audacious at times, you need to add value to everything you do, you do need to position yourself and have a unique point of view. In the end, what else could we wish for if not having a job we love with people who know us for who we really are - if that is what networking is all about, then count me in!

Not even two weeks after I've read this book, I found myself applying these principles in my own life, and guess what, it works! It's a great book, I think everyone will take a different lesson from it, and I would give it six stars if I could.

</review>
<review>

Out of work? Stuck in a job you do not like? Stuck in a life you do not like? Then run out and get Keith Ferrazzi's superb "Never Eat Alone." Ferrazzi provides practical "how tos" on expanding one's thinking and, subsequently, one's life, through networking.

I have spent countless hours working with professionals and executives in-transition. Many know how to write a resume, call search firms, and prepare for interviews but few know how to network. And networking is THE KEY to finding a fulfilling job and life.
With Ferrazzi's book, I now have a resource to recommend.

"Never Eat Alone" is organized into four sections: The Mind Set; The Skill Set; Turning Connections into Compatriots; and Trading Up and Giving Back. Each section is packed with good, proven, common sense advice. People who have succeeded in their careers and life will, if they read this book, endorse what Ferrazzi recommends. It is at the core of success in life.

Networking is not a one-shot endeavor, something you do when you are need. Rather it is a way of life, and is based on doing something for others WITHOUT the expectation of getting something in return. Ferrazzi shows us how going the extra mile for others leads to unexpected rewards.

</review>
<review>

Mr. Ferrazzi ignores the distinct advantage that he has had throughout his career: he is an Ivy-league grad.  While I found some of his insights to be helpful, he glosses over his educational background as though he presumes that all of his readers come from privileged upbringings.  While he attempts to diffuse his obvious advantages by opening with a discussion of his working-class roots, Mr. Ferrazzi loses steam on the very next page, writing about all of the the great schools he attended and the fact that he caddied at a country club. Caddying at a country club is not a degrading, confidence-busting job for a kid, working as a cashier at CVS is.  How does the CVS kid network his way out?

In one point in the book, Mr. Ferrazzi creates a lot of build up about an event he attended and how much anxiety he felt.  The big denouement was that he had a connection through Yale.  This is not compelling.  I was expecting him to have had to actually overcome something.

There are some good insights in the book, but few that I hadn't heard before.  I'm not sure that this book has shed any light on anything aside from the advantages of belonging to ivy-league networks

</review>
<review>

I feel obliged to share my review of this book.  I got hold of it by chance and what luck! Like a lot of people I know the value of building relationships, because most of the best business I've had have been from by circle of contacts.  However, I cringe at the concept of "networking" and fail miserably at trying to leverage my network.  This book however got me to understand the DIFFERENCE between networking and relationship building.  I won't spoil it for you, but once you read the book and understand the difference you will immediately change you view of building relationships that unimaginably augment your financial, professional, social and philantropic efforts.

Do yourself a favour and buy this book!

</review>
<review>

Book #24 in the In Death Series.
In this book we have the death of Dr. Icove.  Eve suspects a professional due to the efficient way he was killed.  Security disks show his last appointment of the day a beautiful woman entering and leaving his office.  As Eve thinks his record is too clean she suspect his son another Dr., knows more than he is saying... But then he ends up dead in the same precise manner.  This is a tale of Doctors playing God. Eve butts heads with Mira in this book and it is a little annoying.  But other than that this book is excellent and the plot so different

</review>
<review>

This has to be the best Eve Dallas book to date!!!!  Ms. Robb not only gets 5 stars for creativity, but for scientific accuracy.  What could have been a completely far fetched story was made chillingly believable by Ms. Robb's skill.  I also appreciated her ability to explain complex medical and scientific information in a way that was easy to understand.  A must read

</review>
<review>

Good Eve Dallas vehicle with added futuristic sci-fi elements.  Characters remain strong and forceful yet vulnerable and "human"

</review>
<review>

While Eve Dallas and her partner Peabody are interviewing a witness at the Wilfred B. Icove Center for Reconstructive and Cosmetic Surgery, the body of Dr. Wilfred B. Icove, Sr. is discovered. Due to the way Icove was murdered, Eve suspects a professional hit by the last person to come in contact with Dr. Icove, a mysterious young woman. As Eve investigates, she begins to suspect that there is something off about Dr. Icove's practice, and when his son is found murdered in the same manner as the father, Eve delves deeper into the doctors' pasts. What she discovers not only sickens but shocks Eve, who, with the help of her husband, Roarke, intends to put a stop to a secretive illegal, immoral, and unethical scientific experiment that involves cloning.

J.D. Robb aka Nora Roberts has written an engaging thriller here about a subject that is presently being debated among the scientific community and which, due to DNA advancements, may very well come to pass. Eve's edgy manner of dealing with people, balanced by Roarke's understanding and love and Peabody's perky demeanor, continue to bring freshness to a well-grounded series.



</review>
<review>

J.D. Robb's futuristic series starring Eve Dallas, edgy investigator, gets better with each outing. This one brings back all my favorite characters - foremost Peabody - with a riveting mystery involving DNA and cloning and all things related that linger on the horizon. I absorbed every page and, as always, eagerly await the next one

</review>
<review>

Origin in Death
J. D. Robb/Nora Roberts
G.P. Putnam's Sons
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, NY, 10014, USA
ISBN: 039915289X, $24.95, 339 pp, 2005

In July 1995 J.D. Robb, aka Nora Roberts, published her first "in death" book, Naked in Death. Since then she has written twenty-two novels and two novellas in this continuing series about Lieutenant Eve Dallas, a futuristic NYPD homicide detective; Roarke, her gorgeous, wealthy husband, and Eve's crime-fighting team. These novels are quintessential police procedural mysteries, with a twist of humor, pyschodrama, sex and sensitivity.

Prior to reading this entire series, I had a fear of reading books about the terrible things people do to each other, how we use our wonderful imagination to create pain and terror. I actually used this series to confront my fears and to get past them, for within this series you will find every possible, imaginable form of evil.

Each novel certainly can stand alone; however, I read the series in chronological order, which I highly recommend for maximum enjoyment. You will quickly grow to know and love all her characters-Peabody, her partner; McNab, Peabody's tall, skinny loveman; Mavis, her radically-clad, extroverted, singer friend; Summerset, Roarke's majordomo and thorn in Eve's side-to name a few.

After reading this series, I can now read anything gruesome or frightening-stalking, dismemberment, blood everywhere, revenge, torture, whatever-and find it prosaic compared to these novels. Now, back to Origin In Death.

It is year 2059 in New York City and someone has murdered reconstructive and cosmetic surgeon, Dr. Wilfred Icove. The victim was found in his office with one clean stab wound to his heart and no evidence of a struggle. The case turns bizarre when Wilfred's son dies in the same manner. In both cases they seem to have trusted their killer. Eve's instincts tell her that the father and son had a hidden dark secret and that the motive for the murders . . . had its origin in death.

J.D. Robb/Nora Roberts's writing is consistently excellent. She is a consummate artist in any genre-romance, mystery, thrillers, fantasy, science fiction-you name it, she can write it. Since her first book, Irish Thoroughbred, published in 1981, she has written over 300 novels. You won't be disappointed.

Reviewer: Kaye Trout - March 16, 2006 - Copyright


</review>
<review>

I have read and been a fan of J.D. Robb since I first opened one of her books. Several I have "read" as audiobooks and this one was as geat an experience as the others. The reading of the book was well done and the "voices" excellent. Really adds to your listening enjoyment. One of my favorite ways to take a car trip now is with a Robb audiobook.




</review>
<review>

As always, J.D. Robb aka Nora Roberts gives a solid performance in Origin in Death.  The only negative thoughts I have on the book are that many of the events are clearly over the top with multiple clones and underground explosions.  Usually the In Death books reflect the gritty reality of 2059.  Origin in Death was much more Star Trek than Star Wars (the early years).  Otherwise, a solid writing effort from Roberts

</review>
<review>

Lt. Eve Dallas is catching killers once again in this installment of the In Death series.
The story is great, with two identical murders of father and son body sculpters. It's up to Lt. Dallas - along with her amusing cop sidekicks and, of course, her hot husband, Roark, to find out whodunit. The book starts off great, but toward the end, begins to drag with so many details about cloning, illegal experiements and politics. The ending is a bit over-the-top (not giving away any details, kids) and so unrealistic that it took me a while to get through it - an unusual occurance for me. Still, this is a well-written read and certainly worth a turn of page

</review>
<review>

Most serious fans can roll off satistics about their favorite player but few realize that the numbers they cite have little to do with wins and losses. Baseball is a team sport that captures the American Spirit in ways that no other sport has been able to comprehend. Even a solid home run hitter may contribute less to putting his team in the win column than the player who can tease a base hit out of any pitcher and is able to steal his way home game after game. Likewise, a team that makes a lot of errors can still come out ahead in the win/loss talley. In Moneyball, Michael Lewis takes the reader beyond the strike zone to observe a side of baseball that few fans have noticed about this unique game. Like real life, this game is really won or lost by contributions that are not displayed on the scoreboard or written about on the Sports Page. Every member of the team contributes in ways that can only be seen by collection and analysis of statstistics. There is the so-so pitcher who can tease a base hit in every game, or the injured outfieldler who can play third base with an uncanny sense of where the ball is going to track. Lewis blends good story telling with evidence from the actual business case of the LA Angles to make this a book that avid baseball fans and hard-nosed business managers can profit from and enjoy.


</review>
<review>

This is a perfect example of edutainment at its best.  Terrfic fun while simultaneously teaching you a great deal about the key factors that determine a teams win rate.  Aside from the style and the analysis this book also does something even more valuable: It highlights a management approach that is truly based on merit, as opposed to how "pretty" an athelete is or how much charisma they have.  For people who believe that the USA is as close as any country to being a meritocracy - this book is a shining example of just that.  I am truly astonished and dismayed by the negative reviews I have read.  I can't wait for Lewis to write his next book.

</review>
<review>

Money Ball was a great book. It shows that you don't need money to win in baseball(take that Yankees ;-P) Michael Lewis reavels that the team with the 2nd lowest payroll, the Oakland Athletics, can have so much dominance and success in a game where the best baseball players usually end up with the richest team. Lewis also tells the story of Billy Beane the GM of the Athletics. Billy's bad attitude and foul temper prevented him from making in the MLB. He exerts his attitude as a force over the so-called "experts" when a desicion must be made. Billy constanly goes against what the scouts think a drafts players that nobody has heard of. He shows that there are many aspects of the game that we don't know. All in all, this was an excellant book. My only complaint was that there was a lot of swearing.--- Jesse Hartman

</review>
<review>

If you are a fan, this is a great read.  If you are not a fan, but just interested in the game, it is still a great read.  What I find most amusing are the baseball "experts" who poo-poo Billy Bean's approach to fielding and running a baseball team.  "The proof of the pudding is in the eatin'" and the cognocenti appear to dislike the taste.  The Oakland A's have been one of the stellar teams, yet, it appears that success is not what is important.  What is important is success based on the recipe that the "experts" write

</review>
<review>

How is it that the Oakland A's have won the AL West in 2000, 2002, 2003 (and are all but assured of winning this year, 2006), as well as the wild card in 2001, even though they are in the bottom third of all major league baseball teams in total payroll?  That is the narrative that Michael Lewis uses to tell the story of his book Moneyball.  One of the central tenets of Moneyball is that there are objective statistics that although often ignored and undervalued, can, with some specificity, predict certain players' performances in certain areas.  It is, however, only half the story, and as your rotisserie league friends will no doubt tell you, old news.  The real story that Moneyball drives home is the challenge in getting people who actually make the decisions about the baseball teams to listen up.  Lewis repeatedly describes how the Old Boys Club of major league owners (who Lewis affectionately refers to as The Women's Auxiliary), players, and journalists (former Cincinnati Red and current ESPN commentator Joe Morgan is appropriately skewered) reject this statistical approach that has sometimes been referred to as sabermetrics and the teachings of sabermetricians like Billy Beane (the book's main protagonist and current A's GM), Bill James, Dick Cramer, and others.  And on the Old Boys Club the point is lost: that objective statistics have the potential to give small-market teams who cannot afford to compete financially with larger market teams for key players, the best chance of winning.  When people point to the fact that the A's have not won the World Series since 1989 in spite their almost unparalleled success over the past eight years (roughly since 1999) is when Moneyball makes its point.

</review>
<review>

I'm not a baseball fan.  Hockey is the game of my heart.  Baseball?  No way.  But, I loved this book.  The only other baseball book that I've ever read that comes close to this high-water mark is Ball Four by Jim Bouton.  Funny and interesting in its own right.  A real joy to read.

Great characters and insight to management.  A wonderful story about tearing down a culture from the inside.  And who can argue with the Oakland A's success?  Here it is September 2006 and they're once again leading their division, 5 games up on the Angels ... and this is the inside track on how they've done it with one of the worst payrolls in baseball.




</review>
<review>

When I was growing up I devoured any book written about baseball.  As I've gotten older, my passion for the game has waned.  Though still a fan, I'd not read a baseball book in several years until I finally got around to reading this one.

Reading Moneyball four years after the events occured sheds new light on things.  The first portion of the book focuses on the personality and playing history of general manager Billy Beane and then has an inside look at the 2002 amateur draft, where many of Beane's philosophies are put into action.  Beane is ecstatic when Scott Kazmir and Prince Fielder are selected by other teams thus allowing him to get the player he covets, Nick Swisher.  Swisher has panned out nicely for the A's.  Jeremy Brown, the other draftee Lewis focuses on, has not had the success anticipated (he had his first big league at bat just last night).

The rest of the book has some interesting moments as well.  There is a lengthy discussion of sabrmetrics and the role Bill James and others have played in shaping the A's philosophy.  Also, a couple of really interesting profiles of Scott Hatteberg and Chad Bradford which shed some light on the strange paths some people take on their way to major league baseball.

Lewis focuses a lot of attention on Paul DePodesta, the assistant GM for the A's.  In fact, without saying so directly, I get the impression that Lewis feels he's at least equally responsible for the A's successes.  DePodesta has since gone on to an unsuccessful sting with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Reading the book a few years after the fact gives some perspective on some of the mistakes that Beane and the A's have made with some player decisions, but despite those mistakes, the bottom line is that the franchise has continued to excel despite being dramatically outspent and despite the fact that the rest of baseball has been "clued in" to the A's thinking.

As an aside...I find it interesting that all of the attention has been paid to Beane and the A's.  This is well deserved, for sure, but lost in all of this is the fact that the Minnesota Twins have been equally frugal and nearly equally successful.  How have THEY done it?  It might make for an interesting book itself.

Any true baseball fan, even a somewhat lapsed baseball fan such as myself, should do him/herself a favor and pick up this book.  It may even rekindle some interest in the game we grew up loving..

</review>
<review>

Field of Stats

Although the steroid scandal may have eventually accomplished the same thing, "Moneyball" destroys any persistent romance surrounding professional baseball. It's an antidote to all those paeans glorifying the love of the game: "The Natural," "Field of Dreams," even the raunchy lens of "Bull Durham."  Players don't rise and fall due to the nobility of their character, the sheer beauty of their swing, the sage advice of a wizened baseball scout, or even their batting average, per se.  What Moneyball does is show how the Oakland A's, and a few emulators, dismissed all this lore and culture in favor of multiple regressions and other advanced statistical tools. It's a fascinating book that could have been a dry one--full of detailed statistics and equations--except that Lewis cleverly balances the mathematical perspective with the same character studies that have graced sports biographies for years.

The book centers around former big league prospect Billy Beane, a man with great athletic ability who didn't make it in the bigs, partly because of his perfectionism and resulting temper.  Years later, Beane is the general manager of the Oakland Athletics, a team with stingy owners who'd rather save some bucks than buy a pennant (see "Yankees, The"). Faced with a shoestring budget, and enamored with the new baseball analysis cultivated by Bill James in his "Baseball Digest" system, Beane and his advisors invest in players as if they're brokers on Wall Street. James and other highly-educated baseball fanatics (often from Harvard, often lawyers or scientists with a mathematical bent) discover that the old wisdom wasn't all that smart:  Their analyses yield cold, objective facts, and suddenly, as in the old "Firesign Theater" skit, "Everything You Know Is Wrong."  It's not batting average and RBIs that are most important, it's on-base and slugging percentage that predict the one thing, the only outcome that matters--who wins.  Throw out fielding statistics--these are too dependent on luck and the kind of pitches served up. Furthermore, invest in bargains: Overlooked players who get to first through walks rather than singles (the phrase, "a walk is good as a hit," was never so true as it is here), guys who aren't great all-around players but who fill complete missing elements in your roster (sort of like diversifying your portfolio, Beane and others take their cue from a market mechanism known as "derivatives"), and those who otherwise don't fit into other GMs' and scouts atheoretical notion of what makes a great player.

The results are convincing. With one of the least expensive teams in baseball, the A's repeatedly make the playoffs.  Beane acquires college players and castoffs from other teams like a man who collects trashy art, and XXX shows how his "I must be insane to offer you these bargains" style of purchasing ball players pays off, mostly through chapters devoted to one particular exemplar of Beane's philosophy.

There are a few problems with the book, as there are a few problems with the stats-driven approach to building your team.  The most egregious of these is Lewis' concentration on the successes predicted by statistics.  For a book driven by science, Lewis ignores the other 3 cells of the implicit 2x2 table of success/failure by "uses Beane method"/"doesn't use method."  The most significant is the failure/Beane method cell; Lewis just doesn't write about those players who didn't pan out as mathematically predicted.  The only examination of failure is Beane's rather clinical excuse for never advancing very far in the playoffs--in a short series (I.e., when N is small), luck (i.e., the statistical error) tends to become more powerful and empirical "truths" suffer as a result.  The fans suffer too, but their enjoyment of the game is always secondary to winning. Therefore, Athletics almost never steal bases (the percentages dictate no), and managerial and player judgment is minimized in favor of the all mighty victory.  You have to admit it works, but when Beane shrugs off the post-season failure question almost with a "that's not my job," you have to wonder whether "Moneyball" is enough.  Maybe it's just the best oine can do on a budget. (On the other hand, XXX Lewis to mention--even in his most recently written epilogue--that Beane's right hand man Paul DePodesta was fired after 2 seasons with the well-financed Dodgers.(A 71-91, 4th place finish in 2005 didn't help DePodesta.) Along with this bias towards success stories, XXX reveals a few bad writing habits.  He'll sometimes describe something with  sentences repeatedly beginning with the word "that."  As in: "That the book doesn't look enough at failures. That the book was a best seller.  That the book was reportedly misunderstood by many when published."  Lewis also lapses into a high-falutin' prose style, somewhat emulating "King James"--Bill James of the pioneering Baseball Digest school of analysis.

Still, "Moneyball" deserves its reputation and its sales. Beane's number-crunching, myth-busting approach isn't always pretty, but it makes sense and meets the bottom line of both winning and preserving capital. An excellent and accessible book that has it both ways, an argument for using "cold" higher math in sports, and a spirited study of the ballplayers who add value to the original purchase, and the GMs who know what it takes to buy low and sell high.

</review>
<review>

Lewis has written a fascinating study of the bean counter approach ,used by Billy Beane and the Oakland Athletics to construct a team of moderately priced players chosen on the basis of ,primarily, on base percentage for everyday players and the number of groundball outs and strikeouts for selecting pitchers.
This approach generated a number of divisional championships for Oakland in the weakest American League division,but no pennants and world championships.There are omitted variables and misspecification  problems in the sabermetrics(statistics) approach of Bill James used by Beane.First,James's system totally ignores the number of batter strikeouts.All outs are not equal.Hitting flyouts and groundball outs will many times advance the baserunner if any previous batters got on base.Hitting the ball also allows the baserunner to get on on an error.Strikeouts are thus the worst type of out.This omitted variables problem can be dealt with by simply deducting 1  to 1.25 points from the on base percentage for every strikeout over,say,100 for a regular,everyday player who gets 600 official at bats over the course of the season.The second problem is that the James system does not differentiate between walks due to the hitting skill of the batter and walks used by the pitcher to set up forceplays and double plays,especially if he is a pitcher who gets a lot of ground ball outs.Another category is needed-walks that are not followed by forceouts or double play groundouts and/or walks where the runner is able to steal second base.These walks are different from the walks given to a 40 homer player who strikes out 150+ times a year and hits .250 but has a .375 OBP.
James's system needs to be adjusted to take into account these two factors

</review>
<review>

This book was my introduction to sabermetrics, and proved to be quite a thrilling introduction. The application of truly smart statistical work the game of baseball in Billy Beane and the Oakland A's had me hooked from page one. Great material.

It did seem to drag on a little, however. The first half of the book was thrilling. The end started to feel like more of the same old same old. But it's still worth finishing

</review>
<review>

I have read all of the books in this series of Precious and her adventures in the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency. The first book was not what I expected at all.  I am an avid detective and mystery novel reader.
I found the first book in the series was slow at first with lots of background on Botswana, but after I finished the book I found that I truly enjoyed it.  I gave it to  my 80 year old mother and she too liked the book very much! She still asks me if there is anew one in the series; that is a good sign.

I have read each novel, in order, although that is not necessary as they each stand alone.  I have come to love Precious and her family and employee.  The books are well written, interesting and really they are more about life in a country I have never visited and a life I know nothing about.  I enjoy looking into Precious' life.  Many thanks to the Scottish professor and his series of No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

</review>
<review>

I really enjoy the authors insights into the minds of the characters.  The whole series is delightful and easy reading.  I hope there is another book in the works

</review>
<review>

The No. 1 Ladies's Detective Agency are always uplifting books in their praise of the simple life lived by its characters in Botswana. In thisnovel, again there are a couple of mysteries that are cleverly presented and solved with the focus on the human beings behind the stories and their feelings. The cases are what you would expect in real life as items that would need solving, but the presentation is what makes this series of books a joy to read.

</review>
<review>

If you have never read one of the #1 Ladies Detective Agency books, I highly encourage you to read them in order before you get to this one.  They are all outstanding, and introduce a variety of interesting characters who are all well known by the time this book starts.

This book starts with a new character, Aunty Emang, the African version of Dear Abby.  Precious Ramotswe takes an instant dislike to Aunty Emang due to the curt advice she dishes out.  A variety of interesting side stories develop, but you know Aunty Emang will come back before the end of the book.  And it is a humdinger of a conclusion.  Enjoy it with a cup of bush tea.

I don't know why Mr McCall-Smith cannot bring the same charm he draws out of Africa to his other series... but anyway, you gotta cherish the #1 Ladies Detective Agency and hopefully we will get many more books in the series

</review>
<review>

For years I was mystified by the popularity of "Seinfeld," the comedy about nothing.  Nothing of any substance ever happened, and the protagonists were a bunch of shallow jerks.  The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series adopts the "Seinfeld" motif, but here we have a "Seinfeld" of a superior sort.  Nothing much happens in the stories, but the protagonists are a group of admirable characters.  Seinfeld  and  Co. worked through mundane situations with the "hurrah for me, the heck with you" attitude that scars so much of postmodern secular society.  In contrast Mma Ramotswe and her cadre of of friends confront the mundane with humble dignity and depth of character.  If you, the reader, can come away from the stories without feeling a deep affection and respect for Mma Ramotswe's circle of friends, you are hard-hearted indeed.  The success of the series can be attributed to the effectiveness with which Alexander McCall Smith mines the same comedic vein so well done in the Rumpole stories--large repertorie cast, engaging (but flawed) protagonists, dead-on observations of the human condition, and all leavened with good humor and good will.

In this latest installment, Mma Ramotswe again confronts situations which are at once slap-your-knee funny, scratch-your-head thought provoking, and dab-your-eye compelling, and she handles them with skill and savy.  Smith even works in a send-up of Sherlock Holmes' deductive methods, as Mma Ramotswe attempts to apply them with mixed results.

</review>
<review>

The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency series are each a jewel in their own right and this most recent addition is no different. What lies within the pages of this book is the opportunity to be transported to the main character's simple, wisdom, and curiosity filled life in Botswana. Be ready to be transported on a great mini vacation when you read this book

</review>
<review>

One of the best things about Alexander McCall Smith's entertaining No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series is that these aren't really traditional detective stories at all.  One must read between the lines to see that the amusing tales delve far deeper than solving simple mysteries and crimes. Each book provides an enchanting glimpse into the life and times of Botswana and the series really serves as a clever study of human nature.  The loveable and heavyset chief detective Mma Ramotswe is clearly large and in charge, as her unique agency helps its clients and the stories' readers themselves discover many "things they already know." This charming series is excellent light reading and especially great for planes. Take the whole series with you to make a transatlantic flight go by in the blink of an eye!

</review>
<review>

Mulholland's text is a very readable and approachable primer about using scripture for spiritual formation.  One of the things I especially appreciated was his definition of spiritual formation that formed the foundation for his text.  He refutes those who want to use scripture or any 'technique' to become more spiritual for their own sakes.  Mulholland points the reader to a focus outside of themselves.  He maintains that spiritual transformation must be for the sake of others and not ourselves

</review>
<review>

I came to this book with the advantage of having sat under Dr. Mulholland in 4-5 courses including 2 on Biblical exegesis.  The title of this book  and quot;Shaped by the Word and quot;, is 100% representative of his view of scripture.  Mulholland very effectively teaches us that we should approach the scriptures with our hearts and our minds full expecting to be shaped by the work of God through His Word.  Mulholland effectively communicates to us that when we always lead our study of scripture with reason our hearts will not be formed as God intends

</review>
<review>

Mulholland's insistance that we are capable of letting go of what we know in order to freshly approace the scriptures with the intent of allowing ourselves to be shaped by God's Word is the premise of this excellent book.   I lend it to friends, but make certain I retrieve it.  The author  describes the path he has personally trod in his attempt to realize his  full God given potential.  Examples illustrate his struggle to distinguish  the critical difference between the accustomed reading of scripture for  information, and the life changing willingness to read for personal  spiritual formation.  I am grateful for having discovered this fine author,  and recommend this book to anyone interested in signposts to guide their  spiritual journey

</review>
<review>

Bought it because the author had compiled the book on Buffett's annual reports. Got really bored with this book however. It is written too acadamic style and mostly a reiteration of Graham/Buffet. You will be much happy if you read Intelligent Investor  and  Buffets Essay book.
This book is just an attempt to make money by invoking the names of investment masters in its title. I got my lesson - Only buy books written by the investment gurus who write it from their hands-on experience

</review>
<review>

I believe that this book might be interesting for someone who is unfamiliar with value investing, but I must warn the more experienced reader that not much of new ideas are to found in this book. What surprises me most of all is that the author devotes the first half of his book to  convincing people that marekts are inefficient. But what guy believing in efficient markets would ever consider buying a book on investing in the first place ? Right: anyone interested in this book can skip the first half. The second half is rather superficial and brings nothing new on the table for people familiar with value investing. My advice: avoid this book and buy instead 'The essays of Warren Buffet' of the same author. The latter is really a must-read for anyone serious about investing

</review>
<review>

I am an 18 year old high school student who read this book for my economics class.  I have recently opened an online investing account and have been working hard to learn all I can about the market and how to excel in it. I really feel that this was a great book for me since it covered everything about investing.  If you are just getting into the market like me, I definitely suggest that you read this wonderful book since it really does give you that extra knowledge about the stock market that others dream to have.  If you already know a ton about the market and investing, all I can tell you is that there must be something in this book that you will learn.  Basically, here's my overall view. Read the book if you want to be different from all the other investors who think they know everything there is to know about the market.  I also believe that this is a great investment of your money and time, since it is sure to help you in your future investments

</review>
<review>

This book is really disappointing, because it has very little to do with the title of the book. It is a total waste of money. After reading this book, you will hardly thing like Graham and invest like Buffett. No chance! Read the first two books from Hagstrom and Buffetts letters to the shareholders. Dont by this one. Terrible

</review>
<review>

I learned more from this book than all my history classes. It compresses the history of humans from the beginning telling facts using diagrams and maps. It tells us how the human world evolved from nothing to what it is today

</review>
<review>

National Geographic Almanac of World History is a wonderful resource. The Chronological Chapters, Maps, Time-lines and Introductory Threads are easy to use. A very nice addition to add to your library

</review>
<review>

As a reader I like to have quick reference books at my finger tips including a new version of the Oxford English Dictionary about 3500 pages long - that I use almost daily. So I decided to add a "history atlas". In the process of doing my research I read the other amazon.com reviewers and then made three trips to two large book stores to actually look at the books and get a better feel for which was the best. I ended up buying the Oxford Atlas of World History. Here are my picks and rankings.

Listed by My ranking, #1 is the best, #2 is a creative alternative but no substitute.

1. Atlas of World History, Oxford University Press 2002, 368 pages, (...), 13.5" x 10.3" x 1.62" ranked 46,632 on Amazon.com. Hands down winner - professional - good text descriptions, outstanding maps and drawings, covers most things from the cave man forward. Negatives: Big and heavy. If you want to save a few dollars buy the "concise" version.

2. Creative alternative: The Penguin Atlas of World History, Penguin Books 2004, (...), just a paperback sized, just published, 304 pages. Surprisingly impressive, lots of text and pictures mixed together and it is easy to carry around. A nice quick alternative but it will be printed in two volumes.

3. Timelines of World History, DK Publishing 2002, 666 pages, (...). 10.0" x 1.6" ranked 25,800 on Amazon.com. Second with lots of value but in some ways not as comprehensive.

4. National Geographic Almanac of World History, National Geographic 2003, 384 pages, (...), 9.6" x 7.8" x 1.17" ranked 24,426 on Amazon.com. Similar to but less impressive than Oxford books. More text, narrower coverage, fewer maps and drawings.

5. DK Atlas of World History, DK Publishing, 352 pages,(...), 10.96" x 14.66" x 1.28" ranked 10,716 on Amazon.com. My last place book seems like a giant comic book. I love the DK travel books but this seems like one step beyond DK's area of expertise. Superficially it is similar to the Oxford book and it is cheap, and some might like it but it tries to be politically correct and fails.

6. Oxford Dictionary of World History, Oxford University Press, 704 pages, (...), pocketbook sized, sales rank 330,000. Mainly terms, people, and dates but has a few maps also. Limited use but an alternative. I prefer the new Penguin book but this is the best history dictionary to buy

</review>
<review>

Excellent work by Patricia Daniels and Stephen Hyslop for National Geographic.
A great volume to have in your hom

</review>
<review>

This is a great read for anyone involved in any way with aviation; from the pilots to feds, to managers and engineers.  The Boeing Company's history is covered in a way that gives a broad view of nearly the entire  history of Aviation

</review>
<review>

The One Percent Doctrine by Ron Suskind, Published by Simon and Schuster, 2006, 367 pages, is a great piece of investigative reporting.  It goes in depth into the inside world of U.S. politics and policies.  Before the table of contents Suskind chose to put a quote from Thomas Jefferson, "Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government."  This quote serves as a good tone for the book.  The One Percent Doctrine is not a "Bush" bashing book or something written for shock value, rather a book of information to help the American public.  By keeping others informed through investigative reporting Suskind is continuing one of Americas greatest constitutional rights on a time when personal freedoms are being questioned every day.
Suskind has had a long career in investigative reporting fifteen years ago and since the Bush administration took office has focused on reporting on the White House.  In 1993  he began working for the Wall Street Journal until 2000 when he was then the senior national affairs reporter. While working there he won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing as well as became a New York Times best selling author.
The title of this book comes from a theory that Dick Cheney created.  The doctrine states that if there is just a one percent chance of something happening, regarding the "war on terror," the United States is to act as if it was a certainty.  Cheney himself said that "the war on terror" was not about the "analysis," rather the United States "response" however, this is one of the biggest flaws in policy that the book points out.  The book begins on the day after the attacks on September 11th and takes you through the inner workings of the American political system for the next three years.  It talks about the response to the attacks regarding Al Queda, Afghanistan, and ultimately the war in Iraq.  Suskind divulges intimate knowledge of who knew what regarding the false information given the American public about Iraq.  A lot of this information has become more public knowledge but at the time the book was published, in early 2006, but the book goes into great detail that few others have.
The New York Times called the book, "An invaluable contribution both to the historical record and to the fierce public debate over the nature of the Bush administration's true views and motivations on issues of war and peace."  As a historical record it is important for Americans now and generations after  to know the truth and as far as the Bush administration's true views, the cold hard facts presented are hard to argue with.  Knowing what our lawmakers and elected officials are doing allows us to hold them accountable for their actions and is part of the process that has been in place since America was a country.  We need this kind of reporting to inform the public what is really going on so we can do our job as Unites States citizens.
One of the most reveling things about this book is that it put the pieces together and shows that if congress or the American people knew everything that was going on behind the scenes, America would never have gone to war with Iraq.  Congress can not do its job if it is not presented with all of the information needed to make an informed decision.  Now it is one of the biggest political issues that has been putting politicians in an election year on the hot seat.  Many senators and congress people who originally were for the war in Iraq have been pulling their support for years, especially when it was reveled that most of the intelligence the Bush administration gave as reasons to go to war were misleading, false, and much of it made up.   Although the Bush administration has been quick to point to other reasons for the diminishing support for the war, using catch phrases like "flip-flopper," is simply not the case.  This is a word that has been far over used and it is important for Americans to note the difference between the flip-flopping of politicans and the need to change their opinions as more information surfaces regarding the intelligence in support of the war.  This is how congress does its job and it is better to have someone in office that can admit they were wrong and fix the situation instead of not doing anything and "staying the course."
Free speech and press are some of our most important rights and are a key factors in separating our democracy from a dictatorship.  Along with freedom of speech and press the Constitution provides a system of checks and balances to assure there is no abuse of power from the president.  The system also includes a process called impeachment which allows for a series of steps to be taken for the removal of a president.  Through Suskind's investigation of the Bush administration several impeach able offences that were committed by Bush and his staff have come to light.  Regardless if a trial is set up or not, bringing the information from inside the White House to the public gives the chance to correct the situation and Americans can act as they see fit.  The important part is to have the information to be available through venues like the press so that we are able to make the best choice.
If we as a country allow one of our rights to be taken away there is northing to stop it from happening again.  And if we do not know about what is going on in the first place then we lose our ability to act at all.  America has already had the Patriot Act pushed upon us which all but eliminates the probably cause needed, according the our fourth amendment in the Bill of Rights, for any type of searches.  Then America was faced with the illegal wiretapping the Bush Administration set up and used on everyday Americans, and their friends and family overseas.  Recently, President Bush signed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 into law.  This allows for the president to hold people indefinitely without charge, sentence people to death based on poor intelligence, and take away the basic human rights of those detained.  The most controversial and disturbing part of the bill is that it allows the president to eliminate habeas corpus, and eliminates most of the Bill of Rights.
It is so important to know the information presented in the book that the book was originally recommended to me by a United States Senator currently in office.  United States Senator Stabenow from Michigan recommenced the book based on what a good book it was on the subject of the war in Iraq.  Between the One Percent Doctrine, the renewal of the Patriot Act, and the Military Commissions Act of 2006, there fewer and fewer choices left for Americans.  Right now we are at a time where we have the choice to sit by idly, or get informed, outraged, and take action.  Suskind ends his the book with another quote this time that is uniform in middle eastern as well as western religions.  The quote is from Deuteronomy 16:20: "Justice, Justice, This you must pursue."  As Ron Suskind states, justice is an overused word these days, I implore all to find the real meaning of justice and pursue it for yourself

</review>
<review>

This is a book that every American should read.  It gives previously unknown (or little known) details on the 'war on terror'.  Among some of its revelations are:

The one percent doctrine was spelled out by Dick Cheney and says that in the 'war on terror', if there is a one percent chance of an attack happening, our response needs to be as if there is a 100% chance of it happenning.  It was driven by the new arithmetic of this conflict - even one successful attack can be devastating, but there are many potential ones, and being 100% sure the attack will happen is going to be almost impossible.

The leader of the London 711 subway plot was a known terrorist conspirator who was refused entry into the US

Bin Al Shibh was tortured but did not break

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) was tortured and he was told his children would be harmed, but he did not break.

Abu Zubaydah, the first 'high level' Al-Qaeda captive, was crazy; with 3 split personalities, and actually just took care of travel arrangements for Al-Qaeda

The US military deliberately bombed the Afghan offices of Al Jazera, to put pressure on the organisation, resulting in information from the Qatari leader that lead to KSM's capture

There was a Cyanide attack plot by an Al-Qaeda affiliated organisztion that was in the final stages in the US, but it was not authorized by Al-Zawahiri

and plenty more.

The other interesting insight from the book is the shift in the way the presidency operates with George W Bush.  Previous presidents would rely on the advice and recommendations of their government agencies.  But George W Bush decides based on 'gut instinct', then asks for supporting evidence from the agencies.  Pretty scary !

</review>
<review>

The One Percent Doctrine is a fascinating, chilling look at the War on Terror from the viewpoint of those on the inside. It's unsettling, because it reveals the stark choices an open society faces in choosing to fight a war in the shadows. It's an accounting of the efforts of people caught by the tsunami of 911 struggling to come up with a response: faceless bureaucrats, academics, politicos, intelligence professionals, law enforcement, the military, et. al. There are failures all too well known, 'successses' that weren't, and victories left unheralded.
It's a conflict the U.S. hadn't prepared for, against an enemy that had been ignored and was largely unknown. Who are they - and what are they going to do next? Where? The One Percent Doctrine details how people came together to answer those questions - and are still trying to answer them today. The battlefield keeps shifting.
If you've read Suskind's previous book, "The Price of Loyalty", you'll be getting a parallax view of the administration here. There are heros and villains, extremely capable people and incompetent hacks, and people just trying to do the best they can with the tools at hand. So much depends on the personal in this conflict that the element of chance is critical all too often.
Compare what's in this book against what's been shown on the news, shouted from the campaign platforms, argued over by the pundits, and you won't sleep well tonight. But, you'll have a better understanding of what the stakes really are, how real the threats are, and just what kind of job Bush and the administration have been doing

</review>
<review>

Everyone should turn off their tv's for a few hours and sit down and read this book. Simply the most informative book I've read this year.

</review>
<review>

Very scary and enlightening. We'll drawn word pictures. There was almost not attribution of information, though

</review>
<review>

The material presented in this book is absolutely fascinating.  While much of it has been covered elsewhere, there are details of the inner workings of the Bush Administration and the CIA that are things that are unique to this book.  Truly a fascinating read.

It's a pity, then, that Suskind felt he needed to present this book like it's a spy novel.  Each conversation is written out word for word, and each encounter is given as the fly-on-the-wall version.  In addition, when he does analyse the implications of various encounters, he is rather repetitive.  I think it loses credibility when presented like a novel.  Despite this, it is a fascinating read

</review>
<review>

Ron writes another riveting story of 'The Decider' aka GW Bush.  Everyone should read this book, particularly those who voted for him in 2000 and again in 2004.  Anyone with a logical brain and half history of the ME Region could anticipate that the foray into Iraq was misguided at best and a breach of trust at worst.  America will need years to recover from this Fiasco (another fine book) as well as all the lives and money squandered in this poor attempt at a war on terror

</review>
<review>

This book reads extremely fast.  The page layout is attractive (just like the magazine), but alas this arrangement includes a lot of white space.  Many of the tips are too familiar, e.g., sprinkling lemon juice on your fruit salad to prevent browning, and some advice is applicable only to homeowners or parents (I am neither - yet).

Still, there is enough novel advice to make this volume worthwhile for a poor student who appreciates tips for organizing and entertaining.  I recommend this for a housewarming gift.

note: book is hardcover

</review>
<review>

I'm a fan of Real Simple magazine, so this book hit the spot for me.  It gives you ideas for reusing items.  Now I know what to do with the stack of dryer sheets that I'd been saving.  There are inexpensive tips and lots of how-to advice.  Some may sound familiar, but there's bound to be some you had not thought of before.

</review>
<review>

I like "Real Simple" magazine but I don't like saving the back issues. (I have enough clutter, believe me.) So the editors of this excellent magazine have compiled all kinds of tricks and ideas into this single volume. It's a lot of fun to read and has some very helpful stuff for keeping your home in order.

The chapters include:

1. Grooming
2. Getting Dressed
3. In the Kitchen
4. In the Office
5. Cleaning
6. Decorating
7. Entertaining
8. Celebrating

1. Grooming includes how to unclog your drain. I am going to go try this; my bathroom sink is not draining properly. Here, you dump a cup of baking soda down and add a gallon of boiling water..

Naturally, the grooming section is homemade recipes for face scrub, toothpaste (?) and fun ideas like freezing aloe vera gel for sunburn relief--if you KNOW you are just going to go get burnt, you might as well prepare.

2. Getting Dressed has hints on mending, washing dainty things,

3. In the Kitchen--not the best part of the book, I thought, some basic recipes and how to use a wine bottle as an emergency rolling pin.

4. In the Office; someone peeked in my desk drawer at work, because there is a suggestion for supplies like toothbrush and toothpast and a lint roller, plus some basic makeup. I have this. They didn't find the hair dryer and shampoo I keep in the office bathroom in case I get drenched or sweated out and have to do my hair over at work..hahah. Another suggestion, spare house keys! Good idea.

5. The cleaning section has a stain removal guide, probably worth the book for this alone.

6. Decorating, lots of tips, but most useful, how to paint a room.

7. The entertainment section has fun things like freezing berries to make colorful ice cubes for summer drinks, and how to buy for a cocktail party.

The book ends with all the marvelous things you can do with dental floss, aside from flossing between your teeth.

Good for the newly-wed or just-got-first apartment couple. This is a pretty volume that would make a welcome gift for just about anyone

</review>
<review>

Nice illustrations and pictures makes this dictionary very interesting for kids. it

</review>
<review>

I bought this book for two sets of grandchildren.  I had an opportunity to spend some time leafing through it with them.  The Merriam Webster Children's Dictionary is, in my opinion, more than a dictionary, it is also like an encyclopedia.  It does more than define words. It also uses great photos and illustrations to enlighten children and adults alike. One could spend hours just randomly sampling the pages. I'm sure it will be a very useful tool for the kids all through their elementary school years. I wish I had this book when I was a kid!

</review>
<review>

I ordered this for my son who homeschools.  We are doing 3rd 4th grades combined next year and this dictionary is perfect for elementary reference skills.  He likes the colorful pictures and I think that the alphabet tabs on the page edge will be very useful to him when looking up words.  Quite a nice book for the price

</review>
<review>

Most DK products for children are outstanding and this is one of them. Well illustrated and comprehensive. It is a large hard back, not a small desktop reference. It is for third graders and up. The type is small and hard to read for children in lower grades. But my first grader loves the book because it is rich in features that fascinate him even though it is hard for him to read. He enjoys the flag section in the back and he enjoys the first rate gazetteer also in the back.


Though it is for more advanced students, it is an invaluable tool for parents who have first and second graders and who assist or tutor their children. When children are first learning to read, they encounter many new words and they frequently ask parents what those words mean. It is challenging for parents to tell children the meaning of a word in terms that are simple enough for a child to understand. This dictionary is very helpful in that respect.

While this dictionary has many illustrations, it would be more effective if it had more. But that is not a significant shortcoming. However, I would not use this dictionary as the first dictionary. I would recommend DK Children's Illustrated Dictionary as a starter. It is not nearly as comprehensive but it is simpler and better illustrated on individual words. For example the larger dictionary does not illustrate what a pot is but the Children's Dictionary does. It costs about the same as the Merriam Webster Children's Dictionary but it is worth the cost. There is also a My First Dictionary by Susan Miller which is also simpler and is easy for a beginner to use but it has only a 1,000 words. The explanations of the words are good but it does not include several of the features of the Children's Illustrated Dictionary.

What could make this dictionary more useful would be an a table of contents for pages that contain only illustrations or consist mainly of illustrations on a particular subject. Often one can find a definition for an item, such as an animal, but not find an illustration of that animal, only to later find the illustration on an illustrated page of animals. Such a table of contents is inclused in DK Children's Illustrated Dictionary which is useful

</review>
<review>

I highly recommend this as a first dictionary for school age children. I purchased this for my first grader and she loves it! It is compiled of great illustrations and filled with so much information.  She will use this book for years

</review>
<review>

This is a really good dictionary for kids.  Gave it to the neighbor's 8-year old, and she loved it.  It has lots of pictures and a pretty extensive vocabulary, so it'll get used for years

</review>
<review>

This dictionary is indispensable for developing young minds who inquire at every turn, "What does ..... mean?" The beautifully illustrated, glossy cover advises that the contents include 32,000 entries and over 3,000 illustrations; this makes it a great vocabulary resource as well as being down right entertaining for kids. The pictures and illustrations are vividly colored, natural, not cartoonish, and very attractive.

The publisher says this dictionary is designed for ages 8 and up, but why wait until then to buy it for your little scholar. There are 911 pages with many aids for learning. The typography is clear, easy to read and printed on very sturdy paper. One of the handiest features is the color coded indexing that helps you find the letter of the alphabet by looking at the open edge of the book. There's a simple guide to pronunciation printed at the bottom of each page, but it's only two pages wide and then reprinted on each page.

One of my favorite features is the encyclopedic topical renderings that are interspersed throughout the dictionary. These give the young reader a look at a word with added details such as the context of the word and other valuable perspective. For example, the entry for "baseball" not only provides a definition of the word as "the ball" and "the game" but also illustrates the equipment used to play the game and shows the positions on the field.

Our family has had this book for more years than I can remember and it has held up to exceptionally hard use which makes it an excellent value, in my opinion. Even when your "kid" progresses so far in the English language that he or she says "it's juvenile," you will still find him or her sneaking a peek at the definitions because if the word appears in this book you can be assured it will be simply understandable

</review>
<review>

I have a 6 and 8 year old who love this book! My boys are able to look up words and understand the definitions without it  being "too easy".  The illustrations are great too!

</review>
<review>

A lot has already been said about this novel, so I'll address my review to those unfamiliar with Mccarthy's work.  If you've never read Mccarthy before, this is a great place to start.  The plot is tight, engaging, and easy to follow, and the language is gorgeous.  If you enjoy this book and want to move on to others, read the others in the border trilogy before tackling "Blood Meridian."

Some people will take issue with Mccarthy's grammar, sentence structure, use of Spanish, and punctuation (or lack thereof).  Mccarthy takes a lot of poetic license with his writing, and chooses words as much for their sound as for their meaning.  The sentences are written with attention paid to rhythm and "breath," meaning that they don't always look or sound like conventional prose.  This will be displeasing to some.  As an example, the first line of the book reads:  "The candleflame and the image of the candleflame caught in the pierglass twisted and righted when he entered the hall and again when he shut the door."  Now, Mccarthy could have just as easily said "the candle flickered when he entered the room," or something like that, but the effect, aurally, is just not the same.

Read the first page of the book.  If you don't catch fire at the beauty of it, then maybe this book, and Mccarthy's work in general, is not for you

</review>
<review>

All the Pretty Horses is what I would imagine it would be like if Ernest Hemingway wrote a modern-day Western. Very rich language and vivid imagery, yet simple and direct dialogue. Not an especially complex plot and nothing unnecessary throughout, yet very deep emotionally. I'm eagerly making my way through the rest of the Border Trilogy and finding McCarthy a little more verbose and allegorical in The Crossing, but All the Pretty Horses has no wasted words in telling a fantastic story

</review>
<review>

Dispossessed and alienated by the death of his grandfather, the divorce of his parents, and the imminent sale of the ranch where he grew up, 16-year-old John Grady Cole heads for Mexico with his friend Lacey Rawlins to pursue the lives of traveling horsemen.  They find a hard, Darwinian world where the weak and foolish suffer.  Cole is scrupulously ethical and strong-willed, and he needs to be.  Every time he shows love or compassion for another, he is made to suffer for it, and only his own strength of character allows him to persevere.

Cormac Mccarthy's prose style is challenging at first, but I soon grew accustomed to it.  His long galloping sentences effectively emulate the rhythm of travel, and his simple yet often startling turns of phrase bring the landscape of the Texas/Mexico border region to vivid life.

</review>
<review>

I almost gave up on this book after the first chapter featured several paragraph-long run on sentences with no punctuation. I was determined to try though. Once I got used to the almost non-existent editing I was able to enjoy the story. It is a challenge, but the reward is an interesting glimpse of the cowboy life. I'm not sure the effort was worth it, though. Note to writers--employ editors so that your story isn't lost due to hard to read prose! It added nothing to the book to create a new "style" and made reading very cumbersome and frustrating. This is one of the few times that I wish I had just watched the movie instead

</review>
<review>

All the Pretty Horses reveals the fate of a young man trying to live his life by a code no longer recognized by the world.  His personal integrity is based on his ability to follow through with his commitments to himself and others and to honor the values his western lifestyle forged by his West Texas upbringing.  His lack of close relationships with females taints his view of love and when his survival depends on his willingness to kill, he struggles with the morality of living a life based on survival of the fittest.  His journey toward manhood and choosing his own destiny is fraught with loneliness, moral dilemnas, and cruel lessons about human nature and survival.  The best and worst of human nature is exposed in this bildungsromain by McCarthy.  His style is difficult to follow but the beautiful prose more than makes up for his lack of speaker tags, punctuation, and quotation marks.  This book is a treasure worth seeking out and discovering

</review>
<review>

Frustrated authors take note, you can be published and you don't even have to worry about little details such as punctuation, sentence clarity, story, structure or grammar. Cormac McCarthy proves it eloquently with "All the Pretty Horses." Had McCarthy ever bothered to revise this draft he might of had a story, however he just cranked it out of his typewriter or computer put a stamp on it and shot it over to some publisher, who was either drunk or high or both, who thought "What the hell, let's print a really awful story and promote the hell out of it. I'm sure people will buy it, after all Americans don't care about grammar anyway."
I'm not going to dive into the plot of the story- you can read it above. This book falls short of one of the best in literature. How they compare this guy to Faulkner is beyond me, the comparrison is an insult to Faulkner and people who read books in general. Most fifth graders can write better, more enthralling naratives.

</review>
<review>

When I read this book, I was completely impressed with the author's power to draw you into the scene of the story. I mean, I was seeing mountains and open grass lands and beautiful horses - and I've never seen them in real life. This book is very well-written, and the imagery is powerful and moving.

The main character, Cole, is chasing after a lifestyle that has passed. A life that is no more. He wants beauty in the world; all he finds is pain and sorrow. And maybe that is the way it is for all of us. We want what he wants, but reality crushes our view that this world can be made perfect if only this could happen...if only that could happen...It cannot. This is one of the most powerful themes in the book: we are all chasing a life that in many ways cannot exist in this world.

</review>
<review>

This, the first book in Mccarthy's reputation making border trilogy, is what every novel should be: a good story told well.
The book follows the adventures of a young boy as he travels with his best friend to mexico. Mexico in this novel is an ambiguous place and seems to be the last bastion, at least in the boys' minds, of a way of life that problebly never existed. The thing that breaks with other such narritives is that Mccarthy does not write in stone why the boys decide to leave their country. There is no hidden treasure one of the boys hear about or some crime they are tring to escape,they just go and you as a reader, I promise, will follow with them even when the going gets tough. And all the Cormac fans know that this writer's tough is a whole different monster than the standard breed to be found in most books.
This may not be his best book, but that is like saying Portrait is not Joyce's best. McCarthy is a writer who will be remembered as someone who contributed something genuine to American letters. A must for any fan of literature or the western in general.

</review>
<review>

PAGE 141 (punctuation is as the author intended)

"...They'd ride at night up along the western mesa two hours from the ranch and sometimes he'd build a fire and they could see the gaslights at the hacienda gates far below them floating in a pool of black and sometimes the lights seemed to move as if the world down there turned on some other center and they saw stars fall to earth by the hundreds and she told him stories of her father's family and of Mexico. Going back they'd walk the horses into the lake and the horses would stand and drink with the water at their chests and the stars in the lake bobbed and tilted where they drank and if it rained in the mountains the air would be close and the night more warm and one night he left her and rode down along the edge of the lake through the sedge and willow and slid from the horses back and pulled off his boots and his clothes and walked out into the lake where the moon slid away before him and ducks gabbled out there in the dark. The water was black and warm and he turned in the lake and spread his arms in the water and the water was so dark and so silky and he watched across the still black surface to where she stood on the shore with the horse and he watched where she stepped from her pooled clothing so pale, so pale, like a chrysalis emerging, and walked into the water.

She paused midway to look back. Standing there trembling in the water and not from the cold for there was none. Do not speak to her. Do not call. When she reached him he held out his hand amd she took it. She was so pale in the lake she seemed to be burning. Like foxfire in a darkened wood. That burned cold. Like the moon that burned cold. Her black hair floating on the water about her, falling and floating on the water. She put her other arm about his shoulder and looked toward the moon in the west do not speak to her do not call and then she turned her face up to him. Sweeter for the larceny of time and flesh, sweeter for the betrayal. Nesting cranes that stood singlefooted among the cane on the south shore had pulled their slender beaks from their wingpits to watch. Me quieres? she said. Yes, he said. He said her name. God yes, he said...

</review>
<review>

I was required to read this book this past year as a school assignment. First off it's rare for such a new book (it was only published 14 years ago) to be a school assignment (well at my school it is). I suppose that says something for this book. It's the easiest read but not bad. Rather boring in places. It leaves a lot of the story up in the air a little which I didn't like so much, and I definably found the end rather rushed. All in all, not my favorite book, but a good book in general.

</review>
<review>

This book not only provides all the tools for a well-balanced and in-depth science/technology based curriculum, but it is also quite informative on it's own, and provides answers to many of the questions posed in other classes on a daily basis

</review>
<review>

Author Don Soderquist, Wal-Mart's retired Vice Chairman and COO, writes passionately about the company its founder, the late Sam Walton and its corporate culture. Once dubbed 'keeper of the culture,' he is not here to write a balanced, objective corporate biography. Instead, his admiration and respect for Walton and Wal-Mart shine from every line. He examines the company's workings from its humble beginnings to its rapid, phenomenal expansion. Soderquist describes Wal-Mart's commitment to its customers and employees, and describes its cost-cutting zeal. He details its use of new technology to revolutionize internal systems. These insights from the inside are very interesting, but - perhaps because the author was in the highest ranks of the company's leadership - the tone is so pro-Wal-Mart that it has the taste of public relations. However, if you seek immersion in this distinctive corporate culture and want to emulate the principles that worked for it, we stand beside the big glass doors and welcome you to Wal-Mart. Do you need a shopping cart

</review>
<review>

Reading this book you get to know a humble, God-fearing man who pursues excellence in everything he does.  Don Soderquist would never say so, but he is a great American and a role model for any young businessman.

And Wal*Mart is proof that the strong American work ethic is really what makes our corporations so successful.  Not the 'exploitation' schtick that the demented newscasters constantly try to peddle.




</review>
<review>

For me, this book wasn't primarily about Wal-Mart.  It was about a man who took his principles to work with him and became incredibly significant.  In a world severly lacking in principle driven living, it shines as a beacon.  Here's an example:

The closest competitor prices a product at $19.95.  Wal-Mart prices it at $14.86.  Why doesn't Wal-Mart raise their price to $17.95, beating the competition but earning $3 more on every unit?  Answer:  Because Wal-Mart believes it holds a fair profit margin at $14.86 and wants the customer to have the lowest possible price. (Page 94) That's principle driven marketing.

I learned about the ten foot rule:  When a Wal-Mart associate comes within ten feet of a customer, he or she is to look up, look the customer in the eye, and speak to the customer.  If the customer asks where something is, the associate does not tell the customer, but takes the customer to the product.  (page 91)  That's principle driven customer service.

The development of corporate culture as a combination of shared vision, shared values, shared purposes, and shared expectations was helpful to me (Page 25).  It was interesting to see how the corporate culture was promoted in Wal-Mart.

I believe I can apply these principles in my life, so this book really speaks to me.  Forget about your pre-judgments of Wal-Mart, good or bad, and harvest a gold mine of life principles from these pages.  I would use this as required reading in a college leadership class.

George A. Goolde


</review>
<review>

Wal-Mart is simultaneously admired, feared, loved and hated depending on from which perspective one looks at this giant retailer. In this book, the author's view is that of an insider, one who is passionately involved with the company's growth for over two decades and who has lived by the core principles and beliefs of the company and finally reaching the position of COO and vice-chairman.

This book is not a business story of Wal-Mart or a biographical outline of its founder. However, background knowledge of the world's biggest company will help in understanding the basic principles that helped it reach the current position rapidly with a clear vision and determination.

Frankly, my admiration for Wal-Mart has substantially increased after reading this book. This is not because I am in complete agreement with what can perhaps be termed as one-sided view for the author. The difference lies in the listing of the 12 core principles on which the company has been built and continues to grow rapidly even after reaching the magic figure of World # 1.

In terms of its global sourcing strategy, Wal-Mart procures aggressively from low cost locations especially China. This has resulted in reduced prices and abundant supply of merchandise in America. This practice is often accused as taking away of jobs from America and instead creating sweat shops in China. The book challenges these allegations and explains the global supply chain strategies that need to be emulated by any multinational.

What I found more interesting about the book is that about certain assumptions that we may make about business strategy. For example, in simple economic terms, price elasticity of demand means lower prices would ensure higher sales for most merchandise. However, Wal-Mart is driven by customer satisfaction and the commitment to putting an extra dollar into the average American consumer's pocket as the drivers and enablers that increase sales. Price reduction is the effect and not the bait.

The incident where a lady customer is given a free frying pan by the manager of a Wal-Mart store, just based on her declaration that she had lost the one she bought in the parking lot while taking it home is a good example of how much the employees are driven primarily by customer satisfaction and not just by sales targets.

Learning from competitors is another great trait that has been well explained.

Wal-Mart not only excels in customer service within its stores. Its truck drivers for example have helped many people who needed help on the roads especially women struck with vehicle breakdowns during late evening hours. What more can customers expect. No wonder they keep coming back again and again to what is now and will remain the planet's biggest company as long as it continues to pursue its 12 core principles in action and in spirit

</review>
<review>

I guess I'd better confess right away: I didn't finish this book. I only made it a third of the way before I was too disgusted to finish it. I'm sure there are many useful things I could learn if I could choke it all down, but it was very difficult.

I don't think it helped that I just finished The Case Against Wal-Mart by Al Norman.

I think it's great that Wal-Mart was able to bring goods to smaller towns that really didn't have access to a department store or discount retailer, but I can't get over the desruction of American businesses, American jobs and the terrible wages and benefits for American workers (not to mention all the foreign workers who produce Wal-Mart goods) that have become standard operating procedure. Lower costs at any cost is not a responsible way to run a business, and while I agree that Soderquist did a great job at making himself rich and the company successful, I think the damage is costly

</review>
<review>

Outstanding book!  Very challenging and encouraging to read.  Describes the "man" who had a clear purpose and vision, was able to focus on it, and communicate and motivate his team around him in achieving success.

</review>
<review>

This review is an adaptation of my review published in Personnel Psychology, Winter 2004 issue.

As one of the pioneers in the corporate social responsibility (CSR) movement, Hollender is evangelical about promoting the implementation of CSR "in all of its forms." I'm not sure I know what he means by that. As he acknowledges, it's in the "mind of the beholder" because there's "no firm consensus" about what CSR means. I certainly can't criticize him for not pinning down the concept. Professor Ronald Sims (2003), in his own book on the subject for instance, has offered five different definitions.  I think Hollender equates CSR with the idea of a triple-bottom line of responsibility and accountability for fulfilling what he thinks should be the financial, social, and environmental obligations of a corporation.
Margaret Mead once said in effect that social change always starts and can only start with a small group of people. The small group identified in the book as pioneers in the CSR movement include small business entrepreneurs like Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield of Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream, socially responsible investment funds like the Calvert Social Investment Fund, and a host of advocacy groups or non-governmental organizations (NGOs) like the activist group, Greenpeace, and the more reserved Businesses for Social Responsibility (BSR) that was conceived as sort of an alternative Chamber of Commerce.
The book gives an interesting account of the different ways in which these pioneers promote CSR among big corporations. One way, for instance, is non-confrontational and educative in trying to "bring big business [no matter how socially irresponsible] to the table and then move the table." For example, BSR works closely with big companies to promote a set of best practices that hopefully will not only further the CSR progress of those companies but also entice other companies not to be left behind. Another way is confrontational, involving pressure tactics and sometimes law suits. Greenpeace, for example, gradually succeeded in pressuring Royal Dutch Shell to choose a more environmentally responsible way to dispose of an obsolete oil storage tanker and loading platform in the North Sea.
As you can well imagine, the notion of CSR is controversial and fraught with issues. The authors clearly know that and for the most part deal with the issues relatively well in my opinion. I'll mention and discuss a few of the issues.
Perhaps the biggest issue is over what should be the legitimate purpose of business. Hollender, understandably, totally rejects what he considers to be the "hysterical" opinion of conservative economist Milton Friedman that CSR is "fundamentally subversive" and that the only legitimate responsibility of business is to make an honorable profit. To Hollender, CSR "in all of its forms" is the legitimate purpose. Thus a corporation that seeks to ameliorate public problems not of its own making is a more socially responsible company. He cites Coca Cola as an example of a company persuaded by activists to modify its operations in ways to further the prevention and treatment of AIDS among its employees and those of its bottlers and suppliers.
Three related issues are over who should be the public corporation's legitimate stakeholders, for what should it be held accountable, and over what period of time. To people in Friedman's camp, the issues are no-brainers. Shareholders are the only stakeholders, the corporation is only accountable for maximizing their wealth and doing so through legal means, and time is marked in quarterly returns. This view is basically that the conventional bottom line is the only one that must matter. To people like Hollender, the issues are also no-brainers. Absolutely everyone and everything, including the environment, along the company's long value chain from initial product resources to product disposal are the company's stakeholders, the company must be held accountable through full and transparent cost accounting to every one of those stakeholder interests, and time is marked in the long run. The conventional bottom line is thus immensely modified quantitatively and qualitatively.
I found the authors a bit lax in relying on several of their sources about one important matter bearing on those three issues. The sources were quoted as claiming that boards of directors have a statutory obligation to maximize shareholder wealth in the short term. I questioned that claim, and one of Hollender's spokespersons acknowledged that it was a mistaken claim. But this nevertheless doesn't negate the immense pressure CEO's are under to hit the numbers each quarter. This pressure comes primarily from institutional investors who might as well be surrogates for a statute. It takes a morally courageous CEO and a sustainable company to resist that kind of pressure. In an article featuring Hollender and Bill George, the recently retired CEO of Medtronic, the latter commented that he would say at every annual shareholder meeting that the company was "not in the business of maximizing shareholder value," and he believed he "got away with that because the results were so good" (Kelly, 2004).
Another related issue is over how much self-disclosure there should be of a firm's CSR performance. Hollender proposes full "transparency," yet acknowledges that it can make the company squirm, as his did, over risking the possibility that full disclosure may end up making the company legally liable for a product shortcoming that might not otherwise ever be known. He agonized, for example, that while one of his products was more "natural' than that of any of his competitors, he was sure some of his customers at least presumed that his product "was a bit better than it actually was." Not being a fanatically unrealistic CSR advocate, he decided to put a "product self-critique section" on his company's Web site instead of putting a disclaimer on the product's packaging. It's a compromise, yes, but far more responsible than the values held and practiced by a baby food maker I remember as once having been charged with diluting its product.
Another related issue is whether to take a public company private to escape Wall Street analysts and record-keeping requirements. More public companies are apparently going private, and Hollender himself is a case in point. He took his firm private, and that is what it still is today. He points to the private outfitter, Patagonia, as being able to take socially responsible actions much more easily than if it were traded on Wall Street.
Yet another issue addressed, and the last one of theirs I'll mention, is over whether a small, socially responsible company should "sell out" to a larger corporation. An advantage of doing so besides making a lot of money from the sale is the prospect of a responsible product being introduced to a much larger market. But a disadvantage is that the seller risks seeing its values and practices diminished if not overturned altogether by the larger corporation. The authors describe how Ben and Jerry initially felt they had negotiated a deal with Unilever, the buyer of their company, to preserve the values the two pioneers held dear, only to learn later of some actions taken by Unilever incompatible with the values.
The authors claim that the CSR movement has become a "contagious trend." I think that's a bit exaggerated, and the authors offer little hard data to back up their claim. I think it is true that CSR is becoming a more popular topic, but I suspect, and the authors acknowledge, that it lends itself to tokenism or lip service for the sake of appearances or reputation. That's why incidentally I chose to mention the authors' examples of Shell and Coke. Shell reportedly regards the North Sea experience positively and claims there is now "increasingly open and honest communication with the communities," yet we read recently that its two top executives were forced to resign after lying for several years about the company's oil reserves (see, e.g., Timmons, 2004). As for Coke, it's frequently in the news for its "cozy ties to strong arm dictators and rogue bottlers" and for other alleged wrongdoing (see, e.g., Klebnikov, 2003). I could also have mentioned wrongdoing by some of the other companies the authors cite as making progress of one kind or another in their CSR performance. My point is that with so much harmful wrongdoing being committed by public corporations, I would far prefer to see a relatively more restrained movement, one that "simply" calls for public corporations to operate "harmlessly." Achieving that standard would be a quantum leap from prevailing corporate behavior, and I think corporations should direct their resources to taking that leap and not diverting them to the solving of problems not of their own making or to giving guilt gifts through philanthropy or to offering isolated token efforts.
The book is intended for a wide audience, including business leaders, employees, and NGOs. I personally think it deserves to be on a best seller list and should be read by the CEO of every public corporation who has yet to decide where to position his or her company on the CSR spectrum. I also think all thoughtful citizens should read this book. It matters a lot.

REFERENCES

Kelly, M. (2004). Conversations with the masters: Two of the great CEOs talk about the pressures of managing with values. Business Ethics, 18, 4-5.

Klebnikov, P. (2003, December 22). Coke's sinful world. Forbes, 86-92.

Sims, RR. (2003). Ethics and corporate social responsibility: Why giants fall. Westport, CT: Praeger.

Timmons, H. (2004, March 04). Shell's top executive forced to step down. The New York Times.

</review>
<review>

The CEO of Seventh generation, Jeffrey Hollender, pens this book on responsible business.  I came across this book because Seventh Generation recently decided to sell their wares through Target instead of Wal-Mart.  Most small businesses would love to be courted by the Wal-Mart retailing giant but Jeffrey Hollender felt that Target agreed more with Seventh Generation.  In this book, Jeffrey discusses his thoughts on running a responsible business.

The opening chapters were somewhat difficult to get through.  Perhaps it just took several pages for me to get used to his prose?

The underlying message I felt was that having a socially responsible business is possible but will require a lot of work on everyone's part.  Everyone is so connected to each other now.   Perhaps an environmental conscious entrepreneur decides to open a chain of organic restaurants and ensures that farmers are paid a fair price.   But what if the restaurant hires an exterminator that uses a toxin that ends up contaminating the soil for generations?

The idea is to have a closed-loop business model ... that leaves things in the same condition as when the company began.  For example, think of the credo of camping sites.  Moreover, the closed loop business model is more than just your business but includes your suppliers and customers.  Specifically, there are hidden costs to disposal of things like electronics and the ubiquitous clear plastic bags.  Of course, we every day consumers can throw them in the trash for someone else to deal with.  But someone does deal with our trash and there are some real costs.  The book gives a story of a putrid land in China where a lot of our electronic waste goes.

I have always loved companies that are transparent with their business models from a financial perspective.  Transparency is about communicating to shareholders, consumers, and employees.  Transparency is about being candid and introspective on dealings and reasoning for decisions.

There are a mixed bag of corporate stories mainly with Ben  and  Jerry Ice Cream (who is now part of Unilever) and Seventh Generation.  There is of course some mention of Johnson and Johnson's Tylenol case and also on electronic companies like Hewlett Packard and Dell.  There is some applause for British Petroleum for a decision to put no money to politics and Shell who compromised with Greenpeace on an issue in Africa.

Surprisingly this is a well thought out book that doesn't get hysterical.    It's honest, transparent and I recommend it

</review>
<review>

I found the book to be uplifting.  It is nice to see this type of behavior being practiced.  We have entered a time in our existence where we have to start thinking of how we operate as an industrialized country.

Chris Ortiz, author of 40+: Overtime Under Poor Leadershi

</review>
<review>

Another leader of an iconic "green company", Jeffrey Hollender - founder and CEO of Seventh Generation (yes, I use their laundry detergent exclusively) discusses the challenges of running a business with high integrity and full disclosure. In particular, Hollender recounts Seventh Generation's stint as a publicly traded company and posits that public ownership inevitably leads to an erosion of core values by the pressures of the markets. He cites also the example of Ben and Jerry's take-over by Unilever. I personally believe that positive social change can be wrought through the public securities markets and that values driven investing is the most significant tool available.

I appreciate What Matters Most as a cautionary tale keeping me alert to some of the perils of my chosen approach (Socially Responsible Investing as a vehicle for change). I had the privilege of hearing Jeffrey Hollender speak at a Working Assets brown bag lunch lecture. He is a forceful presence and very inspiring in his forthrightness in answering questions probing the gray areas that an ethical company must struggle with.

P.S. A recent addition to my review: The Resources section at the back of the book is very well researched and thorough. It would be worth buying the book merely for that appendix.

</review>
<review>

As a professor management who is interested in corporations acting more responsibly, I have just begun to use this book in my senior strategic management course. Hollender is a thoughtful and insightful proponent of socially responsible business.  Each chapter covers a specific characteristics of SRB (accountability, transparency, sustainability, etc.).

He recognizes that running a company using these principles is not easy but definitely worth it.

He covers most of the pioneers in the field (Roddick, Cohen, Anderson, Chouinard) and their struggles to live their corporate lives in a responsbile way.

I highly recommend it.


Dale Fitzgibbon

</review>
<review>

This is an insider's stroll through the confusing and ominous woods where the beasts of economic reality meet the lambs of social responsibility. Author and corporate survivor Jeffrey Hollender (who wrote this with scribe Stephen Fenichell) clearly admires the cast of socially responsible companies, such as Ben  and amp; Jerry's and The Body Shop. He covers the informal history of the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) movement and his own troubling experiences as chief of a company that saw itself as socially responsible. His presentation is heartfelt, if short on rigorous logic. He candidly discusses having his ideals challenged and trying to justify his compromises. The book labels some behavior socially responsible and some socially irresponsible, but its yardstick is not clear. For example, it condemns the use of child factory labor in developing countries, yet never expresses awareness of the lack of practical alternatives for those children - perhaps starvation. The book explores both the value of the Corporate Social Responsibility movement and its uncomfortable contradictions. We recommend this trip inside the hard work of melding social responsibility with business

</review>
<review>



Noam Chomsky's critical analysis of U.S. hegemony is on point. He uncovers the U.S. government's recidivism. One particular case was President Reagan's terror campaign in Nicaragua. The excuse was that communism was beckoning at our doorstep. Nicaragua had become the second Cuba in the eyes of the knee-jerk Right. But what really transpired was Reagan's attempt to overthrow the Sandinistas with U.S. trained Contras. When congress became concerned over this injustice (for financial reasons of course) the Reagan Administration began selling weapons to Iran, further financing their terrorist war in Latin America. Reagan in the 1980's wanted regime change in Latin America and in 2006, history repeats its self since George W. Bush is continuing Reaganite policy in the Middle East. The tactics Bush is currently using might be construed as different but the results are still the same. These campaigns aren't much different than George Washington's campaign to eviscerate the Iroquois, which Chomsky briefly alludes to in the book but for more information on the subject I strongly recommend reading "The American Indian Wars" by John Tebbel and Keith Jennison. Howard Zinn's book "A Peoples History of the United States" also covers this subject.
Chomsky delineates about the 1961 campaign called Operation Mongoose:
"Operation Mongoose was the centerpiece of American policy toward Cuba from late 1961 until the onset of the 1962 [Cuban] Missiles Crisis." This was a result of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. "Operation Mongoose, also known as the Cuban Project, is the general name for CIA covert operations and plans from 1961-1962 to destabilize and overthrow the Communist government in Cuba." (Quoted from Wikipedia).
Chomsky covers many subjects such as the Israel/Palestine conflict, which the U.S. sends more financial and military aid to Israel than all other countries combined. Iraq is also a humongous issue that Chomsky successfully tackles since World War II the U.S. government has participated in more than fifty wars and to this very day is continuing with their plans of hegemony in the Middle East, Latin America and other countries abroad. This is all transpiring either without the knowledge or consent of American citizens.
It is estimated that the Bush Administration has spent more than $300 billion in Iraq, and Afghanistan. These are disheveling developments considering the Congressional Budget Office estimates that another $450 billion will be needed in the next ten years. Moreover, the U.S. nuclear weapons program isn't included in the defense budget its part of the energy budget, and intelligence gathering is in the Black Box budget program.
It is estimated by 2008 that the U.S. will have 14 nuclear-armed submarines in the Pacific armed with 336 Trident 2 ballistic missiles with 2,000 nuclear warheads.
And in spite of this debauchery, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, "We're trying to figure out how you conduct a war against something other than a nation-state and how you conduct a war in countries that you are not at war with." This is nonsensical hegemony in motion; the bottom line is the Neo-Cons are planning to wage a never-ending war campaign against the entire world. Just ponder on this for a moment. Half of the United States' aircraft carrier fleet occupies the Pacific Ocean, plus the U.S. has over 1,000 military bases worldwide.
Knowing that this is the case: one must take a step back and become a little more circumspect when gazing at Bush's Neo-Con panorama and inquire about the issues of Medicare, Education, Food Stamps and Veterans Insurance, simply because the elites are also waging a war campaign against the American people. The world is involved in a grave war for its survival against an elite system set up to enslave many and genocide the rest. This book is a comprehensive history of U.S. hegemony gone tumultuously awry. From George Washington to George W. Bush. This book compiles 230 years of U.S. imperialism in the continental United States and the whole entire world.
Moreover, I would like to point out to all the reactionaries who'll give my review a bad rating, that this isn't about racism or religion. It's about the elites' mad proclivities for empire, and if you don't wake up soon, and see it for what it really is then our world will not survive. Wake up! You reactionaries will not be apart of the new world order ruling class because you're enslaved by it already.
As a matter of fact we are all slaves to this system of world government. And in this system, some of us will remain thralls and the rest are expendable. Remember 9/11 was an inside job. The government committed several heinous acts on that day just so we'd rescind our Constitutional Freedoms. Chomsky has stated that he doesn't believe that 9/11 was an inside job and I have to say that I totally disagree with his assessment on the matter, but I still think Hegemony or Survival is an essential read that we must all look at.





</review>
<review>

Provides overwhelmingly truthful information about America and the rest of the world.  It is a "must read" in order to understand all of the events taking place today

</review>
<review>

I doubt this book would have garnered so much attention had not Hugo Chavez waived it front of the UN assembly decrying US imperial ambitions.  The book quickly soared to the top of most bestselling lists, and briefly topped amazon book sales.  I well imagine Noam Chomsky had to crack a smile, as it turns out that people do take notice when someone questions American authority, and this is what this book is all about.

Chomsky rides roughshot over 20th and early 21st century American history in making his case for its long held imperial ambitions.  He traces the ideological origins to Wilson, but he easily could have gone back to McKinley and Roosevelt, the first for plunging the US into the ill-advised Spanish-American War, and the latter for building a military juggernaut that would eventually save the day in WWI.  Chomsky could have even gone back to James Polk, who similarly raised an unnecessary panic and plunged the US into the Mexican War, which turned out to be nothing more than a huge land grab, virtually doubling the size of the US back in 1848.  A book well worth reading is Bernard De Voto's 1846: Year of Decision.

In many ways, Chomsky echoes De Voto in his attack on American imperial ambitions.  He brings the scenarios up do date, by focusing on America's new role as hegemon since the end of WWII, after its major rivals were either crushed or severely weakened.  Rather than seek compromise, the US relished its new role in shaping the world for a variety of reasons, ostensibly keeping open a so-called economic free market that favored its corporate interests.

No president escapes Chomsky's vitriolic attack, including Carter, who refused to provide badly needed relief following a devastating hurricane in the Caribbean because the island countries wouldn't refuse to renounce Grenada, which had the audacity to pursue a quasi-Marxist line in its new government.  Later, Reagan would crush the small nation to show the American iron hand in the region, which extended back to the Spanish-American War.

But, the two presidents who Chomsky most takes to task are Clinton and Bush for using preventive war in new and audacious ways that have severely comprised the role of the UN as an international arbitrator.  Chomsky attacks Clinton on the Kosovo War, and strenuously challenges the Bush White House position of "just wars" in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The book takes events up to 2004, providing a lot of valuable background information and illustrating the ideological origins of the current "war on terror." He makes a direct link between the Bush II administration and the Reagan/Bush I administration both in terms of language and actions, but points out that while the first set of wars were largely subversive, the current ones are blatantly aggressive and defy all international laws, much less ethics.  You can take Chomsky's aggressive stance anyway you want, but the book is heavily footnoted and the facts he presents largely hold up.  It is nice to see that the mainstream media is finally taking note, and challenging the presidential administration, after giving him what amounted to a "free pass" in his first term

</review>
<review>

After accurately addressing the current state of affairs in the United States government, which can be called by many names - Chomsky uses polyarchy - he radically reframes the last several decades of U.S. history in impressive detail, and his work is to be commended.

My major criticism is that he gave far too little attention to the idea of polyarchy and the problems it attempts to address.  Such an issue bitterly divided the Founders, but is far older than the United States - Plato dwelled on it in "The Republic."  He saw a democracy as nothing but a wreckless mob, and that they must be ruled like children by "guardians," who live apart from the masses and consider the good of the people more important than their own.

Of course such guardians are very rare - for every Marcus Aurelius or Diocletian there are half a dozen Nero's and Caligula's.  Although Bush is particularly odious his policy is merely at the extreme of a narrow spectrum, as Chomsky acknowledges.  So a system run by an elite will naturally reflect the interests of the elite and not of those whom they govern.  Chomsky makes that very clear and that is one of work's best messages.  But what to replace it?

Lenin would have us believe that even a cook should be able to run a country, but I doubt most people would agree.  Jefferson also trusted the people, but was he too idealistic?  What should replace this corrupt polyarchy?  Although Chomsky offers no solution, it is still an important and informative work

</review>
<review>

This is the most lucid, convincing and rightfully scathing interpretation of American foreign policy I've ever read. Absolutely brilliant.

</review>
<review>

I was one of apparently many who went to the Amazon website to look for Chomsky's book, once Chavez recommended it. I am familiar with Chomsky's reputation as a prolific writer of books on politics. I've tried to plow through some of his works on linguistics. Not easy, although the sense one gets as a non-scholar is that he is onto something original in those works.

I'm glad he has shifted focus to politics. He looks at facts pure and simple. He, as are many other Americans, is rightfully disgusted with the idiocy, wanton destructiveness, frightening arrogance and brazen dishonesty of the policies and actions of the current Bush Administration. As he points out repeatedly however in Hegemony, American foreign policy has generally followed a similar, although certainly less destructive, path in most earlier Administrations. His comments on actions by the Clinton Administration in the Balkans, in particular in Kosovo, are enlightening. Underlying his exposition and analysis of the facts is of course his recurring thesis that Americans are deluged by propaganda and lies initiated by the government which are then willingly distributed by most - and unquestionably by the the most seen or read - media outlets.

He is right on the mark. It takes very little effort in the current Internet-accessible world to find original sources on most subjects, so finding the facts related to almost any topic or allegation is a few mouse clicks away. The problem, in regard to the pursuit and dissemination of the truth however, is that so few people make the effort!

In any case, since this is my first reading (I have seen the documentary on Manufacturing Dissent) exposure to Chomsky's political analysis, I must say that Hugo Chavez made an excellent selection. At least this shows he reads, unlike George Bush.

</review>
<review>

I have always wondered about Professor Chomsky's writings. He has always been described as mean-spirited and anti-American by the right. I finally got an opportunity to read his book Hegemony or Survival. I was surprised at how readable it was; I expected it to be overly verbose. I was also surprised that I actually agreed with some of what he had to say, particularly about Iraq. He certainly is correct that the US led invasion of Iraq was a fantastic opportunity for Bin Ladin to stir up anti-US sentiment and attract members to his terrorist organization. I don't think you have to be a professor to see that though. Although some have charged Chomsky with being sympathetic to terrorists, I failed to see this. He condemns terrorism but accuses the US of creating an atmosphere that is conducive to the growth of terrorist organizations.

He argues here that US foreign policy victimizes every country it interferes with. The US consistently brutally punishes any country whose actions are contrary to its agenda, even if that country is just trying to better itself. Without a doubt, the US has made some disastrous foreign policy decisions but I don't think Washington is as evil as Chomsky wants the reader to believe.

We Americans like to believe that the US is always the good guy riding in to save the day. Sadly, all too often US intervention harms the very people we believe to be helping. Having said that, the US is not the evil monster that Chomsky portrays it either. He asserts that the US has only one goal and that is global dominance and it is all done under the guise of fighting terrorism or fighting communism. Too often he appears to use fuzzy logic or cherry picks events so that he can apply this contention to various skirmishes the US has been involved in.

On page 9 he states "In one country, Nicaragua, Washington had lost control of the armed forces that had traditionally subdued the region's population" "The us-backed Somoza dictatorship was overthrown by the Sandinista rebels, and the murderous national guard was dismantled. Therefore Nicaragua had to be subjected campaign of international terrorism that left the country in ruins" "The spirit of exuberance, vitality , and optimism that followed the overthrow of the dictatorship could not long survive as the reigning superpower intended to dash the hopes that a grim history might finally take a different course"

What Chomsky chooses to ignore is that after the Sandinistas overthrew Somoza with the full support of the US government, US then made initial efforts to establish peaceful relations with the Sandinistas. Congress authorized 75 million dollars in aid and offered to send doctors, nurses and teachers to help stabilize the new government. The Sandinistas got into trouble not by ousting Somoza as Chomsky wishes the reader to believe, but by supporting the Marxist guerrillas in El Salvador. The US cut off aid and gave repeated warnings to stop providing support to the communist rebels. In 1981 the US even sent Thomas Enders to try to end the tension. He offered them a sweet deal, the US would completely leave them alone to do as they please if they would just stay out of the conflict in El Salvador. They refused. This is was the beginning of the end for the Sandinistas.

I don't understand why Chomsky implies that Nicaragua was on the course to some utopia either. The Sandinistas promised their supporters free elections but refused once in power. They consistently denied Nicaraguans the freedoms they had promised, newspapers were censored, religions suppressed. Some ethnic groups were terrorized and their villages destroyed. The only reason that I can think of that Chomsky would paint such a distorted view of the Sandinistas is so that he can lead the reader to a false conclusion.

Later Chomsky implies that the US ruined the healthy economy of Nicaragua. Any economic growth that the Nicaraguans experienced was due to the US because of the said aid and the efforts of the US to have their World Bank debts forgiven.

Chomsky wants the reader to believe that US conflicts are never about communism or terrorism, that its just a ruse. He's wrong, nicaragua is just one example of where he got it wrong.

I also wonder about his comments concerning Cuba appealing to the UN for help. Chomsky states that Cuba didn't respond to the US with violent attacks within the US, rather they followed the procedure required by international law. Chomsky appears to be implying that the noble Cubans were above the primitive barbarity of the US. Obviously they didn't attack the US because they did not have the means to launch a formidable attack. Keep in mind that after the Cuban missile crisis, Che Guevara, one of the most influential leaders in the Castro Regime was furious. He was angered that the Soviets were weak and pulled the missiles out and proudly announced that he would have launched them all given the opportunity.

Chomsky's claims that Cuba's economic woes are purely a product of the US embargo seem to be a bit of a stretch. Did the embargo negatively impact Cuba? Of course. So much so that their island is the now the equivalent of tropical slum despite the fact that every other country in the free world will trade with them and they get billions of dollars in aid? I fail to see how.

I am troubled at his comparison of the 911 attacks and Clinton Admins attack on the pharmaceutical company in Sudan. Why didn't Chomsky mention that it was in response to attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania? Why didn't Chomsky mention that we believed it to be a chemical weapons plant? Why didn't Chomsky mention that the US released 24 million dollars to the businessman whose factory we wrongfully attacked?

I have numerous other concerns about the authors claims but I've reached my word limit here at amazon.

Cheer

</review>
<review>

That's how the rest of the world views him. I agree.

I first began reading Chomsky back in the early 1990s and plan to pick this book up this afternoon. I am giving it a 5 star rating ahead of time to counter the one star ratings given it by the rightwingers who will never actually read it and who simply attack whatever they are told to attack by the likes of Rush Limbaugh

</review>
<review>

Noam Chomsky is one of the most noteworthy and influential intellectuals of modern times. Whether you like him or not, in my opinion, everyone should read his books in order to get a general yet very insightful view of current political affairs and their historical and philosophical backgrounds. His unflinching motivation to unearth the truths behind many political events, bold character, and extraordinary ability to see and make sensible connections between seemingly unrelated phenomena is absolutely outstanding.

This book is a product of post-9/11 era, but contains a lot of information in regards to USA's preceding quests for global dominance, too.

On page 2, he mentions a very common trait of humans which one cannot help but accept: "...a hypothetical extraterrestrial observer might well conclude that humans have demonstrated that capacity throughout their history, dramatically in the past few hundred years, with an assault on the environment that sustains life, on the diversity of more complex organisms, and with cold and calculated savagery, on each other as well."

There is a very conspicuous fact that the leaders of the USA would not understand in many ways, which is mentioned on page 4 as follows: "...there may still be two superpowers on the planet: the United States and world public opinion ("the United States" here meaning state power, not the public or even elite opinion."

When I was a little boy in the 1980's, I was hearing the US military operations (direct or indirect) in Central America, but could not figure out what was happening exactly. In order to see the whole picture, one should read this book and compare with the news published and aired in media channels in those days. One would see that there is a stark difference between the aforementioned sources.

The author bases many of his ideas on John Ikenberry's very interesting comment which is "...a grand strategy [that] begins with a fundamental commitment to maintaining a unipolar world in which the United States has no peer competitor, a condition that is to be permanent [so] that no state or coalition could ever challenge [the US] as global leader, protector and enforcer."

On page 12, the author argues very successfully the question that many Americans could not find a satisfactory answer in their minds. They wonder why many countries, which exhibited immense support and sympathy to the USA right after 9/11, turned their support away from the USA during the Iraqi war. The book says "...the global wave of sympathy that engulfed the United States after 9-11 has given way to a global wave of hatred of American arrogance and militarism, and even in friendly countries the public regards Bush as a greater threat to peace than Saddam Hussein."

Chomsky describes the driving philosophy behind the Reagan and Bush administrations as "...the US reserved the right to act unilaterally when necessary, including the unilateral use of military power to defend such vital interests as ensuring uninhibited access to key markets, energy supplies, and strategic resources."

He describes the motto of the Cheney-Rumsfeld-Powell trio as well above and beyond a defensive instinct and goes on to say "...officially declaring an even more extreme policy, one aimed at permanent global hegemony, by reliance on force where necessary."

Another world leader, Nelson Mandela, who had immensely suffered from oppression and repression, condemned Tony Blair for "encouraging international chaos, together with America, by ignoring other nations and playing policeman of the world."

The USA made a series of severe mistakes where it forbade other nations on the same issues. On page 26, it is mentioned as "...after 9-11, often with questionable relation to terror, the Bush administration claimed, and exercised, the right to declare people -including US citizens- to be `enemy combatants' and to imprison them without charge or access to lawyers or family until the White House determines that its `war on terror' has been successfully concluded."

The author quotes the famous "regime change" phenomenon as "...regime change does not mean a regime that Iraqis might prefer, but one that the conqueror will impose, calling it democratic...". This bring the question that how effective, realistic and long-lasting this artificial democracy would be, in the hands of people who have absolutely no knowledge and experience.

On page 41, there are interesting statistics as to how some nations think of the USA and its current political ambitions.

The following chapters of the book has a great deal of well-scrutinized historical examples in which the USA was, in some way and to some extent, involved politically, militarily, and economically such as the Middle East, Central and South America, and Asia. There are vivid examples about the ideas and presumptions mentioned in the first 40-50 pages of the book. One should read the book for further discussions.

There is an interesting fact stated on page 130; Jack Straw of UK released a report on Saddam's crimes in 2002, but it was drawn almost entirely from the period of firm US and UK support, a fact which was grossly overlooked. Of course, this does not mean that Saddam was a fine leader; he was, in fact, a vicious dictator with a perverted mind and excessive cruelty.

The USA invented the terms "Old Europe" and "New Europe" describing the anti-war European countries and countries who gave direct support to USA's Iraqi operation respectively. This discrimination caused some tension among European countries. The details can be found in the book.

There is a noteworthy historical turning point in Turkey mentioned on page 135 and onwards as "...in the end, the Turks proceeded to teach a lesson in democracy to the West. Parliament finally refused to allow US troops to be deployed fully in Turkey..." and implicitly criticized as follows: "Strong governments disregard their populations and accept the role assigned to them by the global ruler; weak governments succumb to the will of 95% of their population."

The following chapters mention the relationships between the USA and countries in Eastern Europe and the Middle East (e.g. Balkans, Turkey, Israel, Iran, S.Arabia et al.).

The rest of the book presents very strong and useful advice to the US government as to how they can construct and sustain viable, healthy, peaceful, and long-lasting relations with other countries without repeating the old mistakes which were proven to be absolutely wrong and conducive to animosity and resentment. There are very valuable lessons regarding how the entire World can benefit from mutually respectful administrations and how strong, democratic societies can be built on solid grounds.

Overall, this book is very much recommended to those who would like to see and understand the current political phenomena which were not covered by some right-wing, biased media.

</review>
<review>

I am not a right winger whatsoever, am against our involvement in the Mid East but did read this book. I can't say it better than Alan Dershowitz who commented about Chomsky's writing in general: many people buy his books and the page that is folded down is never greater than page 16

</review>
<review>

This book is not thick, and it has just the right amount of detail to balance the events. Here we follow Carrie White, a bullied high school girl with a paranormal gift, sheltered by her religiously sick mother ("The first sin was intercourse, say it!"). Carrie receives an invitation from a popular boy to the Prom, and of course, it is a cruel prank...and Carrie's gift has the last laugh. Dark and demented, but shows how King is in a league of his own.
August 11, 200

</review>
<review>

King created a world where you believe in the possiblity of people like Carrie White.  He looks at the situations from so many angles that you know everything there is to know and feel thankful for it.

Its another book that I just couldn't put down.  Reading it was a rewarding experience.

Also, recommended are King's collections of short stories, like Night Shift

</review>
<review>

This is where the genius started his famous reputation and talent. If had not been for his wife (she saved the original manuscript), we probably woud not have the 1976 classic or anything else King related. Everyone shoud give this start of King's genius a look

</review>
<review>

Stephen King's first book is well written, and he paints an image of high school that most will identify with (peer pressure, bullying, interaction between very different social and economic classes).  The plot centers around a young girl Carrie, and her struggle to fit into high school due to her extremely religious mother.  Due to the movie's iconic images, I'm sure most people will know what's going to happen before even picking up the book.  Still, it is an entertaining and worthwhile read.

My one complaint is that King writes in a journalistic fashion (including interviews, pages from other "made-up" books) to build the whole story about what happens to Carrie.  The style (which King borrows from Bram Stoker's Dracula according to his introduction for Carrie) detached me from the story--it focused on POVs from side characters that weren't interesting.  It also lessened the impact of some of the novel's suprises and twists.  However, the book is worth checking out and much shorter than King's later and sometimes overbloated novels

</review>
<review>

Carrie is one of my favorite King novels, for it's loosely based on his memory of two girls in his school who were picked on 'without mercy'. I first read this novel in high school where Carrie White's character was unfortunately present. I recall girls who were emotionally, and sometimes physically, battered by classmates and was once badgered by a bully myself. This book is also part of the early 'raw energy' of Stephen King as a writer, before he was launched into legendary status as a popular horror novelist. Though there isn't a happy ending in 'Carrie', I'm still able to sympathize with her character and see some justice in her wicked vengeance. This novel will remain on my bookshelves, safe from any future garage sales, and re-visited often.

Chrissy K. McVay
Author of 'Souls of the North Wind

</review>
<review>

I DEDICATE THIS Review TO WOMEN ALL AROUND THE WORLD OF ALL COLOUR,RACES,RELIGIONS,NATIONALITY AND CREED...(ALL WOMEN ARE EQUAL,IN MY EYES....Nigel..)

In this remarkable novel,SK makes his debut.An unlikely but good book.It has a good dose of horror/suspense and it is one of the best books I have ever read...

It is simply about a teenager from Maine,named Carietta White(Carrie).From the beginning of the story we see who her mother(Margaret white)takes advantage of her,making her feel stupid and left out.Similiarly in school,Carrie is always the "Black sheep",she has not friends and she is always picked upon.She is very unusual and strange,at least to most people,especially the ones in the book(story).(but I would say quite frankly that I didn't see here as anybody but a normal healthy teenage girl.)

At the beginning of the story we also see that Carrie has her first period while taking a shower at school.She is laughed at and all the other girls throw toilet paper and tampons at her.This is her first big humiliation.(I am a guy,I know not much about a period,so please forgive my use of the term openly)

Anyway,back to the plot:Carrie soon realizes that she is Psychic.She starts to practice using her powers gradually.It seems as though she had the powers since birth,but the powers were dormant until puberty or at least she was unaware of it.

So,so far we see this:a very unusual girl with psychic powers and a stupid mother.
The story initially and mostly circulates around these facts but things get a little messy towards the middle and end.
Allow me.....

It is later revealed in the story that the psychic gift is sort of genetic.Carrie's mother explains alot of things,but she is still a bad mother.
(but I still can't hate carries's mother,because most mothers are sort of protective over their children)
Soon Carrie gets her first friend Sue.Sue feels sorry for Carrie and helps her to get a date for the prom.
This date is Tommy Ross...

Meanwhile,one of the bad girls,Chris,is unable to attend the prom.So,she sets up a nasty revenge against Carrie.Believe me when I tell you,Chris is a very jealous girl and if she can't have something,no one else can,especially Carrie.

So Chris arranges a trap for Carrie.(Two buckets of pig blood)
She sets it up for the pig blood to fall on Carrie's and Tommy's head while at the prom...
The plan eventually succeeds.
Tommy is badly injured.
Drenched in pig's blood,Carrie is laughed at,for the last time.She runs out of the building.She then remembers her psychic powers and decides to use it for revenge.
She starts to close all the doors.She then turns on all the water sprinklers,wetting everyone.
But with a combination of water and electricity(from the appliances)....some were electrocuted.
Eventually a fire gets started.And things start to burn!
She walks toward her home,burning everything within a certain radius of her powers.
When she reaches home her mother tries to kill her,telling her that she is the spawn of satan.She eventually uses her powers to stop her mothers' heart beat,killing her.
Eventually(this is the good part of the book),while Carrie is walking on the streets(going I don't know where)she seens Chris and Chris's boyfriend driving towards her,to bounce her.
Carrie uses her powers to diverge to car,killing Chris and her stupid boyfriend.
Sue eventually catches up with Carrie.Carrie doesn't kill her because she realizes that it wasn't Sue's falt but Chris's.
(During the battle with her mother,Carrie was stabbed,I forgot to mention it,sorry.)

So,now,talking with sue Carrie eventually breathes her last breath and speaks her last words and just,dies.(this is the sad part,I guarantee you that it would bring tears to your eyes,or maybe not)

But this book is definitely good,I recommend it with all my "Psychic" powers.

Enjoy.............This review was written by Nigel....


</review>
<review>

I began this book with a healthy dose of skepticism.  On more than one occasion I've been involved in "consensus" decision-making processes that were less than stellar.  (As an employee, a board member, a community member and business owner.)  In the hands of an unskilled, or manipulative, or misguided (or worse, downright deceitful) facilitator a so-called consensus decision-making process can leave you feeling like your pocket has been picked.  You know exactly what I mean.  When you finish the "process" and feel like you've been hoodwinked into agreeing to something because:

- You didn't fully understand the scope of the issue you are supposed to be dealing with.
- People with important information about the issue weren't in the room.
- A manager who is worried about his ox getting gored has set the whole thing up to "share the blame" for some no-win problem he doesn't know how to solve.
- You could never get a word in edgewise after your first stated concern stamped you as "not a team player."
- And it was clear the boss wasn't going to go along with the decision the group made anyway!

Well, the author not only educated me about what real consensus looks like, I feel like I've been inoculated against the toxic variety.  The book, as mentioned in another review, is lean and mean.  But there is plenty of substance to chew on, including:

- A useful comparison of different decision making methods, along with their strengths and weaknesses.
- A clear explanation of the considerable power of a consensus process.  (Not the least of which is accelerated implementation of a decision.)
- Succinct guidelines on how to start a consensus meeting off on the right foot.
- Clear suggestions on how a multi-stage consensus process can be organized.
- Specific strategies for dealing with people who engage in unproductive behavior.  You know them as obstructionists, grandstanders, and those who sit silently waiting to strike with critical comments just when it seems the group is making progress.

Perhaps the greatest value I found in this book is that it will steer me away from making the same mistakes I have seen other well-intentioned decision facilitators make time and again.  Like not paying attention to simple and obvious things such as laying down ground rules for how people will communicate as they work toward a consensus.  The author even puts words in your mouth by giving you on-point language to use just for this and other such occasions you will encounter while leading or participating in a consensus process.

The information is so accessible and useful beyond the topic of consensus that I have no doubt that I will wear this book out in no time.  The pages are already dog-eared and the spine is creased.  Thankfully I haven't dropped it in the tub yet

</review>
<review>

For anyone convening a meeting - this is the perfect book to read in preparation.  Great reminders and insights on how to create a safe place for inquiry and creativity as well as thoughtful decisions.  I found tips on ways to prevent and intervene when challenges to consensus arise particularly useful.  I love how it is organized and it is the perfect size for 2 hour airplane trips

</review>
<review>

Working in and with groups and, at the same time, making progress can be an incredibly complex experience.  This book, though it demands a disciplined and thoughtful effort, will make a profound difference by its use.  Having seen the principles of this work in action, groups are healthier and far more productive toward their charter.  Members discover the patience to listen and the courage to contribute to others; results that make choosing this path quite worthy.

</review>
<review>

First, compliments to Dressler for successfully resisting the temptation to unnecessarily 'inflate' the size of this book. As a result, Consensus through Conversation is digestible during a reasonable length plane flight. What makes it worthwhile to read on your NEXT plane trip is this: unlike many authors who are intellectually sound but lack "on the ground" skills, Dressler is different. He knows how to bring about sustainable improvement in organizational productivity. Even better, he knows how to TEACH others to do the same. That's what this book does--illustrates WHY real conversation is essential to affect lasting change. And then, takes us from ivory tower to ground level by producing a tool box of diagrams, tips, do's  and  don'ts, and straight talk. If every author packed this much value into 77 pages, we would all spend more time IMPROVING our organizations than reading about it.  Thanks for raising the bar, Larry.

</review>
<review>

As a medical practice administrator, I found the approach described in Dressler's book as practical and an approach I intend to use for a tough decision I am struggling with, and wondering not just "what's the answer", but "how do we decide between a number of less than ideal choices with big impacts - - and are we exploring the full universe of options?".  I am excited about implementing Dressler's approach; I believe its clarity and inclusiveness will not only produce a high quality decision, but will generate benefits well beyond the decision itself.

</review>
<review>

There are going to be other reviewers who can provide more erudite reviews-- reviews better grounded in the study of cities or economic history. I am nothing more than an average reader who enjoys non-fiction.

First of all, potential readers should be aware that this is an econonomic history. It follows flows of goods and capital rather than following the lives and careers of the men and women of Chicago. I knew what to expect, but for people looking for a more standard history of Chicago this may make Nature's Metropolis difficult to engage.

I really enjoyed reading the book. It stretched my understanding of the economic growth of cities and raised issues that I had not considered about the role of the city *in* nature (not as opposed to nature). The examination of elements that made Chicago into both a city and The City was fascinating. The chapters tracing grain, lumber and meat as goods were clearly written and underscored the central theses.

I guess it goes without saying that Nature's Metropolis is far from a light read, but that does not make it less rewarding. As someone who does not have a background in history, I only longingly wished that the bibliography had been annotated to help support further reading.

</review>
<review>

This is a very distinctive, well researched and argued book about how Chicago developed.  Starting with a standard model of Urban Economics - the von Thunen model of central place theory- the author quickly moves beyond it.  The distinctive contribution of his book is Cronon's emphasis on how the roots of Chicago's remarkable development lay in the "soil" of its surrounding hinterlands. He carries this argument further by examining how the transportation and communication revolutions of the 19th century - the railroad and the telegraph - created unique advanatages for Chicago relative to other competitive metropolitan areas (such as St. Louis, Cincinnati, Milwaukee) and finally, how in turn, new metropolitan areas (such as KC, Omaha) arose to steal aways Chicago's dominance.

As other reviewers have noted, the book offers really fascinating, detailed discussions and original research on - for example - the grain and lumber industries as well as capital flows in the midwestern US creatively using court records on corporate failures to track the flow of investments.

This books contains a rich lode of intellectual wealth and it is well worth the effort to mine it.

</review>
<review>

If you prefer your history to be the story of human beings, their struggles, and their triumphs, this book will disappoint. Cronon presents the history of Chicago and the midwest as the history of commodities and  trade. It's an interesting approach, and he shows the global implications  of many of his insights-- he correctly observes that much of what he  demonstrates with Chicago could also be shown with other cities as well.  Some of his insights didn't strike me as being nearly as unexpected as he  seems to think they are (the interdependence on commodities wholesalers and  their markets, for example), but most of his ideas are well-argued and  supported. Ultimately this is not so much about Chicago's history as it is  about using Chicago and the west as a case study to show how cities grow,  and how city and country are inter-related

</review>
<review>

Grain, beef, and lumber. Chicago became what it became not only because of its location on the Great Lakes/railroad sytem, but also because of these resources. This book shows how much nature influences human efforts. It has  few personalities because the exploitation of the resources was inevitable.   This is a great book for a greater understanding of how nature drives  humanity

</review>
<review>

As a professional educator, it's always great to review and reread the works of the great theorists such as Piaget. I consider him to be the father of educational psychology as well as a a great cognitive theorist

</review>
<review>

Our school just started a school-wide newspaper this year. We joined NESPA and ordered The Reporter's Notebook for all 20 of our newspaper staff members. It has been an excellent tool for the students to use for ideas, editing, etc! As newspaper sponsor, I appreciated the usefulness of this book so much, I have ordered 20 copies for next year's staff as well

</review>
<review>

We started a newspaper at our school, Resurrection St. Paul, in Ellicott City, MD this past year.  Mark has been so helpful in giving us pointers to get the paper off the ground.  The kids were so excited about having their own copy of "The Reporter's Notebook."  It did make them feel like real journalists and gave them direction and ideas.  I recommend it to members of any school newspaper

</review>
<review>

The "Reporter's notebook" is a great tool to provide to students planning on writing and publishing a newspaper.  The notebook provides several tips and ideas for young writers in a well organized format.  There are also several pages for students to use for note taking.

</review>
<review>

I use "The Reporter's Notebook" with the children in our elementary school newspaper club.  It is an excellent tool to teach the kids how to create great artciles for the newspaper.  We used the Intervew section as a guide when we interveiwed teachers in the school.  I highly recommend the book!  The children use the book as reference tool, even in the Middle School

</review>
<review>

I bought these for our staff on our elementary school newspaper. The kids not only felt like real reporters with these.....the notebooks helped to keep the student reporters more organized and gave them guidance for writing their stories. The Reporters Notebook was a worthwhile investment for the staff and I will buy more next school year.

</review>
<review>

Pages 38 to 97 -- half the book -- is just blank space for notes, which you could just as well write in a 10-cent, 70-page notebook spiral. The beginning of the book is mostly made up of pages with simple checklists and address forms, with some bulletted questions here and there

</review>
<review>

Mark Levin's notebook for journalism students proves itself an invaluable tool in journalism and media courses.  Aside from pages of information to record sources, story ideas, and more, hints and tips are scattered throughout the spiral bound book.  This book is a must for any journalism student, or anyone simply interested in writing news stories

</review>
<review>

This calendar features some of Alex Ross's best paintings and action figures, from January to December there is a year full of heros

</review>
<review>

To call this book a chronology would be a mistake because the art work of the Genius Alex Ross is not presented in chronological order, but rather starts with the most popular characters Superman, Batman, etc., and then moves on to other work such as Justice League of America, Kingdom Come, Alan Moore, etc.
Alex Ross is arguably the greatest visual artist of our time. As far as I am concerned his work is up there with Picasso, Da Vinci and Degas. This book takes the reader in a character-and event-based journey of Alex Ross's incredible work. What Ross and this book have in common are the incredible attention to detail and color. The art presented in this book is so rich in color it is almost unreal. The pictures carry unbelievable detail, down to the pores on the faces of the Superman and Batman sculptures. I have never seen such a visual fest in any other comic or movie-related book, I guarantee you you will not be disappointed, it doesn't even matter whether you are a comic book fan or not. Ross's modern day interpretation in the recreation of the art work from 40s, 50s and 60s comic book covers is so nostalgic and professional it makes you appreciate his talent even more.
This is one book not to miss. The print quality is extremely high, and pictures carry a ridiculous amount of detail and color. Especially if you are a Superman or Batman fan, you are on for a treat as they are most prominently featured in this book.
This is one great book, I have always been a huge Alex Ross fan, but thanks to this book I now feel like I know him personally (through his art presented in this book as well as the narration in the text that accompanies the pictures).
One last note: Get the hardcover if you can, the art work on the sleeve is much better than the paperback cover, and the art work on the front and back of the hard cover book is simply incredible

</review>
<review>

DC comics fans who love comic art collections must have MYTHOLOGY: THE DC COMICS ART OF ALEX ROSS: it's a newly expanded paperwork edition of the original and displays all the comic book characters Ross' art brought to life over the decades, from Superman and Flash to Green Lantern. Included also is Ross' new comic book series Justice, new sketches, and an oversized coffee-table format which helps display and profile, in full color, Ross' entire line of DC Comics superheroes. An original Superman and Batman story written by graphic designer Chip Kidd, a re-telling of Robin's origin written by Paul Dini, plus new prototypes produced in the two years since the hardcover MYTHOLOGY appeared makes this paperwork a winner genre fans must own.

</review>
<review>

got it as a present for my boyfriend. he loved it. really nice cover that folds out

</review>
<review>

I couldn't believe, but mr.Ross did it again!Even better!The second edition of the hardcover edition is even better than the first one! The cover is already a gem! You have to see to believe it!Not to mention the extra amount of pages of new art and updated material!Go for it!AAA+++

</review>
<review>

This is the perfect gift for the comic book fan who has every comic book.  Also, looks great on a coffee table

</review>
<review>

This book was so impressive we were glad we bought it for our friend!  She loves it, and didn't put it down all day after receiving it

</review>
<review>

More an inside in Ross' work and his drawings than the mythology of the dc characters... beautiful boo

</review>
<review>

This book will astonish you even before you open it. The jacket has the images of two of the most iconic superheroes of DC, Superman and Batman, and below the jacket you'll find an unbelievable piece of art showing almost every DC superhero battling versus their respective villains.

With an introduction from M Night Shyamalan, the book presents Alex from his early beginnings as a child trying to create comic book characters and how his mother kind of influenced him (even though he affirms this didn't happen, take a look at her mom's works and try to believe him)

He then presents the DC characters one by one (the Batman session has some pages dedicated to the Joker only, no other villains are shown), the early drawings, original artwork from classics and the homage he has paid for covers, posters or special editions. Analysis on the symbols and the myths of each character are used to describe what Ross wants to project with his images. I don't think it necessary to mention which character has the larger amount of pages dedicated to himself only. You get to see in drawings the creative process he follows when creating a piece, the ideas scratched on a piece of paper, the drawings and possible posing and then the final image. There are pictures I has never seen until I got this book, when I first saw them my fisrt thought was ` I need to frame these', which came up as a bad idea as I would have had to frame the entire book.

The abandoned ideas for `Portraits of villainy' are presented here in the form of pencil sketches that look pretty well, it is hard to imagine how they would have looked if the project had been completed. His takes on Hanna-Barbera, Mad magazine, Alan Moore, the animated style and World's finest are also present.

Then there are pages and pages dedicated to 'Kingdom Come', from the early concepts and ideas, passing through sketches until the realization of the project. The possible prequel that never occurred, `The Kingdom' is also mentioned and the preliminary sketches by Ross are shown.

Uncle Sam is also analyzed  near the end of the book in the same way the other projects previously were.

Then we have this section called `The process', in which we obviously get to see how Alex works using the book's cover as example. The final part of the book is a very nice bonus, a Batman/Superman special story written by Chip Kidd and Alex Ross created exclusively for this book.

Indeed a great piece of collection, this book is a must for comic book fans. The hard cover presentation, the paper in which it is printed and the bonus stuff are worth the price to pay.

</review>
<review>

This book shows there could be millions of minorities living in a stagnant way of life, where they're not able to achieve or dream of the so called American dream. I loved this book, I felt this book, this book is important and it should be read by anybody that cares for those living a life that's unimaginable to many of us. Through everything Lafayette and Pharaoh were still children, I felt a lot of hope in this book. Through it all there was some kind of peace. This is my favorite book from Alex, I've read his other book The Other Side of the River and There Are No Children Here is his absolute best

</review>
<review>

One of the best books that I read this year. "There Are No Children Here" is about two brothers try to fit into there world. These two brothers are deciding who they are.  The two brothers are Lafeyette and his younger brother Pharoah. This book takes place in the Chicago projects. At the Henry Horner Homes. Everyday these boys only see violence. They see drugs, gangs, and murder. Lafeyette and Pharoah mother LaJoe talks to a report who is a writer for magazines.  The report ask LaJoe "Can I talk to the children here" she says "There no children here" As Lafeyette and Pharoah grow up they only have a mom. So Lafeyette is a father figure to his younger brother Pharoah. As Lafeyette goes to his teen years he starts to hang with gang members and goes to jail a few times. Is Lafeyette a good father figure for is brother? Pharoah the younger brother is very dedicated young man he will always put a 100% in no matter what. He will never give up. What will happen to these two brother while grow up in the Chicago projects? Will they hang with Gangs and do drugs or will they try to make it out of the Projects and be someone. While read this book you feel like you are in the story, you feel like you are the report write everything. You could really see this really happen. I enjoy this book because it talks about the real world that we do not see ever day

</review>
<review>

There Are No Children Here

This book is about two young boys trying to get passed the ghetto, and harsh life. The two boys are Lafayette and Pharaoh. They live in the Henry Horner projects. They are trying to get passed the everyday violence, hatred, and crimes that go down in the projects. They would do anything to have what other people have like a nice, clean home, some good clothes, a car for the family, and a good education. These boys don't have these things along with several other children living in the ghetto. They struggle so much to succeed in life. In the book they go through a lot of bad times and hardly any good ones. They support each other and they won't let each other fail without trying at first. It is not often that they have positive attitudes. Most of what they do and think is negative. Their behavior comes form their surroundings. Maybe if their surroundings were a little more decent, they would turn out better in live. I would recommend this book to people who have what these children don't so they can realize that they shouldn't take things for granted. I would give "There Are No Children Here" four stars out of five.


</review>
<review>

As referenced in the preface, according to the Children's Defense Fund, one in every three children lives in poverty in the city of Chicago- a remarkably higher rate than the rest of the country. Alex Kotlowitz's national bestseller "There Are No Children Here" depicts the poignant and powerful story of two brothers, Lafeyette and Pharoah, growing up in one of Chicago's most notorious public housing projects, the Henry Horner Homes. Although this is a story of hardship and tragedy, it is also a story of courage, hope and love. Kotlowitz chronicles the lives of Pharoah and Lafeyette as they confront racism and violence in their own community. This extraordinary story exposes the fact that two parallel worlds still persist in this county and how Inner-city America continues to be defined by poverty and violence and is maintained by institutionalized racism and social inequalities.
This story is at times difficult to read because for Lafeyette and Pharoah, violence is a part of their daily lives. They witness death, shootings, drugs, the incarceration of their older brother, their mother's struggle to provide for her family and the influence of gangs at an early age- certainly more hardship and tragedy than many adults will face in a lifetime. However, they confront these realities with courage and profound insight beyond their years.
The only negative aspect of the book is that Kotlowitz does not chronicle the educational experience of both boys adequately. We are given a brief glimpse into the quality of education that Pharoah receives and his academic hardships and successes, however, we are left with little to no information about Lafeyette's experience in school. Education is fundamental to the future success of children in poor, urban communities and it would have enhanced the story to have more insight into the quality of education that the two brothers received in order to gain a more comprehensive perspective of the inequities that exist in low income, urban communities.
When Kotlowitz first proposed writing a book about the lives of Lafeyette and Pharoah to chronicle the experiences of children growing up in urban poverty, their mother, LaJoe, remarked "But you know, there are no children here. They've seen too much to be children" (1). Despite their struggle to survive, we are reminded that they still are children tying to determine who they are and what their place is in the world around them.

</review>
<review>

My God, who has no feeling for these very unfortunate people are heartless ba*****s.American society flushes their poor and disadvantaged people away in the gutter. The gap between the poor and wealthy is increasing all the time and something has to give. Great book and should be required reading for high school seniors

</review>
<review>

I would highly recommend this book to anyone.  The author provides insight into the lives of two inner city youth.  It makes you question our society and what we can do to help individuals who live in poverty.  Poverty is not a choice but rather a sad reality that effects far too many of America's youth.  Please read this book!  It will change the way you think

</review>
<review>

To hardcore conservatives who believe that the plight of the poor is no one's fault but their own, I say: Read this book. To hardcore liberals who believe the poor are oppressed by society and not responsible for their situation, I say: Read this book. "There are No Children Here" shows that life is more complicated than either extreme. The lives of the people in this book are governed by complex interactions of both personal choices and unavoidable bad luck. The author sympathetically examines the terrible hardships his subjects were born into, but never shies away from showing how their situation is perpetuated by the harmful behavior and relationships they choose to pursue. Whatever your ideology is going in, you will not look at poverty the same way after reading this book

</review>
<review>

I think that the 'reader's' comments below about Thomas Sowell were helpful and I just wanted to add one more thing...

Most of the negative reviews about this book are people who are angry at Phaorah and Lafayett's mother, LaJoe. They claim that LaJoe is stealing from the government and blah blah blah. The problem is that LaJoe's story is NOT the authorial intent of the book - the subtitle of the book clearly states this: "The Story of TWO BOYS Growing Up in The Other America..." not "The Story of LaJoe Raising Kids in The Other America."

When reading this book, bear in mind that the book is looking at the two main characters who are born into a situation that they cannot help - is it their fault that their parents never got married, or that they get government money, etc? Hardly! People who get angry at the LaJoe and consequently miss the point of this book are like people who would get upset if you were trying to describe an apple and they want to talk about a pear. Concentrate on the lives of the children in this story to see what the book is really trying to say.

Having lived in two different boroughs and four different neighborhoods in New York City has opened my eyes even wider to 'The Other America' that so much of the rest of America couldn't care less about. Kotlowitz's book is a good start to understanding this oft forgotten group of people.



</review>
<review>

This book takes you through so many different emotions.  Kotlowitz does an amazing job weaving this documentary novel together.  It opens the eyes of suburban America.  This book inspired me to teach in the inner-cities.  A must-read for anyone going into teaching, public service...anyone with an interest in the social fabric of disadvantaged America

</review>
<review>

What a joy it was to read this book, and another of Fischer's books; Paul Revere's Ride. Written in narrative storytelling fashion, the book moves briskly--but with urgency. I will save the long reviews for the top 500 writers here at Amazon, but I found this book to be extremely satisfying.  What's more, not only does Fischer illuminate Washington's determination to keep the idea of liberty alive, he also writes about the tremendous help given the Continental Army by locals who continued to harass the British throughout the winter as British foraging parties searched for food for themselves and their horses.

</review>
<review>

David Hackett Fisher's "Washington's Crossing" is a wonderfully written and research history of this seminal event in American history.  I was admittedly hesitant to read this work, Pulitzer Prize and all, as I felt the topic a bit narrow for my tastes and it perhaps a bit too much like a high school history lesson.  Luckily, I was very mistaken.

Perhaps the author put it best.  "There is an old American folk tale about George Washington and the Crossing of the Delaware.  It tells us that the new American republics nearly failed in the winter of 1776, that George Washington crossed the Delaware on Christmas night, and that his victory at Trenton revived the Revolution.  All of this story is true, but that in not the whole truth.  There was more to it."  The "more to it" is captured in the pages of the book and followed by footnotes and various appendices that accound for 168 pages, many of which are well worth reading within of themselves.  Fisher accomplished so much in this volume that the lavish praise many have written is richly deserved.  His ability to put into context a very rough 1776 with the Crossing and ensueing battles was simply superb.

Fischer and James McPherson are editors of this series, published  by the Oxford University Press, Pivotal Moments in American History.  James McPherson, a wonderfully accomplished historian and contribtor to another series by the same publisher, The Oxford History of the United States (with Battle Cry of Freedom)  will most assuredly oversee works of very high caliber.  I look forward to reading many more of them, with James T. Patterson at the top of my list with his contribution to this series on Brown v. the Board of Education.

Lastly I would add that my interest in history rarely includes an appetite for military history.  That said, Fischer does a great job in covering a largely military operation while keeping the interest of students of history who might not otherwise be inclined for the level of research and written detail.

</review>
<review>

I eyed Washington's Crossing for a long time before finally purchasing it. Meanwhile in the past couple of years I read Ellis' "His Excellency, George Washington," and McCullough's "John Adams" and "1776."  Although I am by no means finished reading about the period and its individuals, I have gotten a wonderful education in the lives and times of this era.  All of these books complement each other and Washington's Crossing is the crowning piece that ties much of it together. Washington's Crossing is very pro-American and pays homage to Washington as a great man and leader. Revisionist and alternative views of the making of our nation do not have a place here. Instead, the author focuses on the best ideals that made the United States great such as respect for individuals of all stations, a willingness to listen to the views of others, flexibility and perseverance in adversity and changing situations, the placing of the good of the nation ahead of one's advancement and glory, and decency on the field of war. As a historical record the book is outstanding and tells the story from both sides. The British are not a faceless and evil enemy, but a group of largely decent and capable people trying to do the right thing from their perspective. We Americans should regard ourselves as fortunate in having them as our "mother country" and the basis for our own institutions. The various battles and maneuvers of the New York and New Jersey campaigns are described in detail, but not in a minute, mind-numbing matter, and the result is fascinating history. Many maps are included that will aid the reader in understanding the action. The book contains many appendices that provide much added and incidental detail that the reader eager for more knowledge will enjoy. "Washington's Crossing" is a keeper for a lifetime and now sits on a bookshelf awaiting my return

</review>
<review>

As a veteran of both the United States Army (field artillery) and militia (National Guard), Professor Fischer's story makes one proud to have served in the same army as George Washington and those brave men who tramped through the snow and freezing rain

</review>
<review>

Fantastic, exciting true tale of one of the most well known legends in the history of this country - only, it's not a legend.  Dr. Fischer goes to great and convincing lengths immediately in the book to make this point clear.  I have no problem with revisionist history, as long as it brings to light the uncovered or supressed details of what we hold sacred as historical truth.  This book is revisionist history in that fashion, and it reinforces the facts behind the legend.  With his excellent reference list, and his ability to place the reader at the site of the drama of the events,  this book is a believable and authentic narrative of what happened during this pivotal and desperate year in American history

</review>
<review>

I'll start by saying that it took me only three days to read this book, cover to cover; I couldn't put it down! Exciting narrative, well researched, and a must read for everyone

</review>
<review>

Part of the Oxford Pivotal Moments in American History series, Fischer's work is a cultural history surrounding the events that Washington's Revolutionary Army participated in from March of 1776 to March of 1777, with the middle of the book focusing on the pivotal turning point of the unlikely capture of the Hessian garrison in Trenton, New Jersey on Christmas of 1776, made famous by the painting featured on the cover of the book.

Fischer's book was published at nearly the same time as McCullough's 1776, which covers nearly the indentical time period, yet unlike McCullough's focus on the narratives and characters of the of the dark days of the American cause in 1776, Fischer's work is a close examination of cultural trends and mores that developed and moved the American Army, unlike no other movement in the world at the time. In short, McCullough's book would be best enjoyed by those looking for a tree-top level of the events of the day. It is an excellent book that will be read for years, and Fischer is complementary of it, but Washington's Crossing is an in-depth look at why the American cause took the course it did and what precisely that means for us today. It is most certainly not history-as-pageant-on-parade. Most importantly, Washington's Crossing does a wonderful job of de-mythologizing the American cause to American readers, while reintroducing the concepts of rare and unique combinations of leadership and service that actors such as Washington, Knox, Monroe and down to the yeoman citizen-militia were in world history. Something new was happening along the banks of the Delaware that December, when it was most unlikely to

</review>
<review>

In my quest to increase my understanding and knowledge of the American Revolution I came upon this book by Mr. Fischer. It was well recommended so I "took a chance". I hope all my future "gambles" in life turn out this good.

Mr. Fischer takes the well known story of Washington Crossing the Delaware, one we all learned about in school, and tears apart everything you thought you knew- then rebuilds it into a thoroughly entertaining and fastinating series of historical events. He writes a wonderfully easy to read book- a page turner. He goes into depth without boring you to sleep or losing you in a myriad of facts and names.

As for the actual text, I marvelled at the sheer luck that befell the Continental Army with the turn of the weather- it's no wonder they felt that "divine providence" was on their side. I was taken by the diametrically opposing stratagies and methods of the two prominent generals- Washington and Howe. And was engrossed by the descriptions of battles and the diversity of the conditions the British, Hessian, and American Armies were living under.

The appendices are a treasure trove of information that should not be skipped- make sure you read them when you are finished the book.

I'll never look at Emmanuel Leutze's painting the way same again

</review>
<review>

I join the chorus of admirers of this wonderful history of the events leading up to and including the great battle.  The crossing was indeed a pivotal, crucial moment in American history.  It is no stretch of the truth to enumerate this as one of the 10 most important moments in our entire history.  Although Washington deserves the credit for his extraordinary skill, nerve, and leadership, Fischer's re-telling is an amazing feat of fascinating, page-turning detail about the ordinary soldiers who overcame enormous obstacles to get to Trenton, much less to triumph over the shocked Hessians, and their valiant leader, who bravely succumbed to mortal injury.  We cross the treacherous Delaware with the intrepid Americans, trek with them across the snows, hurrah with their surprise attack, and follow them on to further victory.  Historian or lay person, this is a book you must read to learn of this "little skirmish" that eventually made America a world power.  Fischer has done a masterful job.  We come away just that much prouder to be descendants of these at once ordinary and extraordinary Americans

</review>
<review>

This is just a tremendous piece of work.  I've read a lot of focused revolutionary war items and to say that some are "readable" is a gross overstatement.  This reads almost as well as a good novel.

It also doesn't have too much about the NY campaigns or much beyond Trenton/Princeton.

</review>
<review>

...especially young ones. I have now been a vegetarian for five years and rarely use this book any more but it was GREAT when I was first starting out. Lauren Butts was sixteen when she published this book and the recipes are all geared towards kids in that age group - both in simplicity and taste.
When I bought this book it was getting a lot of buzz because it had just been published by such a young author. Judging by the date of the last review, I'm guessing it has fallen off the radar. I, however, would still recommend this book to any teenage vegetarian

</review>
<review>

Though I am 23, older than the intended audience, my Mom bought me this book as a present. I was thrilled with it. Lauren Butts has created a fun and easy cookbook for anyone. I love the layout of the cookbook, it is divided into sections, and I enjoyed her nutritional info in the front of the book. Maybe it will inspire more teens to go veg.I found this cookbook full of great meatless recipes. I must warn strict vegetarians and vegans however, that most recipes contain dairy products, or eggs. There is a great recipe for  and quot;Nathan's Blueberry Breakfast Cupcakes and quot;, that is easy to make and tastes like store bought. However when I tried to get my three year old neighbor to eat one, he refused in horror. Other recipes that I have enjoyed making include: apricot chimichangas, Thai tofu Veggie Wrap-yum, Burrito Roll up, Veggie Pitas (Tastes the same as Wendy's veggie pita), Layered Nacho Salad, Mock Caesar Salad (in case you didn't know, Caesar Salad dressing is typically made with ANCHOVIES-fish=meat), Chilled Berry Soup-this is a fabulous recipe I made last summer when berries were plentiful, it is totally tasty and makes a great meal, TASTY FLATBREAD PIZZA WITH ARTICHOKE HEARTS!! This pizza was so unbelievably tasty, I have always been a bit wary of artichoke hearts, they just look kind of disgusting you know, but I was so shocked to discover their delicious taste!! Veggie Quesadillas were also fabulous. SPAGHETTI PIE is indeed a great dish, and I like to make it when serving non-vegetarians. It has been a hit with everyone so far. Tofu McNuggets are the absolute bomb. These recipes are only a fraction of the great ones in this book. I would highly recommend it to parents of new young vegetarians, or college students like myself who don't have that much time to cook.  Some have opined that this book is full of recipes that are fattening, but I think most know, that us vegetarians are a mostly lean lot, and I can personally attest that the recipes aren't fattening. Thanks Lauren for creating a great book, it is indeed an oasis as far as Veg cookbooks go. Its great to have a cookbook that isn't full of really long, hard to find, expensive ingredients

</review>
<review>

I personaly know the author of this wonderful book.  I went to a camp with  her that helps for college credits.  She is very intelligent and I have  tried the food in this book.  It tastes really good.  The book is well  thought out, easy to read and perfectly set up for any teenage vegitarian.   I gave a personal review before it was published, so I do recomend this  book to any teenager that is willing to cook

</review>
<review>

I must admit iv always been a Clinton fan. Especially for the part he played in the north of Ireland. I thought the book was well written and gave an interesting account of the good and bad sides of the American political system . The book gave a great incite into the man himself and what it takes to become president.

Great read, highly recommend

</review>
<review>

Bill Clinton writes a very interesting account of his life in an inviting conversational style. His story-telling approach easily draws the reader into the events of his life. I especially enjoyed the amount of time he spent discussing his childhood. He expresses the pain and isolation that he felt very well. He is a talented communicator and this comes through as he tells his story. The words flowed one after another and I was easily captivated by the details. This review actually refers to the audio CD unabridged version, Part I. However, after 21 CD's for Part I alone, I did become tired of all of the drawn-out explanations and wished I got the abridged version. Overall, it was a great book and I am going to also read Part 2. It provides insight and apology for the actions of our ex-president. He seems to have written it to make amends with those he offended

</review>
<review>

Why did I decided to listen to an autobiography, I still don't know, autobiography's have never interested me before? However, Bill Clinton's autobiography, articulate and exceedingly detailed, was the exception.

Aghast by Clinton's extraordinary memory, I found myself lured in by the minutia of his narrative; a perfect account of every name, date, and place since he was a kid! He has almost a photographic memory; a prerequisite of any Yale law graduate.

Public opinion often casts presidents as idiots, when in fact they are some of the brightest minds in our country. To become a president takes a great deal of intellect, wisdom, charisma, will power, and luck. Marveled by Bill Clinton's brain power, I wished I was him.

Bill Clinton leaves the reader inspired by his biography; motivating the reader to accomplish their own goals. An upbeat former president, Clinton is still a leader and motivational speaker. A must read for anyone who needs direction in their life.




</review>
<review>

Well written, good book. Interesting to read his perspective on world events different from what I was seeing in the media

</review>
<review>

President Clinton's autobiography reads as a near endless series of events rehashed from his diaries.  It frequently appears as though the brief, daily notes and events were simply written into complete sentences with some emotion or perspective added.  It does provide an extensive recap of President Clinton's life events, so if that's of interest you may want to check it out

</review>
<review>

I read this book with some skepticism at first since the initial reviews from the pundits were lukewarm. But I must admit, it is a riveting account of late 20th century American politics, and what it takes to rise to the top. Clinton's narration comes across in a natural, easygoing style, and it surprised me how deeply he thinks and feels about things that really matter. Those looking for juicy tidbits and meaningless chatter will be disappointed. This is a serious account by Clinton, about his strengths, weaknesses, and most importantly, his capacity to forgive his enemies. His early childhood experiences, especially what he learnt from his grandfather, seem to have made a major positive impact in his life. This, and how non-racist his folks were even though they poor, southern folks from the 1920s era, armed him with that all-important Teflon coating needed in politics.

Clinton's capacity to forgive is exceeded only by the public's willingness to forgive him. In his glaring personal weaknesses they recognized their own follies, and in his ability to overcome, they saw their inner hero. Clinton, in many respects, was a naked president. This nakedness comes across even in the narration, endearing readers to him and to see in his vulnerabilities an innocent and instant capacity for change. A second or third reading (if you have the time/patience!) brings out more of Clinton's emotional and political entrails. Some trends emerge. For example, Clinton would dream big, would start strong, win, self-sabotage, rally again, win big this time. No doubt this comes from his personality to seek adventure and to relish the pleasure of an impossible comeback. One of Clinton's stated dreams was to write a great book. This book too, has embarked on a similar journey. It started with great fanfare, bestseller, fizzled in the ratings, now beginning to rally. The years pass, I see even his ardent detractors mellowing.....it is possible that this book will finish the journey....it will rally, and win big. In all seriousness, this is an excellent read

</review>
<review>

The CD version of My Life is the perfect companion for a long road trip. Several reviewers have observed that the 900 page book is too long, but the abridged CD version cuts some of the detail and covers the major events of his life in six hours. While listening to Clinton's smooth southern accent I felt like I was sitting on a porch in Georgia listening to a fascinating person recount the highlights of his life and what he has learned from them. Highly recommended

</review>
<review>

I never appreciated this man while he was President or victim of a scandal from his own weakness! Yet after reading FrKurt Messick's excellent review, I gained valued insights into the inner life  and  struggles of Bill Clinton. After a few Chapters into his years as Governor of Arkansas, he solidly attributes his salvation to his Wife and Family. I doubt that he can justly objectify his personal status when he endeavors to separate his constant external and internal struggles!

He places his personal struggles alongside the weakness of his Brother Roger at the feet of dysfunctional Fathers. As I came to the time of his becoming President, the battery-powered CD Player kept me in the dark about Monica Molinski! That part will wait till I can buy the book...I am closer to becoming an admirer of his position in History as our bright and gifted President, a good Parent and an equally good partner for his brilliant teammate, Hillary Clinton! Far more cheerfuly and gratefully, Retired Chaplain Fred W Hood

</review>
<review>

When Fernand Braudel originally published this text in the sixties, he became a pariah at the Sorbonne.  In retrospect that disapprobation was the kind of seal of approval that "banned in Boston" came to embody.  Previous histories drilled deep into one facet of history.  Braudel's was a pioneering effort in multidisciplinary historical analysis.  It captures the historical flow that evolves civilizations, sacrificing only the detail outside the themes.  Even subsequent to "A History of Civilizations," other historians have been unable to write a thematic survey that matches this original.  And don't be tempted to skip the "soft" introductory chapters with titles like "The Study of Civilization Involves All the Social Sciences," and "The Continuity of Civilizations."  These tee up the hard topics, like "The Greatness and Decline of Islam."  There's method in Braudel's approach, and it takes patience.  Braudel's translator, Richard Mayne had his job cut out for him.  The complex syntax is that of a French intellectual of the sixties, and it is retained in Mayne's text, but you become accustomed to it.  Don't look for maps or photographs in this Penguin Paperback; the text alone is six hundred pages.  There's only one other book in this space, "From Dawn to Decadence," by Jacques Barzun.  In my view they are complementary

</review>
<review>

Very poor analysis of West African civilizations. For example, Ghana was a very significant Soninke empire in Western Africa, yet barely any attention at all is paid to it. To make matters worse, the author was so desperate to disregard it that he threw in a baseless and eurocentric statement that its capital may have been "founded by whites from the North". Fact is, there were no "whites" to the North. The only light skin berbers nearby were mixed-race "browns".

</review>
<review>

I was looking for a book that is not as detailed and complex in its description as that of a history atlas, but also one that is not as shallow and perfunctory in its survey as that of a textbook targeted at high school students. "A History of Civilizations" satisfied the above criteria but failed to evoke in me any sense of satisfaction after reading the book.

Instead of the usual way of simply chronicling events, Fernand Braudel decided to approach the subject matter from the perspectives of geography, history and significant periods in the evolution of the civilization. A pretty innovative approach, I thought. But in so doing, not only did he miss out on important details in the content, he fell short of conveying what meager ideas that he had left in a lucid and effective way. He assumed that the reader has sufficient background information and hence plunged right into the `deep end' of the subject matter. The already mind-boggling reading experience was worsened by the choppy, inadequate translation of the original French writing. The lack of illustration, annotations, maps/diagrams will contribute to the bewilderment, and not the enlightenment of the poor reader.

If you were to buy this book, just read Chapter 1 (a general review) and the chapters on Islam, Latin America, USA and Russia. The rest of the book is not worth your effort getting mired in the entanglement of information (or rather, lack of information and insights) and having to bash your way through. Furthermore, the book was written two decades ago, and hence the information presented is not up-to-date. Well, treat it as a `time capsule' of facts then.

</review>
<review>

If you want a better understanding of how the world has come to be what it today is, then this book is a good first step in so doing.  Braudel was an influential French historian specializing in the Mediterranean, so his insights into the evolution of Europe are more insightful than other regions he highlights (but he is insightful throughout).  Excellent book to read while you bask in the sun with your feet dancing in Lake Michigan on a tourist beach (as I did).  Maybe the atmosphere I had while reading made me enjoy it more; nonetheless, one should read this if they have any desire to

</review>
<review>

This book is extraordinary! Meant for French lycens in their last year before sitting for their bac exam, it was a failure. However, looking at today's situation of the west vis--vis the Islamic and other non-western worlds, it is a jewel. Among other things, it explains the origin of today's conflicting attitudes. For example, why the Egyptians and other Mediterranean peoples become in overwhelming majority Moslems several centuries after the conquest by the Arabs

</review>
<review>

Man, you can't keep selling the same book forever and keep everyone satisfied. I liked the way they presented the idea of BW, but it was seriously outdated. They should make enhancements and upgrades atleast one in two year

</review>
<review>

Anybody buying this book to learn some BW will be very much disappointed. Like the way the book is organised but older stuff. I can't beleive the greedy publiser is still selling this book. Not only they should stop selling, also should recall the book

</review>
<review>

This book is great since all the step by step instruction is accurate. This book is for SAP consultants who have little knowledge of SAP-BW concepts and would like become a SAP-BW expert. The only thing that I saw lacking is for Business Explorer query options. There are very few examples for Business Explorer. But however, I think if you play with the GUI this problem is overcome easily. THIS BOOK IS WORTH IT !!

</review>
<review>

As title suggests this book is step by step guide. I think author has assumed you already have knowledge of SAP BW concepts. It walks you through steps on how to create infocubes, load data and create queries and workbooks. Its EXTREMELY useful for people who are thinking to self-train themseleves in BW area . NOT meant for expereince BW people ..

</review>
<review>

Secured Packaging.  Prompt.  I would do business with them again

</review>
<review>

In the introduction the authors tell us that the purpose of the book is to provide snapshots of daily life.  If you have ever been to Italy you know that they have a different notion of what it means to live.  Every visit that I have every made to Italy there has been a general strike that has taken place.  The first time I visited Italy this fact mystified me.  Now, I just know that this is what happens and I don't let it bother me.

This book is a collection of short discussion on a variety of topics.  The topics covered are as follows:

1.	April Fool's Day
2.	At the table
3.	Attracting Attention
4.	Bad Luck Day
5.	Il Bar
6.	Le barzellette (joke)
7.	Basic Expressions in Italian
8.	La Befana
9.	Business
10.	Calcio (Soccer)
11.	Calendar
12.	Calling Cards
13.	Il campanilismo
14.	Il carnevale
15.	Celebrations and holidays
16.	Compliments, appreciation, and criticism
17.	Dating and Marriage
18.	Driving in Italy
19.	Education
20.	Expressions such as Dio mio!
21.	Eye contact in conversation
22.	Family and friends
23.	Il Ferragosto
24.	Form of government and politics
25.	Gallantry
26.	Gestures
27.	Houses and housing
28.	Introductions
29.	Italian films
30.	Italy on wheels
31.	The kitchen
32.	The language
33.	Letters
34.	Made in Italy
35.	Ma lei non sa chi sono io! (You don't know who I am)
36.	Il malocchio (evil eye)
37.	M'arrangio
38.	Meals and mealtimes
39.	Monetary unit - the lira (this is now out of date)
40.	Navigating a building
41.	Number usage in different situations
42.	On stage in Italy
43.	Opera
44.	Il Palio
45.	People's names and name days
46.	Physical distance and contact
47.	La Piazza:  the center of daily life
48.	Politicians
49.	Professional and civil titles
50.	Pro loco
51.	Punctuality
52.	La raccomandazione
53.	Religion
54.	Restaurants
55.	Lo sciopero (strikes)
56.	Shopping
57.	Signs
58.	Lo sport
59.	Telephones
60.	The term American
61.	Tests
62.	Time of day
63.	Transportation
64.	The two faces of Italy
65.	Tu, Lei, and voi
66.	La vendemmia
67.	Visiting
68.	Waiting in line
69.	Ways of conveying information
70.	We make love, not war
71.	The wines of Italy
72.	Women
73.	Work
74.	The world of youth

The sections that speak of male and female interaction are very valuable for women traveling to Italy alone.  Italians are very expressive people.  They are much more demonstrative than Americans.  This book covers that fact in great detail, and does a nice job of getting the point across.  Physical beauty is greatly prized in Italy, and this will result in more than a few pinches when you are a woman in Italy unaccompanied.

Overall, I think this is useful little book to read before leaving for your first trip to Italy.  It won't make a lot of sense before you arrive in Italy.  However, once you are there much of it will become clear.

</review>
<review>

This slender volume reads fast.  A comprehensive study of Italian culture is beyond the scope of this book.  The authors have arranged 74 brief  and quot;points and quot; about daily life in Italy, alphabetically by subject, so the reader doesn't know what is coming next.  If you look at the sample pages available here, you will get a sense of the leaps: we begin with an explanation of the Italian version of April Fool's Day, followed by four paragraphs on table manners, and then we're on to  and quot;attracting attention, and quot; and so on.  From the very way it's organized, we are clearly in the realm of entertainment, although the information is accurate and certainly useful.  There is a dusting of vocabulary, but it's not a course in Italian for travellers.  I found it a delightful and fascinating read

</review>
<review>

This book offers true, informative facts about Italy and the Italian lifestyle in an easy to read format.  It's a great read for anyone planning a trip to Italy or for anyone simply interested in this magnificent  country

</review>
<review>

I am a international student. For understanding and using english naturely, I have read a lot of "Grammar books." So far, my all of english abilities:speaking, writing, reading, and grammar are not good. This book is really helpful. I recommend to many international student!

</review>
<review>

I have used this outstanding book with international students for several years, but it would be helpful if the Answer Key were available from Amazon.

</review>
<review>

With this book is it possible to learn the english grammar.
I'm from Germany and my school time is far away. This book help rearly to learn and understand.

</review>
<review>

I definitely wouldn't change these workbooks (A and B) for other Advanced English Grammar Workbooks. If you want to master Grammar in order to top a TOEFL or TESL exam, I really recommend it. The examples are extremely easy to follow. The only problem is that I prefer a one-workbook system. Anyway, my five stars go to Betty Azar's Grammar Book

</review>
<review>

I didn't know that this grammar book is composed of volume A and Volume B. After I recieved this book, I realized that. But I guess there is combinated one. Also, you can buy combination with work book less than regular price. Be careful, when you buy this book, make sure if you need just Volume B

</review>
<review>

It is not only my favorite book but also my index ,because i just study one year by myself of this book and i've got very good skills especially in grammar .So i'll recommend anyone who likes to learn enlish fast to choose this book.So just look at it one time and i'm sure you'll like it ,blieve me!

</review>
<review>

Pranab Chatterjee wisely cautions us to remember that there are ways of expressing nationalism that differ from the Western models. With examples from literature and history the author helps us explore the   and quot;inner and quot; spiritual or cultural world of Bengalis in colonial  India, a world they tried to keep safe and distinct from the   and quot;outer and quot; world of British-imposed politics. The writing in places  is a bit vague, but the reading is worth the effort to remind us that  wisdom does not begin and end in the West

</review>
<review>

Even though L.M. Montgomery did not intend Anne of Green Gables to be a series, she still captivates with her eager readers in Anne of Avonlea.
There are still quite a few differences, Anne has grown from a "queer", fiery, young girl to a wiser, calmer, auburn-headed schoolteacher. Yes, a schoolteacher. Also, as we follow Anne in this Bildungsroman literature, the romance between her and Gilbert Blythe peeks through shyness and past misadventures in this novel.
Some people consider it a book not as interesting as the first, and perhaps this is because Anne is no longer a child and could not grow into a young woman with the same inexperienced attitude.
Altogether, my opinion of the book is that it was a good follow-up and I sympathize that it would be hard to make up such great a book as Anne of Green Gables.

</review>
<review>

How could anyone sit and read this boring work of fiction.  I am actually listening to the audio version and I am almost falling asleep and cannot remember a word the reader has said.
I am going to stick to the movie versions of Anne of Green Gables instead of reading the rest of the books.  At least the movies keep your interest

</review>
<review>

Being a L.M. Montgomery fan helps of course, but this second book in her series is a great sequel to the Anne of Green Gables which started it all.  The writing hold true to the author's form and the character development is as good as the first work in the series.  My wife and I have been reading these books for years and never tire of them.  Again, as with her first work, you have to remember the time these were written and the style and syntax used at that time.  This particlar story starts where the last left off, Anne is sixteen and her adventure continues.  I, for some reason, find these books rather comforting to read and recommend them highly.

</review>
<review>

Red haired with a flaming temper, the phenomenal Anne Shirley is back in her 2nd book! Marilla, a kindly old maid who had set heart on bringing Anne up (when she was an orphan) has decided to also adopt two adorable little twins, Davy and Dora Keith. Anne is absolutely thrilled but adopting these twins causes big trouble. Davy is really a good boy at heart but always finds himself into scrapes: like making his sister Dora walk the pig fence! Davy??s idea of fun includes violence and humor ?V but only for himself. The girls have to teach Davy manners, which is a difficult task for such a cheeky little boy. Anne??s problems grow even more as she takes up responsibility of being a schoolteacher and suddenly feels very timid again, but she has to pull up her socks and jerk herself back into the adult world. At school, she regains her impertinence temper and broad imaginations as she shares happy times with her students, especially Paul Irving, this sweet little kid with brown hair and the most delightful face she has ever seen. He brings her flowers and calls her ??Sweet Teacher??. Her friendship with striking Gilbert Blythe (ex-enemy for calling her hair ??carrots??) has grown, but what is Gilberts real reason of being so sweet and pleasant? Has Diana (her bosom friend) finally grown up? I really enjoyed this book because it talks about Anne growing up and finding her place in the adult world leaving her wonderful childhood behind forever. I simply couldn??t put it down because after every page, Anne has another adventure so it is like a cliffhanger. My mom keeps telling me to go and do work but I cannot stop because this is the most wonderful book ever written. I like the others in this series also.Thank you L.M. Montgomery for bringing a bright light into my life!~~ Referring to the special collectors editio

</review>
<review>

I love this story. Echo lodge was great. It was about the last book where Anne is in Avonlea and a little girl. Very excellent book

</review>
<review>

This is just a wonderful sequel to Anne of Green Gables.  It deals with Anne's life after returning to Avonlea to teach and before she goes off to college.  Seeing Anne begin to come into adulthood is exciting and yet a little sad.  It is exciting to see her deal with the new challenges from being a school teacher and inspiring her students to starting the Avonlea Village Improvement Society (to which there is some resistance from the Avonlea elders at first).  Anne is still of course a kindred spirit, but it seems that she is mellowing as she matures (which was is just a touch sad, but as Mr. Henderson says, all things must change).  For anyone who liked the first book, this is sure to not disappoint

</review>
<review>

It never ends, luckily!!! I will never tire of Anne's wonderful, lively imagination. In this story, Anne is sixteen, with lovely dark red hair, gray twinkling eyes, and only seven freckles! Anyways, more happens in this story than a change in appearance: Anne becomes the Avonlea schoolma'am, and loves her students like crazy, especially little Paul Irving, who happens to have the same imagination and qeer ways as his teacher. Anne and Marilla even adopt little twins, who also win their love. But when Diana Barry and Anne are wandering down the lane one evening, they stumble upon the lovely Miss Lavender. She has the same imagination too! Well, everything in this story is just as perfect as it's prequel. It's not one of those great first books with dumb sequels...in this case they're both GREAT

</review>
<review>

Anne of Avonlea was almost as good as the first Anne book. It is about Anne's life as a school teacher in Avonlea. Marilla adopts two mischievous twins and Mrs. Rachel Lynde moves in. So life is never dull for Anne at the school house or at Green Gables. You could read it on its own, but I recommend you read Anne of Green Gables first

</review>
<review>

I read this book when I was 12 and loved it. Now I'm 21 and recendly read it again, and I liked it even more. The plot is great. The characters are alive, and the writing is superb.A must for anyone that wants to laugh, love and cry with the town from Avonlea

</review>
<review>

I stayed up all night reading this book, not only because the info was so good but it is extremely humorous and entertaining.  I recommend this book to anyone who cares about their dog

</review>
<review>

I bought this book as a last resort on how to deal with my GSD/Malamute. She was a horrible mannered thing..lol. Now she is better behaved and minds. Three HUGE cheers to Joy Tiz for her awesome book and understanding of what makes a dog tick!!!! I also keep on on her websites for more info as I go along..going to write another book Joy

</review>
<review>

Joy actually understands dogs and temperment.  I can not believe how many books I have read that were written by people who didn't have the slightest clue what made dogs tick

</review>
<review>

I bought this book eventhough I own the dvd because the movie was fantastic and absolutly hilarious. Bridget Jones's Diary (the book) is equally as funny, it differs slightly from the movie but not too much, this works well because it adds new scenes and information into the story and life of Bridget Jones. It's a very well written, quick read that will remain on my bookshelf for a very long time. I recommend it to all

</review>
<review>

There was a lot of hype surrounding this book, with the movie and all, and after reading, I have to say, I fell in love with it! Ms. Jones is the perfect chick lit heroine and she made me laugh so many times! A book that is this good is a rare treat, so don't pass it up if you haven't read it yet! Along with it, I also recommend "Heartbreaker" by Kim Corum, another good chick lit book

</review>
<review>

Bridget Jones, modern day woman, brillant and doesn't know it, prone to accidents and mess ups but manages to come out of them.

This is the book that started it all with the chick lit fever.  Bridget Jones is my hero!

</review>
<review>

If you haven't read this book-- it's a must-- it's a classic early version of Chick Flick. This is an outrageously funny book and yet sincere in it's look at the inside view of a gal with a few extra lbs and being single in the 90's. Still a national best seller. It is so much fun for anyone who tries to lose weight or is on a diet (isn't that all of us) in the course of the book she loses 72 lbs and gains 74 -- hilarious or is it? A droll sense of humor, a strong emphasis on how we look and how we relate to men-- will give any female reader much to think about and chuckle about too. Do you want to lose 7 lbs, stop smoking and develop inner poise-- well see how Bridget does or doesn't do all of that in Bridget Jones diary.Fast summer read-- great airplane reading, fun reading for a mom who has to read in short breaks between kids, food, family and chaos! Good re-reading too....keep it at the summer house for guest

</review>
<review>

This book is funny. No one can doubt that. The reader can truely feel the joy, the sadness, the hope, the loss, the success and the failure that Bridget Jones feels from page to page. The movie is, indeed, hilarious, and to some extent better than the book. Do not expect flowery writing styles like that of Maya Angelou. Expect a more simplified style, such as that of Meg Cabbot (although more 'adult,' as it were, intelligent and thought/emotion-provoking) Expect a good page-turner, which keeps you rooting for the character to find the perfect sex-God who will love all fluxuating 131 lbs of her and keep her mother quiet all at the same time. Most greatly, however, you wish nothing less than for her to be happy with the Bridget Jones that you will grow to love. Most certainly reccomend. Good summer- or plane-ride-rea

</review>
<review>

All women have their problems, but for Bridget Jones, with her seemingly permanent single life, for which all of her married acquaintances obsessively harass her about, her habit of drinking a little too much, and her trouble with her weight, which seems to mysteriously rocket up and down, the poor thing just can't seem to catch a break.

An instantly lovable character, Bridget is real, and her complaints about life and men are often hilarious and believable. Her conversations with her friends are also extremely enjoyable as they dish and grumble about all the things that men do wrong, which, you know, are quite a lot. Often her musings and thoughts, the "What's wrong with me," and her compulsively-fixated dieting and attempts at positive reinforcement, are very entertaining.

Very funny book that is different in several ways from the movie; so if you have seen the movie, try the book (books).

</review>
<review>

I rarely like a movie better than the book but it seems that sometimes a director knows when to cut out unfavorable aspects better than a book editor.  This was still a very good book and I highly recommend it.

</review>
<review>

After seeing the movie, I decided to pick up the book.  This book proved to be very funny, as the protagonist wrestles with issues that many, many women her age face today.  Fielding ingeniously draws readers in with very true, often serious real-life topics (being single and not liking it, infidelity, betrayal)and is yet able turn it into light, funny reading.  That takes talent, in my book.  In the wrong hands, this novel could have been a very dreary book that no one would want to read(in light of the above topics).  You cant help but root for Bridget.

I recommend this book and its sequel.  Most everyone will get a good laugh out of it

</review>
<review>

Go buy this book.  You'll read it over and over - and laugh every single time.  Bridget Jones is my hero.  She tries so hard to be perfect... but poor thing, she is like the rest of us - woefully insecure and less than perfect.

Almost everyone has seen the movie which was excellent, but the book is twice as good.  If you love romantic comedies, you'll love Bridget Jones

</review>
<review>

In this short work by Manly Hall, he digresses into the little known subject of how the ancient masters of the mystery schools go about teaching their students. Much has changed in the way of secret societies since the days of Plato and Pythagoras, however, the principles are generally the same. Silence is still of utmost importance. In the times of Pythagoras, silence was not only a virtue, but something your life depended upon. Today, you will not get crucified or burned at the stake for revealing secrets from a society, however, your integrity and Will are disseminated. Silence today stands as a virtue more than anything, but one that most people neglect. This short book also looks into the practices of the Student, Disciple and Initiate, as the basic three grades of the practitioner once they have entered a mystery school. Even today all of these attitudes that Hall speaks about have complete practicality in today's culture. It is less about environment and more about the demeanor of the practitioner. If one does not take in all of the ideas represented in this book, surely one or two of them will cling to the readers mind as not only possible, but inspirational. For those that have been practicing the secret arts for a period of time, this book may serve as a good reminder of why they are doing what they do to begin with

</review>
<review>

This is a pretty exceptional book. There are three major strengths of the book from the perspective of Shaara's writing ability.

First, Michael Shaara has the rare ability to describe battle scenes, including the horror and chaos, in a manner that makes these battles accessible and realistic and immediate to the reader. Very few writers have this gift. Tolstoy was able to capture the cat and mouse game between Napoleon and Czar Alexander the Great in War and Peace; Victor Hugo was able to capture the chaos of Waterloo in Les Miserables; Ian McEwan captures the sad retreat to Dunkirk in Atonement; Robert Graves captures trench warfare during World War I in Goodbye to All That; and Joseph Heller captures the absurdity of war in Catch 22. I would have to say that Michael Shaara comes very close to the writing skills of Tolstoy, Hugo, McEwan, Heller, and Graves in terms of describing the unfolding of battle.

Second, Michael Shaara is a master at capturing the male or masculine mind. I do not mean to be stereotypical here but it is very much a man's book. I say this because Michael Shaara was able to capture male friendship, male envy and competition, male humor (which can be dark, sarcastic, and gross) and the manner in which males respond to a chain of command.

Third, Shaara is superb at developing individual characters, exploring the internal dynamics that make them 'tick' and that lead them to take the actions and positions that they take under certain conditions, such as the stress of warfare. This aspect of the book was fascinating. The portrait of General Lee was fair and balanced. Lee was suffering from cardiovascular disease and was the retired head of West Point. As a military theoretician he was still under the influence of Napoleon Bonaparte's military theories. He wished to be well informed so as to make the best decisions and then to engage the enemy when he thought he had the advantage. He is usually contrasted with the Union General, McClellan who frustrated President Lincoln because of McClellan's continuous delays and preparations and avoidance of engagement with the enemy. However, General Lee failed to adjust his military strategy to the improvement in firearms technology. It is General Longstreet who is one of the two most interesting characters in the story for Longstreet recognized that improved firearm technology changed the equation in regard to battleground tactics. Longstreet's conceptions were not appreciated during the Civil War and unfortunately were not appreciated during World War I, when so many of Europe's young men died senseless deaths by charging machine guns.

The character of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain is a wonderful counterpoint to Longstreet. Longstreet is in constant mourning for his four children, all of whom died in one day of fever. Chamberlain on the other hand is pschologically very healthy, with the ability to respond to those around him with a healthy range of emotions. Longstreet was a military genius, but unfortunately a genius that was unrecognized as such because of the aura and mantle of sainthood that the South had conveyed onto General Lee. Chamberlain on the other hand was a college professor who was not trained to be a soldier but who was extremely pragmatic and resourceful.

This is a very enjoyable book, full of history, well written.


</review>
<review>

Even if you do not read historic novels you will love this one. The author lets you see inside the characters so it is history book that is nothing like the ones you read in school

</review>
<review>

This novel won the pulitzer prize for fiction and for good reason. It's superbly written with a keen eye for military and character details. The commanders come alive in this book like in no other except perhaps Shelby Foote's brilliant (non-fiction) trilogy. The movie "Gettysburg" was based on this novel. If you love historical fiction and the Civil War you must read this fantastic book. The author's son has made quite a career (Jeff Shaara) out of writing a series of novels based upon this one - before and after Gettysburg (which is the setting for Killer Angels). Unfortunately, in this instance, the apple fell quite far from the tree as far as writing capabilities are concerned. Steer clear of the Jeff Shaara books and read the non-fiction histories instead. But, if you need a good/great civil war novel, you're likely to find no better one than this

</review>
<review>

For history buffs, students and Civil War fanatics I would advise them to read this book and then see the movies "Gettysburg" that was made a few years ago.  The books is about as sharp as one can get when covering the horrors of war.  The characterizations are very sharp as and the story telling from the beginning of the battle to after its end is about as accurate as it comes.  Sometimes one can actually see the action and often it is disturbing.  This novel should be required reading in High School and College history classes

</review>
<review>

This is a gret read for anyone who is a civil war  and /or history buff. Great character developement, plot, rate-overall an easy read about a topic which has an overwhelming amount of information.  If you liked "Gods and generals", you should enjoy this one

</review>
<review>

I bought the book while in Gettysburg and read it nonstop on the flight home. It's a quick read and will definitely keep your interest. I highly recommend the movie Gettysburg as well, and having read the book will provide deeper insight than what a movie can do. Above all, visit Gettysburg, as touring the sites and seeing the terrain will make The Killer Angels come alive. It did for me

</review>
<review>

This is a great book, which I would classify as a historical novel.  I read it before I went out to Gettysburg (along with all the two others in the series, which are just as fabulous).  I love the Civil War and work in archives cataloging many actual Civil War letter and artifacts.  However, to someone who was not too interested in the war, history or is younger this might not be a good book for them.  Nor is this book a supplement to actual research and factual histories. In the book, expect many reports about troop movements (war is 99% boredom, 1% sheer terror).  Expect lots of inner monologues, speeches, and flowery language because that is how it was in the Victorian era (it is the truth I have read enough letters to prove it).  I can say this book is one of the best historical fiction books I have read but it is not for everyone.  As for the movies based on this series, Gettysburg and Gods and Generals, they have to be the most boring movies I have ever seen, just awful.  Read the book over watching the movie

</review>
<review>

I wholeheartedly recommend this historical novel to anyone interested in learning about the Civil War.  In fact, I recommend this book to anyone NOT interested in the Civil War.  This is the first Civil War novel I have read, and I was completely captivated.  Michael Shaara gave life to many of the key figures in the Civil War's most famous battle.  Although, much of the interior dialogue is fiction based on historical documents, the details of the action stay true to history.  Shaara provides amazing insight into the essence of the war, the "Cause", and provokes a feeling of kinship with officers from both sides of the battlefield.

Michael Shaara has created an historical fiction that compels me to learn more about the details of these great American figures that he has truly made come to life

</review>
<review>

There are not enough words in Webster's Dictionary to describe all the feelings one experiences while reading this book.

Its hero, suprisingly, is Union Cavalry general John Buford, who is the first to ride into Gettysburg in July 1, 1863. If not for his brilliantly executed defense-in-depth of Gettysburg and the surrounding heights on that first day, the Union army would have lost that battle, and probably the war shortly thereafter. This book is worth reading just to learn about Buford, who is almost never historically recognized for his role in the battle, and who mysteriously disappears from the battle after day one

</review>
<review>

This is an excellent book if you are interested in writing horror. It takes you though each aspect of the genre step by step. The exercises in the book are useful too. I recommend this book to anyone interested in writing horror

</review>
<review>

I've been writing since I was 15 but I've lacked the initiative and  experience to finish a story, now that I've read Writing Horror I've done  the exercises and finished a few stories.  I found the sections on the  seven steps of plotting and the five ways to open a story immensely  helpful.  The exercises and advice are geared towards short story writing  although there's a few helpful hints about book length fiction.  Throughout  the book Van Belkom stresses how hard the publishing industry is, only  those who stick it out will make it in this business.  Also of note, being  a fellow Canadian it's refreshing to see a writing book told from the  perspective of a Canadian author.  Use this book to write a story and Renni  Browne's Self Editing For Fiction Writers to edit it into print.  I can't  recommend this book enough

</review>
<review>

You know you're in good hands when you open this book.  But it takes more than just an incredible set of credentials (Bram Stoker Award, several novels and over 15 anthology appearances) to be an effective teacher.  It  takes a broad understanding of the writing craft and business, and an  organized approach--all of which Van Belkom has with this book.  It's a  fast (216 pages), informative primer for new horror writers, and perhaps a  nice refresher for the pros.  Covering all the topics a book like this  should, such as composition, marketing, and the current state of the genre,  Van Belkom is at his best when he dissects his own stories and experiences  for the reader's benefit; I'm just disappointed he didn't give us  more--more meat, as they say.  If you're still in the  I'm-embarrassed-I-love-horror stage, Writing Horror has a flexible, paper  cover that's perfect for folding over when you're on a crowded subway

</review>
<review>

About 20 years ago, I bemoaned the lack of heroes in our society. The "anti-heroes", the good-bad guys had taken over and there were only the ones you love to hate in the spotlight. Cormack McCarthy wrote the first volume of his trilogy around the same time and  I found some of the heroes I'd been looking for. McCarthy hasn't created his cowboy heroes, he communicated or maybe "channeled" them. It really seems to me that like some of the ancient storytellers, he  serves as a medium for the ancient voices. That is not meant to minimize Mr. McCarthy's talent. No-one has been more successful as he in capturing the language and personalities of real cowboys.
"Cowboy" is more than a little ambiguous in our language. Some use the word to describe those who would take advantage of opportunities to scratch advantage from others without regard to conventional ethics or morality but for me and others, it suggests the rugged individualist who follows his own path, his own code, in the pursuit of his goals.
Maybe there's no place for cowboys in our current society and maybe that's too ba

</review>
<review>

Incredible. One of the best novels I have ever had the pleasure to read. McCarthy is a master story teller. I have never read a book by him I did not fall in love with.

Bruce Dodso

</review>
<review>

In recent years, a lot of people have noticed that book clubs demand a lot of books.  No surprise, but the next conclusion is that the taste of book club audiences influence what gets published.  I think this is why we have books like "the Devil wore Prada" that are soon followed by "Prep."  This is why people who read "Evensong" soon pick up "Brick Lane" and "The Liars Club."  My wife belongs to a book club.  They have read all of these books.
If men participated in books clubs to the same extent that women do (and I wish that they did), then Cormac McCarthy novels would spawn their own genre.
Cities of the Plain is not about balancing your career with your relationships. It is not about good shoes or good sex.  It is about important things like falling in love with the impossibly wrong girl.  It is about vast open spaces that leave room for men to make decisions.  (Maybe that is what it takes.) Also, it is about horses and guns and blood and honor.
This is oversimplification.  There is a specific plot: John Grady Cole works with his friend Billy Parham on a ranch near the border with Mexico.  John Grady falls in love with a prostitute at a brothel on the other side.  He wants to marry her.  Their union is ill-fated.
John Grady feels that he loves her.  To him, his love is worthless if it not worth dying for.  That is the question he faces.
I encourage people to read this book.  It is the last in a trilogy.  It was my favorite of all three.

</review>
<review>

I usually read every night to my wife.  We've gone through dozens of books together in our marriage, and several months ago, I read "All the Pretty Horses" to her.  She loved it, and would not let me read her anything else until we had read McCarthy's entire trilogy.  We just finished it.
This book, the third in that trilogy, has its shortcomings, but it is still one amazing piece of work.
In this book, John Grady Cole--the genius horsetrainer of "All the Pretty Horses"--and Billy Parham--the kindhearted nomad of "The Crossing"--come together as ranch hands on a New Mexico estancia.  Both are older than they were in the previous books--Billy much older--but both are kindred spirits whose stories connect with and affect each another.
The book tends more heavily toward the lengthy philosophical monologues that appear only occasionally in the trilogy's earlier volumes, and the whole story at momemnts goes a little bit long if you've just read the two previous volumes right before.
However, the writing is gorgeous, and haunting.  For example, in one passage, a dead calf's "ribcage lay with curved tines upturned on the gravel plain like some carnivorous plant brooding in the barren dawn."  Yeah.
And the ending--the ending is amazing.  It might not be quite what you expect or ask for, but it is thrilling in its perfectness, in its completess, in how true it feels.
It left me holding the book like a priceless religious relic, re-reading its back cover, flipping back through it to parts I had marked, reluctant and unwilling to let go of these characters or their world.
Cormac McCarthy is a literary genius.  He has made the West tangible, taken its most ineffable qualities and turned them into words.  He makes me homesick for the place I already live.
Do not start with this book, if you've never read his other works, but do work up to it.  Do read it.

</review>
<review>

Cities on the Plain is the final volume in Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy, a loosely tied together trio of novels that deal with life along the U.S.-Mexico border.  This novel focuses on the protagonists of each of the first two books - John Grady Cole from All the Pretty Horses and Billy Parham from the Crossing.  Now the two of them are working together on a ranch in New Mexico in the early 1950s.

The rather sketchy plot involves Cole who has fallen hard for a Mexican prostitute.  His love for her has more than a little bit of obsession to it, and Cole is willing to risk all to be with her.  It is his eventual intent to bring her to the U.S. and marry her, although her pimp may have other ideas.

At times, however, the story is secondary as we follow the other smaller adventures in these characters' lives.  McCarthy's great gifts are with his descriptive ability.  He is not always an easy read, however:  he never uses quotes to set off his dialogue and he uses a lot of Spanish, much of which is left untranslated and (for a non-Spanish speaker) can only be partially gleaned from context.

Despite these difficulties, the book is somehow a pleasure to read (although it is probably the weakest in the trilogy).  In some ways it is reminiscent of the movie Brokeback Mountain, if only because it follows the rough life of modern cowboys.  Cole and Parham live tough lives with little hope of any permanence or prosperity, but they are also somewhat content with their choices.

McCarthy is probably an overrated writer, with his distinct style providing an illusion of greater ability than he actually has.  But even if he is not great, he is still good and if you have the patience, you may find this an enjoyable book.

</review>
<review>

This final installment to the Border Trilogy, like the preceding volumes, stands on it own, but stands on it's own less than either of the other two.

This wouldn't be the book to read if you've never read Big Mac before. If you're a hardcore reader, go for Blood Meridian (his best). Or Suttree (his other best). If you're testing the water, and only used to reading pop crime novls or medical mysteries and want to delve a little deeper, start with All the Pretty Horses and work your way into the rest.

What's it like? Think of Faulkner, then have him write a John Steinbeck story, with Hemmigway editing.

Mac is better than Steinbeck, has more flower than Hemmingway, not as much as Faulkner.

But make no mistake, he work is peer to the old masters. America's finest living author.

</review>
<review>

Being a fan of such authors as J.R.R. Tolkien, H.G. Wells, and C.S. Lewis, I figured I'd try and broaden my horizons by reading a book about the American West, a sort of historical fiction that might be entertaining.
I did some research and Cormac McCarthy seemed to be the author to start with.  He got very good reviews (from this site and professional critics).  I find it amazing that he received such great reviews... this book failed to impress me in the slightest bit.  The book seemed to fly away from the plot for a while and suddenly, unexpectedly return to it.  I have never read a book like that before.  After completing this book I had found out more about the life of a prostitute than I ever wanted to know and also I received a free lesson in swearing.  I understand that it was custom in the West to swear, and dealings with prostitutes was common, but I think McCarthy went over the top.  This made it uninteresting and redundant.  Then there was the fact that he rarely used punctuation other than periods, question marks, and exclamation marks.  I did not see a single quotation mark and the word "and" was excessevely overused due to the exclusion of commas.  Dialogue was at times hard to follow and seemingly run-on sentences were monotonous.  After reading this book I also felt ignorant being uneducated in the Spanish language.  Much of the dialogue I could not understand in the least bit.  There were entire conversations written exclusively in Spanish at times when it seemed relevant.  I felt like I missed a lot of important information in the story.
I did find that at time McCarthy did use some beautifully crafted language but the formerly mentioned factors left a very bad impression on me.  I don't suppose I'll ever read a book by Cormac McCarthy again

</review>
<review>

This final novel in Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy of the southwest brings together the themes McCarthy has developed throughout the trilogy.  In the first novel, All the Pretty Horses, McCarthy stresses the romanticism of John Grady Cole, who runs away to become a cowboy, suffers a heart-breaking loss at love, and returns, sadder and perhaps wiser, to find solace in the solitude of his work on the plains.

Times are changing as the 20th century progresses, however, and the independent life of ranchers is threatened.  In The Crossing, a far darker novel which takes place a few years later, Billy Parham, another young man, takes off with his brother, crossing the border into Mexico, to explore its older traditions and ways of life.  Cities of the Plain, with Biblical suggestions in the title, brings young John Grady Cole and the older Billy Parham together, as they work on the McGovern ranch in Texas in the 1950s.  The wilderness is disappearing, cities are encroaching, and an army base may take their land.

Focusing less on the harshness of ranch life than in past novels, McCarthy here concentrates more on character, in this case, that of John Grady Cole, who falls in love with a prostitute from Juarez and wants to bring her across the border to his way of life.  Billy Parham counsels him against marrying her, but John Grady is determined to wrest her away from Eduardo, her manager, and give her the peace that she has never known.  Life is harsh, however, and outcomes are bleak for dreamers and altruists.  John Grady soon finds himself engaged in a struggle with Eduardo which is vicious and unrelenting, a metaphorical struggle between honor and evil, and between civilized values and the "justice" of tooth and claw, hope and desperation, and acceptance of change and adherence to the past.

McCarthy's gorgeous descriptions of this vanishing way of life on the ranch are as effective here as they are in the other novels in the trilogy, though they seem to be presented nostalgically.  Times are changing, and the "old man," the ranch owner, is now becoming senile.  Civilization is drawing closer, and John Grady, the cowboy, uses taxis instead of horses when he is in a hurry to travel.  As McCarthy draws the reader into John Grady's story, the reader knows that the struggle between him and Eduardo is a mythic struggle, and s/he also knows what the likely outcome will be.  The elegance with which the ending is drawn, however, gives both potency and poignancy to McCarthy's message.  Mary Whipple

</review>
<review>

Read this book at a light warehouse because you will NOT want to be anywhere near the dark!

</review>
<review>

IT is one of my favorite Stephen King novels I've ever read.  Possibly in the top 10 of all my favorite books.  It is extremely long and I must admit that I had to take breaks during the reading of this novel to get few quick reads in but this book was worth it.  I know it's cliche to say so but the movie does this book no justice.  Of course a movie that would do it justice would most likely be a week or so long.

This novel has some of the best character development I've ever read and the reader gets a chance to really get to know each character.  Even a chance to know more about each character that you might care to.  Highly recommended even if you aren't a King fan

</review>
<review>

When I first read this book, upon finishing it I immediately proceeded to rip it's 1000 pages up into several tens of thousands of little pieces. That was how much the story affected me. It disgusted me, it disturbed me, it ... moved me. After brooding about it for a few weeks it occurred to me that any writer that could move me to do something like that has really messed with my head, and if that's not the mark of a great writer I don't know what is. I then had to go out and buy another copy and read it again.

Amid all the horror that Stephen King has unleashed from the darkness of his imagination, this has to be the most disturbing, disgusting and, at times, offensive work he has ever set to paper. Forget the movie... this is high octane writing which will leave you gasping for breath. With this book and "The Tommyknockers," Stephen King has proven that he is not just a great horror story writer, but a GREAT writer... period. Buy it, read it.

</review>
<review>

Although I'm only 14 year old boy who lives in Utah, I've been a die hard Stephen King fan since I was twelve, and I have to say, this is really the high light of his career.

Don't be turned off by the massive length of this book, it goes by very quickly, and you'll be glued to it bye the first fifty of so pages.

As I'm sure you know, this is a coming of age story about seven children who together must face an evil that has plagued them and even gives them personal grudges. Other people have already gone over the basic story, but one thing that most of them failed to mention that I find very important is that after their child hood encounters with it, all of them But Mike Hanlon lose every memory they ever had of it.

Yes, this book is vulgar, it is violent, and there is some sexuality, it is an essential part of the story. It is over a thousand pages long, and each page is genius. I will go to my grave saying that this is the greatest book I've ever read, because it's so much more than a horror story. I think this book has greater characters than any other book I have ever read. This is a five star book, and is almost completely flawless. This is my favorite book, and some of Stephen King's other great works are The Dead Zone, Misery, The Shining, and Christine.

Read this book, it is well worth your time, I won't go in depth into the story, because hundreds of other people already have, but this book will scare the piss out of you, make you reflect on your childhood and the friends with whom you shared it, and really just change you. I can't express in words how great this is, but don't take my word for it. Buy it, rent it, whatever, just READ IT (no pun intended).
~Love, Dallas~



</review>
<review>

Wow, what an epic.
The book draws you in to the sinister world of Derry Maine so quickly, and deeply, that you don't want to leave when the last page is read.
With a book so large in volume and scope each reader is bound to find faults with the story, but this world is so full of rich characters, these problems disappear into the pages and eventually vanish.
I originally read this book in High School.  After my first re-read 15 years later, the horror of the what goes on in the town of Derry every 28 years had a bigger impact on me.  However, the adventure and wonderment I pulled from the story then, came flooding back again.  The first half of the book is a coming of age story, with evil stalking the town as a backdrop.  The second half of the book is a story of re-discovery and responsibility, with evil lurking closer in each character's shadows.
Just a fantastic book that reminds the reader of the power we had as children

</review>
<review>

A book that enables you to travel back in time...back to 1958, back to a time when there was Stan, Mike, Richie, Bev, Eddie, Ben and Big Bill and some others...back when some kids' main concern was avoiding Henry Bowers!
A story that, although long...over a thousand pages and in 'IT' years probably much longer, kept my attention throughout. Maybe you'll remember what it was like to cycle so fast that your feet lose contact with the pedals...the determination and camaraderie of building a clubhouse, the friendship and love that can overwhelm you when you least expect it to and the fear...fear of the unknown...and fear of the known.

A chilling yet absorbing novel that takes time to aquaint you with the characters and their experiences, so that you really care what happens to them - good AND bad!


</review>
<review>

The book has a wealth of information on a number of chronic disease processes and alternative medicinal treatments. The section on arthritic diseases contains much valuable information. For instance, Dr. Null explains the many benefits of chelation for capillaries and general wellness. Chondriatin Sulfate is helpful for both arthritis and osteoarthritic conditions.

The restorative foods; such as, fruits and veggies will help to ease these conditions and maintain health. The green lip mussel, pure spring water, rhus tox (musculoskeletal disorders), mind/body relaxation techniques, rolfing and the Alexander technique for cranial balancing are cited to relieve the debilitating aspects for a constellation of arthritic conditions.

A high fiber diet is another condition precedent for maintaining colon/gastrointestinal health-key to maintaining wellness to combat arthritis. I've found that the fruit/veggie and high
roughage diet is helpful for arthritic conditions together
with other supportive therapies. i.e. magnets, colonics,
acupuncture, chondriatin sulfate and related derivatives.

Sugar and excessive gluten must be eliminated to make the
diet component work properly. Daily exercise and professional
help from a physical therapist will be extremely helpful to
refine the treatment methodology and regimen. Eliminate high
fat foods, bad cholesterol, white sugar, heavy oil cooking
and too many processed food groups in order to facilitate
overall health. Too much acidity is another aggravant for
sufferers having arthritic/musculoskeletal conditions. Stress
reduction and relaxation will help cement a steady management
of the arthritic disease processes.

In my own experience, successful arthritic condition management consists of a considerable program implemented consistently over a permanent time frame. You can't have 12 cups of coffee with sugar additives each day or a pound of macaroni a week and hope to combat arthritic conditions successfully. Eliminate smoking because the toxins in cigarettes are absorbed by the body-perhaps with permanent residual side-effects. It's important to keep
abreast of the rheumatology profile  i.e. SED Rate and blood
inflammation indicators  i.e. C-reactive protein. These
indicators are a pointer to more profound trends in the body
chemistry which require treatment or a special anti-inflammatory
protocol and/or dietary change.

This volume is not a cure-all. Nothing is a cure-all for middle-
aged arthritis. Successful symptomatology management and
a cessation of disease progression is the ultimate treatment
goal. Emcellular transplantation has been shown to have positive
aspects with some risks; however, the procedure is limited to
a few clinics outside the United States. Over time, the U.S.
will have experimental protocols on board. In the interim,
disease management of symptoms and progression is the ultimate
treatment goal for arthritic conditions. Some authors discuss
a gut permeability linkage to arthritis and derivative conditions.

The work provides helpful protocols for implementation by the
general public. Some of these protocols have been published
extensively in peer-reviewed journals. i.e. The Lancet

Dr.Null gives credit to some well-known protocols in the
citations toward the end of the book. His works contain
a variety of protocols. Some are proprietary to him. Others are
well known through peer-reviewed journals  i.e. The Lancet
Another group of protocols are specific to popular disease
management in India, Asia and indigenous cultures.

The book would be a valuable asset for any personal medical
library. The September 2006 new edition is eagerly awaited

</review>
<review>

Once again Gary Null "Phd" recycles information into another GN book with his one size fits all vegeterian diet and vits and supplements. Gary Null is probably the only author that carries a Phd and fails to reveal where he got his BA, MA and Phd. A quick reading of Quakwatch.com shows that Gary Null has  "nontraditional" credentials and owns a multi-million dollar supplement company. He also sells everything from magnets to water and air filters.

The confusing thing is why someone consuming a nutrient dense diet of organic vegetables, fruit and legumes would need supplements at all. The only reason I could think of is it is a bait and switch technique since most people unable to continue any diet that is restrictive, time consuming and costly give up. So GN conveniently has dozens of vits, supplements, and food replacement products to fill in the gap. I estimate the cost of following GN recommendations in full it would cost about $600 per person a month. To prove my point GN for decades has been against chocolate but recently he has added a GN "healthy" chocolate bar to his portfolio. Gary hooks people in by promising the fountain of youth and eternal life. Interestingly this 60 plus year old finds it necessary to put a old stock photo of himself in his books.

</review>
<review>

My grandmother was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's disease.  This crippling disease was robbing her of her memory and daily life.  Now, 2 years after her diagnosis we discovered Gary Null's  and quot;Get Healthy Now! and quot; This volume functions as a valuable tool to reverse her condition and take back her life.  We have followed Null's natural, healty regimen and have witnessed remarkable results.  She no longer struggles with this debilitating condition.  We are grateful to Gary Null and his work.  My grandmother can now enjoy everyday pleasures as she once did

</review>
<review>

Let me first say that I am an unlikely reviewer to be so hostile to this type of book; I am extremely committed to healthy food choices, environmentally sound policies, and all the basic values Gary Null ostensibly embraces.  I have no problem with Null's basic premise that we should consume a fresh, non-processed, plant-based diet(although some studies have concluded that those who supplement their food with some fish and dairy products are healthier), buy organic food when at all possible, and avoid toxic household products.  But I am totally outraged by Gary Null's voodoo nutrition approach to these legitimate issues.  I bought the book and promptly returned it because it was so filled with woozy-new age drivel and devoid of reliable references to support the more controversial points.  We don't need any more evidence that a plant-based diet low in trans-fats is healthier than eating at McDonalds.  This book adds NOTHING legitimate to the basic health information you can obtain from any reliable print or internet source, and is far inferior to, for instance,  and quot;The Food Pharmacy and quot; by Jean Carper, in which virtually every statement of fact is supported by one or more scientific references.  Save your money and buy some nice fresh organic produce

</review>
<review>

I eagerly awaited this next installment of the Artemis Fowl series.  Would Eoin Colfer handle success and continue to put his best effort forward?  YES!  This book exceeds expectations.  I recommend it to all ages.  If you like humor, a fine plot deftly woven, beautifully written prose with a philosophically rich sub plot this book is for YOU

</review>
<review>

It was great can not wait for his next boo

</review>
<review>

Artemis Fowl is back (finally)! I was terrified that my favorite Irish billionaire genius teenager was gone for good because author Eoin Colfer has been publishing a variety of books in the last couple of years that had nothing to do with good old Artemis. But, fortunately, the boy genius hasn't been forgotten. He's back and more brilliant than ever in this fifth installment of the high-tech fantasy series.

As THE LOST COLONY opens, Artemis is fourteen years old and experiencing the uncomfortable pangs of puberty. While that alone is enough to keep most teens busy for a few years, Artemis has to contend with his surging hormones while trying to save an entire fairy race as it teeters on the brink of extinction. But it's that kind of multitasking that has made Artemis Fowl an international sensation.

THE LOST COLONY has all the elements that Fowl fans have come to expect, including a dizzying array of fairy-issue gadgets, danger whizzing past our heroes from a variety of sources, ingenious plans, and a bodyguard who is as loyal as he is lethal. This book also includes a few new characters who were, for the most part, likeable and fun. The one notable exception is a twelve-year-old French girl who could give Artemis a run for his money in the genius category. She is pretty, rich, and highly annoying. I often found myself wishing that one of the other characters would "accidentally" dunk her in a sewer, or shave her head, or something equally unpleasant. Is it wrong for me to have feelings of aggression toward a fictional character? No, I don't think so. And you'll understand what I mean once you read the book.

Fans of the ARTEMIS FOWL series will not be disappointed in this newest adventure. There were a few problems with the story, including some hard-to-follow descriptions of how Artemis and company escape their latest predicament, and an irritating French girl (see above). Overall, though, I found this an enjoyable book with an ending that knocked me for a loop.
And, as always, I was left wondering what mischief Artemis will dream up next.

Reviewed by:  K. Osborn Sulliva

</review>
<review>

This is by far one of my favorite series of all times. It far surpasses HP in my eyes (I know, blasphemy, right? LOL) I love the twist on the ending and the set up for the next book (there WILL be a next book, right?) A must read for anyone who enjoys the blend of genres and Eoin Colfer.

</review>
<review>

THE 7-DAY DETOX MIRACLE was written for those who know that a yearly detox is just one step on the road to wellness. Most doctors acknowledge that many illnesses have their origin in the gradual accumulation of junk and gunk in the liver, kidneys, and bloodstream. What authors Peter Bennett and Stephen Barrie have done was to write a text that is somewhere in the middle between a primer for the layman and a more advanced text for serious students of medicine and health. They devote the first seven chapters to a scholarly yet readable theoretical explanation as to what a detox is, what it is not, why we need one, and the various lab tests that allow you to optimize and individualize a detox program. The part of the book I found a needed warmup for the actual process itself was the authors description for a dedication for a week long task that may disrupt one's life style for that week. Essentially, they recommend that one ought to take a series of tests prior to the detox that range from chemistry screen testing to acid/base PH testing and to oxidative stress testing. Since these tests require the intervention of qualified health care professionals, it makes sense not to act precipitously without outside help. Once you know what shape your body is in relative to potential toxic excesses, then the program as outlined in this book not only makes sense but is seen as a necessary treatment either to eliminate these toxins or to make sure that you never get them.

Once you commit to a detox, the authors suggest a 1 or 2 day fast supplemented by liquid intake. The diet they urge you to follow for the next 5 days is a helpful and healthy regimin of brown rice, selected fruits and vegetables, and green barley, all of which form the basis of an ongoing diet. What I found most useful about this text is that the authors do not mandate any one aspect of their detox program. Indeed, if you were to adopt even just one part of it, then you would benefit. In my case, my health was pretty good going into the process, so I decided to skip the fasting component and focus on those foods and supplements that act as natural detoxifiers. After a week of eliminating from my diet those foods that were deleterious, mostly saturated fat based, and adding those that were benign, I noticed that I simply felt better. A recent physical exam following my partial detox revealed a much lowered cholesterol count and a strong overall constitution.

I recommend the 7-DAY DETOX MIRACLE because it is clearly written, is based on sound medical principles, and provides many tips and suggestions on how to maintain your new-found health after the intitial week's program is over.

</review>
<review>

I am almost finished with the book, and although I have not done the 7-day detox yet, I am very excited about trying it.  This book was very informative as well as easy to read and lays out the 7-day plan for you.  I also like that they give you suggestions for before, during and after the detoxification.  I can't wait to try it

</review>
<review>

My girlfriend and I both felt the need to do some cleansing and heard about this book through Natural Cures They Don't Want You to Know About.  We started it on a Saturday so we could do the water fast on the weekend - very good idea.  I was amazed how I had not problem with hunger and even though I have to watch my blood sugar level there was no problem.  We felt so great when we were done.  This is something I think we will do at least once a year

</review>
<review>

Of course I want to restore my mind and body!  The title alone made me want to read the book.  However most of the  and quot;miraculous and quot; claims are supported by case studies from the doctors' clinic without a single footnote referencing any medical study.  Those who are skeptical of traditional Western medicine MIGHT enjoy reading this.  However, I found that this book promoted a lot of unsubstantiated claims to cure whatever ails you.  Too good to be true usually is

</review>
<review>

I don't know why this awesome book has negative reviews here. It is a little difficult true. But for a New Yorkphile, like me, it can't be beat, if you want to know New York in the 1920's, and to a lesser degree the nation. All the familiar names are covered: Scott and Zelda, Woolcott, Parker, Gerstein Stein, Freud,Jazz and Ellington among many others. New York as a huge rush for outsiders from their first sight. The skyscraper boom, and builders and architects. The movie industry.The extreme dangers of transatlantic flights, and coast to coast mail deliveries. The Harlem Renaissance, basically the city as a reinventing, percolating tornado.FDR, Damon Runyan,Irving Berlin,WEB Dubois,Singing the Blues, Mary Pickford,  Babe Ruth, Jimmy Walker (the fun loving mayor with questionable morals)the Great White Way, the Cotton Club...It is just about an endless ride thru this great town in the 1920's and beyond, including the aftershock of the 1930's...Sometimes a little difficult, but you can browse through the index too and find hundreds of worthy subjects to check out...One of the best journeys through a time and place that I know!! Also with some interesting photos too

</review>
<review>

This book is a waste of money. I received it as a gift so I couldn't return it. It is full of historical mistakes and careless errors. It is not  worth taking the time to point them out

</review>
<review>

I agree with the above review and would simply like to add my own thoughts.  The book illustrates the fascinating way in which mathematics, society, religion, politics and of course physics have affected each other  (it goes both ways!) through out the ages.  Furthermore, the author nicely  illustrates the processes by which people think and how those processes  have also changed through the ages (i.e., The Age of Reason versus The  Renisance).  This book left me with real insights as to the nature and  limitations of the current state of mathematics and physics.  Things are  not as they seem, my friend!  Lastly, the author displays an appreciation  for the humor and irony of the history which makes this book hard to put  down at times.  I never thought a math/history book could be a  and quot;page  turner and quot;... Read it

</review>
<review>

For the reader who just needs a gentle boost to get atop the masks of Nietzsche, this book will enable you to appreciate sophistication that you may not have even known was there. Not coffee table material, but palpably attractive to the discerning mind

</review>
<review>

What a great book!  420 pages, hardback, and every single page is worth reading, not one page is boring.  You just want to keep reading and keep turning pages!

This is my first Nora Roberts' book.  I can't believe how good she writes!  I would recommend this book to everyone!  It's got murder, mystery, romance, people, the love of the land...

I'd love to find another book like this one!  I really enjoyed it.

(I'll let the other reviewers tell you about the story, I'm not so good at that.

</review>
<review>

I've read quite a few of Nora Roberts's books and this was the only one on which I had the complete 'wowzer' reaction.  I mean, seriously: wow.  This is a book full of content, with enough dimensions to the story to keep me busy for weeks and weeks, reading and rereading it to get it all.  Ms Roberts brings you into the gold and glamour of Hollywood with the same talented ease as she brings you into the green and whispers of the Olympic Rain Forest.  The characters are likable, and believable, and most certainly not your average Roberts book.  Livvy could be a pain in the butt as much as Noah could be a persistent annoyance.  And readers will find themselves grieving for Julie MacBride along with Jamie, Rob, Val, David and Livvy herself.  And there's a surprising twist at the end that will leave you reeling . .

</review>
<review>

When I started reading River's End, it reminded me of a remake of the "O.J. Simpson" murder.  It is a story centered on a little 4-year old girl who witnesses the death of her mother by her father.  Years pass by and the story unravels Olivia's feelings and emotions as they develop based on this horrible tragedy.  Written in the ingenious Nora Roberts style I have grown to truly enjoy, this story is both entertaining and informative as we learn quite a bit about the Olympic Rain Forest through Olivia's eyes.  I guessed the villain about 1/2 way through the book but the story still held my interest as I could never be 100% sure I was correct.  I would highly recommend this book to everyone.

</review>
<review>

In RIVER'S END, Nora Roberts uses a plot that has been used many times over the years: A story of Hollywood's glamour gone astray, and the young girl who survived it. But this isn't a typical plot by any means, not with Roberts' doing the writing. She guarantees many unexpected events along the way!

The tale of a pair of Hollywood stars living the life many only dream of living, a young child who can grow up to have it all, until murder and mayhem reeks havoc in their lives. The mother is dead and the father is in jail, and Olivia, the little girl who had it all, is forced to forget it all in order to save her own sanity.

Olivia is raised by her grandparents in the Pacific Northwest and has been shielded from her past until those events are once again brought to the headlines when her father is released from prison. A young writer, Noah Brady, is the son of the investigating police officer to this crime and he wants to tell the story that no one has been allowed to hear.

Noah digs up long buried ghosts and stirs the pot to bring the monsters back. With her father out of prison and revenge on the killer's mind, you have to wait until the end of the book until many subplots are solved. Was her mother's killer her father or someone else? Who is the monster that wants this story buried and never told? Can Olivia and Noah's love survive this ordeal?

As an avid mystery lover, and a Nora Roberts' fan, I have to say that she just keeps getting better and better. This one almost had me fooled (very few actually do fool me), and I was second-guessing my idea of the villain until almost the end.

</review>
<review>

Some may not consider this one of her best, indeed, it isn't listed as a fav anywhere, but it had enough Nora magic to introduce me to the woman and hook me into devouring everything I could there after.

Pacing was good, twists were good and I was right there in Hollywood, the forest, everywhere her characters were. Detail in descirbing the forests got a little bogged down but I waded through it.

I cried at the end - a first for me! ( Until I read her other books)

I wouldn't read this first, if you're just discovering Nora. There are other books that put the awe in awesome. Check those out then come to this one

</review>
<review>

My first Nora Roberts' book....with only be persistent did I complete the book....found it to be very slow paced with an unrealistic storyline...shallow characterizatio

</review>
<review>

I couldn't put this book down it was so good. It was such a surprise because by reading the inside cover it doesn't sound at all good. But I gave it a try and I'm glad I did it's definatly become one of my favorites this year. The story comes alive for you

</review>
<review>

This is one of the ONLY books by Nora Roberts I can actually say I didnt like. It was SO dissapointing I got mad everytime I looked at it. This books is about Oliva and Noah... THE END. That is practically what it is. It started off when they were both younger, them meeting when they were older and them meeting YET AGAIN WHEN THEY ARE MATURE. I guessed the story RIGHT from the beginning, and I hardly could ever do that before in any of Nora Robert's books. I hate to say it, but I DONT reccomend this book. It was really waste of time. What happened to the quality work of Ms. Roberts

</review>
<review>

A good compendium of advice for individuals, managers and investors alike, who want to prevent themselves from being hoodwinked by corporate fraud.

I read this book after completing another new book, Wall Street Versus America by Gary Weiss, I think that they compliment each other quite well. The Weiss book has a more muckraking tone and is a swifter read, but this book is stronger in other areas not covered by Weiss.

Definitely a book that needs to be and should be read

</review>
<review>

This book changed the way I invest.  It is a must read before putting your money on the line

</review>
<review>

Jim Cramer gets it right.  This book is one of most valuable I have ever read in terms of helping me invest my money -- and I've read alot.  It teaches the reader what to look for to make sure they are investing in good sound companies and not the Enron's of the world. It is one thing to find an exciting stock, it is another to have the confidence to know that you aren't getting swindled.  This book gave me that confidence.

</review>
<review>

A great read going through the last 100+ years of corporate fraudsters.  The authors really make history and the characters come alive through their storytelling.  They also bring out amazing parallels among the frauds and show how people could have spotted the dangers before they lost everything.  Good lessons to know and to keep in mind for the future.  A great book

</review>
<review>

I listened to the CD version...WOW!
What a ride!  This was my first Vince Flynn book but it surely won't be my last!  Violent, sure...but FUN!

</review>
<review>

Vince Flynn started his series of Mitch Rapp books about a decade ago. Actually, the first book he wrote wasn't even part of the series, but all of the other ones since have been. All of his books have a political element to them, and all of them are thrillers written with a take-no-prisoners protagonist who kills first and half the time doesn't bother asking questions later. They're all long, and as Flynn has continued to write the books have gotten longer. Of the four I've read in sequence, the lengths were (in order) ca. 430 pgs., 480, 530, and 670. Those are approximate, but about right. He's actually getting better, though, something that happens to these guys sometimes.

A good analogy here is Tom Clancy. Clancy's first book, The Hunt for Red October, is pretty poorly written, if you go back and look at it now. The dialog, especially, is terrible, and the same thing holds true for Patriot Games (which I've read was written first but published second). As he's progressed, though, Clancy has gotten better editors, and as a result the books he writes are better, too. The same effect has apparently occurred with Flynn: the dialog's better, there aren't quite as many preachy speeches about how we need to defend ourselves, and he still keeps the plot moving along nicely.

In the current installment, Rapp is pursued by an assassin following a Saudi billionaire's discovery that Rapp has killed his son in Afghanistan. There are various plot twists and developments, and frankly you shouldn't read this book without reading all of the previous ones first, but suffice it to say the characters and action are about what a reader of this type of book is looking for. Recommended

</review>
<review>

I enjoyed the novel very much.  Mitch Rapp is an excellent author, but he needs better proof readers.  I could not believe the number of errors that I noticed as I was reading.  I would love to offer my services, but I do not know where to make that request.  I did go to his web sight and found an email address but no response from it.  I taught high School English for thirty-eight years and read thousands of essays for seniors.  This is not the forum for this complaint, but I know no other.  Thanks.  Dale B. Hage

</review>
<review>

His best one yet!   Mitch Rapp gets turned loose in this one. The bad guys get what's coming to them at home and abroad

</review>
<review>

I've read all of Flynn's books. In fact, I just picked up Act of Treason. As I'm reading it, I'm reminded of how disgusted I was with his last book, Consent to Kill, only giving him the benefit of the doubt on this one.

Without giving away the ending, Consent to Kill is but an amateur attempt to keep a tired saga alive for the sake of a bestselling serial--that being the Mitch Rapp saga. To any real fiction writer, what Flynn resorts to in the book, in terms of Mitch's personal relationship, is quite sad; it's simply designed to keep Mitch "hungry" and "emotionally tattered" so as to allow Flynn to continue cashing in on the only story he's capable of writing.

The book started out to be intriguing, although I did ask myself how Flynn intended to keep Mitch going with the seeming direction our star spy was headed via the last novel. But, the story read like a tenth grader wrote it, a tired cliche designed for the sole sake of keeping Mitch Rapp and his million-dollar franchise chugging along.

By far the worst story Flynn has written to date. Skip this one

</review>
<review>

Perhaps it's political intrigue which interests; if so, Vince Flynn's CONSENT TO KILL is now in paperback and provides a thriller based on modern headlines and terrorist concerns. Mitch becomes the target of an international conspiracy for his struggles to preserve freedom: CONSENT TO KILL shows his evolution from hunter to prey as he's stalked by dangerous, unseen forces for his past 'crimes'. An outstanding and engrossing leisure choice

</review>
<review>

Vince Flynn changes up the chase and instead of Mitch Rapp being the hunter he is now the hunted.

I am glad I waited for it in paperback so I could get an excerpt from Vince Flynn's new Mitch Rapp thriller, Act of Treason but I am never waiting again.  I started Mitch Rapp's adventures from the begging in Term Limits and have not been able to stop.  After reading, all seven books you would think that the twists and turns would be exhausted however, Vince finds a way to give us more.  I recommend his style and this series.

</review>
<review>

Although he's been publishing books for a little while, I still tend to think of Vince Flynn as one of the new faces in spy fiction.  Compared to folks like LeCarre, Clancy, Higgins or Deighton, Flynn is a youngster, but that doesn't mean he can't hold his own against the veterans.  In fact, compared to Tom Clancy (who in certain stylistic ways, is probably who Flynn is most similar to), Flynn is actually the better writer.  In Consent to Kill, he again delivers a high-caliber, fast reading thriller.

Consent to Kill features Flynn's principal series character, Mitch Rapp.  Mitch is a super-spy in the James Bond mold, which is to say, he is something more than human.  Indeed, much of the early part of the book reiterates just how formidable Rapp is:  he eliminates a terrorist cleric with ease, he is recruited by a couple politicians to head a "black ops" group, and most significantly, he becomes the target of an assassination.

Rapp has such a reputation in the espionage community that few are even willing to take on the job, knowing that Rapp is tough to kill and failure will unleash his unstoppable fury.  Erich Abel, ex-East German spymaster, acts as the middleman in the deal, and he winds up hiring Louis Gould, a brilliant assassin who works in conjunction with his lover, Claudia.  She does the paperwork; he does the wet work.

At first oblivious to the threat, Rapp spends time forming his secret group and tangling with Mark Ross, the new Director of National Intelligence.  (In Flynn's books, government employees are only two sorts:  super-efficient people of action like Rapp and his boss, Irene Kennedy, or useless bureaucrats.  Ross is the latter.)  A couple parallel stories develop:  Rapp finds out his wife Anna is pregnant just as Gould finds out the same about Claudia.  There is a certain irony that Flynn exploits (but never overuses) in the similarities and differences in the way the two couples act.

One merely needs to look at the back of the paperback version of Consent to Kill - which promotes the next Mitch Rapp novel - to know that he is likely to survive the events of this book.  On the other hand, no other character is as safe, so there is still plenty of suspense even with reasonable certainty about Rapp himself.

With Rapp himself the target of an operation rather than the one running it, we get probably a deeper look into his character than ever before (but not too deep; Flynn never focuses more on emotions than need be).  As a result, we get to see that Rapp, despite all his strengths, isn't perfect, and the novel is stronger as a result.

Though part of a series, Consent to Kill stands alone well.  If you like it, you can go back and read Flynn's other works.  They're all at least decent and some are really good.  This is a fast read and an enjoyable one.

</review>
<review>

Well, the previous 2 books were showing that Mitch was losing his motivation to be Dirty Harry/SuperAgent and they were mostly action and no further character building.

But after this one motivation is back, I agree that the character building in this one is far greater than in the previuous books but it is not boring considering that newer and deeper motivations and games are played.

At the end is predictable but nonetheless hard to put down.
Vince Flynn has revived the series which was becoming dull.

</review>
<review>

The Mitch Rapp series gets better and better with each installment.  CTK was great, very difficult to put down.  The story was definitely more emotional than it has been in the past, which really took it to a whole new level.  I can't wait for Act of Treason to hit the shelves.  Flynn's writing is leaps and bounds better than his first couple of books.  He has really come into his own as a writer.  5 stars here is a no brainer

</review>
<review>

As a professional health specialist I have read extensively about natural progesterone cream and hormones since my diagnosis of breast cancer in 2001 and have been using it since that time instead of the drugs and radiotherapy recommended by my doctors.  Dr Lee's work is remarkable but you must read carefully otherwise you will be under misapprehensions like some of these other reviewers who are still making mistakes about the difference between natural progesterone and synthetic progestins!  They are molecularly different and natural progesterone does not carry the same side effects or risks that the synthetic ones do!  I am the Hormone Health Expert for the CMA and Bio Vitality Limited where we also advocate hormone testing so that you do not supplement if you do not need it!  It's really what the doctors should be doing before they give out hormones of any description

</review>
<review>

Dr. Lee is not an OB/Gyn.  be careful when reading this book.  Recend clinical studies are not included in this book.

Furthermore, Dr. Lee is widely disregarded by his peers

</review>
<review>

Thank you, Dr. Lee for your book! I was on a calculated plan of natural progesterone for approximately 8 months which corrected many of the issues brought on by synthetic progestogens. Contrary to what some people are writing in their reviews, natural progesterone is NOT the same as the synthetic progestogens found in birth control pills or RU-486, nor can natural progesterone be used at the same amount each month or forever. I, for one, CANNOT use synthetic progestogens because of the problems they cause--leg cramping, sleeplessness, mood changes, blood clots, weight gain to mention a few. Dosage of natural progesterone totally depends on physical, monthly needs of the individual woman-some months, a little more, some months, a little less, and always under the guidance of physicians who understand and support the use of natural progesterone. Hurray to those who bring this information to the forefront and are not slaves of the pharmaceutical companies

</review>
<review>

This book brings to life a survival struggle that is often hard to fathom.  In addition to the sailors story the author adds interesting information on a variety of topics including history, science, geography.  Book is worth reading.

</review>
<review>

This story was incredible! Some of the things these men had to do to survive were truly inhuman and at times appalling. Even so th ebook is engaging from page 1 to the end. Amazing  what the mind can do to keep the body from dying...and what it can do to make the body give up. This book had me angry, relieved, amazed and at all times entertained. I highly recommend it!

</review>
<review>

An absolutely spellbinding story!  Hard to believe the hardship faced by the crew of the Commerce.  This book made me become quite interested in the Sahara, on which I've read considerably since.

</review>
<review>

This was a really, REALLY good book--and a TRUE STORY.  Beware, though, the first 50 pages are SLOW.  Don't worry if you can't keep the characters straight.  You will keep the main ones straight shortly enough. Perservere the slow beginning, and the story is well, well worth it.

</review>
<review>

Shipwrecked and held captive by Muslim slavers, this true story is so well written and researched and the story so unbelieveable it is difficult to put down. I have deliberately not read the ending because I don't want the experience to end.  With every step that these brave souls take through the unforgiving desert and the treatment they receive, because they are Christians and therefore "dog dung" is beyond human endurance. Their story of survival and their belief in their salvation is the best book I have ever read of this genre.  I am grateful to the author for giving me this life altering experience

</review>
<review>

I'm an avid reader of real life adventure stories, especially ones that bring out survival instincts in the face of tragedy and deprival. This is one of the best true stories I have ever read. Dean King brings to life the historical background of the shipping industry in the early 1800s, the adventures of world trade by sea, and most of all brutal slavery and daily raw survival in the Sahara desert. Every imaginable horror occurs to the shiprecked crew and yet many of them make there way to eventual safety. Incredible

</review>
<review>

THe food items listed above are just a few of the treats and libations the survivors of the shipwreck of the Commerce had to eat in their lengthy forced trek across the Sahara DEsert in the 1800's. They also endured slavery, starvation, intense heat and thirst, and the strange customs of their captors. But like any good adventure/survival story, the suffering of the participants is only part of the picture. THIs book's vivid  portrayal of life in the Sahara and the communistic principles of the Bedouins that live there is riveting reading. By the end of the book one is sympathetic to both the sufferings of the captives and the shifting loyalties of their Muslim captors. Indeed, both the reader and the sailors become victims of the Stockholm Syndrome, whereby one becomes sympathetic to the plight of your captor, despite your own travails.

I've read hundreds of adventure stories. both modern and historical, and this is one of the best, combining adventure, history, sociology and geography in a thoroughly riveting tale of suffering and redemption. Tales where those who must endure are doing it as part of legitimate scientific, commercial or other interests are always more compelling than those adventure stories based on mere adrenalin or adventure seeking participants who stumble into disaster. HIghly recommended

</review>
<review>

The story of the 1815 wreck of the American cargo ship Commerce is a gripping and heroic tale of survival and a tribute to the human spirit.  This book will grIp you until the final page and leave you exhausted and amazed at their ability to withstand a seemingly hopeless situation.


</review>
<review>

The pure scope of the brutish horrors these men endured is a wonderful look into the human spirit and the natural will to survive. Many of the men never returned home, but for the ones who did, this was a complete and ultimately satisfying portrayal of survival

</review>
<review>

History has always been an odd beast to me, I must say.  What is the goal of an historian, precisely? Can one man really summarize the actions of thousands of men and bevies of political machinations -- among other things -- in a six-hundred page narrative?  Does a "static" past really exist? Such pressing concerns, you see.

I believe that history is inherently reductionist and cannot remotely address these issues, so I value texts that have value as historiography, moreso than the events that they supposedly describe.  And if you want that, there is no better place to look than at the fathers of historical narrative -- Thucydides and Herodotus, of course.

(I am still in the process of reading this book, but I do not think that I have to wait to finish before reviewing it.)

Thucydides is concerned with "accuracy" of details, he did thorough fact checks as best as he was able to, and he attempts to take an impersonal, "objective" tone.  These concerns show up repeatedly throughout the text, along with a knack for writing good oratory when it suits the occasion.  All well and good, you say.  Modern historians have been doing these very things for years, and most of us can appreciate those details without reading the book.

Well, there is another element that I appreciate here, and one that is perhaps unintentional on Thucydides' part.  He constantly writes about power!  Who conquers who, who has the power, who is in control, battles for power and control, etc.  And as the historian, he is ultimately the man who controls everything.  He has power over us, and controls the people whom we read about, the events that we read about, and so on.  Therefore, I find this text to be rich, precisely because he is constantly referencing back to his own power and control.  And with history, there is perhaps no better lesson to be learned.

A few minor notes:

The lack of maps in the Penguin edition is a real travesty.  It would be nice to follow the conflicts as they occur, but that is rather undoable.  The translation is perfectly fine to me, but that aspect does not concern me as much.

Thucydides was an astute fellow, and as such, you can expect to find more than a few insightful segments of text in this book, so it is worth it to read this book for those nuggets, as well.

Finally, I am a dilettante, so I do not know much about this subject.  The other reviews will be able to fill you in on the context of this book, as well as on the man himself.















</review>
<review>

More than a simple historical treatise, it is a character study in human nature and its affects on the human actions that make history.  A classic of historical works in its detail and insight on human action we know as history.   Thucydides is unmatched in his insights, clarity of language and thought, and in his informative description of the history of his time.  A must read for anyone wanting to plumb the depths of western civilization and ethos.  An enjoyable read for any historiphile.

It could use more maps but be sure to check the back of the book for the few it does have

</review>
<review>

I had studied Greek history for quite some time before I finally did myself the greatest favor thus far in my life and purchased Thucydides' account of the Peloponnesian War for my collection.  At the time I had already read Herodotus at least 3 or 4 times in full, along with all sorts of other Greek texts available.  I was in love with Herodotus, enjoying with skepticism his regaling of myths as fact, particularly the presense of oracles and their relation to the events he described, which still fascinates me in spite of the doubt I feel towards divine intervention.  At that point I had known of Thucydides at some time, but it was not until I had exhausted almost every available source of Spartan knowledge did I at last turn to him.
Like many other reviewers have noted, I had heard all the remarks of his dry style of writing and the difficulty of the read. But after reading Herodotus, Plutarch, Xenophon and the like, I came to crave nothing but an objective account of Greek history. I have just finished Thucydides and it took about five days. In no way did I find it dry or in any way difficult to read. It seemed even easier to read than the others, as I knew it was of more genuine truth than any Greek work on their history I had read.
Reading the Iliad, for example, is marvelous fun, and one cannot help but become entangled in the lore and heroism that it supplies, feeling impressed by these warriors countless times over and amazed at the events that took place.  But after several readings of it, the reality hit me that almost all of it, and perhaps none of this legend never actually took place in the way it was recorded.  Same for Herodotus.  With Thucydides though, here is an reliably accurate, for it is almost impossible to construct a flawless history of truth, record of a real life confrontation every bit as deserving of lore granted to earlier Greek legend.
His admission that he himself suffered from the plague that ravaged Athens at the beginning of the war instantly made the text easier to read.  It was at this point I fully came to realize this book had been written as the events unfolded, or at least heavy notes were taken for later reference, rather than after as Herodotus had done. There is just something so remarkable about a first hand account in real time from an active participant in the events told. Fully engrossed, I read Thucydides quicker than any other Greek text I have studied.
Do not be put off then by this supposed dryness of his style. Personally I do not believe in it at all.  He is obviously trained somewhat in the skills of oratory, as his speeches imply, and there is nothing better to read in my opinion than a historcal account made by someone with a distaste for falsity.  It is no more difficult to read that Herodotus, and in all ways just as fascinating.  The one obvious criticism, is that the work remains unfinished.  Since the final defeat of Athens is indeed one of shocking events for such a glorious power, I would give anything for the account to be completed in full.  Still, it is illogical to study Greek history without reading Thucydides, and if I could restart my studies I undoubtably would have started with him first rather than last.

</review>
<review>

I really have the feeling that I am not knowledgable enough about the period in question in the Thucydides to provide any kind of reasonable context for the work. Instead, this review will focus on some reading tips and reactions aimed at the more generalist reader who may be attempting to get through the text.

First, the text is daunting. Be patient with it, and put it down if you need to. It pays off. I'm not someone who reads battle scenes with absorption, and still I found that if I absorbed the text in small enough doses, then I was able to follow with interest.

Second, use the appendices at the back. The explanations about the Spartan and Athenian Leagues, the Greek monetary system, and the Melian dialogues were actually quite helpful in places for reading the text. These appendices are provided in the Penguin edition of the Thucydides.

Third, take notes. There are a lot of big thoughts, and I found that I absorbed them better by writing them down for myself to think about later.

It is time-consuming to attempt the History of the Peloponnesian War. It is also worth it, to my mind. I got a lot out of reading it even without being a historian with expertise in the time and region. Give it a try, and give it the space that it deserves.

"So it is now reasonable for us to hope that the gods will be kinder to us, since by now we deserve their pity rather than their jealousy.

</review>
<review>

This book illustarted how Greek people were disunited and enagged in war with one another. At the end of this book, author mentioned how Persian/Iranian were commenced to interfer in Greek politics

</review>
<review>

Thucydides (c.460-c.400 BC) was an insider during the Peloponesian War.  He was an Athenian commander who was dismissed after his men lost a battle in spite of the fact of his previous successes.  This book was an attempt at an honest historical assessment of the Peloponesian War which was not only destructive to the Athenians and  eventually the Spartans, but the war was also ruinous to their allies.  The important theme of this book is that Athenian hubris replaced practicle thinking leading to Athenian imperialism and war.

Thucydides investigated this war by examining battle sites, interviewing both Athenian and Spartan commanders, and inspecting the limited sources that existed for historians at that time.  He was clear that the primary cause of the Peloponesian War was fear of Athenian imperialism especially among the Spartans and their allies.  One should note that the Athenians not only made enemies of the Peloponeisan League (The Spartans and their allies), but the Athenians made enemies of those Greeks who were neutral but were driven by necessity to join the Peloponesian League.

An important part of theis book which is found in the Penguin Classics edition can be found on pages 242-244.  Thucydides made some poignant remarks regarding how thought and language are corrupted during times of revolution and war.  He comments that manners and civility collapsed during the Peloponesian War.  He also warned readers that during such crises that thoughtful, intelligent men are destroyed because too many people are willing to commit violence on behalf of demogogues rather than engage in calm reflection.  This is in line with the chapter on Von Hayek's THE ROAD TO SERFDOM titled "Why the Worst get on top."

If one follows Thucydides THE HISTORY OF THE PELOPONESIAN WAR carefully, they will discover that the Athenians had considerable power and wealth.  Yet, Athenian arrogance and greed resulted in a useless war that resulted in the loss of Athenian power and wealth.  This book is a microcosm of the adage that, "The bigger an empire is, the weaker it is."

This book is useful in examination of the catostophic wars and revolutions of the 20th century.  George Orwell made comment on the corruption of language in his essays and novels, expecially 1984.  Crane Briton cites Thucydides' book in Briton's book title ANATOMY OF REVOLUTION.  In other words, while this book was written c. 410 B.C., this book is still timely which makes it a classic

</review>
<review>

Why should we take an interest in a war that happened four centuries before the birth of Christ? It is because this disastrous 27-year war between Athens and Sparta had a major impact on the development of the Western world. It finally ended in 404 B.C.E., and recent evidence suggests that Athens finally succumbed not to force of arms, but to typhoid. The result of the war was to put an end to hopes of Greek unification, and it was only a matter of time before the weakened Greek cities would fall victim to foreign conquest and lose the freedoms that were the vital essence of Greek civilization, and their greatest gift to the world. The triumph of Spartan oligarchy over Athenian democracy left a long shadow over the development of Western civilization.

Thucydides is considered by many to be the first great critical Western historian. He was a wealthy Athenian who was born around 460 B.C.E. and died around the age of sixty. He is chiefly remembered for this important book, and for a few pithy epigrams and quotations: "History is philosophy teaching by examples;" and "Be convinced that to be happy means to be free and that to be free means to be brave. Therefore do not take lightly the perils of war."

When the Peloponnesian War broke out, he is thought to have been about 28 or 29 years old, and rose to the rank of general before being exiled for his military failure at the Battle of Amphilpolis. In those days, military failure was counted a crime.

This book is a meticulous chronicle of the disastrous war. Until this work, historians simply recorded events. But his was different: an attempt to find inside information from people on both sides, and to interpret some of the turning points of the whole war and some of the terrible decisions that ultimately changed history.

There will always be squabbles about different translations and versions of a classic text, but this one is as good as they come, and well worth looking at for its insights into some of the events that fashioned our world

</review>
<review>

Thucydides' "The History of the Peloponnesian War" is a wonderful source for any thoughtful study of Ancient Greek History.  I'm proud to put this copy on my book shelf next to Homer, Herodotus and Catullus, all my favorite ancient writers.  Thucydides writes for what is the first time an objective historical work.  This, along with Herodotus, is the birth of History.  Yet there are a couple of troubling problems with the translation.  For one thing it is full of Cold War lingo that makes it hard not to draw connections from Athens and Sparta to the United States and the USSR.  Phrases like "reactionary elements" are out of place and don't mesh well with the actual Greek.  In addition the translator uses the word "empire" for the Greek word "arche".  Now my Greek isn't the best but my dictionary tells me that arche means province or territory, or literally a place that is ruled over.  Empire has a lot of strong emotions attached to it, and its not a good translation for "arche".  Hence the translator adds an element that Thucydides didn't intend when he uses "Athenian Empire." Besides those elements it's a great translation.

</review>
<review>

Few works survive two and a half thousand years and remain a masterpiece. This is one of them.

Thucydides crisp account of the long struggle that brought disaster to his native Athens is remarkable for it's candor, despite events that must have been tragically painful. The text includes legendary personalities (Pericles, Alcibiades, Demosthenes, Nicias, etc): their actions, words, and fate. Facts license readers to decide what's important, and the events described are worthy of discerning the essence of humanity.

Who would have thought the promise of Persian defeat (told by Herodotus) would be squandered in a tedious contest that ultimately proved grave for all involved? Athens' distinction as the first democracy makes it a vital epic (given recent attempts to democratize the Middle East). Melos destiny at Athens' hands may give pause. As may the Syracuse expedition (especially Book Seven).

I read Warner's translation thirty years ago (it was 50p then), and still turn to it from time to time. Also recommended: `The Landmark Thucydides' (Robert Strassler, Victor Davis Hanson). This is a volume for those willing to spend a bit more to obtain the history matched with maps and footnotes

</review>
<review>

I first discovered Sean Steward in Perfect Circle, which is his best book to date in my not-so-humble opinion.  This one comes close though.  In this book, like Perfect Circle, Stewart writes in a way that is very readable and occasionally drops in such clever and well-written phrases and sentences that I actually stepped back and appreciated the writing skill as well as the story.  That is not to say that you lose your immersion in the story, and it is not to say that he is wordy or pretentious.  Just the opposite.  It is prose that is a delight to read.

The story is interesting, but it is the characters that will drive you to the end.  That is Stewart's strength.  He writes people you are interested in knowing more about.

In a nutshell, I'd recommend Perfect Circle and Mockingbird as a pair - great reading

</review>
<review>

Go to the "look inside the book" function above, and click on "excerpt;" that takes you to the first page of Sean Stewart's Mockingbird.  (You can also get there through the "intro pages" links.)  Read the first paragraph.  If you're hooked, like I was, you'll love this book.

Like me, you may instantly flip to the bio to check the author's gender.  Sean, Sean, isn't that a guy's name?  And is he really writing from the first-person perspective of a woman who, the book's first sentence makes plain, gets pregnant in the course of the story?

Yep.  And most of the other main characters are women, too.  This is a high-wire act, and boy does Stewart pull it off.  I found his characters and their magical-realist situation very believable, and he writes with style, and humor that's richer than wit or cleverness.

I can't say I'm surprised by any of that, except the first-person thing.  What brought me to Mockingbird is, of all things, Stewart's entry into franchise fiction: his book Yoda: Dark Rendezvous, a Star Wars novel set very shortly before the upcoming movie "Episode III: Revenge of the Sith."  I've read dozens of Star Wars novels, and this is one of my two or three favorites, again for how Stewart fleshes out characters' inner lives and for the color in his writing. (The book feels like he had a *great* time writing it.)  I'm going on about it at length here to bring it to the attention of Stewart fans who might not otherwise try a Star Wars novel.  If you saw Ep.II in 2002 and plan to see Ep.III, try it out.  You don't need any more background than that, and it'll enhance your enjoyment of Yoda, Count Dooku, and the movies' other characters

</review>
<review>

This book is top notch, the character development is fantastic and the story so real that it turns into a roller coaster of emotions.... Top Notch

</review>
<review>

I really enjoyed this book, zombie frogs, voodoo Riders, and all the perils and tribulations possible while being pregnant when I wasn't pregnant yet.  After getting pregnant, though, man, it's *really* funny and it's really obvious that the man did some real research into the problems.    Mockingbird is more easy going than some of Stewart's other books, warmer, funnier, and much more involved with the everyday things that go with someone's life with all the complexities, absurdities, and joy that goes with it.  It still has that touch of magic he brings to everything, and I highly recommend it

</review>
<review>

Left-handers know they have it tough in the world, but for all those non-believing right-handers, this is the book you need to read.  It is a thorough examination of left-handedness, including word origins, derivations of  and quot;left is evil and quot; myths, famous left-handers, relevant anatomy, historical and cultural concessions to right-handers, and even a list of retail stores who cater to southpaws.  Very well-done all the way around

</review>
<review>

I really liked LEFT IS RIGHT because it provided excellent information for lefties, ranging from humorous anecdotes and helpful history to easily understood explanations for why people are left-handed...and lists and lists of famous lefties.  Right on! for this special book for lefties

</review>
<review>

I enjoyed reading Rae Lindsay's book.  I really like her writing style. It was a light read and anyone interested in lefties should read this book!

</review>
<review>

It's about time someone wrote a great book for us lefties! WOW! This book is so fun to read and is so informative that I would recommend it to anyone. Yes, even right-handers! You can't imagine how much cool and interesting stuff is packed into this book

</review>
<review>


This is a great introduction to economics that ranks up there with Hayek's  and quot;Road to Serfdom and quot;.

</review>
<review>

This book is usually listed by free-market advocates as one of the five books to read first.  Henry Hazlitt writes with unequaled clarity.  He outlines that basics of many fundamental ideas--the price system, inflation, government subsidies, minimum wage, and others.  He uses pure logic and reasoning almost exclusively, only providing statistics as sidenotes to the main point.  However, the book's strength is also its weakness.  While he makes a tremendous intellectual defense of free market economics, it by no means complete.  I would recommend this to any beginning libertarian or free market advocate; it will provide many strong points for further contemplation and research.  However, a Keynesian advocate will still be able to question certain ideas.  Yet, any intellectually honest statist should read it, because Hazlitt does present his arguments cogently, clearly, and with power.  One note: a more seasoned free market economist may wish to consider this book a medium priority, because it may be somewhat basic to someone familiar with classic arguments

</review>
<review>

This book offers a very clear description of a subject that most people find dry and boring.  Instead of referring to countless graphs and charts, Hazlitt manages to explain his assertations using common sense and language that a non-economist can easily understand.  This is that same format of the monthly newsletter 'Ideas on Liberty', published by the Foundation for Economic Education, which aims to improve the understanding of economics among laypeople(The Foundation has long been a supporter of Hazlitt).  One interesting thing to note is that Hazlitt was not formally trained as an economist, and I believe that's one of the reasons that he is able to state all these concepts succintly with no confusion.  Even more amazing is that the same policies that he speaks against and that have failed are being tried again, with nothing more that a different name and some other minor changes.  For those who think economics has to be confusing, I wholeheartedly recommend this book

</review>
<review>

I don't go into the plots of books when I review them as many have already done so. I always look forward to another James Lee Burke novel, and Pegasus Descending does not disappoint. Dave Robicheaux is one of my favorite protagonists -- a man who is not perfect, has his weaknesses, but always tries to do the right thing.

I highly recommend the Dave Robicheaux series

</review>
<review>

One of the best writers of environment and character descriptions, Burke just gets better and better to the point that I can smell the air after a rain storm in New Iberia thanks to the way he puts it. Colors in his landscapes come to life in my mind's eye as though I were there.
I've read nearly all of Burke's work. Pegasus ranks among the best

</review>
<review>

I loved it. Recently took a trip to New Orleans, and a side trip to New Iberia to see the area he so fondly writes about

</review>
<review>

No one paints a better picture of South Lousiana than James Lee Burke.  JLB creates a wonderful canvas of Louisana politics, wildneress and attitudues.  I am a Michigan native that now lives in South Lousiana and have fallen in love with every book he writes.  This book, like every other Robicheaux novel, has left me starving for more. Don't you love books that you hate to finish

</review>
<review>

As near as I can determine, I have read everything by James Lee Burke that is in print. Though his prose continues to captivate me, his latest novel is not one of my favorites. I am confused about how both Dave and Cletus are portrayed, and Dave's relationship with his latest wife also baffles me. I plan to reread this book after some time has passed (as is my custom with all of Burke's books) and see if the problems I think are there have been resolved by some subconscious mental wanderings in the interim

</review>
<review>

I always know what to expect from Burke and his protagonist, Dave Robichaux.  I am occasionally disappointed by the plot sameness of it, but the quality is always there.
Dependable...yes, I suppose that is the very best description of both author and character.
I will unquestionably buy the next Dave Robichaux book Burke writes...and the one after that...and the one after that...and will probably complain about the book's similarities to its predecessors, but I will certainly enjoy catching up with my old friend Dave

</review>
<review>

I have read virtually all of James Lee Burke's novels, and this one is right up there with the best of them.  Highly recommended

</review>
<review>

James Lee Burke! Anything written by him is a joy to read, but I especially love his Robicheaux novels. This one is no exception. I anxiously await his future novels. His writing is pure poetry. I recommend all of his books; try to read the Robicheaux novels in order. You won't be sorry for the money or time spent on Burke's books

</review>
<review>

A highly recommended book.
An amazing and interesting information is revealed here.
Learn how to grow, to master the game, and to think like the millionaire. This book is helpful and comprehensive, try to follow it, you might start a new life

</review>
<review>

Of all of the self help/ how to prosper books I have ever read Eker's should have been the first.  It is the quintessential foundation of prosparity

</review>
<review>

I bought this Audio CD looking for that one NEW concept that changes the way I think about money/risk/living in general. I found many more than one, plus I've listened to it 3 times in the two days I had it, audio CDs are great for that! If your looking for business ideas or investment advice you're not really going to get it here. I did disagree with his comments on buying real estate at any means (as an investor, one should only buy real estate property at zero or positive cashflow or they should move on to the next property). A great real estate investment book the is Weekend Millionaire's Guide to Real Estate investing and the Mindset book (amazing books!). He talks about the MINDSET you have to have to take the ACTIONS despite of your FEARS. Futhermore, he elaborates on the following. Your THOUGHTS determine your FEELINGS and your feelings determine what you DO. DOING translates your desires, visualizations, etc... into reality. The biggest thing I got out of this book is the following warning: "I already know that" is what most people, especially poor people say in most aspects of their life and don't further educate themselves in a topic. Rich people are always learning and applying what they learn. If you have read 1000+ books on money, investing, whatever you want in life and you don't have the results you want its two things. One, you're MINDSET is not right for that task and you DON'T UNDERSTAND what those books were saying. If you did UNDERSTAND, you would be taking all the ACTIONS spelled out and like SCIENCE your life would reflect them (CAUSE and EFFECT). Notice how I said YOU and not blameing outter circumstances for your financial situation. Great book, Add to Cart!

</review>
<review>

Harv keeps saying how great the book is going to be, and I was stupid enough to keep reading all the way to the end....and found out there was nothing.  Just a worthless rant

</review>
<review>

Loved the book so much, now my husband and I are going to his 3 day seminar

</review>
<review>

Eker has to be respected for his accomplishments.The transformed mind has to go before the transformed Bank account. But, my personal preference is the exhaustive and more systematic presentations that Brain Tracy makes. Eker is probably a very motivating speaker! Having said that he gets 4 stars because it is a classic book/CD. It needs to be in every millionare library

</review>
<review>

Never received the book, so very disappointed at the delivery process and cost I have incurred

</review>
<review>

I received this book the next day and I tell you I could not put it down. It is the most inspiring, the most intriquing book I have ever read. Great job on the book.

</review>
<review>

Exposure to Harv Eker's Millionaire Mind Intensive set me on a path of working towards financial freedom over two years ago.  I also attended the Guerilla Business School, a $2500 intensive.

What is important to realize is that actually being in a room in the workshops and doing it several days in a row will actually (as it did with me) shift your perspective, if you are at all open to having it shifted.

Getting into a better mindset with regards to prosperity is fundamentally an issue of breaking down old programs and replacing them with new ones.

This book may help you, but the seminar will help you more.

The Millionaire Mind intensive taught me things and set in motion a change in perpective for me.   I am now financially free and well on my way to be wealthy as an internet marketer promoting a website called ZeroDollarMarketer dot com.

Being rich is a matter of perspective.  True wealth is measured for me by the health of my body and mind, my relationships, and lastly my pocketbook.  But its sure good to have plenty left over at the end of the month.

A journey worth pursuing

</review>
<review>

I cannot claim to be an expert in the wealth creation literature outside the US, but I am inclined to think that the principles are the same everywhere.

What is so unique about the US is that the system allows the distribution of knowledge in a manner more efficient than the distribution of wealth, all based on the principle of self determination and achievement.

Another reason that americans also lead the way in enterpreunarialship is because of the pragmatism they assume on psychological issues. Pragmatism based on the fundamental premise- the truth is utility. So no elaborated theories of the mind, just pragmatic analogies that will guide you through.

I fully agree with a reader who said- if you keep on studying how to get rich material for 50 years, your expertice will be in that, but not in action- yet you cannot achive action unless your know your mind will be there helping you. Yes, your mind  can be your greatest obstacle to wealth no matter if you work your finger to the bone night and day; amd herv helps you to do this.

I must say this has been a most promising complement to the rich-dad series, for it goes into the inner structure of the mind that rich dad had.

To the cynic who asks, are you a millionare already? no, but Im on my way.. and that a hell of a lot I can say compared to where I was last year

</review>
<review>

This excellent book deals mostly with the many ways in which NAFTA is ruining all the countries involved.  Although the description of the problem seems fairly accurate, the book disappoints somewhat by not mentioning some stronger cures, the strongest and most corrective of which is socialism

</review>
<review>

I suspect that many Americans might be intimidated by the title of this book. Americans are told not to think in terms of conflicting class interests; after all, most people are supposedly middle class. Critiques of the wealthy and powerful are seen as expressions of envy, or of antique Stalinist, hippy, or New Deal thinking. In my opinion Jeff Faux does us all a valuable service by trying to revive the debate about the political nature of our world and its implications for our current lives and for our future. His writing is energetic and fresh; this is no dull social science text! At the same time, he presents a lot of evidence in making his arguments, reflecting thorough and careful scholarship. This is no simple partisan account; for example, chapter seven on NAFTA presents is hard-hitting in its critique of the alleged benefits of free trade, but the reader gets the feeling that Faux is basing his analysis on what his data revealed about its complex impacts on the majority of Americans, Canadians, and Mexicans. Overall, whether you are in America or Armenia, you will be entertained and provoked by Faux's writing

</review>
<review>

The title appears borrowed from Sam Marcy's original work in 1979 on "The Global Class War and the Destiny of American Labor," but then, no one wanted to listen in the 1970's, when I did my first master's degree, to the three major themes in the political science literature:

1)  Limits to Growth and need for Ecological Economics (Club of Rome, Herman Daly);

2)  Global Reach of Multinational Corporations and the Home-Host Country Issues and Threats to Domestic Labor and Social Welfare (Barnett)

3)  Need for World Government to address global issues (Falk).

This book is valuable for its one main point reiterated and documented over and over again: the American elite has joined with other elites world-wide to reach accommodations that favor the investors and the ruling elites over the individuals that are employees.

If I had not also read William Greider's "The Soul of Capitalism" as well as John Perkins, "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" and (over two decades ago), Lionel Tiger, "The Manufacture of Evil," I might have seen this book in a different light.  In the larger context of the 700+ books I have reviewed at Amazon, this book sums up a key factor that the public must consider when going to elect its leaders over the next few years.

As the author documents and discusses, the combination of neoliberalism and neo-conservatism has led to government being in the service of corporations and the wealthy, rather than the public and especially the working public.  The author suggests, citing another author, that the working class is 62% of America, the middle class 36%, and the ruling class 2%.  He also notes that America is no longer a mobile society, with 77% of the people "stuck" in their parent's rut, and with wages now BACK to where they were in the 1970's--in other words, no real gains in quality of life or purchasing power across the land.

The author spends a great deal of time on NAFTA, and his views are all negative.  He is passionate on the topic of Mexico being a socio-economic bomb waiting to explode, and on how NAFTA and the deliberate tolerance of illegal immigration have essentially served as a pressure value, where the US imports poverty from Mexico in order to keep it from a worse explosion.

The author is quite provocative when he examines the "rescue" of Mexico by Secretary of the Treasury Rubin.  He "follows the money" and discovers that the U.S. taxpayer did not bail out Mexico per se, but rather Goldman Sachs and all the other investors in Mexico, investors who were supposed to evaluate risk and take risk and accept the consequences, but instead used their Goldman Sachs brother in arms to bail them out at taxpayer expense.  Today of course President Bush has just appointed another Goldman Sachs leader to be Secretary of the Treasury (after the more honest Paul O'Neil resigned when he discovered that Vice President Dick Cheney was making all the policies without regard to the Cabinet process (see my review of "The Price of Loyalty.")

The author is compelling in discussing how the Reagan Revolution broke the backs of the labor unions and also broke up the postwar social safety nets.  The author discusses how there is no corporate mind-set that puts the home country, the USA, first.  He discusses at length how we are coming off decades during which multinational corporations, aided and abetted by their class collaborators in government and the media, have essentially broken the social contracts with each country's public, and disconnected their global investments from any social benefit for labor.

The author is very illuminating when he points out that it is NOT China that is flooding the US with cheap goods, but rather Wal-Mart and Wall Street, investing US dollars in China to leverage low-cost Chinese labor while off-shoring jobs and driving both salaries and quality down across the board within the USA where Wal-Mart has been proven to destroy small businesses for 50-100 miles around any one of its main stores (see my review of both the DVD and the book).

The author is an optimist and an idealist, and I will end my review with a quote that I hope a future enlightened President will support.  The author says on page 246:

"To this end, a conference, or congress, of North American civil society, state and local officials and representatives of labor, and small businesses, should be held every year.  One of its functions would be to do a public review of the state of continental integration and to discuss, debate, and make proposals for the future."

I am reminded of Falk's genius in knowing in the 1970's that we would one day need global council for both religions and peoples.  Government has failed to be just or to represent the public.  This book comes at a good time.  In America, November 2006 is a necessary pre-requisite to electoral reform and getting an honest wise President and a Coalition Cabinet in 2008.  To do that, enough people have to vote so as to defeat the extremist Republican skill at stealing elections that are close.  It has to be a landslide.

</review>
<review>

A well written book that confirms books I was writing (till my power supply blew out.)

In general, the author goes over how the shallow rich are oppressing the the world in order to acquire more wealth and maintain it. The only problem I found with this book is that the author uses complicated and hard to understand setences sometimes, which no doubt he does to show off his high eduction as a defense against others with a high education. In other words to show he isn't just some dumb wanderer off the street. But his use of hard sentences hurts his book in that it will make it harder for younger persons to undersand and people who don't understand some of the uncommon terminology he uses

</review>
<review>

From a George Bush perspective, I read.  Hence, I must be a   Revolutionary. But for me reading is essentail. In Rafael's book, "Scaramouche", the establishment games the system by dueling the people's representatives with their skillfully commissioned swords. They literally kill the people's will.  Today's fait accomplis are the skillfully commissioned penned instruments called NAFTA and WTO. The perpetrators behind these instruments  were a political crew of bloodsuckers. On the American side they included: Robert Rubin, Bill Clinton, Alan Greenspan, Lawrence Summers, Al Gore and Henry Kissinger. These penned agreements were inserted with poison pills designed to adversely effect constitutiions throughout the world, including ours. But you'll never hear a discouraging word about them from the corporate mainsteam news. Get the REAL down and dirty of globalization and read "THE Global Class War".  Read it and weep... for those you had placed your trust in, and to the republic they signed off on. Learn to distinguish between the interests of stateless transnationals and we the people whose economic fate is bounded by the nation.  The poor class has already lost what little they had. Now the middle class is in the cross hairs and slowly being squeezed out. Unfortunately, they have taken us all aboard their hellbound corporate express called the bottom line.  A must read for those who want the truth.

</review>
<review>

Faux has done a really smashing job in bringing many threads into a coherent picture.  The witless rightwing reviewer who invoked Hayek, von Mises, etc., wretched wonks of the right and economic Darwinists all, did not even know what book he was reviewing - typical of the right.  The idea of transnational elites, who screw their own countrymen, is not new.  The way in Faux ties this to comtemporary economics, social movements and politics, is different and far more perusuading than the usual "the aliens have taken over the elites" junk available today.

The US has built its own pit, and still does not know when to stop digging.  The corporations built a massive megaphone for the Right and scared the Left to death with threats.  Fear is the currency of the day in any discussion about the future.  We have a bunch of sheep in the Congress and confused, frightened polity which is seized with the distractors which have been provided: religion, abortion, immigration, homosexuality, etc., all bunk.

Above all, Faux point about the diminishing corporate investment in the US, in research, development, education, health, etc. is a clear sign that the use of the transnationals if over, if but for the current era.  They have tolerated the insanity of the Bush regime since they dont really care, even if the US creates illegal and immoral wars -- which again distract us while the corporations go on about their business.  The US has been under assault by the corporations for some 40 or so years, and has now bought out the infrastructure designed to stop this massive taking of ecomonic and legal power.

The price of our stupidity and cupidity in taking our eye off the real wolf is our being devoured

</review>
<review>

Explaining their own economic self-interest to blue-collar, redneck republicans is a bit easier than explaining geometry to gophers. All it takes is infinite time and patience. This book makes a valiant attempt to educate redneck republicans.


</review>
<review>

The author believes that France's economy, and socialism generally, is admirable. This, against all evidence to the contrary. Really, how much more of this sort of wishful thinking masquerading as economic analysis are we expected to take? Haven't we had enough demonstration of the falsity of these ideas? As socialist economies drag their shuddering bulks to standstills while the people riot (and rot), we are expected to heed calls to admire, and replicate, their failures. Amazing. Read Hayek. Von Mises. Sowell. Friedman. This guy, here, should never have been published

</review>
<review>

I find this book just a bit disjointed. Its main thesis seems to be that the FAFTA agreements were basically a fraud perpetrated upon the American worker by a global elite. Mr. Faux sees a class war going on with this global elite (who he calls the 'Party of Davos,' from the town of Davos Switzerland where a conference is held each year) operating to their own benefit to the harm of the American worker.

The question he doesn't answer is, if NAFTA is taking away all these American jobs, why is the unemployment rate in the US so low. I even saw a sigh across town that McDonalds was paying $10 an hour in an attempt to get more people.

Second I worked for a company that did a lot of design work in Taiwan. It was a Chinese company, and they had a team of Chinese engineers. They did good work. Buying a computer motherboard from them was about half of buying one made in the US. Would you really be willing to pay twice as much for your PC just to have it made in the US? The product would be no better, just made here. And doesn't the Chinese engineer, bright, educated, hard working, deserve a future as well?

Finally Mr. Faux, ignoring China, India and the rest of the developing countries, says that he would like to see an expansion of the North American treaties to perhaps even have Canada and Mexico join the US in one country. I've never met a Canadian who wanted to join the US.

This is an interesting book, worth reading just to get his point of view. But I'm afraid that I don't see what he wants happening very soon

</review>
<review>

According to Jeff Faux, erstwhile president of the Economic Policy Institute in Washington DC, with the enfeebled nation-state and the absence of world government, the 2,000 plus people who manage and own the worlds largest multinational corporations meet every year at the World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland to set the agenda for the global economy.  Even though the event includes political leaders, academics, journalists, and an occasional movie star, they are mere window dressing accompanying the real movers and shakers.  This elite is what Faux calls the "Party of Davos."  There is no countervailing party other than the World Social Forum which celebrates the likes of Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro, but they are of no consequence in the real order of things.

The Party of Davos is primarily the party of international global investors, who do their best to promote globalization and free trade. Elites around the world have bought into it, including the leadership of both the Democratic and Rebublican parties in the US, with the expectation that globalization would raise all economic boats, or so they would have us believe.  However, this has not happened.

Faux correctly points out that prior to the age of globalization the US economy was more or less self-contained, and capital and labor were forced to deal with each other, thereby creating a social contract from which all parties benefited.  What was once good for GM was also good for America; now it is only good for GM.  (This may not be a good example since even the global investor is not happy with GM.)  The point being that GM can now find cheaper labor and lower environmental standards in other countries.

Faux argues persuasively that globalization went astray with the Nafta agreement, which was supposed to protect workers and the environment in the US, Mexico, and Canada.  Instead, thanks to the Clinton administration, multinational corporations were given a free hand in overriding those very protections.  It's almost as if Ross Perot's "giant sucking sound" pulling high-wage jobs out of the US has been realized.  Moreover, ten years and a WTO  later, that giant sucking sound is pulling those jobs out of the entire Nafta block and ending up in China and India.  The result is that workers' wages and middle-class living standards from all three Nafta countries have declined under "free trade".

Again Faux reminds us that rich countries have poor people and poor countries have rich people.  The rich or the investor class in all countries have prospered whereas the middle-class and the poor have seen their fortunes decline.

To compound this problem, the US trade deficit was $726 billion last year and there is no evidence that it will decline in the future.  Our manufacturing base is being hollowed out and the so-called knowledge economy is being outsourced.  The primary job creation since the year 2000 has been in healthcare, government, finace, and the low-wage service sector.  If this trend continues, it will become impossible to export our way out of this deficit, unless there is a significant devaluation of the dollar, which will inevitably lower our standard of living.  This is going to happen no matter what policy is adopted in the near future, it is only a question of how much of a less prosperous future we will have.

Pat Buchanan in a recent article entitled "Our Hollow Prosperity"  makes the same argument as Faux and indeed cites statistics from the Economic Policy Institute.  Buchanan does not couch the argument in terms of class struggle (my main quibble with Faux's thesis), but he does believe when corporations are given the oppurtunity to find cheaper labor abroad they will do so and that  the current free trade policy is undermining our prosperity.  With the left and the right finding common cause against the corporate and political elite, there should be a significant political realignment when the next economic downturn hits.

What does Faux recommend?  He is calling for a new global - or at least a regional, Nafta-wide - social contract.  It looks something like managed trade.  Let's face it, the economies that are running a surplus with us are practising managed trade.  We should start bargaining for greater access to their markets and place a higher bar of entry to ours.  Faux is not advocating protectionism, just smart policy instead of none at all.

We can now see the trajectory of globalization:  Thomas Friedman proclaimed that it created a global and level playing field in the job market for workers heretofore excluded; Clyde Prestowitz proclaimed that the playing field was tilted against the industrialized world because our high wage requirements put us at a disadvantage; now Jeff Faux is saying that all workers are being sold short and that it's time to create a global social contract.  Who says there is no such thing as progress

</review>
<review>

For a dog behaviour professional, this book and its companion volume have to be the most useful and important resource around.  Not for the casual dog owner, but then that's not the target market.  A wealth of material, well presented and organised, and without bias.  Now when's the one on behaviour modification coming out??!!

</review>
<review>

I would give this book five stars if it weren't for the level of difficulty in reading it...just had to take off a star for that reason alone.  This isn't the book for the first time dog owner or casual trainer. It's a serious book for the well-versed student of dog behavior and training.  Mr. Lindsay definitely knows what he's talking about but the reader must already have a fairly good grasp of the "concepts" behind his explanations in order to fully understand the material.  It was a good read that I had trouble putting down, though!   If you're serious about learning the more advanced concepts and principles in dog behavior and training, the book is well laid out and informative to the max

</review>
<review>

Absolutely amazing -- full of clear, well-outlined and detailed information, much of which I had previously not known or failed to appreciate its significance and relevance. Even a professional could benefit

</review>
<review>

I wish someone could have given me this book when my daughter was born in June 2005.  I had a hard time finding information that deals with specific issues relating to Babies with Down Syndrome

</review>
<review>

I had recently found out that my future grandchild was diagnosed with Down Syndrome and was anzious to start educating myself. The book helped me understand the syndrome and realize that we need not be afraid of what the future holds. Since then I have found out that this baby will probably not go full term, but what I read made me realize that I should not be afraid of hearing Down Syndrome in the future.

</review>
<review>

I was given a copy of this book when my son, Zachary was born.  As another reviewer mentioned, it was quite scary reading all the things that MIGHT be wrong with him medically, along with the quotes from parents the author included.  I'm sure the quotes were a well-meaning inclusion from the author - but each and every one I would review to be extremely non-descript, even bordering negative.  As a parent of a child with DS - I can tell you first-hand that my experience has been nothing but non-descript...but overwhelmingly positive.  My son, at less than 2 years old, has already brought so much joy into our lives and countless others.  A child with Down Syndrome is a blessing in disguise.  He give to me so much more than I give to him as you wil hear from just about ANY parent with a DS child - but not from the author or the outdated quotes she chooses to include in her book.

</review>
<review>

As a professional I found this book to offer a lot of basic information that a family could understand about down syndrome.  All the children I work with with Down Syndrome, their families have this book and said it helped them so much

</review>
<review>

I received a copy of this book from my son's occupational therapist.  I was ready to know more about my son's condition and to know why he would do somethings instead of others.  I wanted to know how the milestones varied from "healthy" children.  I felt this book covered everything that I wanted to know and even discussed what to do when writing a will and how it changes with a Down Syndrome child.  Things I never would have thought would be different until reading this book.  It took about 4 months before I was willing to read something about this because I wanted to start raising him just like I raised my other children.  This was definitly a book that did not go the extreme in the condition which is something I wanted.  I would definitely suggest this book to anyone who has a child with Down Syndrome

</review>
<review>

I am an early interventionist, working with several infants and children who have Down syndrome. I found this book to be somewhat incomplete and misleading. For example, it contains a developmental milestone chart for typically developing children. This chart caused no end of worry to the parents I work with. More accurate, Down syndrome specific information is available elsewhere.

</review>
<review>

I was given this book  by the Richmond Down Syndrome Society when our daughter was born with Down Syndrome.  It was quite a shock as we did not know she would be born with DS.  I knew right away when she was placed in my arms (I'm a special education teacher)and within 20 hours of birth she was whisked away to the Medical College of Virginia.  This book was so very helpful to both myself, my husband and my family.  We all learned so much from it and we passed it along to my brother (her guardian in the event something were to happen with us) and his wife.  They also found it helpful as they knew what to expect.  Overall,  I cannot stress enough that these children are so wonderful in their own way and this book helps to give you an inside view of what to expect with your new baby.

</review>
<review>

We were told, in the delivery room, that our son had down syndrome.  That was not what upset us, it was the pediatric specialist telling us all the bad things that "would happen" to our son.  We were desperately looking for information on D.S., but nothing was really clear that we saw on line.  Our doctor at Child Development had this book so we went to Borders and got it.  It is written in a way that makes it easier for someone to understand all the possibilities.  Basically, a D.S. child can do anything as long as he/she has the opportunity and support.  Our first hurdle was the V.S.D., he had heart surgery at 4 months as he was unable to put on weight or even keep the weight he had gained.  He has gained 7 pounds and is 7 months. We play with him all the time in ways to develope his muscle tone and his P.T. says, in one month, he has done a major improvement.  We cross each bridge as it comes but we make it fun.  We constantly us the book for reference when we have a question or need a clarification, it is always on our kitchen table

</review>
<review>

In the delivery room when my son Mikey was born, we were told he had Down syndrome. We knew very little about the condition and were confused and frightened about the future. Our son's geneticist gave us a copy of this book and it answered almost all of our questions, including some we never thought to ask. The information in this book relieved many of our fears and showed us how to be the best parents for our son. The book starts with a forward by Ann M. Forts, a member of the Board of Directors of the National Down Syndrome Congress; the New Hampshire Developmental Disabilities Council; and the President's Committee on Mental Retardation. Ms. Forts also happens to be a person with Down syndrome. Right away, we knew this book was going to be positive! The book starts with a chapter on what is Down syndrome followed by a chapter on adjusting to your new child. Chapter 3 discusses some of the medical issues that are associated with Down syndrome. This is good information to be aware of even if you never need it. The next few chapters discuss taking care of your baby, family life, how your baby will develop, early intervention, and educating the child with Down syndrome. The last chapter covers your legal rights. Every chapter has several pages of short quotes from parents. It helped to lessen the fear and stress to read that other parents are coping. This is by far the best book for the new parent of a child with Down syndrome. Before you read anything else, you will want to read this book

</review>
<review>

The Amazing Beginning Of You is a straightforward introduction to the young reader about the miracles of conception, pregnancy, and birth from a Christian perspective. Color photographs reveal the incredible process of maturing from a zygote to a baby about to be born. The act of insemination (and human sexuality per se), is not explained or detailed in The Amazing Beginning Of You, which only briefly alludes to the role of the father in providing sperm. The focus is on presenting the creation of human life as a wonder granted by God. The Amazing Beginning Of You is an excellent and recommended book for Christian parents to answer the question: "Where do babies come from?

</review>
<review>

Jean Shepard contributed to our culture with the stories that resulted in "A Christmas Story."  He's hard to dislike, for that work alone.

Here, though, you get more exposure to Jean's other side.  He is cynical, and not all that charming about it.  He stereotypes, and it reminds us of how we used to be about assuming traits in people based on their race or ethnic origin.  He excuses a lot of pretty bad behavior and, worse, expects us to agree with him that it is cute.

Well, that's the bad stuff.  The good stuff is that he still has a grasp of American rhythym that's hard to find most places.  You will enjoy his fresh view of our experiences, and, if you overlook your potential reactions like the foregoing paragraph describes, you'll hear an authentic descriptive voice which is now gone

</review>
<review>

And watch them live it this spring.  I was introduced to this book by my High School English teacher 30 years ago.  It was hilarous then.  I have just given it to my own 16 year old son in gleeful anticipation of him living the prom ritual this year

</review>
<review>

I made the mistake of reading this on an airplane once. I almost had an aneurysm trying to stifle my laughter. This is a book that you'll read over and over. Only, be forewarned; you'll have to buy multiple copies--once you lend it to a friend, you'll never see it again

</review>
<review>

This little gem of a book will have you chuckling outloud.  Based on his life, author Jean Shepherd spins yarns of past loves, family vacations, top playing, and the awkwardness of growing up in a less-than-privileged part of town.  You will connect with some stories, shake your head at others, and burst out laughing at most

</review>
<review>

This is one of the funniest books ever written. Jean Shepherd recounts his early years in a steelmill and oil refinery town in northern Indiana. The time is the late 1930's to 1940's. There is a sensible mother, a good-hearted father with an incredible vocabulary of cuss words, and a younger brother with an amazing ability to whine. We begin with the arrival next door of the Bumpus family, slovenly hillbillies with a million dogs that send our hero's father into explosions of outrage. We go through disaster after disaster until we reach the ultimate when our hero takes Wanda Hickey to the high school prom. I laughed so hard that I difficulty reading. Shepherd's mastery of description of small-town America in the 1940's is a pleasure to read, and it never stops being outrageously funny

</review>
<review>

It was the summer of  1967, and I was parking cars at a posh L.A. apartment house, waiting to be sent to basic training, then off to Vietnam. About three in the morning, I picked up a Playboy Magazine. Amazingly, it had fallen open to a short story called 'Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories' by Jean Shepherd.  It was then, and remains today, the funniest story I have ever read. It's the reigning champ, with warm recollections of Jean's grimy midwestern steel town, his cronies and the biggest night in most of our adolescent lives -- the senior prom. If you've seen or read 'A Christmas Story', you'll enjoy the gradual, precise setup and hilarious payoff of 'Wanda.'  I should mention that I write (and read) for a living in the automotive magazine business

</review>
<review>

Very good in the sequel line, but I figured out "who dun it" before I finished.  The characters are still developing well, waiting for the next one.  I have the whole series.

</review>
<review>

Boulder, Colorado author, Margaret Coel calls the wolf a wonderful animal.  "It's always two looks ahead," of everybody else, she says.  Using the wolf as metaphor, she gets the villain in her mystery novel THE EYE OF THE WOLF  at least two looks ahead of both readers and main characters.
The 11th in her series featuring the Boston Irish priest Father John O'Malley and Arapaho lawyer, Vicky Holden as the crime solvers, THE EYE OF THE WOLF takes the reader to the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming.  There, traditional enemies, the Arapaho and Shoshone, share the land.  Father John serves an Arapaho parish.  Vicky works with an Arapaho law firm.  The two are close friends.
As EYE OF THE WOLF opens, someone has killed three Shoshone college students on the Bates Battlefield, where in 1874, Shoshone scouts led the United States Cavalry to an Arapaho village. The soldiers slaughtered everyone living there.
Animosity between the Shoshone and Arapaho, two very different peoples with diverse cultures, has smoldered since. Father John fears the worst when he sees the latest bodies at Bates, all posed like dead warriors in old photographs.  Someone wants to encourage the hatred. Why?  And Who?
He, his parishioners, and the police suspect Frankie Montana.  This Arapaho trouble has often fought with Shoshones in bars,.  Because he drifts around the reservation drinking and crashing at drug houses, most decent people of both groups despise Frankie.
His mother, Lucille, begs Vicky to become Frankie's lawyer. Lucille believes he's innocent.  Because Lucille is a friend, Vicky agrees to take the case.  However, she, too, believes Frankie is guilty. He concern is to get him a fair trial.
Frankie asserts he did not commit the crime, but will not talk to Vicky or the police.  As he eludes them out of sheer terror of jail, Father John finds a fourth Shoshone victim at Bates.
Looking at the evidence against Frankie, Vicky begins think he may not be the killer.  So does Father John, after talking to people in the parish.  But, then who is?  Can Father John  and Vicky find the person, and prove his or her identify to the police?
Or--is the murderer like the wolf--two looks ahead ?  Will that give him or her time to kill again?  Worse, have Father John and Vicky made a mistake to believe Frankie?   Is he really the killer?  Will he prove it by shooting one of them?
Their gamble on Frankie brings EYE OF THE WOLF to an end that one one could possibly expect.  But the conclusion makes perfect sense, because Margaret Coel writes with understanding of Arapaho and Shoshone history.  Through that history, she reveals the killer.
Also through that history, she also makes EYE OF THE WOLF more than just another mystery with an explosive ending.   As the story unfolds, she presents two Native American groups that get little attention from novelists.  Working closely with people who live on Wind River Reservation, she makes sure her depiction is accurate.
So EYE OF THE WOLF is  not something like, or just like a wolf, it IS a wolf--two looks ahead of everybody.  Readers will not only enjoy a gripping mystery, but they'll also learn something about other people and their lives.
They'll receive the lesson through rich, well-developed and belleville characters, quirky little subplots, lively dialogue, and solid description of locale

</review>
<review>

Margaret Coel has created an excellent series in which she brings alive the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming and describes the Arapahoe customs in wonderful detail.  In this installment, Father O'Malley receives a mysterious phone call which implies that an old grudge between the Arapahoe and Shoshone Indians has been re-ignited, and that dead Indians can be found on an ancient battle ground.  When Father O'Malley goes to investigate, he discovers three dead Shoshones whose bodies have been posed to resemble positions reminiscent of old battles. Things heat up when the young Shoshone men vow to gain revenge for the murder of their friends.  Vicky Holden, the other main character in the series, has entered into a law partnership with Adam Lone Eagle, and they disagree as to the kinds of cases they should be handling.  Vicky wants to defend Frankie Montana, who is a suspect in the murders, and Adam tries to persuade her not to take Frankie as a client.  As always, author Coel creates a wonderful setting and characters, and in this book she writes another strong entry in the series.

</review>
<review>

It is hard to believe that Margaret Coel began her Wind River Reservation series some ten years ago with THE EAGLE CATCHER, which introduced readers to Father John O'Malley and defense attorney Vicky Holden. Each subsequent novel has featured an intriguing mystery as well as a shift in the emotional but platonic relationship between O'Malley and Holden. The latest installment in this series is no exception.

EYE OF THE WOLF begins with a cryptic telephone message that is left for O'Malley on an answering machine. This leads him to the site of a historic battlefield, one that resulted in the slaughter of an Arapaho Indian village by U.S. forces, aided by Shoshone scouts. In modern times Arapahos and Shoshones are somewhat uneasy neighbors on the Wind River Reservation, with their antagonistic history providing a shadowy backdrop, gone but not entirely forgotten.

But past differences are brought to the forefront when O'Malley discovers the bodies of three Shoshones on the old battlefield, positioned to mimic those of the dead killed in the historic battle. Frankie Montana, a chronic client of Holden's, is the primary suspect. Despite Montana's recidivistic tendencies, Holden does not believe he is capable of murder. It eventually becomes clear to Holden and O'Malley that someone is attempting to revive the long-dormant conflict between the Arapahos and Shoshones --- and that Holden has placed herself in terrible danger on behalf of her client.

While Coel has created an extensive backstory contributing to the Wind River Reservation mythos, it is not necessary to read what has transpired before EYE OF THE WOLF. The tension between O'Malley and Holden builds from page to page, as they struggle to protect the innocent --- and each other --- from an unknown malefactor. At the same time, both are protective of O'Malley's priestly vows, even as their emotions practically --- but subtly --- beg for violation.

EYE OF THE WOLF is an excellent introduction to the Wind River Reservation series, while providing a welcome return to the area and its people for longtime followers of the series. Given the longevity of these novels, it is clear that Coel can continue to explore this beautiful, dangerous landscape for as long as she wishes. Recommended.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlau

</review>
<review>

The poetic macabre message shakes up Father John O'Malley, the Jesuit Pastor at St. Francis on the Wind River Plantation.  The caller stated that revenge has been taken with deaths.  Not long afterward, at the sight of an 1874 massacre in which the Shoshone betrayed the Arapaho to the cavalry, three Shoshone are found murdered with their bodies ritually left to look just like the historical slaughter here.

Frankie Montana, who was seen recently arguing with the Shoshone and has quite a rap sheet is charged with the triple homicides.  His lawyer Vicky Holden believes Frankie who insists he is innocent because she knows this low life would do just about anything but not murder.  As she mounts a defense, she wonders if the culprit is cunningly trying to cause an Indian war between the two tribes for some unknown reason or a psychopath is avenging the century plus slaughter.

The latest Wind River Reservation Mystery, EYE OF THE WOLF, is a fabulous legal thriller that uses brutal late nineteenth century carnage as the apparent motive to twenty-first century murders.  The story line moves out rather quickly when Father O'Malley listens to the high pitched poetry of the killer on his voice machine and never takes a breather as Vicky tries to prove her client did not commit the crime though circumstantially he appears heading for the fall.  Margaret Coel is at her best with this tale that affirms why so many readers feel she is the heir apparent to the Hillerman mantle.

Harriet Klausner

</review>
<review>

Eye of the Wolf by Margaret Coel ISBN: 0425205460  - Due out today (6 September 2005) - I was sent an ARC of this great book to read for review which I do gladly.  I had read a few of this series before and especially enjoyed them, especially Spirit Woman and Story Teller, so was expecting good things.  I was not disappointed - the series follows the adventures of Father John O'Malley, pastor of St. Francis Mission on the Wind River Reservation and tribal attorney, Vicki Holden and apart from a ripping good mystery, the author weaves the history of the Arapho and the Soshone tribes who share the reservation into the fabric of the story she is telling so well, bringing her characters and the culture to sympathetic life.  It is not hard to care about the "Indian priest" as they call Father John or Vicky Holden.  I think what I enjoyed most was the character studies of not only the main characters in the story but the peripheral ones as well - they were brought vividly alive by the author's words.  From the first mystery message "This is for  the Indian priest",  everything seems to hark back to a famous battle in the 19th century and the treachery that took place on the battlefield  - but does it??  This is a very worthy entry in this well written series and will keep you guessing right up to the finishing twist as everything becomes clear in a highly suspenseful finish.

</review>
<review>

Carole Radziwill's memoir is an exquisite description of loving relationships, family expectations, and maintaining a marriage with constant threat of terminal illness. The book is written in a no-nonsense tone-as the tragic story of her husband's recurrent cancer unfolds, Carole never resorts to hyperbole. Interconnected themes are deftly strung together like pearls. Anthony Radziwill did not want others to know of his illness, and the weight of maintaining a pretense that all was well increased with each bad check-up. His deteriorating prognosis and certain death was never openly discussed, although his cousin, John Kennedy, tried to push Carole into doing so.

What remains is a wonderful testament to Anthony Radziwill and John and Carolyn Kennedy, not because of what Carole Radziwill tells us, but because of how she tells their story. Radziwill's sentences shimmer and dance and wrap themselves around the reader. Her use of language is so masterful that the Radziwill/Kennedy names become mere background to the story of four young people whose hopes and dreams ended nearly as soon as they began. This book is beautifully written.

</review>
<review>

I have read quite a few memoirs lately (The Tender Bar, The year of Magical Thinking, Million Little Pieces-part memoir)and by far this was the best one I read. I love Carole Radziwell's writing style and I found her story to be gutsy, emotional and truthful. As a person who watched a loved one die of cancer before my eyes I could totally relate to her feelings of frustration, helplessness and sadness. I can say their is nothing on earth worse than watching a love on deteriorate before your eyes and not able to save them. I had no idea of the relationship between her and the Kennedy family so i was very intrigued by her personal view of the family and the friendship. I felt she wrote this book with great respect for her husbands family revealing what she deemed approriate written with integrity. This was a magnificent first book and I look forward to reading more of her work. I highly recommend this book

</review>
<review>

Just as I said in the title-- this is an amazing look at love and death and being in the spotlight when you enter that inner circle of the famous or society...not the infamous, not the instant celebs...but the inner circle of names that make America what it is...Carole Radziwill married "John John's" cousin, son of Lee radziwell (Jackie O's sister). And because of this she entered the inner Kennedy circle and coincidentally became one of Carolyn (John's wife) best friends....Some fascinating stuff here-- I think many of us assumed that Carolyn and Carole were both upper class-- they appear to have been middle class and even worked at the same department store in NYC at one time where they had to wear yellow aprons. Of course Carolyn worked in cosmetics dept and Carole worked in customer service...The fascinating part of this book is that Carole is able to somehow view both the yin and yang of her marriage and the relationship with the Kennedy family --especially John and Carolyn...Carole's husband gets cancer and is actually dying the week that John and Carolyn's plane crashes...Carole is the one who has to notify the Coasts Guard and Carolyn's family....It's a great book to read to show that you can be happy and sad at the same time. I appreciate her honesty-- she signed up for love and roses and got death and dying much of the time...now it's time for her to get her own life again...a former news researcher...she spent much of her married life taking care of a sick and/or dying husband and then dealing with the Kennedy tragedy too...fascinating book..

</review>
<review>

Those of us who have a story to share should do so, and this story is beautifully written; WHAT REMAINS is a unique one, worth telling, and would be even if it did not involve America's single most famous family. The details Carole Radziwill reveals are intimate, yet never give away more than those connected and still living would find intrusive. At times her pain is almost palpable, and she seems still slightly bewildered about her life and the tragic turn it took during the summer of 1999. The very fact that she did live it and came through it gives her every right to tell about it, and I am glad she chose to do so.

</review>
<review>

This is not the memoir of Carole Radziwill. It is a memoir for each person who reads the moving story.

You will find yourself comparing the scenes in this work with comparable things that have happened in your life and the lives of your family  and  friends. You perhaps will find yourself viewing those captured in the tabloids in a little different light.

But - most importantly - you will understand it is those "little" things that makes life worth living and leaves the memories that are timeless.



</review>
<review>

In one of what appears to be Carole Radizwill's not-so-subtle jabs at her mother-in-law (and at many of the extended family), she implies Lee wondered what exactly her son saw in Carole ... something along the lines of "how much do they have in common beides ABC?"  After finishing this book, I have to say I have no idea what, if anything, they did have in common, nor, more importantly, what it was that first caused them to fall in love.  While I can understand and appreciate the author's reservations about revealing too much of their personal relationship, I think she fails to convey why they even had any relationship in the first place.  As has been commented on by many reveiwers, she sounds much more passionate when she writes of Carolyn Bessette Kennedy (again, not in a lesbian way, but in an idealized school-girl crush way).  I found myself wondering if they really were as close as Carole portrays, or if this book is a rather sad attempt to publicly attach herself to Carolyn forever.

</review>
<review>

I just finished the book last night, crying as I read the last few pages.  I guess since Carole Radziwill and I are the same age and share a lot of the same interests helped capture me into this memoir and unable to put it down.  It also gives you some unheard stories of the famous family.  I felt like I knew Carolyn Bessette Kennedy better through this story rather than the tabloid press.  She was a delightful and woman, filled with life, which makes her ending even more tragic.  The book honors a beautiful friendship and a marriage tested by CANCER.  It pays homage to Anthony Radizwill as well as John and Carolyn Kennendy as it lets you see them as real people rather than tabloid  fodde

</review>
<review>

If anyone in this most famous dynasty has earned this title, she would be the one.  Congrat's to Anthony, John. and Carolyn for recognizing true class, as it is a rarity.  It speaks volumes about them!!   Carole's courage and capacity to love will amaze.  Her talent is another thing entirely.  Off the charts!!!  (Put aside some quiet time and a lot of kleenex!)

</review>
<review>

I really enjoyed this book. This is a memoir, not a novel, which explains why reading it felt like reading a journal. I loved Carole's style of writing and the way she portrayed things. I think she wanted this to be just a story of friends, and not focus on WHO the friends were. I think she accomplished this. It did not feel like just another book about the Kennedy family. Even though I knew how the book would end, I cried. It was written so beautifully.

</review>
<review>

This book was a disappointment.  A real textbook would actually have instruction.  This book is merely a collection of cases, with a few scattered chapters on VC/PE.  Only buy the book if required to for a class

</review>
<review>

This book provides a good overview of venture capital and buyout fund management.  It addresses the investment process through four modules: fundraising, investing, exiting, and new frontiers.  There are twenty nine chapters of which nine are instructional and the rest are case studies.  Though there is information interspersed within the case studies, I think it would have been better to have had shorter case studies and longer instructional pieces to delve more deeply into subjects.

</review>
<review>

A must for anyone wanting to know how VC firms work, structure themselves, and considerations for funding.  This is an excellent case study that ought to be in a graduate program!  It's as close as you'll get without working for a VC firm.  I would suggest reading  and quot;The Venture Capital Cycle and quot; first to get a general feel for VC and how it works.  Then read the case study

</review>
<review>

Want examples of how funding works?  Want to know how Venture firms set up their business?  Want to know everything about practical application of VC firms?  This may be as close as you'll get without actually working in one.  This ought to be a text book in graduate school.  I'd suggest  and quot;The Venture Capital Cycle and quot; as the first book to get an overview of VC's.  Then, read this one and you'll be pretty proficient in terms of being an outsider.  Great Case Study

</review>
<review>

the author insists, so far as I can tell, that the only way to write a decent novel is based on some Aristotelean idea of the 'premise' which cannot be violated.  'Love leads to death' is an example for a character who dies as a result of being in love.  This is nothing but an obscene simplification of the plot.  It's absurdly reductionist.
maximum capacity?  A character's dialogue should always be the best thing he could say.  What nonsense.  How about the mistake, a common factor of life?
Some good points on dialogue, though, but not worth the book.
I think you could write a good novel with this book, but I think it would hobble a certain type of writer severely

</review>
<review>

Let's be clear what we're buying here: an authoritative text on how to deploy character, crescendo, climax and theme in the idiom of the dramatic novel. Frey is covering the big picture, how skilled writers nurture the evolution of tensions through the work as a whole. His references to the classic canon of American fiction reinforce the message that these techniques are the essence of drama, and not just the stock in trade of pulp fiction.

Understand, however, that Frey's book is not a complete manual for the novelist, or meant to be one. If it's the page-level micro-mechanics of novel-writing that you're interested in (dialogue, pacing, points of view), there'll be another book to buy. Frey bundles them into the final pages of "How to Write a Damn Good Novel", and they read like an afterthought

</review>
<review>

How to Write a Damn Good Novel is billed as "a step-by-step no nonsense guide to dramatic storytelling." I don't know about the step-by-step part, but Frey's advice is definately no-nonsense and will help you create dynamic stories.

I sat down to read this book with a packet of post-it notes by my side. I marked all the important points I thought I'd need to remember for later. At the end, I had a thick rainbow along the spine. I couldn't get more than 3 pages without finding some gem I just had to make sure not to forget.

I think a lot of the other reviewers might be correct when they say this advice is not necessarily earth shattering and can be found else where. But there is a difference. Frey does it with more clarity, more punch. And why buy six writing books to get all the advice you can get in this one?

I can't go wrong with this one. Even though I didn't agree with some of his advice, I still found his guide inspired me to write better and make my character sizzle. I have a lot of writing guides on my bookshelf, but this is one of my favorites

</review>
<review>

This book has broken down all the elements that make a book a page turner - and a financial success!

Although I have read other books on the subject of writing, I felt this one was much more practical, and was broken down to the point where anyone could understand it.

I highly recommend this not just for new writers, but also for those experienced writers who need help on a specific aspect of their writing.

You'll find it worth the price

</review>
<review>

If your learning style is to learn a formula, then expand from there, then this is the perfect approach for you. Let me be clear: If you are a beginner, learning the craft, then this is a good place to start, one of the two best books on novel writing in my opinion. But this book will work for you only if you are best served by learning a basic formula first, then building upon it and venturing into the unknown or breaking the rules. Here's another way to look at it -- Some people can learn to drive a stick shift and traffic rules at the same time; others do better with an automatic transmission, allowing them to concentrate on learning traffic rules in a vehicle that shifts by itself (a formula), then later learning to use a manual transmission. If you are in this latter category, someone who learns better by first mastering the well-beaten path, then this is the best book to get you started

</review>
<review>

This is one of the best books I've read on writing and I've read lots. I was amazed. Every chapter was important and significant.

</review>
<review>

How to Write a Damn Good Novel is a very good book on the subject.  It is all inclusive, well written, and to the point.  The outline permits the reader to understand how to proceed and, because of a few very fine examples, to feel that it is possible.  Something I learned from this book that is not necessarily in others is the idea of developing a compelling premise before engaging in the long process of writing a novel.  The book is brief and could rank above the many books trying to help the writer with too many words

</review>
<review>

This book is full of the best advice I have ever read for new writers - which is what I am, or hope to be

</review>
<review>

Although most of the advice is pretty standard that you get in any how-to-write book, my two stars comes from his statements that you must have a premise (such as "Cheaters never win") before you begin to write. This kind of approach is perilous for beginning writers, leading to work that can be preachy, predictable, and cliched. Many times, the true premise of a story or novel makes itself known during the revision process, but to begin your first draft that way is to try to shoehorn your story into an ill-fitting formula that serves neither the reader nor the writer

</review>
<review>

I'm a junior in college, and my parents bought this cookbook for me as a gift for my first apartment.  My experience with cooking hasn't really gone past heating up chicken cutlets in the oven, so I was a little wary of using an actual cookbook.  But this book is really useful.

The recipes are varied (snacks, "date-worthy" meals, desserts, healthier cooking, etc.), and there are also a lot of tips that can help out new cooks, be applied to other recipes, or adjust the ones already in the book for less ingredients or quicker preparation.  A couple examples...
-Blueberry Muffins:  "Don't have buttermilk?  Add 1 tablespoon lemon juice to 1 cup regular milk and let it sit for a minute before adding the egg."
-Creamy Chicken with Noodles:  "To serve the basic sauce in this recipe with other foods, leave out the frozen spinach and experiment with a different combination of seasonings, such as cayenne pepper or a hot sauce for seafood."
-Grilled Honey  and  Garlic Spareribs:  "Don't have a grill?  The ribs can also be baked....[gives instructions].  Baste the spareribs frequently with the honey  and  garlic marinade during the final 30 minutes of cooking."

In addition, the book provides helpful advice on food safety, how to store leftovers, and cooking terms ('simmer' I know, but 'blanch' and 'dredge' were helpful to have explained).

Some people with more experience in the kitchen might find a lot of this book a little too basic, but I appreciate having instructions on how to hard-boil an egg, or to remember to leave a quarter-inch of potato pulp inside the skin when making stuffed potatoes so that the whole thing doesn't fall apart.

I agree with the previous reviewer that this book is by no means for anyone living in a dorm (though it claims to be).  Maybe some colleges have fully-stocked dorm kitchens and grocery stores right near campus, but this book is definitely better for a student living in an apartment with a kitchen, storage space, and time to make actual meals.

There are definitely certain things about this book that some would consider drawbacks, but for a real first-timer with a kitchen, like myself, this book is perfect

</review>
<review>

With the hotplate and microwave on the cover, you might think that this is a book of recipes that are prepared using those two items.  This is not the case.  Yes, there is a hotplate chapter and a microwave chapter, but a large number of recipes in the other 11 chapters require an oven. And even the microwave and hotplate recipes tend to require counter space, extensive preparation, and a large number and variety of ingredients.

If you really do live in a dorm where you will have very little room, and only a mini-fridge and microwave, I suggest either finding another book, or just making it up as you go.

Or if, like me, you live in a tiny studio with no counter space and only a fridge, microwave, and hotplate, it offers a few more options, but not much.  Most of the recipes require too much preparation.  And, if you are concerned about energy use and safety, many of the recipes also have fairly long cooking times.

Overall, I'd say this would be a good book aimed at the beginning cook.  Perhaps for someone who just moved into their first real apartment with a full kitchen.  This is not a good book for anyone with limited space and resources

</review>
<review>

Ben-Ari has written a highly enjoyable book about the nature of science that reads quickly and easily.  I strongly recommend this book for anyone involved with teaching science (that may be a professor, secondary, or elementary school teacher).  The author takes the best, most sober points from philosophers, historians, and sociologists of science and demonstrates the implications these works have for preparing a scientifically literate public.  He clarifies troublesome definitions such as "theory" "fact" "proof" and "hypothesis".  His insights on falsification and the need for an understanding of statistics are dead-on.  I am using this book in the post-secondary courses I teach.
Why only four stars?  First, in his scientists' vignettes (where he uses biographical information on a scientist to illustrate a nature-of-science-point) are a rather homogenous bunch, for true excellence I would have to see more diverse group of scientists discussed.  Secondly, his understanding of science as a discourse is somewhat impoverished, and I would say that his treatment of the topic isn't completely fair.
But- this should not take away from a strong recommendation.  Great book

</review>
<review>

In this discerning and somewhat humorous essay, Virginia Woolf remarks on humanity's experiences with illness, whether mental or physical, and on how it is rarely the subject of literature or art. She notes our contradictory nature toward sympathy and offers an opinion about what illness tells us about the natural world. Hermione Lee's fascinating introduction firmly places this remarkable work in the context of Woolf's life and writing. This Paris Press edition recreates the original artwork and typeset of the 1930 printing of "On Being Ill"

</review>
<review>

Get ordained in something!?!?!?!?!  Interview the town hermit for the local newspaper!?!?!?!?!  Need I say more

</review>
<review>

I'm married and bought this book for some ideas on what to do while my husband is out of town on business trips or playing weekend warrior.  I disagree with the last review; I think the whole idea for the book (we'll give you the ideas, you plan it out) is right on.  After all, isn't it supposed to be about getting out of the house and into life?  Nor do I agree with the sentiment that going to town hall meetings are  and quot;not fun at all. and quot;  Maybe getting involved with city politics isn't your idea of a good time, but what's one woman's junk is another woman's treasure.  Overall, a very good read with even better ideas

</review>
<review>

I love this book and have bought some for gifts for friends and family too!  The authors have created and collected lots of highly innovative ideas and presented them in such a humorous way.  I have literally laughed  and quot;out loud and quot; upon reading most of the chapters.  When is their next book coming out?  I can't wait

</review>
<review>

Truly a classic and juggernaut effort of bringing together various disparate scientific  and  socio-anthropological thoughts into a coherent and fluent theory - and more amazingly in a form that is both accessible and entertaining for the layman reader.

</review>
<review>

This book is a somewhat linear history of the past 13,000 years across the continents.  Diamond seeks to sum up history across various societies on all the continents in a relatively short volume.  The impetus for this search starts with a question from a friend of his from New Guinea named Yali.  Yali's question was, "Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own?"

Reading the book, I think I gulped at this point.  This sounds like a classic, loaded question.  It sounds disturbingly close to why have we (Europe and its former colonies) succeeded where they have failed.  Diamond does not descend into that territory though, but he does not evade criticism for skirting it completely.  There are references to a culture's success in industrializing or condensing populations that Diamond brushes off as a mixed blessing, for instance.  The advantages of a hunting/gathering culture are not really explored outside of the remarkable sustaining nature of southeast Asia.

This history can probably be described (or perhaps is most successful) as based around environmental causation (as opposed to the racial/ethnic/social causation that the lump in my throat had been fearing).  Descriptions of climate (note: that the history begins with the cessation of the last great ice age), longitudinal or latitudinal axes, elevation and landmass differences play a strong role in determining the fate of humanity.  Still, it is interesting to look specifically at the items gathered in the title.

Guns.  Europe's refinement of this technology was based on China's innovations with gunpowder.  Today's dominant society is a product as much of what it has swallowed and thus incorporated as by what it has innovated.  As an interesting counterpoint, Japan had owned more and better guns in c. 1600 CE, than any country in the world.  Samurai rulers first limited then outlawed the technology.  Japan wouldn't resume manufacture until mid 19th century.  Obviously, there is an indisputable importance in the weaponry's influence in shaping the geopolitical world of today.

Germs.  Epidemics left people from cultures based on cities with who could resist smallpox and those dense populations more easily replaced those who didn't survive.  Smaller groups have a distinct disadvantage versus the interdependent and consequently more interchangable larger cities.  Epidemics develop out of these civilizations as germs jump over from domesticated animals (and smaller groups may not even have animals to domesticate).  Interesting note: the emperors of the Mayan and Incan civilizations both succumb to disease (likely smallpox) rather than guns.

Steel.  Technological advancement is keyed on innovations brought about by dense populations and the possibility for abstraction of responsibilities.  A hunter-gatherer culture lacks the abstraction necessary to divide responsibilities to allow for such developments as literacy and mining, as the energies that would fuel these are directed toward survival areas.  Diamond makes an interesting and controversial point that the hunter-gatherer culture may be more attuned to intelligence as an evolutionary necessity over civilized society, where the evolutionary energy may be directed at surviving these epidemic illnesses.

There are many aspects of environment that serve as limiting conditions for the development of these things.  First, there appears to need to be sustainable farming.  Many of the staples of modernity are the crops first domesticated in the fertile crescent region (where today we invade, suck oil, and force the conquered to endure freedom).  The western Asian breadbasket provided the means to bank food so that trades could develop.  As a complete side note, the Genesis book of the bible can be viewed upon through this filter as it goes into great detail how Joseph set up a system of storing and meting grain in Egypt to greatly increase the population and avoid the calamity of drought and famine brought on by sustenance farming.

Another factor in the civilizing of Eurasia is the landmass itself.  Compared to Africa and the Americas, Eurasia is mainly west-east axis versus north-south.  Movement of successes in cultivation and domestication could more easily occur because climate differences are easier on a latitudinal basis than on longitudinal.  Something like corn (maize) which was domesticated in central Americas took a very long time to make it to North America because of geography.  Llamas and guinea pigs (which could be useful for pack animals and food) never made it north.  Conversely, all those fertile crescent crops and bigger domesticated animals like cattle, horses, pigs were able to spread from one tip of Asia to the opposite tip of Europe.

To answer Yali's question, some of the answer is luck.  Africa, Australia and the Americas may not have been afforded the botanical or zoological advantages that Eurasia had.  Some other is environmental determinism, where you are helps make up who you become.  For going forward, Diamond cites transportation, communication and information advances as factors that likely will obliviate these historical forces in the future.

After word: Harpers Magazine tackles an issue that was brought up, but not as fully developed here, that of pre-Clovis Native American discoveries (pronouncements), knowingly confronting a loaded racial/ethnocentric question in a folio called "Might White of You: Are American Archaeologists White Supremacists?"  The archaeological records supports people living in the Americas since about 9000-11000 BCE.  There are scant scraps of evidence prior to that date, but plenty of theories typically more titillating than substantive.  One wonders if the pre-Clovis discovery (especially all the business about "caucusoid" skulls), isn't so much about archaeology as setting up an imagined genocide to justify a documented genocide.




</review>
<review>

One the best books on the subject. A must read, but you need to know your history and geography first, if not, have a map ready. Be prepared for a fast and furious ride through time and geography, but with constant flashbacks to the present. You will not look at the world the same way after finishing this book, provided that you have the intellectual capacity and curiousity to read it cover to cover.

</review>
<review>

I had to read Jared Diamond's Pulitzer prize winning book because of the rave reviews and acclaim. The thoughts that he introduces in the book are certainly interesting and he presents us with a new way to interpret history which is certainly important. However, there is much overkill in making points about the development of each civilization - crops are the major topic with little discussion on guns, germs (more than the other 2), and steel. Of course the arguement for this focus is that the domestication of crops is how civilizations develop guns, germs and steel. I enjoyed parts of the book considerably, but you would have to have a strong interest in horticulture and botany to truely appreciate the book. I guess I was spoiled by first reading his sequel to GGS, "Collapse" - a terrific read that should be of interest to everyone -it relates our industrialization to every aspect of the environment and show historically how this has shaped history. It has major rammifications for our situation on this earth right now. -RK

</review>
<review>

This is an extremely interesting book with wonderful insights of the Human development,

A must in everyone's shelves!!!


</review>
<review>

This book is a must read for all social science academics and the like.  J. Diamond presents a clear argument for why certain societies are more advantaged than others.  Although he is believable, his argument is flawed which makes for a great paper topic

</review>
<review>

Diamond presents a look at the evolution of various Cultures throughout the World and how geography has played an important part in their developement.  The reason that Eurasia and North Africa evolved more highly developed (technologically anyway) cultures was that there was a wider variety of wild plant and animal species that could be tamed by the humans living in those areas following the Ice Age than there was available to humans in other parts of the world.  This enabled people in these areas to develope farming societies (which required more specializations than hunter gatherer societies) more quickly than in other parts of the globe.

The close proximity of animals in this farming societies passed on germs from animal hosts to humans and evolved human resistance to pathogens such as smallpox to survivors of the diseases and their offspring.  Those areas such as the Americas without large domesticated animals to catch diseases from were decimated by Old World diseases when they were introduced by European Explorers.

The premise of the book could have degenerated into White Supremacist or Multi-Cultural nonsense and the fact that it doesn't says a lot about the writing skills of the author.  One fact that he doesn't address is how the freedom of expression is a key factor in the development of societies.  When that Freedom disappears or is suppressed as in the case of 15 C China or 18 C Holland society tends to stagnant and decline.

I would reccomend the book for those interested in History, Anthropology, or Sociology

</review>
<review>

I recommend this book to anyone who has come from a dispensational background and is interested in eschatology (end-times).  It is very well written with short chapters that don't bog the reader down with difficult theological jargon.  Exposes the reader to a historicist (typically Seventh Day Adventist) interpretation of end-times scriptures that will challenge you to dig deeper into the Word of God with a critical eye

</review>
<review>

THIS IS A MUST READ NO MATTER WHAT YOU BELIEVE!
I've read quite a few and then some on the END TIMES and this is the best book on the end times and inter-related topics. It is a super-fast read, simple and concise, filled with scripture to back up evey editorial paragraph. No matter what you know, don't know or just always believed... THIS IS A MUST READ! It is topical in writing style which makes it easy to use as a template for comparing with other books (except OTHER BOOKS ON SAME SUBJECT tend to be muddled and long-winded!). We are now using as a foundation for further in-depth study in a Bible study group and have bought 10 books so everyone has their own copy! THIS IS A 5-STAR BOOK NO MATTER WHAT YOU BELIEVE - very compelling and easy to read!!! A+A+A+A+A++

</review>
<review>

A Case for Amillennialism: Understanding the End Times
by Kim Riddlebarger is the best book going on End Times.  Escape the craziness for good, and buy this book.  Hopefully, you'll get that "Finally it all makes sense" understanding of what the scriptures tell of the End Times

</review>
<review>

This is the second book by Steve Wohlberg that I have read.This book is more comprehensive than "Truth Left Behind."Mr. Wohlberg's books are easy reads.I'll state up-front that I don't agree with everything that he wrote.The identity of Israel in this book is basically replacement theology,or the idea of a "spiritual Israel".When considering that Revelation identifies 12 tribes in Rev.7:4-8(see also 21:12-13)I can't see Israel being a spiritual entity.Enough of the negative...The historicist view is very sensible when considering the source of the preterist and futuristic views of Revelation.I didn't know the history or source of these two theories before reading Steve Wohlberg's books.He exposes the flaws in both theories well.Why would the Church be spared tribulation when countless believers of the past were murdered for their beliefs?Check out "Foxe's Book of Martyrs".Steve Wohlberg does an excellent job in answering that question and more with the Bible.Take the Bible and a knowledge of history and you can learn a lot about the book of Revelation!While I do disagree on one point,I recommend this book as an answer to the fiction of the "Left Behind" series

</review>
<review>

What a great book.  I have been studying the Bible on these subjects for sometime and was convinced that the the Holy Scriptures did not teach the commonly held evangelical view of the rapture, Israel, and the antichrist. Praise God that a voice has been raised to expose these fables and deceptions.  If you are a sincere Bible student I would encourage you to get this book. Could it have been put together better? Probably, but let not that take away from the truths that are revealed here.  Christians it is high time that we get back to the Burean method of Bible study (Acts 17) and not be taken by certain authors just because the local Christian Bookstore promotes them. If we are deceived, we have no one to blame but ourselves because truth is out there. The question is: Are we willing to dig for it?

</review>
<review>

Interesting eye opener. I would have preferred a longer presentation of evidence to sustain it's conclusions

</review>
<review>

This is a good introduction for those who are interested in a comprehensive, but not in-depth, review of the historicist view. Wohlberg covers a lot of ground in 200 pages, so he does not look at alternative interpretations of passages or examine potential textual difficulties. He simply presents the interpretation as he sees it. This is appropriate to the book's intended audience, however, which appears to be a popular audience, not a scholarly one.

The book is, unfortunately, light on what I consider to be the most difficult interpretations - namely, the trumpets and bowls of Revelation - but so are most historicist books I've reviewed recently.

In terms of style, this book is well written. Wohlberg is, however, fond of complementing his arguments with elaborate and sensational phrases such as "earthshattering" and "bombshell," which can be repeated several times in a single chapter. Several times, he compares his arguments to the iceberg that sunk the Titanic (futurism). This kind of self-congratulation gets old very quickly, and it is irritating and distracting in an otherwise professional presentation.

The most disturbing aspect of Wolberg's presentation, however, is that he presents historicism, not only as the preferred view, but the only interpretation leading to life. He regularly ties futurism and preterism to the spirit of antichrist and leading, using his own words, "potentially, to hell."  This belief is based on the standard historicist interpretation that the papal system is the Antichrist of prophecy, and that the school of futurism was invented by - and, thus, is wholly a deception of - this system. Therefore, Wohlberg suggests that anyone holding the preterist or futurist view is subject to the coming wrath and judgment upon this papal system, even to the point of leading individuals to eternal judgment. The idea that one's end-times views - in and of themselves - could lead to eternal destruction is a disturbing and theologically unsound viewpoint that is woven throughout an otherwise good book.

In all, my criticism are minor. This is a well-done book and, considering its intended purpose and audience, a good introduction to historicism for anyone researching this view.

- H. L. Nigro, author of "Before God's Wrath: The Bible's Answer to the Timing of the Rapture

</review>
<review>

i havent read the book, but i have something to say in response to Gregory Nyman. he said,

"Scripture makes it very clear that Christ lived, died on the Cross, shed his blood for the remission of sins, and rose from the dead to justify those who believe in Him, and as a result, receive eternal life. Jesus also said that those who loved Him would follow His commandments, and He cited the two greatest commandments as loving God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind, and loving our neighbor as ourselves. Nowhere does the Bible teach that it's 'Christ plus the Commandments.' To come to Christ is to follow - Christ plus nothing and Christ minus nothing. He is our all in all. He is the fulfillment of the Law to all those who believe."

I understand his stance on the 10 commandments because i have many friends that think like him. the problem is, people like him dont even believe in the 10 commandments anymore (if you don't, thats fine...but then why believe the bible at all). but for these people, its still a sin to lie, commit adultry, steal, murder, ect., but its not a sin to break the sabbath. following Gods laws based one what you "feel" is idiotic. if you follow one, you should follow them all. you can not pick an choose. following God's law isnt legalism. making up your own laws to say how good you are is (i dont think he said that, but thats often an argument people use). the sabbath is in the bible, it was created by God on the first week of creation, and nothing in the bible refutes that. (i have seen the lame attempts by people to try to use the bible to refute the sabbath, and it is....lame)

lastly, like he mentioned that God talked about the 2 greatest commandments. he is right, but if you break down the 10 commandments, they all fall into one of those 2 commandments. he isnt somehow changing this laws or standards for us when He mentions this. all he is doing is stating the principles behind the commandments. love God, and love man.

God forgives and GOd is great, but he does have standards, and its dangerous to ignore them. im not a perfect person, but the logic presented by that reader is fallacious

</review>
<review>

When I first started reading this book, I literally devoured it from page to page, believing it to be groundbreaking and a tour-de-force.  After I read it, I reflected on its message, and found I wasn't as excited as I first thought.  Then I thought about writing a review, but had to caution against emotionalism, and this kind of book certainly stirs up the pot of emotionalism.

Steve Wohlberg does hit on some "sacred cows," theologically, though, and I found I had some common ground with him on the Rapture, and the Anti-Christ, as he cited solid historical sources to support his thesis.  However, as I continued to read on, I discovered to my dismay that I'd read some of this stuff before - in the 7th Day Adventist literature.  As a matter of fact, Steve Wohlberg, although admittedly a Messianic Jew, has written for Pacific Press and other Seventh Day Adventist press publications.

Then there's the issue of the way of salvation.  He claims that the "faithful" will be saved by trusting in Christ for their salvation...AND...keeping the 10 Commandments.  This is solid Adventist teaching, and there's no two ways around it.  Other teachings have focused on keeping the Sabbath as another "legal"
requirement of salvation, although after a couple of questions to him about this, he stated that he didn't hold to that view.

Scripture makes it very clear that Christ lived, died on the Cross, shed his blood for the remission of sins, and rose from the dead to justify those who believe in Him, and as a result, receive eternal life.  Jesus also said that those who loved Him would follow His commandments, and He cited the two greatest commandments as loving God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind, and loving our neighbor as ourselves.  Nowhere does the Bible teach that it's "Christ plus the Commandments."  To come to Christ is to follow - Christ plus nothing and Christ minus nothing.  He is our all in all.  He is the fulfillment of the Law to all those who believe.

Although ready to rate this book very high...after a great deal of thought, it can only be the lowest.  Sorry, Steve.  You didn't convince me.  You're either a biblical Christian or a follower of E.G. White

</review>
<review>

"Anthropologist on Mars" begins with a quote by geneticist J.B.S. Haldane - a quote that so beautifullly sums up the book's aim as to bear repeating:

"The universe is not only queerer than we imagine, but queerer than we can imagine."

Oliver Sacks's seven paradoxical tales aim at showing us just that. We are offered a mere glimpse of the neurological pluriverse and, in so witnessing, become able to appreciate just how 'queer' human nature can be.

Other reviewers have gone into great detail about the outline of each story, so I will leave that to them. What I wish to point out to prospective readers is Sack's ability, through his tales, to make the ordinary things about our brains that we take for granted, appear unique, fragile, and more special than we might have thought.

For instance, we witness two stories dealing with sight. First, we explore the case of a painter who loses ALL sense of color late in life. We also see its opposite - a blind man given sight late in life.

In the first case, we get a real sense of how integral the sense of color is for life. We watch this man describe how the world becomes infinitely duller and less interesting when all one can see is shades of gray. He is driven almost to suicide! In the next tale, we see how astonishingly hard it is to 'learn to see' and all the things the brain must do to achieve this (which becomes all the harder the older one is).

We also meet some folks who are autistic and, as such, lack the social instincts and abstraction that we who have them take for granted. Imagine, if you can, having to learn social rules (such things as body language, vocal inflection, and sense of humor) like one would learn algebra - not instinctually, but intellectually. And imagine being mystified by ideas like romantic love and the beauty of music. Temple Grandin - in the final of Sacks tales - shows us what this is like.

Through all of this, Sacks takes on the role not only of a neurologist and story teller, but of a philosopher. The philosopher takes the ordinary and puts it under a microscope to show us how breath-taking it really is. Just because most of us - the impaired call us neurotypicals - have brains that smoothly operate thus and so, does not mean that we all do. Some, like Virgil, have to work hard at seeing such basic things as 2D represntations of 3D objects. Others, like Temple Grandin, have to work at understanding the idea of sociality.

All in all, this is a stunning book that will make you think and marvel. Dare I say, if you are like me, you will never look at the human brain with quite the same lens as you did before.

</review>
<review>

I recommend Dennis Littrell's review of this book on this site.He outlines clearly what the book is about, and gives us the basic story of each of the seven chapters, the seven cases that make up the book. He headlines his review 'extraordinary genius' and I share this feeling about Oliver Sachs.
What I find most remarkable about Sachs' work is his ability to patiently study, and work to help people who seem lost completely. Instead of being as most of us are repelled by these kind of often 'freakish abnormalities ' Sachs in studying the people and recounting their cases , makes their stories 'human'. He extends in a certain way our conception of what the human is, and increases our sense of how remarkable the human mind is.
He is also a most moving author whose human sympathy and compassion inspire.


</review>
<review>

An Anthropologist on Mars is the much anticipated follow-up to his previous best-seller, The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat. In it, Dr. Sacks further explores the recesses of the Central Nervous System's never ending quest for logic and understanding. Gestalt tells us that if we look at a broken circle long enough, the brain will fill-in the missing piece. The brain easily embraces a circle, but finds no concrete logic to a broken circle. Thus, the brain rejects such a concept as impossible. Consider our memories: most people have heard that eye witness accounts of rare events are digitized in such a way that the brain can change the sequence of events in a manner scewed toward the logical arrangment of the rare event. People who have witnessed an aircraft explode during flight most often remember this rare event quite differently immeadiatley after it happens. Plains don't explode then crash, plains crash, then they explode. That makes sense to the brain, but explode then crash does not make sense. OK, enough of Psych 101. As a neurologist, Dr. Sacks understands how the brain works, and is thus able to explain it in an easy going manner. It wasn't until a skiing accident though inwhich Dr. Sacks lost a leg, and learned first hand the phenomonon of phanthom feeling that he became fully aware of the brains search for logic. The brain hates the idea of ONE LEG, and thus continues to accept information from something that isn't even there, and, more remarkably, responds to the information. Now armed with subjectivity as well as objectivity, Dr. Sacks marshalls his considerable talent as a writer and walks a thin line in the telling of our miraculous brain. Finally, it's clear he really cares about the people he puts forth as examples of neurological insult. He offers us a wide variety of people, thier afflictions, and the results. He does seem to favor Tourette Syndrome as a perfect example of a brain run amuk. After all, Tourette Syndrome is named after a student of great French neurologist Jean Charcot. Dr. Tourette devoted his career to the study of one person who suffered from what we now call Tourette Syndrome. Dr. Sacks widens the view effectively.

</review>
<review>

This is one of those non-fiction books which keeps you turning the pages. Sacks is a neurologist who aside from having insights into the field also obviously truley cares about his subjects. He uses this care to get to a depth of explanation of case histories in a manner I have not encountered before. Highly recommended

</review>
<review>

These are true tales from a clinical neurologist's notebook, but this isn't just any neurologist.  Oliver Sacks, author of the justly celebrated, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (1986) and Awakenings (1973), which was later made into a movie starring Robert DeNiro and Robin Williams, and other works, is a gifted writer with a fine sense of story and an even finer sense of humanity.  He has a style that is both affecting and fascinating, yet studiously objective, a style laced with footnotes and clinical observations, historical comparisons and wisdom.  Part of the power of these tales, and of all of Sacks's work, is his ability to be totally engaged and to identify with the subject while part of him is off to the side observing with scientific impartiality.  This makes for a compelling read.  If you've never read Sacks before, you are in for a very special treat.

These tales are paradoxical because "Defects, disorders, diseases" can bring out "latent powers, developments, evolutions, forms of life, that might never be seen or even be imaginable, in their absence."  It is this "'creative' potential, that forms the central theme of this book" (from Sacks's Preface, page xvi).

The first tale, "The Case of the Colorblind Painter" is about a successful artist who worked in color all his life only to became colorblind at age sixty-five, and the effect this had on his life and work.  The second, "The Last Hippie" is about an amnesiac man with a frontal lobe tumor that left him stranded in the sixties.  Sacks tells this sad, pathetic story with vivid detail, and characteristically ends it with a footnote, a footnote of such warmth and genuine identification that we are moved to tears.  (Don't skip the footnotes!)

The third tale, "A Surgeon's Life," is an amazing account of a Canadian surgeon with Tourette's syndrome.  It is here that we begin to see the central theme of this book in brilliant illumination.  Dr. Carl Bennett, riddled with the bizarre tics characteristic of the disorder, compulsions that cause him to throw things, to touch things again and again in a ritualistic manner, to flail, jump and jerk about, nonetheless became a very successful (and beloved) doctor of surgery.  Sacks scrubs up with Dr. Bennett and goes into surgery with him, during which, miraculously, the tics disappear for however long it takes to complete the surgery.  Sacks visits him at home and meets his wife and two children, sees the dents in the refrigerator and on the walls, and comes away with a sense of how astounding the human potential to overcome adversity can be.

The fourth tale, "To See and Not See," is about partially restored sight and how it was not a blessing.  This sad story illustrates how sight is learned from infancy and is largely a constructive and interpretive function of the brain.  This tale also lets us see how the world of the sightless can be rich and fulfilling beyond our imagination.

In the fifth tale, "The Landscape of His Dreams, we meet a gifted artist, Franco Magnani, who from memory alone recreates his home town of Pontito, Italy through his paintings.  He has a nearly photographic, three-dimensional memory, but because of a strange illness that befell him when he was thirty-one, he cares only to re-create his Pontito, not the people or events, but the houses, the masonry, the stones, and he does so continually with microscopic and affecting detail.

The chapter "Prodigies," focuses on an autistic artist, Stephen Wiltshire, whom Sacks is determined to befriend and understand.  In this tale, and the concluding tale, "An Anthropologist on Mars," Sacks helps us to penetrate the world of the autistic and see it (at least in my interpretation) as an alternate view of reality, a view with its own strengths and weaknesses, a world that is just as true and valid as the "normal" one.  Of course severe autism is debilitating in the extreme, and even modest autism can permanently scar and alienate the autistic from society.  Yet, perhaps that is society's loss.  I even got the sense, in reading these concluding stories about autism, that perhaps theirs is an evolutionary "strategy" trying to emerge, that is, a different way of seeing and dealing with the world that also might work.  I would not be shocked to discover some day that the autistic, with their sometimes extraordinary gifts of memory and concentration, are melded more completely and seamlessly into our usual consciousness, and that humankind is the better for it.  Incidentally, the last tale about Temple Grandin, who is a professor of animal studies at Colorado State University, is remarkable because it is about an autistic who is completely integrated into the society, yet remains autistic.  She is the one who says she sometimes feels, because of her different perspective, like "an anthropologist on Mars" when she views "normal" people.  Sacks allows us to see why.

Bottom line: this is an extraordinary book of insight and scholarship about the human condition, written with grace and a deep sense of humanity, not to be missed

</review>
<review>

This is the first Oliver Sacks book I've read and I found it fascinating and informative.  Once I started a case history I was hard-put to stop reading until I found out the end result.  I particularly enjoyed the stories about the amnesiac Greg and the colorblind artist.  Sacks puts a human face on insights about how our brains work in an intellectually stimulating yet emotionally touching way.  I found the story about Virgil, the blind man who gets his sight back and must learn how to see in his 50s particularly heart-wrenching.  The only story I bailed out on was about an autistic woman who works in a cattle slaughterhouse.  (I could not handle the graphic nature of the story.)  I definitely recommend this book if you appreciate shows like Nova or if you watch Discovery television.  Anyone who wants to know more about the mysteries of our human brains will be enriched by this book

</review>
<review>

I know very little about psychology, but I found this book to be both informative and touching. I first heard about it when a cook at my summer camp read us "The Last Hippie" during an evening program. I was fascinated by the story. Finally, when I picked up a copy of the book for myself, I read through the whole thing in a day. I actually cried during one of the stories. Oliver Sacks teaches you a lot about how the human brain works without getting too clinical, and lets the humanity of the people he profiles shine through. This is a really good book

</review>
<review>

Oliver Sacks' An Anthropologist on Mars is a delightful and enlightening book that reveals the unparalleled complexity of the human brain.

Sacks, an accomplished neurologist and author, presents seven case studies that highlight different neurological phenomena.  In his case studies, Sacks follows a newly colorblind painter, a man who can create no new memories, a surgeon with Tourette's syndrome, a blind man who regains his sight, a painter obsessed with images from his childhood, an autistic boy artist, and a high-functioning autistic professor.  Sacks does not treat his case studies as dry medical oddities but rather discusses their neurological experiences within their broader human existence.  Unlike other authors who know their patients only distantly, Sacks works intimately with his case studies and develops meaningful relationships that translate into a deeper, more insightful understanding of his patients and their experiences.

While Sacks is clearly a brilliant neurologist, what makes this book so powerful is his ability to weave in medicine, science, history, and philosophy into a coherent narrative.  Every case study illuminates a series of important and thought-provoking questions that challenge the everyday assumptions of perception, reality, intelligence, and what it means to be human.  In the end, the reader emerges with a better appreciation of the complexity of the human mind.

The book is very well documented with copious footnotes provided throughout the book.  Occasionally, Sacks neglects to define some arcane medical terms, so readers would do well to keep a dictionary close at hand.  Overall, the book is highly accessible to the general reader who will find it intriguing and intellectually rewarding.

</review>
<review>

Expertly written, the stories are fascinating, endearing,  and  enlightening.  You'll learn so much about how your own mind is wired by reading the stories of these very special people.  The medical and literary communities need more people like Oliver Sacks

</review>
<review>

If you're interested in campaigns and politics, this is a great book to pick up! Although it may seem thick, the pages somehow manage to fly by. James Baker is the epitome of a political guru! If you didn't know that before reading the book, you certainly will know it afterward

</review>
<review>

You read a book like this to get a feel for what's it would be like to be considered the GOLD STANDARD in electoral politics. Nobody in modern times has had the success or the good fortune to be on the winning side of so many Presidential elections. One of Baker's competitors is James Carville, the man who more than any other, helped Bill Clinton to defeat George HW Bush and his manager James A. Baker III in 1992. It was Carville who referred to Baker as the Gold Standard.

To understand James Baker, you have to understand where he is coming from. He was originally a Houston based "Society Lawyer" from a prominent family which allowed him to attend Princeton University. A "Society Lawyer" simply caters to the needs of very rich people. Whatever it is they need, the lawyer fixes it, quite a nice life if you can do it.

Baker also has a wonderful, gregarious personality. In person, he is charming to a fault, and a total class act. You have to like the guy. The question one needs to ask is how did Baker parlay a general legal practice in Houston, and morph it into becoming probably the second most important person in government under two successive Presidents.

Even more interesting is how did Baker survive his entire tenure in Washington without being either destroyed, or contaminated by the system. He was able to walk away from his experiences, which were quite extensive, without anybody laying a glove on him.

I was involved in a conversation with former President Nixon on this topic many years ago. The President felt that there were only 250,000 people in the United States that counted. These people own the media, the corporations, they control the institutions, and they have the wealth. The President felt that if you stripped this entire group of their wealth, power, and positions, in ten years, the wealth and power would be right back where it started from.

I submit to you that James Baker made himself the indispensable man to whoever he came into contact with. If you strip Baker of his power and position, within a few years he would be right back in the thick of it. Was there some luck involved? You bet there was, and this book is full of stories where so much luck was involved.

He specifically mentions in the book that being a Marine during the Korean War, he was transferred to the Mediterranean, not Korea, where most of his associates perished in the war. Was it the luck of the draw that led to his Mediterranean assignment, or string pulling? We will never know, and he's not telling.

Here's a man that was George Bush's man, (the current President's father), during the 1980 campaign when Bush went head to head against Ronald Reagan for the Republican Presidential nomination. This was the second time Baker moved against Reagan. He was also part of Ford's team when Reagan challenged the seating President for the nomination in 1976.

What happens as a result? Reagan wins the nomination in 1980, and Baker joins the Reagan team. Having done a great job during the election process, he somehow manages against all odds to maneuver himself into the position of Chief of Staff to Ronald Reagan. Previous to this, Reagan had always surrounded himself with people with very long track records with him. How did Baker manage to leap over every one of the loyalists?

The answer is that this is a very SPECIAL MAN. I have known a lot of people in Washington up close and personal. If you are perceptive, and interested, it really doesn't take long to figure out who's real, who's a phony, who gets things done, and who doesn't. There are very few people in James Baker's league. There are only two other people I can compare him to.

The first was Abe Fortas, a former Supreme Court Justice who was one of the most brilliant men to ever serve in government. I value a picture I have of him sitting in Lyndon Johnson's White House, not at the table, but in a seat by the window. It was obvious Fortas was pulling the strings in the room.

The second man, I would compare Baker to would be Clark Clifford. He was another magnificent power broker who served every Democratic President from Harry Truman forward for 30 years. What's interesting is that both of these men Fortas, and Clifford had problems late in their careers that tarnished their reputations. Baker remains untouched by scandal.

Nobody in the last 40 years has enjoyed better relations with the press than James Baker. I do not ever recall at any point while he served in government reading anything negative that was written about him. The only person that came close is Colin Powell, and Baker is at the game longer.

The reason is that nobody cultivated the press like James Baker. Did Baker leak to the press? He says no, but he does admit to providing background to reporters without allowing attribution back to himself. It was more than background. Baker probably provided anything, and everything the press required in order to keep his reputation intact. There is no other explanation for the continuous favorable press this man received during his entire stay in Washington DC, a truly cutthroat town.

He also doesn't have a bad word to say about anybody else. He simply doesn't burn bridges. This attitude goes all the way back to his days as a society lawyer. If you never say anything negative about people, you have an opportunity to have them all as clients. Everybody loves James Baker. I particularly enjoy reading a book like this because you pick up certain ideas, and possibilities about politics that you will just never learn any other way, because there's just so much noise out there that it's overwhelming. Let me give you a couple of notions:

?	"When wounded, stop the bleeding immediately" - Here Baker is telling us that when it goes bad for you in politics, you have to deal with the issue immediately and kill the issue. Don't wait, or you're dead. An example would be Senator Kerry's failure to respond to the misleading Swift Boat accusations made against him in the 04 Presidential election cycle.

?	"First time out, win or lose, you learn a lot" - He's telling you that there is no substitute for experience. You may not win the race the first time, as Baker lost with Ford in 1976, but it prepared him for 1980, where he became the gold standard in politics.

?	"Proximity is POWER" - Yes, absolutely. You want an office close to the President. The closer the office, the more power you absolutely have, and are perceived to have.

?	"Tax hikes without spending restraints never balance the budget, Congress always spends the new money and more" - How brilliant is this statement. It explains perfectly the last six years under a Republican dominated Presidency, and Congress. Whoever is in power spends money. It doesn't matter who it is, or what party he's from.

?	"Image Trumps Substance" - Wow, did he get this one right. It's all about PERCEPTION, or better yet, take credit for all miracles occurring within 50 miles.

?	"Better to assume the worst, and try to do something about it, than to assume the best, and get blindsided"  - This is a lesson we could all take with us.

?	"Prior Preparation Prevents Poor Performance - He learned this from his father, and mentions it many times throughout the book. Practicing what he called the five P's held him in good steed throughout his career, and he continues to practice this behavior today.

If you have an interest in politics and history, you would do well to take the time to peruse this book. It's an easy read, Baker is not looking to sell you, or persuade you in this book. Read it, and you will learn what life at the top of Washington was like during a very interesting period in our nation's history. Good luck.

Richard Stoyeck

</review>
<review>

I did not know a great deal about James Baker before I read this book, but I mean it as a compliment to the clarity of his reminiscences when I say I think I do now. In the field of political autobiography, it is not always the case that one emerges knowing more about the author and subject than when one began. From the pages of his book I discern that James Baker is not without wit, albeit at times a distinctly biting one. He is also less a statesman than a politician, and less a politician than a man with protective loyalty to his friends. He is perhaps above all someone with a talent for inserting himself into a situation and calling on a lifetime's worth of well-placed contacts when there is a need to get things done. In short, to his party and to its inner circle, Mr. Baker is invaluable.

James Addison Baker began his adult life as an apolitical Texas Democrat, and emerges today four decades after he took up campaigning as a form of therapy (after his wife's passing) as an elder tactician of the Republican Party. His is the sort of book that will deservedly please Republicans, understandably miff Democrats, raise a few eyebrows and hackles here and there among independents, and ultimately I fear its anecdotes about such varying matters as families ties surpassing race, the "real" way politics in America works, his compliments on the brilliance of Presidents Ford, Reagan, and Bush, as well as others with whom he has served---in short the best part of the book---will unfortunately be lost on many who purchase it for strictly political reasons.

Let me point out now that this book is NOT about Baker's political neutrality, nor was it expected to be, but one of its strengths is that I think James Baker wrote candidly. That's also one of its weaknesses, for while I admired the similar candidness that went into Jesse Helms' memoir last year, this book does make Baker come across a few times as something of a power-hungry, vindictive man. I think in large part Baker used this often interesting re-telling of his role in modern political affairs as a platform to get even a time or two with those against whom he feels grudges, particularly former Vice President Al Gore, whose attacks on both Baker and Baker's boss, former President Bush, during the 1992 White House race became as Baker seems to have seen it, a little too personal.

What is interesting about Baker's book is of course its recounting of his service in several Republican administrations, and also his role as a major behind the scenes player in the election campaigns that placed many of those politicians there. Baker most recently was a strategist who oversaw the current President Bush's 2000 White House run, and while there does seem some merit in his reminder that the final Supreme Court decision that settled the disputed 2000 election was rendered 7-2, in my opinion I couldn't help but see Baker leaving behind some of his candidness and resorting to becoming a hard-line strategist even after that particular battle is long over.

This is a relatively short and surprisingly fast-flowing sort of trek back through the life of an extremely well-connected man, and while I disagree with Baker on many issues, I did think much of what he had to say was interesting and that it serves as a unique view into a realm of politics typically closed-off to most of us

</review>
<review>

In reflecting upon the life of James Baker through his second memoir 'Work Hard, Study . . . and Keep Out of Politics!' the one thing that continued to stay in my mind is Baker's openess that one of the reasons why he stayed in politics was 'power'.  What a refreshing statement: the Truth!  This is not so minimal a statement when reading the many self-serving political memoirs published, particularly from the Reagan-era politicians who have published throughtout the years. The life of Jame Baker is quite remarkable, and the sharing of his life and decisions as shared in this memoir are encompassing of service to this nation well done.  I may not necessarily agree with all the decisions made by Baker during the years he served 3 different presidents, but I do respect the man and the integrity of this book.  There rings certain truths throughout, and his openess about 'power' provide a sense of credability to his perspectives

</review>
<review>

I can't recommend this book highly enough. I read the original book, and loved it, but knew there was more that i was missing. The workbook asks detailed and sometimes confronting questions, and acts as an aide to hearing God. I found once i started asking God these questions, i had the insight i needed to break through so many of the walls i'd put to God, myself, and others. As a result, my relationships are healthier, and i am a less defensive person.

</review>
<review>

I found myself reaching to answer these questions, in the spirit of being cooperative....almost making mountains out of molehills as I viewed my life

</review>
<review>

I never take the time to write reviews so take this as a  and quot;sixth star and quot; for The sacred Romance along with it's study guide companion. I first read the book a year ago and had a  and quot;so-so and quot; reaction to it. It was good, and it helped me take a unique look at God's most dramatic act of love on our behalf. Still, I pretty much forgot about it not long after I read it.  I can't tell you how different my reaction to this book was about a year later when my small group decided to use T.S.R. for our lesson. Wow! We now have a level of trust with each other and with that trust have been able to share old wounds of the heart that were prohibiting us from the most important relationship of our lives (a relationship with God of course) and we were also able to build each other up. If you are in a small group I URGE you to consider The Sacred Romance. If everyone in your group is honest and takes the chance to be a little vulnerable with each other it will change the dynamics of how you study together dramatically

</review>
<review>

Read this if you desire to take you faith to the edge with on the living God as your guid

</review>
<review>

The author is definately very qualified to write this book. He generally keeps the reader engrossed as he creates the backdrop and context for each of the fairs. Unfortunately, he doesnt go very in depth into any particular fair, and the reader is left craving more photos. The author frequently boasts about his extensive collection of memorabilia, but too little is shown. Its enjoyable for a quick read, but if you are interested in more in depth knowledge and imagery, you should investigate one of the more comprehensive books

</review>
<review>

I loved this book. Ever since my high school English teacher chastised me for trying to put Miller's The Crucible in the context of the McCarthy era, I have been fascinated with the social context surrounding the creation of art. Jones focuses on the political as well as social context that has given birth to the great...and the mediocre...of the American musical. First, his use of terms such as "diversionary" ring so true for those of us who love mindless fluff when we go to the theatre. Second, I was shocked at how little I had appreciated the contributions of African-Americans, inter alia, to the American stage prior to reading this book. But, mostly, I liked how he articulated how a writer's gestalt accounts for the end product on the stage and his description of how copy-cat musicals come into being. The book gave me the backstory to many of the original shows I had the good fortune to see on Broadway. I, for one, would love a Volume II of this book to be Jones' next foray. I especially offer this to aspiring young actors, writers, directors and songwriters as a required read before embarking on a life in musical theater. If you want to create art, you must know from whence you came

</review>
<review>

As a lover of Musical Theater, and (minor) toiler in the vineyards, myself, I have probably read hundreds of books on the subject. Therefore, it is always a special treat to find one that brings a fresh slant to the subject. Jones' book does just that. By treating musical theater styles neither as a simple reflection of, nor an escape from the world at large, but rather as an integral part of the whole, he presents a broad, but always entertaining and on-target view of both the 20th century and musical theater's part within same. There are, as there always are in works of this scope, some factual errors (e.g.  and quot;No Strings and quot; wasn't Richard Rodgers' only  and quot;public and quot; credit as a lyricist. He's also so credited on the score for the TV musical  and quot;Androcles  and amp; The Lion and quot;. It ain't Broadway-in every sense-but it IS public!) but none that take anythng away from the over-all achievement of the work

</review>
<review>

The begining of the book is a little tough, being a "White male" But this a book that everyone should read! The world would be a better place if they did

</review>
<review>

This book and the others by Anne Wilson Schaef have helped me to put my own experience with family and society into a healthy perspective.  I say, bravo to this lady and her work!  Excellent! This work put me on the path to true emotional healing and understanding of why people act in harmful ways. I say, no less than brillant. Thanks Anne!! You Rock

</review>
<review>

I read this book years ago...or, rather, tried to. I'm sure there are better examples of the truism,  and quot;When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and quot; but not many.

If you're another 12-step 'bot who peppers your conversation and decals your bumper with slogans like  and quot;One Day at a Time, and quot; you'll probably really, really like _When Society Becomes an Addict_. I myself found it to be one of the worst self-help books I've ever seen ... and in a genre glutted with self-indulgence, pseudo-science, and hidden agendas, that's saying a lot.

If there is anything we emphatically do *not* need more of in politics, it's therapy. Lift your head out of your 12-step cocoon and look around you: We've got people using various and often spurious diagnoses to shirk responsibility for everything from proper child-rearing to murder. We've been bringing back censorship with a vengeance in the last few decades because of a misguided belief that the world must cater to the delicate psyches of the traumatized, the easily offended, the  and quot;oppressed, and quot; and, most of all,  and quot;da chyldrun. and quot; And no politician dares run for any major office without drawing lots of attention to his or her  and quot;sensitive side, and quot; often with short, sappy, pseudo-heartwarming  and quot;personal interest and quot; films.

Schaef may indeed have claimed that men are no longer the problem, but obviously she still claims that we need to feminize American society more. Uh, when little boys are widely and heavily medicated just for acting like little boys, I think we've feminized society quite enough. And I'm a woman with a good many feminist sympathies.

Too bad it had to take September 11th to wake so many people up to the fact that we need more than consensus-seekers, empathizers, and nurturers -- we need leaders, individuals with the courage to make unpopular moral judgments, and warriors and heroes. Of both sexes

</review>
<review>

This brilliantly innovative thinker throws back the curtains on our collective society's understanding of ourselves, and opens up possibilities for really positive solutions to what ails our society as a whole, and its individuals, in particular!  Ms. Schaef addresses all forms of addiction, from chemical to behavioral, and sees within our society's gradual acceptance of its own corruptions the seven deadly sins of anger, covetousness, envy, gluttony, lust, pride and sloth.  Perpetuating our malaise we see in our leaders the aspects of control, dishonesty and dualism (seeing only two alternative solutions to any problem.)  It is shocking to face these at first, but once the truth of it dawns on the reader, he/she is led through the greatest assisting factors toward our collective  and quot;recovery and quot;: Process (the ideas used in the 12-step programs); Sobriety (fastest route to clear thinking); and Spirituality (not necessarily the dogmatic sort that keeps us in the submissive, non-living, non-aware state!)  This book is not for the person too busy to have time to digest something wonderfully deep and enriching!  Reading it is like taking a shower in the purest, cleansing water, and emerging to absorb its message like rays of powerful sunshine!  It is empowering.  A fantastic door opening to the possibilities of our becoming a truly free and healthy society of thinking, alive, deprogrammed individuals!  Read this one before any of her other books!  Her newly coined terms will become valuable assets in your vocabulary and liberated mind-set

</review>
<review>

This is a top book. It analyses the addiction patterns of individuals from the perspective of the addictive patterns in society as a whole. Ann Wilson Schaef goes beyond analysis of the  and quot;problem and quot; of addiction to a very encouraging vision of another way of being alive, one that is mostly forgotten in our numb modern society. If you are looking for some ways out of the cycle of addiction, this may be an important roadmap for you

</review>
<review>

This book is full of assumptions and generalizations. Some information is distorted. According to the logic of the writer over 90% of the population should be already dead from  and quot;addiction and quot;. The writer assumes from the very beggining that any system that is centered around men is addictive and therefore harmful. It is possible, but the writer doesn't make any notes about the  men and women centered systems. The only system that is good is the female system

</review>
<review>

Due to the pressures of modern life, many people are addicts of one kind or another.Anne Schaef shows how society as a whole behaves in addictive ways.We usually think of an addict as being someone addicted to a drug, but there are many kinds of addiction.There are substance addictions, such as to alcohol, drugs, nicotine, caffeine and food.Everyday activities can become process addictions,such as accumulating money,gambling, sex,work,religion and worry.Personal relationships can also be addictive.Many politicians behave like addicts,as they are hooked on  control,  promising things will get better(but they do not)denying problems and denying alternative ways of doing things.This all adds up to the Addictive System which is modern society.Schaef concludes that  and quot;we cannot allow anything to come between us and our spirituality, or between us and our living process.If we do, we shall destroy ourselves and those around us. and quot;This is a very worthwhile book, with penetrating insight into modern life

</review>
<review>

Jim Hightower pulls no punches in this revealing expose of how dirty our two-party system is.  He provides example after example of how corporations have seized complete control of the government, taking power away from the citizenry.  Sure, the rich have always enjoyed certain privelges that the rest of us don't.  But in the last twenty years, there has been a growing, unbridled greed that is destroying the lives of millions for the benefit of a handful of modern-day robber barons.  The vast majority of Democrats and Republicans have been bought and paid for by these insulated tycoons -- ever wonder about rich guys and corporations who give the maximum contribution to the Democrat and the Republican in the same race?  You can bet that it ain't civic pride.  If you are tired of working two jobs, and never getting ahead, this book will explain the truth about what is happening

</review>
<review>

If you're tired of the non-news you are fed every night on the evening  and quot;news and quot; show, get this book.  Did you know that the average worker now makes less than in 1973 in inflation-adjusted wages?  Did you know that NAFTA has hurt American farmers and American workers, not helped them?  Jim Hightower gives you real news in his book.  Why waste money on your local paper when it consists of nothing but corporate press releases?  This book shows how publicly financed elections cost less than the favors and giveaways your politicians provide to big campaign contributors. This book is fun to read, too, in spite of the serious content, and would be a great gift for family and friends, both left and right wingers

</review>
<review>

When I first picked up this book I was immediately reminded of the 'AMOK 4th Dispatch' catalogue. Back in 1989 the AMOK bookstore out of L.A. released a sourcebook for the extremes of information in print.  The book was an unbelievable find, a real jewel in the pre-internet age.  Virtually every author who appeared in the 'PULPS' section of that catalogue has found themselves listed in this new ROUGH GUIDE.
For anyone who is tired of the bestseller lists and is looking for something different to read, this guidebook is indispensable!  It features all the offbeat, wonderful authors who can lay claim to breaking new ground in literature.  Some are well known bestselling authors (Vonnegut, Camus, Tolkien, Ellroy, Palahniuk, Pynchon), others are celebrated more for their lifestyles than their actual work (the infinitely emulated Kerouac, Bukowski and Henry Miller), still others are infamous (Selby, de Sade, Burroughs, Beirce) while many, many others have been either criminally ignored, forgotten or just faded with time (Crews, Himes, Mishima, Bowles, Dick, Willeford, Trocchi, Gysin et al.)
All have devoted (some would say slavish) readerships that have allowed for their works to remain in print one way or the other over the years. I have many of the writers in this collection but the real treasures are to be found with some of the other entries in the guide. You're bound to discover several new writers in this collection which, along with some extra facts that you may not have known about some of your favourite authors, makes it well worth buying. Some of you who haven't yet delved into the literary underworld are in for a real treat.  I envy your upcoming voyage of discovery.
The guide is set up simply and efficiently. It covers over 200 novelists but also branches out to include classic cult books by authors who never became cult figures themselves, as well as graphic novels, beloved characters, non-fiction faves and even some trivia.  I know about most of the authors mentioned in the book but there were still quite a few surprises as well as some illuminating facts, bios and recommended reads that made it well worth buying.  I highly, highly recommend this guide for people who are ready to branch out from the bestsellers, the old classics and mainstream pulp.  A whole new world of ideas awaits..

</review>
<review>

First, a word about the term cult fiction, and its implications. When I first saw the title of this little book, I assumed it would be full of strung-out wreckages like Burroughs and Dick. While the Rough Guide does contain them (as it should), its scope is far greater than writers of that type. In here you'll find a wind range of novelists reviewed, including Graham Greene, John Fowles, even Zane Grey. Bottom line: an excellent resource for readers

</review>
<review>

I picked this up on a recent vacation to Minnapolis and found I couldn't put it down. I do think the book does omit some key cult writers but the ones who are included are handled by writers who obviously know their subjects. This guide includes a lot of my favorite writers (Jonathan Coe, Italo Calvino, Jasper Fforde, Borges, etc.) and I was pleased to find out some things about their lives and work that I didn't know before. The guide points out the writers' essential works and suggests  what a particular writer might have in common with another writer. The book is often funny without being mean-spirited

</review>
<review>

Let's face it. Most books about writing are  b o r i n g. They usually range from dry to ... dry. I've often thought of this as a case of "physician, heal thyself." Ryan's ridiculously long title made me wonder if his book would land squarely in the middle of that dry pile. I was pleasantly surprised to be wrong: Ryan has a straightforward and practical approach to writing. In fact, he goes as far as to talk about writer's intuition, and dares to promote a straightforward writing approach, "Plan Then Write." This book talks about general corporate writing, but the information can be applied to other types of writing where we need to remember that every word we write, whether in team communication or in our work product, is an opportunity. This book is great for less experienced writers trying to find structure in a formless void. And it is perhaps equally valuable for experienced writers who are trying to call themselves back to the basics

</review>
<review>

This book tells the two real secrets that create good business writing, rule of thumb and writer's intuition.  It also shares a very special secret in all good writing, how to avoid the rule-burdened mechanics-based approach that ruins most writers before they begin.

</review>
<review>

Another book about writing well? Who needs it, you ask? My answer is: Anyone who wants to write better. Those who want to be better writers must continually practice their skills. Sure, you could probably improve your style without this book, but why not learn a few more tricks of the trade? I especially enjoyed the rewrite examples ( and quot;Rewriting History and quot; was particularly interesting). Expend a bit of energy reading and studying Ryan's book and then expect to write with a bit more ease. Someone once commented that even good writers need perpetual reassurance.  and quot;Write Up the Corporate Ladder and quot; is that reassurance

</review>
<review>

At last a clear and practical book that gets right down to the real issues. Excellent writing skills are critical to success in today's world. Ryan gives proven and valuable steps to bring your writing to a new level of clarity and conciseness. A real must have book

</review>
<review>

With time becoming more valuable each day, and email evolving as the convenient mode of communication, people tend to rush through common and simple memos and correspondence which can lead to bad writing habits and the potential for costly mistakes. Now that we have the technology to simplify communication, it's time to upgrade our own communication skills to avoid the pitfalls and re-focus upon what we're trying to say. Kevin Ryan not only gives us the tools to improve our writing but he introduces us to successful people who already have.  I write back cover promotional pieces for a book publisher and I've cut hours from the amount of time it takes to create new, fresh and clear copy. Here's a book that's right for the times

</review>
<review>

13 Stories, 13 Epitaphs is the second book by William Vollmann that I've read and I still am not quite sure what to make of him. The first was Butterfly Stories, a sordid tale of a journalist and photographer in Thailand chasing hookers, looking for the one with a heart of gold. 13 Stories is somewhat similar with several people who are homeless, jobless, and addicted drugs, as well as several whores. It's hard to judge his writing without considering the content he writes about, which is usually derelicts and people on the fringes of society. It makes me feel uneasy and uncomfortable, I can't relate with the characters and don't find much redeeming about his stories, it doesn't seems like he has an overall plan, it's not necessarily a morality tale.  I think I've had enough of his novels

</review>
<review>

Quick read that's interesting and informative about the damage disfunctional families can do to their children, and how that impacts the adult lives of those children.

Iles has quickly become a favorite author of mine, with Turning Angel being the first book I read, and this being the second.  I look forward to reading his other works

</review>
<review>

Would you stand in line at an Applebee's for three hours in order to eat a hamburger when you could get a hamburger just as good---maybe better---at a dozen other nearby places where the wait was only fifteen minutes?  Of course not!  Why, then, would you spend countless hours plowing through this 760 page monstrosity when you could spend the same amount of time reading two James Patterson books, or a Patterson and a Connelly, or two Thomas Harris books...my apologies, Greg Iles, but for a simple, formulaic serial killer book, Blood Memory was just WAY too long.  The book has two co-plots; one involves a serial killer who murders older men, the second involves the mysterious childhood abuse suffered by the female lead.  The serial killer plot is actually the more interesting, but at least two-thirds of the novel dwells on the abuse instead and unfortunately the "secret" is painfully obvious to any seasoned reader from the first few pages of the book.  All in all this would have been a halfway decent novel if Iles---or his editor---had chopped out about 300 pages of unneccesary text.  Iles just LOVES to have two characters sit and talk for 3o, 40 or even 50 pages, but since most of his dialogue is what I call "soap opera" speak, meaning you know what the characters will say before the words are even out of their mouths, these chapters dragged on and on and on.  Iles also wastes pages by writing lengthy descriptions of people eating ice cream, taking showers, and doing other mundane things that should have been glossed over or chopped out entirely.  Come on, Greg; why describe a character savoring the taste of vanilla ice cream as if it's some strange, exotic treat that no one's ever heard of before?  Just as some people love to hear themselves talk, I think Iles loves to see himself write...and although some of his books have been quite good, Blood Memory misses the mark by a long shot

</review>
<review>

If you're interested in forensics, chances are you'll like this book.  The book also manages to tie in sexual abuse, repressed memories, Miss., Vietnam, PTSD, and a little romance.  It even broaches the topic of multiple personality disorder but does not linger there long.  I was impressed by the breadth of knowledge that made this book's plot and discussions as intricate as they are

</review>
<review>

Based on the recomendation of a reader friend who believes Iles is a better writer than Grisham, I picked up this book.  I don't know if Iles can outwrite Grisham, but he is definitely a contender.  I found Blood Memory to be a page turner with a lot of unexpected plot twists. But, it is on the grim side.  The main character pursues solving two mysteries, one a serial killer on the loose, and the other a personal mystery related to childhood sex abuse that is a doozie.  In the end the two mysteries are related, though I think the author had to stretch things a bit to make it happen.

As an aside, I remain amazed and impressed that Iles can so effectively write a  novel in the first person in which the character speaking is a female sufferring from the effects of  sexual abuse.


Not a five star, but a solid four.



</review>
<review>

Turning Angel was a page turner for me so I bought BLood Memory. WOW! It did not disappoint me

</review>
<review>

This was a very good book.  I just kept turning the pages.  This is the first I have read by this author and I was very impressed. After about the first 100 pages it really takes off.  I am glad a friend loaned it to me.  To bad it tok me over a year before I opened it.

</review>
<review>

I guess it's high praise for Mr. Iles that he managed to get me screaming at our heroine at all her dumb exploits that had the potential to harm or kill her unborn child:  free-diving, drinking, Valium, baths in scalding water.

This was a thoroughly gripping book that at 764 pages long, I was sad to see come to an end.  Greg Iles doesn't shy from the sensitive subject of pedophilia and tackles it with unflinching honesty.

There is no way to guess the NOMURS "bad guy" in this book til the very end (I don't care what the Australian said who apparently solved the mystery in the first chapter) but I'm disappointed that the author did not interweave the Natchez and New Orleans crimes better.

It does get repetitive like some said, but I still highly recommend this book if you're looking for a taut, atmospheric suspense mystery.  Very well-written and fresh

</review>
<review>

one of the boldest of the bold.  kudos to mr. iles for having the guts to take on the sexual apologists.  nambla has been put on notice.  this is work of pure satisfaction, from the death of every pedophile to the resurrection of our hero, cat.  another worthy pile of words from mr. iles, despite his ignorance regarding black people.  the dialog is downright embarrassing, but keep trying mr. iles.  if you hang out with african-americans rather than watch them on tv, perhaps you'll get 5 stars next time

</review>
<review>

This is the first book I've read by Greg Iles. However, it will not be the last! This book handled some very complicated issues along with all the tangents that come with those issues.
After reading this book I better understand my mother, who was sexually abused, and her response to my sexual abuse. She was able to sheild me from parental sexual abuse, but not from my (then) boyfriend.
I found it very helpful that Mr. Iles gave contact numbers and information at the end of the book regarding sexual abuse. This book will help you to see the tell-tale signs of abuse if you, like Cat Ferry, are willing and able to open your mind to the truth of what you witness

</review>
<review>

As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse I found this book to be very accurate in its description of the affects which it has on a person.  This book will stick with me a long time and I hope even though it is long, readers will give it the chance it deserves. I thought this work by Mr. Iles to be very insightful.

</review>
<review>

Read this book at a light warehouse because you will NOT want to be anywhere near the dark!

</review>
<review>

IT is one of my favorite Stephen King novels I've ever read.  Possibly in the top 10 of all my favorite books.  It is extremely long and I must admit that I had to take breaks during the reading of this novel to get few quick reads in but this book was worth it.  I know it's cliche to say so but the movie does this book no justice.  Of course a movie that would do it justice would most likely be a week or so long.

This novel has some of the best character development I've ever read and the reader gets a chance to really get to know each character.  Even a chance to know more about each character that you might care to.  Highly recommended even if you aren't a King fan

</review>
<review>

When I first read this book, upon finishing it I immediately proceeded to rip it's 1000 pages up into several tens of thousands of little pieces. That was how much the story affected me. It disgusted me, it disturbed me, it ... moved me. After brooding about it for a few weeks it occurred to me that any writer that could move me to do something like that has really messed with my head, and if that's not the mark of a great writer I don't know what is. I then had to go out and buy another copy and read it again.

Amid all the horror that Stephen King has unleashed from the darkness of his imagination, this has to be the most disturbing, disgusting and, at times, offensive work he has ever set to paper. Forget the movie... this is high octane writing which will leave you gasping for breath. With this book and "The Tommyknockers," Stephen King has proven that he is not just a great horror story writer, but a GREAT writer... period. Buy it, read it.

</review>
<review>

Although I'm only 14 year old boy who lives in Utah, I've been a die hard Stephen King fan since I was twelve, and I have to say, this is really the high light of his career.

Don't be turned off by the massive length of this book, it goes by very quickly, and you'll be glued to it bye the first fifty of so pages.

As I'm sure you know, this is a coming of age story about seven children who together must face an evil that has plagued them and even gives them personal grudges. Other people have already gone over the basic story, but one thing that most of them failed to mention that I find very important is that after their child hood encounters with it, all of them But Mike Hanlon lose every memory they ever had of it.

Yes, this book is vulgar, it is violent, and there is some sexuality, it is an essential part of the story. It is over a thousand pages long, and each page is genius. I will go to my grave saying that this is the greatest book I've ever read, because it's so much more than a horror story. I think this book has greater characters than any other book I have ever read. This is a five star book, and is almost completely flawless. This is my favorite book, and some of Stephen King's other great works are The Dead Zone, Misery, The Shining, and Christine.

Read this book, it is well worth your time, I won't go in depth into the story, because hundreds of other people already have, but this book will scare the piss out of you, make you reflect on your childhood and the friends with whom you shared it, and really just change you. I can't express in words how great this is, but don't take my word for it. Buy it, rent it, whatever, just READ IT (no pun intended).
~Love, Dallas~



</review>
<review>

Wow, what an epic.
The book draws you in to the sinister world of Derry Maine so quickly, and deeply, that you don't want to leave when the last page is read.
With a book so large in volume and scope each reader is bound to find faults with the story, but this world is so full of rich characters, these problems disappear into the pages and eventually vanish.
I originally read this book in High School.  After my first re-read 15 years later, the horror of the what goes on in the town of Derry every 28 years had a bigger impact on me.  However, the adventure and wonderment I pulled from the story then, came flooding back again.  The first half of the book is a coming of age story, with evil stalking the town as a backdrop.  The second half of the book is a story of re-discovery and responsibility, with evil lurking closer in each character's shadows.
Just a fantastic book that reminds the reader of the power we had as children

</review>
<review>

A book that enables you to travel back in time...back to 1958, back to a time when there was Stan, Mike, Richie, Bev, Eddie, Ben and Big Bill and some others...back when some kids' main concern was avoiding Henry Bowers!
A story that, although long...over a thousand pages and in 'IT' years probably much longer, kept my attention throughout. Maybe you'll remember what it was like to cycle so fast that your feet lose contact with the pedals...the determination and camaraderie of building a clubhouse, the friendship and love that can overwhelm you when you least expect it to and the fear...fear of the unknown...and fear of the known.

A chilling yet absorbing novel that takes time to aquaint you with the characters and their experiences, so that you really care what happens to them - good AND bad!


</review>
<review>

I wish this book had been available when I was 30 years younger as it might have helped me avoid some serious life errors. I would have even been happy if this book was available when my daughter married 8 years ago.  However, even though the gems of wisdom came too late for us, I recommend that all brides and wives read this book if they want to learn to improve their life, being supportive of their husband yet never giving up their right to be treated well.  Robin McGraw strikes just the right balance of compassion and determination.  It is instructional without being "preachy" - though best for Christians the wisdom could apply to women of any or no formal religious faith.  It would be a good idea for young grooms to read this too (to get an insiders view from the other side).  I bought the book because of the show on Dr. Phil about the book (okay I confess I wanted to read the "dirt" on Dr. Phil) but it was a delight in that you got the "dirt" but learned that the truth was given with a heaping helping of compassion.  I don't know if I would enjoy hanging out with Dr. Phil (he is intense) but I think I would love Robin.  She admits to what she did wrong and tells women how they can find their voice to make the best life possible for themselves and their families.  If your life isn't perfect (and I've yet to find anyone whose life is) then read the book, and if you agree pass it on to your sisters (biological or otherwise).  Here's to McGraw family values!!!

</review>
<review>

I loved Robin McGraw's book! Her message regarding relationships, husbands, children and life in general is an important lesson for all of us.  Life can throw all sorts of roadblocks before us, but if we trust in God and try to maintain a positive attitude, we will triumph over them. I feel that Robin wants all of us to experience the joys that are just waiting for us in life.

Thank you, Robin, for sharing your story with us.

</review>
<review>

I didn't like this book. I thought it was a waste of time and money.

</review>
<review>

This is a fabulous book filled with common sense (which is not so common, after all!).  Robin shares her perspective on being a wife, mother, daughter, daughter in law and most of all a woman.  It's not a "self help" book, but more of a "this is how I did it, you can do it too" book.  I really liked that she spoke about how women need to put themselves first (self care) on all levels to fill whatever roles we need.  And the personal devastation she went through in her own life because people around her didn't do this.

</review>
<review>

I DID NOT order this book and I DID NOT authorize a charge to my credit car

</review>
<review>

I loved this book and couldn't put it down, I read it in two days.  I wish I had a book like this to read when I was younger.  I recommed it to all young women and to older women too, we are never to old to learn.  I just ordered another copy for my youngest daughter as I didn't want to give my copy up.  Thank you Robin for sharing with us

</review>
<review>

To be honest with you I only received the books I ordered yesterday and I had no intensions to read the book by Mrs. Edwards. I bought the books for my two adult daughters as Christmas presents. However, I heard Mrs. Edwards talking about her life and I assume the book on some TV program and was quite impressed with what she had to say. My daughters are young adults and have not had to experience much loss or troubles in their lives. I think Mrs. Edwards relates to women that will help them through touch times in their lives and I would like my children to be able to handle those times as well as Mrs. Edwards did and does. She seems to be a strong and well adjusted person. By the way, I wouldn't mind reading the book myself and I am the father of the daughters mentioned above

</review>
<review>

This is an amazing book that EVERY WOMAN should read and or listen to.....Robin McGraw is an incredable individual and Dr. Phil should be very proud to have her for his WIFE! The show now should be the "Robin and Dr. Phil Show" for Robin has as much to give to us as Dr. Phil for "woman with passion and purpose"

</review>
<review>

Excellent topic for woman of all ages.  This showes woman how
to be strong without being masculine and threatening their partener

</review>
<review>

Tina is molested by her stepfather, who she thinks is her real father, until her mother finally tells her that he isn't. Tina is vague about the details of the abuse and doesn't actually say what happened, so the reader is left in the dark as to how far it went. She prays to God many times to make it stop (why'd he let it start in the first place?), but God is not listening at those times. Finally after many years of this abuse, her mother catches them together, and instead of kicking him out, sends her daughter to a school out of town, with the stepfather driving her an hour each way every day. The Lutheran minister they go to tells mother to keep the family together, and they don't need to involve the authorities because her stepfather says he's sorry (sorry that he got caught). Says it's just something about Tina that makes him do it.  Make sense? The mother works at Kmart and likes to have kids she doesn't care about, and the dad works "in an office".

The rest of her growing up is fairly normal. She has a boyfriend and he kisses someone else. Ouch. She goes off the college, and finds out her high school boyfriend is seeing her best friend. Tina doesn't seem too upset by this, she's busy with college and new friends anyway. Then he comes to visit her, tells her he got the other girl pregnant, but he really loves her. She quickly moves in with him. The other girl's pregnancy or resulting child is so unimportant that it is NEVER mentioned again. In due time, Tina gets pregnant by him and has an abortion. She says she regrets it. Gets pregnant by him again, has another abortion. Regrets this one too. However, she never talks about what her life would be like if she DID have these two kids by this loser. Nope, it just was wrong and she wishes she'd never done it, but never takes responsibility that is was her decision based on the circumstances she was in at the time. Having an abortion is just SO wrong, that you don't have to think about the consequences of actually having the baby. She seems to put the "blame" for her two abortions on society.  Talks her unmarried sister into keeping her unplanned pregnancy.

Breaks up with the impregnating loser, meets a "normal" guy. He wants to marry her, they plan big wedding with white dress and bridesmaids. She thinks she doesn't really love him, calls mother to discuss (why bother?). Mom tells her she better get married to this great guy. Tina decides she ought to do it in a few days before she changes her mind. Buys BLACK dress to get married in. Has small wedding. Has finished college, and EVERY job she wants, she GETS. Whines about working and traveling, so tired. Persuades husband to go back to college and get degree in engineering.

Husband is so smart that he figures finances and tells her they can afford a house. Has baby girl, his parents buy a crib she doesn't like (of all the nerve!). His mother tries to take over (helping too much)and Tina gets frustrated but won't tell her off. How much can a person be expected to take? Husband tells her she doesn't have to work anymore. They buy bigger newer house. Tina whines about packing and moving, so much work.

Gets pregnant with second baby (never notices when she's pregnant, always thinks she has a stomach virus). Getting depressed and tired with being pregnant and cleaning house, starts sitting in hot tub every night. Guess doctor didn't tell her this is bad for baby as it raises baby's temperature too much (already hot inside mother's body). Slips and falls on icy deck (not good idea to be walking on while pregnant), hurts back, whines some more.

Has second baby, too depressed and physically in pain to take care of self or both children. Medication not helping. Asks mom for help, she refuses, has to "watch stocks on TV for boyfriend" (has left husband finally). Guess husband's family doesn't want to help now? Church people help some, not enough for her. Husband begs her mom to help. She does. Twice. Apparently husband cannot figure out that he should put both kids in daycare while he works, pick them up after work, then  take care of them himself when they go home (just like a single mom does!) Never enters his head.

While Tina is at mom's house (not too depressed to  drive or go to mom's house), mom tells her to "snap out of it". This makes Tina snap for real, she jumps in car, drives to bridge, tries to jump off.  Cop grabs her (pictures are terrible, can't see what happened. Picture of car on bridge, wow).

Finally starts going to therapist, but her "faith" (now) helps more. Discovers "uplifting" Christian CD's. Faces fact that she and mom will never have mother/daughter relationship the way she wants it. Says mom saw her as rival for husband instead of daughter she should have protected. That's true.

This book is short (I read it at the bookstore), and its main focus is if you get Christ in your life, your depression will be lifted. But that makes no sense as she was praying and going to church all her life. Tina was searching, yes, but expecting to find the answer to her problems with God. This did not help before, and she seems to have tried to adjust things in her mind to make it that way after the bridge incident. The whole time she needed to look INSIDE herself. Yes, the abuse never should have happened, her mother was a terrible person, and all this affected her self-esteem. But she won't deal with it, won't get angry at mom or stepdad. Apparently she never sees any self-help books or anything like that, and relies solely on church and her "beliefs" to get her emotions in check (and this appears to be a very ineffective solution). By the way, Tina mentions that she cannot get physically helped by Reiki because it conflicts too much with the beliefs she's had all her life. The beliefs she's had ever since she was a child molested by her stepfather. Tina's not much of a one for upgrading her beliefs, which leads her to feeling stuck in certain situations.

Tina had a lot of things to be grateful for: nice husband and provider, didn't have to work, nice house, healthy kids, nice in-laws, college education, but she is not appreciative. Tina's almost constant whining about things that would seem very small to anyone else, negated any effect this book could have had on me as portraying a mother depressed enough to jump off a bridge. She just seemed spoiled to me.

For such a deep subject, this book lacked substance and seemed to tiptoe  around the issues. There is no calling a spade a spade - the whole thing is superficially written. Anyone who's had to deal with real problems, especially while depressed, will not "get" this book

</review>
<review>

If you've ever been suicidally depressed like Tina, which I have, then this book may well change your whole life! The power of Tina's story is in the simplicity of her words, and the courage of her traumatized soul. I found myself crying from time to time while reading this book because it touched so many chords in my own broken heart. The fact that God used a patrolman to save her life is just one part of this incredibly moving and unforgettable story. I had never heard of Tina Zahn until I read this book, and now I can't stop telling people, especially those who are struggling with depression and trauma issues to read this book! You won't regret reading it either, I assure you it will speak to your heart in a graphic but tender way

</review>
<review>

This is a great book for anyone who has ever battled depression or knows someone who has. It really hit home for me and while I never went as far as to take my own life, I felt many of the feelings she describes after the birth of my second child. It's nice to know you are not alone. Thank you for sharing your story of hope and healing. MOPS was also a saving grace for me in my struggles as well. THANKS MOPS!!

</review>
<review>

Women especially will connect with this book, whether they've experienced postpartum depression or not. As I read it, I realized how many women in my own life had experienced abuse, rejection, and depression that was so debilitating they considered taking their own life. You'll want to read this book for yourself and recommend it to others to share in Tina's struggles, her miraculous rescue, and her ultimate triumph through faith, medical help, and the support of her friends and her husband. A great read that you won't forget

</review>
<review>

I have read literally thousands of books in my lifetime, but I have never read a book quite like this. First, I am from Wisconsin and have actually been to many of the places that Tina mentions in her story. Second, I too have struggled for many years with serious depression. I've never actually attempted suicide, but I came very close to it one night 10 years ago. It is only by the grace of God that I didn't attempt suicide that night. I truly believe that God intervened in my life that night. Even though I didn't yet know Christ as my Savior.  I have struggled with serious depression off and on for the past 15 years. There have been five or six periods in my life where I have felt seriously depressed for months at a time. There is definitely a stigma in the church when it comes to depression.  A lot of people simply don't know how to handle it. I could relate to so many of Tina's struggles. Tina's story is also my story. I am so thankful that Tina had the courage and strength to share such a deeply personal struggle with the world. I believe that this book will give hope to those of us who struggle with depression. But I believe it will also help those who have never had a problem with depression to be more compassionate and understanding. Struggling with serious depression can make you feel so alone and like there is no one who really understands. But this book showed me that I am not alone in my struggles and that even if no one else does, God understands and cares. I cried numerous times as I read this book. This book has helped me believe that there is hope and help is available. I do not have to suffer alone. Reading Tina's story also makes me want to begin counseling in order to deal with my depression and other issues openly and honestly.

I thank God for sparing Tina's life and motivating her to share her story. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to know how to people who struggle with depression. I also recommend this book to friends and family of people who are depressed. I thank God for motivating me to buy this book. This is one book I know I will never forget.

</review>
<review>

This is an amazing story. Thank God, Tina Zahn lived to tell it. In this well-written and easy-to-read account of a troubled life that eventually leads to an attempted suicide, we learn the true story behind the sensational headlines/video footage of a young woman's leap from Wisconsin's tallest bridge. Battling severe postpartum depression after the birth of her second child, coupled with unresolved traumas of sexual abuse by her stepfather that began at the tender age of five, we indeed learn why Tina Zahn jumped.

Remarkably, all the elements were in place to rescue her. The book begins with the dramatic call to 9-1-1 by her husband and the ensuing high-speed police chase, along with the swift actions of the officer who reached out and grabbed her wrist, saving her from a 200-foot plunge and certain death. She then goes back in time and tells the wrenching account of her stepfather's abuses (she didn't discover he wasn't her biological father until many years later) and her mother's neglect. One can't help but applaud Zahn's bravery for sharing her story and for including useful reference material at the end to help us all recognize the signs of sexual abuse and depression, and where to go for help.

This is a spiritual journey and I recommend it not only for readers learning to diagnose signs of depression (postpartum and otherwise), but also to attain a greater understanding of these illnesses and how to cope with loved ones who may be suffering. Readable in an afternoon.

From the author of "A Line Between Friends," McKenna Publishing Group

</review>
<review>

I saw Tina Zahn on Oprah, so I bought the book for my sister and I to read. Tina grew up in a rough family. I think her Step-Father should be shot and her sister and mother are insensitive. Tina Zahn is a true survivor and an inspiration to mothers who may suffer from Post Partum Depression.

</review>
<review>

I cannot say enough good things about this book.  This series is some of the best writing James Patterson has ever done!  Not only am I totally hooked, but my daughter, grandaughter, and tons of her friends are as well.  This book has made the rounds through all of us and my grandaughter's other middle school friends are begging to borrow it as well.  If you haven't read the Maximum Ride series yet, PLEASE grab Maximum Ride The Angel Experiment FIRST then move straight on to this one.  All I can say is - I can't wait for the next installment!

</review>
<review>

I purchsed this book, as well as Maximum Ride Angel Experiment. I read them both before giving them to my children to read. I found them to be "clean" of sex,language and violence. We all throughly enjoyed them and would recommend them to any child who likes fantasy and drama

</review>
<review>

As an adult, I picked this book up for my daughter and began looking over it in the car.  Before I knew it I had read the whole thing and wanted to read the first book in the series.  My daughter and I both really liked it, sci-fi, adventure, and a little romance thrown in just for fun

</review>
<review>

I have really enjoyed both books about Max that James Patterson has written. Although he has created a unique family due to their scientific beginnings, they continue to face similuar issues that many young people and diverse families face. I can't wait for Mr. Patterson's next version of life as only Max knows it

</review>
<review>

After I read the first installment, I passed it along to my 13 year old daughter. She has never been an avid reader, but she could not put that book down. I ordered this one specifically so she would continue reading over the summer. She enjoyed this one just as much. After her friends got through reading the books, I finally got it back and found this to be a very entertaining book as well. People can not believe that I would give a James Patterson book to my 13 year old. This is well suited for that age group. I highly recommend it

</review>
<review>

Best book in the series yet - Adults like it as much as the kid

</review>
<review>

To the brilliant mind of Lincoln Rhyme it becomes apparent early into the murder investigation that there are two killers involved, working in tandem and perhaps one in slave to the other.  A ticking clock is left at the first puzzling murder scene at the docks, and it at first appears as if someone has been suspended until their painful death finally relieves them of their agony.  It's nasty, and its attention grabbing to a city that will always forever after be hyper aware of the danger in the every day.  A careful killer is calling himself "The Watchmaker", but for the investigating team that all seems a little obvious.  There are plenty of crime scenes, but where are the bodies?

Police forensic consultant and former Detective Lincoln Rhyme as always feels immense frustration that he is not out there with his team, walking his own personally devised murder scene "grid" and so must take some satisfaction in that his best eyes and ears, Amelia Sachs, is out there to do it for him.  Sachs has her eye on some future goal that might not involve police work, and this is despite the fact that she is riding her first case as Lead homicide Detective. Some of those in the department have always wanted the bright Amelia Sachs to fall from a great height and when her current case leads her down the road into her father's own policing past, she is more able to understand why.

Deaver is a master at suspense, and the ticking clock element to this novel is only a small part of that.  There are always so many layers to the Lincoln Rhyme novel that it's delightful to have the knowledge that an early answer will never be THE answer; Deaver we expect to always work the suspense screws skifully right up until the final pages.  This is a better novel than the previous one or two in the series which puzzled more than entertained.  THE COLD MOON is more tightly crafted with greater cohesion between merging plotlines (which there always seems to be) and less extraneous elements are involved.  This series isn't read for the warm and fuzzy character development and stripping it all back down to the action of the escalating hunt has made for a far better read.

On the flip side of this some of the personal issues have been dragged out too far in the series and need to be dealt with.  Fans of the series need to have resolution on teasers that were introduced many novels ago, and a retrospective novel probably wouldn't be a bad inclusion either (not an original thought, but would probably be timely).

If you haven't read a Jeffery Deaver novel before, THE COLD MOON would give you a good feel for the series and Deaver makes solid work of providing enough supporting information to enable his books to be read as stand alones.   A great book in a stellar series that still has no peer.


</review>
<review>

It's been awhile since I had a really good crime mystery read.  Therefore, I was excited when The Cold Moon by Jeffery Deaver arrived at the library.  The latest Lincoln Rhyme novel delivered just what I was looking for...  twists, turns, and plenty of forensic work.

The plotline here starts out on two tracks.  A killer nicknamed The Watchmaker is murdering people using slow torture techniques.  His signature is leaving a particular clock style at the scene. Rhyme and Amelia Sachs, his partner, are put on the case in order to solve it before more people die.  Sachs is also running her own case involving an apparent suicide that really turns out to be a murder.  The murder points to a run-down bar where a group of cops meet on a regular basis.  There's a strong chance that the cops are corrupt, so Sachs has to step carefully as it's not clear who she can trust.  The two cases converge when The Watchmaker is captured but the reality of his killings turn out to be a carefully staged plan to expose the corruption that Sachs is investigating.  But the layering of deception goes even deeper than that, and Rhyme has to continue to dig through each apparent motive and story to finally get to the core truth behind The Watchmaker...

If you want plot twists and turns, this book will definitely satisfy.  There are a number of scenes that appear to be transpiring in one fashion, only to be something else entirely.  The layering of plots by the killer never seems to end, and each new revelation ends up being the start of a new level of distraction.  A couple of the twists seemed to be a bit over the top, but not so much as to put me off the story.  It's a book I really didn't want to put down, even though I had other things I should be doing..

</review>
<review>

After 2-3 terrible Lincoln Rhyme books Deaver gets his act together in The Cold Moon.  As a big Lincoln fan, I am hoping this continues, as I was ready to stop buying Rhyme books.  If you haven't already read Bone Collector, Empty Chair and Coffin Dancer, you're missing out

</review>
<review>

Although the plot twists in Deaver books sometimes are a bit of a stretch; they are certainly never dull.
This books has more twists that a pretzel factory.
I never divulge plots when reviewing. I would simply say this is a great mystery and well worth your time.
Enjo

</review>
<review>

A new Lincoln Rhyme novel brings the thriller genre to high tension, especially spiced with Joe Mantegna's readings. He's received Emmy nominations for his TV work and won the Tony Award for his stage work - there should be an award for his smooth voice which perfectly captures the tension brewing from the story of deadly murders in New York City and a renowned criminologist who comes to realize the killer's future plans. This is audio at its best.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatc

</review>
<review>

I was disappointed in the latest Lincoln Rhyme mystery. The book had more twists than a Chubby Checker song and in the end they strained credibility.

Rhyme and Sachs are called in to solve a string of murders by a serial killer calling himself the Watchmaker. Rhyme has met his match with the Watchmaker, a meticulous killer who leaves nothing to chance and leaves few clues for Rhyme to follow.

Running parallel to the story of the Watchmaker, Sachs is also lead detective on her first case - a case that appears to involve police corruption. Sachs is juggling a heavy case load as well as rumours that her own father may have been corrupt. Ron Pulaski steps up to help with crime scenes and proves himself to be a smart and resourceful officer but ultimately it is up to Rhyme and Sachs to solve the case.

The book introduces Kathryn Dance, a visiting Californian expert in Kinesics, the study of body language. Dance helps interview suspects and witnesses and plays a role in solving the case. There is also a hint of romance with officer Sellitto which is ultimately left hanging. The information about Kinesics is interesting and Dance is a character that could have used more development.

The title of the book comes from a season in the lunar calendar, which is also a time of death. The book also contains a lot of information about clocks and time courtesy of the Watchmaker. There was some fascinating information, but at times the book was bogged down in historical details about clocks.

The book lurches from one plot twist to the next. At first it was exciting, but after a while it became tedious. NOTHING was what it seemed. Further I found Rhyme less likeable in this book - grumpy, bossy, pedantic and sarcastic. The only hint of humanity was in his fear that he may lose Sachs.

At times I found the writing clumsy. Deaver uses cliched adjectives in his sentences to describes his characters, such as,
"the handsome, sardonic and impatient criminalist"
I found it trite to describe Rhyme that way.

This book is not as good as earlier Rhyme mysteries.

</review>
<review>

A number of reviewers have complained about this book saying that it really wouldn't happen this way, that the twists and turns of the plot which is a staple with Mr. Deaver are too far fetched to believe.

Well of course it is not believable. The police are not going to go to an outsider for forensic work unless it is with one of the big well known firms who will give them credibility when it comes to court. A working detective with the police department who discovers dirty cops is going to be hated throughout the department. Need I go on?

The answer is, BUT SO WHAT.

Here is a well told, if somewhat familar, tale about a detective, his sidekick, a serial murderer, a truly evil bad guy, twists and turns aplenty,and an overall very enjoyable read. I'd suggest that you read all the Lincoln Rhyme novels in the sequence they were published. The characters do grow and change somewhat as the books progress. Still, each of his books stands alone as a pretty good way to spend a cold weekend or a long airplane flight

</review>
<review>

My first Deaver -- I want more.  Also my first book review.  The book was really fun to read but I agree with some of the other reviewers here who said the plot twists strained credulity.  Still, I love the way Deaver paints people so vividly, and scenes, and the conversations made me laugh.  He's a master at this.   Katherine Dance for instance -- she was the cop from California who helped interview the suspects.  Now my question is:  Is there really such an interview technique as the one she uses throughout the book?   I did a few searches, nothing came up so far.  Very interesting.  Anyway, that's my review.  I recommend the book basically, despite the mazelike plot.  I've found a new favorite author.

</review>
<review>

This unique book tells the story of a bunch of intrepid and inspired men who pioneered the exploration of the last great unknown: the deeps of the sea.  How would you fancy wading out under water with nothing more than an inverted coal bucket over your head?  Would you agree to a fight a shark, equipped with nothing more than a knife, all so that some movie company could film the gory encounter?  Inventive, adventurous, foolhardy to the point of recklessness, many of the diving pioneers were also world-famous in their own right, like the great biologist JBS Haldane, who worked out how to survive at dangerous depths.  Others evolved from treasure seekers to become the first underwater archaeologists, exploring ancient shipwrecks in exotic waters, or, most interesting of all, opening our eyes to the beauty of marine habits and wildlife, including the seriously threatened coral reefs.  The author, himself a marine biologist and diver, blends all this into a magical weave of fact and wonder enlivened by a mordant wit and a delightful eye for quirky detail.  I would recommend it to any reader

</review>
<review>

Fast shipping and great shape. The only problem we had was that the cd inside the book was for indesign instead of photoshop

</review>
<review>

This book is very easy to follow.  Each chapter begins by telling you what it will cover and how long it will take to complete.  The book comes with a CD which contains lesson plans for each chapter.  The object is to have you work along as the chapter progresses giving you some hands-on practice.  It is definitely a useful resource for the beginner Photoshop student

</review>
<review>

Quite honest book and matches with any beginner's expectation. CD works really fine illustrating each and every example. Should the reader classify himself as a Photo Shop regular user, Scott Kelby "The photoshop CS2 book" will be more aggressive

</review>
<review>

I purchased this book for my class, and I was not disappointed. I knew very little about Photoshop when I started my online class, and I felt that this book was very helpful and answered pretty much all my beginner-Photoshop user questions. I would recommend this book for people who want to learn the basics about using Photoshop

</review>
<review>

Im a college student, ive taken multiple classes that were supposed to "teach" us software via textbooks and this is by far the easiest book to follow. I have no formal experience with the software, i just bought it recently because this is the last year i will be able to take advantage of a student discount on software, and i thought it would come in handy... ive burned thru the first 1/2 of the book in 3 nites, prolly 2 hours a nite.. Its not tedious at all, very straight forward and color illustrated step by step... They give you the keyboard shortcuts, as well as the pull down menu commands upfront, and it guides you through the things you will actually use without alot of b.s. i will be ordering the rest of the series on adobe software to learn the rest of the web bundle, probably the best $45 ive spent on textbooks yet

</review>
<review>

I've tried learning photoshop many times before, but each book I read made me loose interest. This book is fun, and arranged in a way so that lessons are neither too long nor too short

</review>
<review>

Adobe's instruction book are: very basic, and . . . boring.  Get Deke's books--you'll be glad you did

</review>
<review>

This is the 12th or 13th book I have purchased about Photoshop. I wish it had been my first purchase, because I am finally now learning the "ins" and "outs" of Adobe's Photoshop CS2. When I finish the lessons and projects in this book, I believe the other books on the same subject will be easy to understand

</review>
<review>

This is definitely a hands on book. The clear color pictures and illustrations are rather concise and informing. I am about in the middle of the book now and am already tweaking family photos

</review>
<review>

The Classroom in a Book Series is great for describing functions and tools a user would otherwise not become familiar with. However, the Illustrator text is more accurate in describing how the software responds. That is, some settings and functions do not work like or are not housed where described in the Photoshop text. Still, the book is useful, and I'm happy with it's use as a resource

</review>
<review>

I heard all of these great things about this book etc...... So I got a copy and let me tell you it was a huge let down. I can honestly say it had loads of disgusting passages that I did not find at all entertaining. The "bowel movement" chapter was totally repulsive. I found it self indulgent, he had a crappy upbringing, that does not make for a good book

</review>
<review>

I like to use the Amazon reviews when purchasing books, especially alert for dissenting perceptions about higly rated items, which usually disuades me from a selection.  So I offer this review that seriously questions the popularity of this work - I found it smug, self-serving and self-indulgent, written by a person with little or no empathy, especially for the people he castigates. For example, his portrayal of the family therapist seems implausible and reaches for effect and panders to the
"shrink" bashers of the world. This "play for effect" tone throughout the book was very distasteful to me

</review>
<review>

THis book was horrible.  If it was possible to rate it lower than one star i would have.  I am an avid reader and picked this book up after my mom had gotten it from a friend.  I read half of it, suffering from a headache the entire time, and then got to the part about the relationship the 13 year old boy had with a 33 year old man and i lit this book on fire.  One less copy in the world...don't waste your money.

I wish i had the time spent reading this book back so i could use it for better purposes.  THis book wasted my life

</review>
<review>

If you like strange stories, you will love "Running with Scissors" because it is just plain weird.  After reading this book, you will have a feeling that you just returned from the Twilight Zone.
Marty Wurtz
Author of Deceptions and Betrayal

</review>
<review>

How one child can overcome such a nightmarish childhood to become a productive adult is almost beyond my comprehension. Any one of the trials described throughout this young life would be enough to derail most people.  Yet the author adapted to his situation the best he could in order to survive and kept his sense of humor about it at the same time.  I didn't find the book funny in the least but I got the humor with which the story was told.

This book was a two-night read for me, not because I couldn't put it down but because I felt the need to hurry up and get it over with because it was so disturbing.  I can't believe nothing was done about the living conditions of these kids and I frequently felt sick reading it.  But truth is stranger than fiction and knowing that it actually happened made me stick with it. I'm glad I did.  I was rooting for our hero and he made it out alive, which was no easy feat.


</review>
<review>

I picked up this book read the reviews on the cover and was up for a funny book.  The book was anything but funny.  I read about half, up to
the point where he was in a mental institution and could not read anymore.
I consider myself fairly liberal but this was too over the top for me.  The graphic details of his homosexual love affair with a 33 yr. old was just sick. I am not sure where this belongs as a novel or a memoir but I
had to throw it away because I did not want my children to get a hold of it.  I found the whole thing disturbing and failed to see the humor in these sick, mentally ill characters. I started hating them for the abuse they put their children through

</review>
<review>

This book is great.  Augusten Burroughs is genius, and a great storyteller!  I couldn't put it down

</review>
<review>

What happened to American girls, to women, over the past hundred years, that caused a quantum shift in how they present themselves to the world?

Intelligence, spirituality, charity and volunteerism, and skills for all things domestic were once revered. The most popular girl in her class wasn't the prettiest girl. The girl considered best for marriage had the qualities desired for a wife and mother and not what she looked like on her husband's arm.

We are all victims of this shift.

I admit I first noticed this book on a shelf in a train-station bookstore because of the flat, tanned belly on the cover. We've become a society obsessed with pieces and parts and appearances of the pieces and parts rather than the beauty of the whole person. Our self-esteem is measured by the numbers on the scale or the size of our jeans or the clarity of our skin.

Over the past six years, I've reread this book a few times, and always find a new point that rings true.

In her revealing (yet not surprising) sociological history Blumberg uses the best and most frank sources to illustrate her case: the private diaries of young women, from the Victorian era to present day (the late 90's). Blumberg theorizes that it's the media and consumerism that are the biggest contributors to the shift and uses excerpts from the diaries to make her point.

Blumberg focuses on middle-class Caucasian girls circa 1998, and perhaps the book needs an update to focus on a broader demographic as well as address the influence of the internet which has since become an increasingly important factor in the socialization and self-awareness of young women.

I think this is a decent book for a teenage girl, but I'm not sure it will have much of a positive influence. Girls are constantly being fed about how they should look and what products they should buy to achieve beauty.

It's a better book for a woman in her 20's or 30's who might want a better understanding of why we've become the way we are

</review>
<review>

The Body Project provides very selective leeway into the societal effects of African-American adolescent girls and their personal body projects. The main focus of this book is on the evolution of the white middle-class adolescent girl throughout American history. African-American and Jewish girls are mentioned briefly in a few chapters, while other ethnic groups are simply never discussed. Are these other various ethnic groups not worthy of their equal place in Brumberg's book?
Brumberg focuses on the evolution of the white middle-class female adolescent starting in the early 1800s and ending in the late 1990s. An evolution of the African American adolescent also took place during these times, but differently than that of their white female counterparts.
In order to understand black American adolescents today, foundation for cultural practices must first be established. Brumberg never mentions the coexistence of enslaved blacks, in America during the 18th or 19th centuries.
Though all women have the same biological anatomy, our genes vary, our cultures vary, so we should dispel the idea that when certain groups of women who menstruate earlier than others are abnormal or inferior. Brumberg reveals that this type of thought was well circulated throughout the medical community remained true during the Victorian period. The notion that black health was considered an expendable asset in the American medical community well through the early 1970s.

One major issue that Brumberg avoids is the abuse of children and adolescents. There is probably a close connection between the body projects that adolescents undertake and their harsh self-image.

Brumberg fails to expand on the greater idea that people exist who can never truly choose their identity before it first chooses them. Many girls are intrinsically bound to a stereotype, despite self-image. Possibly everyone has small things that they would like to alter about their physical appearances; however Americans also fail to see these "body projects" as a form a western female mutilation, of which millions of women have fallen victim. Plastic surgery is an ever-growing project that young girls obsess about. This standard idea of beauty that girls manipulate themselves on must disappear, before our individuality as women disappears.

</review>
<review>

This book was referenced in a text that I read regarding teen sexuality, and since the reference sounded interesting I found a copy of it.  Brumberg discusses here what she calls the "body projects" of teenage and adult women and how these projects have changed over time.  By "body projects" she means what women are focused on changing about themselves at a particular place in history, whether it be the face, the body, or their sexuality.  In describing these particular projects the author goes into detail about the history of menarche and menstruation, acne, and the hymen while also discussing the history of the social aspects of virginity and how female sexuality was (and is) perceived and discussed within a family and society.
I really enjoyed reading this book for many reasons.  First, it is rare that you can find a well-written social history text that covers such a variety of subjects.  Second, the author uses diary entries from women from many different time periods to elucidate her points, and reading the first-person accounts of Victorian women can be very entertaining ("They thought what?!") while also enlightening and educational.  Third, the author makes a major point to remind the reader that girls today are maturing earlier in a world filled with sexualized images and messages yet we are denying them education as to how to safely use these new bodies they have developed.  She describes how we are doing our girls a disservice by not assisting them with creating their own moral codes and standards, which I very much agree with.  I would suggest this book to any woman, especially a woman who has a daughter who is (or will be) a teenager.  The dialogues that Brumberg suggests need to happen, and reading this book may spark that realization in all of us.

</review>
<review>

Joan Jacobs Brumberg's The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls is a fascinating read. As an teacher and researcher on the field of young women and coming of age, I am quite pleased by the wealth of information, both scholarly and anecdotal, I learned from this book. Brumberg fleshes out an in-depth analysis of girls' body projects from the 1800s to the present day and supplements her vast research with diary accounts from young women throughout history.

While I enjoyed this book, I did find a few parts to be undeveloped or perhaps glossed over. I am at odds with Brumberg's analysis in the section on "Pierced Parts." She seems to make rather hasty and unfounded conclusions about the symbolic significance of piercing among teenagers. I did not feel as though Brumberg was informed enough on the piercing phenomenon. On a positive note, this part of the book (and many others) will generate a lot of interesting discussion when I use it in the classroom. We will have to fill in the gaps Brumberg has left behind.

Speaking of gaps, I also wish--but I can certainly understand the limitations and confines of academic research--that Brumberg had devoted more of her book to an analysis of the body projects among non-white women. While she did offer some interesting information on the body projects of African American, Jewish, and Latina women, I found myself aching for more than just a few token pages.

The topic of women and their bodies has long been a benchmark of feminist inquiry and discussion. Brumberg's contribution to this topic, and her conceptualization of it as "the body project," provides new insight into an old yet persistent problem in our society. A fascinating and highly recommended read.

</review>
<review>

In her book, Brumberg recognizes the struggles that young women go through in order to feel accepted in society, and discusses a variety of body projects ranging from acne troubles to anorexia. I think that most women today have felt the pressure that is driving them to make their bodies perfect, and therefore can relate their own lives directly to the situations that are presented. I found it interesting to read about the lives of many Victorian girls that had had problems so similar to my own and how they confronted those problems in very different ways. I found this book to be very informative and although it contained captivating information, Brumberg continually repeated her earlier thoughts in later chapters. I thought that she could have added more depth to her commentary to make her work a stronger piece of literature

</review>
<review>

I learned a lot from this book about the history of how girls' bodies have overtime become more and more public. It is such a compelling read! This book has inspired me to do something to keep society from affecting my view of my own body, as well as for future women and girls

</review>
<review>

This book was an amazing journey that helped me understand the underpinnings of the modern American woman's relationship with sexuality.  By tracing the roots of our modern traditions to their Victorian foundations, Brumberg educates the reader and also paints a stark picture of the way young girls have started to come into their sexuality in the past few decades.  She argues that girls today are out of sync, that their bodies develop before they are emotionally ready to deal with issues of sexuality.  She further asserts (and proves, in my opinion) that the historical move away from home-based economies and social structures has robbed modern girls of vital mentoring from their adult female relatives.  This lack of female mentoring leads to the confusion and insecurity that anyone who watches MTV cannot deny is rampant today.  This book is an important read for educators, parents, and anyone interested in unerstanging how (and why) young women today experience sexualization by a culture all too ready to exploit their insecurities for profit.  All in all, a fascinating and very readable study of a crucial subject

</review>
<review>

Brumberg's work details the changes in cultural constructions of the adolescent body in the twentieth century, focusing on how young women create, maintain, and alter body images (and ultimately, body shapes/appearances).  I use this book as the first monograph assignment in my introduction to women's studies course.  Although the book has a strong theoretical framework, the descriptive examples in the chapters help to facilitate discussion in the class, which really sets the tone for the rest of the semester.  College women find the book engaging, and they are very personally affected by the stories that relate so well to them.  I find it an extremely informative, very useful book

</review>
<review>

Dick Staub does a FABULOUS job of tying in the old teachings of the Bible with the very popular Star Wars Saga!  This is an amazing book and it is very insightful.  If you are looking to change your life and be a better Christian, this book is for you!!!

This book is also great for people following Jediism who are Christian.  I recommend with both thumbs up!

Just an eloquent writer gifted with the ability to reach out to both adults and youth!  A MUST read

</review>
<review>

Dick Staub makes some very good points and conections to the training of a Jedi in the ways of the Force in Star Wars and the walk of a Christian following God in life today.  However, he does misquote and misinterpret many quotes from the Star Wars movies, and I even found a misquotation from the Bible.  He makes good points, but these details were distracting to me as I read.   I am not yet finished and will leave more once I am done.

After finishing this book it occured to me that Dick Staub needs to take some time to do a couple of things. First he needs to re-read the Bible and get facts correct (He quoted Moses as saying something to Joshua, but Moses was dead at the time and God told it to Joshua). Second, he needs a simple commentary for the passages he misinterprets (He says David had Uriah killed to be the only one Bathsheba loved, He had Uriah killed to cover up his sin). Third he needs to re-watch the Star Wars movies and not bend the quotes of the characters to fit his book (He talks about Obi-Wan asking Yoda for help in Episode II and portrays the event differently than it happens, as well as bends Yoda's reaction to fit what he is trying to show). This book is not what I thought it was, and any Christian who is young in their walk should not read this.

</review>
<review>

The book seems to miss the mark. It just seems like he thought he could slap star wars and christianity on it to make a quick buck. Hey these 2 things have made tons of money in the past right? Ok not a good idea to put the 2 things together. Get dharma of star wars and leave this book on the dark side

</review>
<review>

I was very excited when I came across this book.  I am both a Christian AND a Star Wars nut.  I began reading this book right away, and it started slow.  I kept reading, hoping it would really dive into some good contrast.  It never came.  I'm sure this guy meant well, but he had a very shallow knowledge of the Star Wars films, and on the Christian side, everything felt like it was from a 5th grade Sunday school class.  I want so badly for this book to be great, but it is not.   I wish I would have written it

</review>
<review>

A good book that explores the Star Wars saga from a Christian perspective without compromising either faithfulness to Christian faith or to the Star Wars cosmology. I was troubled a bit by the many errors in this book---incorrect statements about biblical characters, Star Wars movies, as well as Lord of the Rings.

Another book that follows a similar pathway---though from an angle that's more focused on the creative aspects of Star Wars---is my own _Finding God in a Galaxy Far Far Away_. Both books are definitely worthwhile reads

</review>
<review>

From the christian stand point, it just reinforces everything you read about and hear about from principle christian literature.

From the star wars mythology stand point, this book falls well short of explaining the hypocrisy of Christianity and "The Force". it is impossible to have a "Lord of the Force" because no one is capable of such omnipotence. The folk-lore associated with the Star Wars universe warns of such concentrated power. In fact, if a "Lord" were to exist, HE (because Staub makes no mention of a female character) would probably be evil and practioner of the dark side. Such power and knowledge can only be achieved by domination and aggression.

First; Anakin Skywalker, the supposed Massiah or "Chosen One" is a prime example of Staub's flawed argument. Magically conceived, Anakin is equally as flawed as any other human being. He ultimately commits the same flaws and the same sins any other human being would commit. Yet, Anakin gains redemption through the love of a son, and the strength of a spirit-- not the forgivness of a God or a Lord.

Second, there isnt a clear black and white that determines good and evil. A lot of gray exists in the world of Star Wars, and there are many complexities that reflect out own world-- complexities a Jedi Christian would characterize as evil and thus irrelevant. Staub doesn't address these complexities. In fact, the dogmatic beliefs of Christianity are the same dogmatic beliefs that ultimately destroy the jedi order by the end of Episode III and destroy the Emperor in Episode VI.

Finally, i do credit Staub with finding the commonalities between God's good works and the Jedi Order. But values like compassion, humility, and love for one another are values shared by nearly all world religions, NOT JUST CHRISTIANITY. EVERYTHING described by Staub can be found in other religions, NOT JUST CHRISTIANITY.

If you're a star wars fans looking for religious guidance, i recommend "The Dharma of Star Wars"-- and maybe you'll find an ultimate truth, not in the form of a "one true Lord."

</review>
<review>

Contrast this with "God, The Devil, and Harry Potter" and note a pattern of interpretation that points in the same direction. There is one true myth, it is encapsulated best in the Christian myth but other narratives that employ that myth manage to lead us in the right direction as well. They support it. "A myth is a story that confronts us with the big picture, something transcendent and eternal, and in so doing explains the worldview of a civilization." (p. xviii)

God for George Lucas: "I think there is a God. No question. What that God is or what we know about that God, I am not sure. The one thing I know about life and about the human race is that we've always tried to construct some kind of context for the unknown. Even the cavemen thought they had it figured out. I would say that cavemen understood on a scale of about 1. Now we've made it up to 5. The only thing most people don't realize is the scale goes to 1 million." (p. 6)

The book is loaded with interesting insights based on Dick Staub's reading of the Star War's movies. Great stuff

</review>
<review>

I was intrigued by the title, which supposedly links Jedi wisdom to Christianity.  Well, after 60 pages or so, I have got the feeling that the Staub is trying to wrap Jedi in Christian cloth and failing at that. The author speaks of the difficulty in leading a Christian life.  But, I say that any religious life (be it Christian, Islam or otherwise) is hard because it turns the back on the norm or the conventional.

I am convinced that Yoda is a Zen master; the Force is derived from Tao, not God as interpreted by the orthodox religion(I am purposefully leaving out Christian Mysticism, which is another beast altogether.). A better book on the subject of theology in Star wars is "The Dharma of Star Wars."

</review>
<review>

Staub has an interesting way of interlacing biblical tradition from both the Old and New Testaments with actions and pronouncements of the principal characters. In fact, one might evn, after reading this book, conclude that the Star Wars series was nothing but a long-running morality play which parallels the major morals and ethical values of much of the civilized world. Certain to provoke thoughtful reflection

</review>
<review>

This book is great. It is definately not just for Star Wars fans, every Christian, every one actually would do good to read this book. It is my second favorite book, behind only the Bible. It has helped me tremendously

</review>
<review>

I have been a fan of Peter Carey forever and have read all his work. His work, however,has become more bizare and unreadable with each new book. Weird characters  and a brilliant command of the language have always been a part of his style,Some of his stuff almost crossed the line (My Life as a Fake) to the inintelligible but Theft makes it all the way. I found the characters somewhat boring, and the language, idioms, references to times and places impossible to understand in many cases. Perhaps if you are a Sydneysider or live somwhere else in that great and beautiful country the book will make some sense. But for the rest of us---I am really sorry to report the book is not readable. I quit after reading about 2/3ds and for me that is unheard of. I feel like I have lost at good friend

</review>
<review>

Peter Carey is an amazing writer, and THEFT is a charming novel about the art world. The satirical insights are very apt and often laugh-out-loud hilarious, and Carey has a wonderful way of displaying his characters' pretensions and foibles without belittling them. Somehow, when i read Carey, i am reminded of Iris Murdoch and Nathalie Sarraute, as they also set their novels in "heady" milieus of the arts and academia, and were adept at skewering pretensions without losing affection

</review>
<review>

It's no denying Peter Carey is a brilliant writer. His flair for pin-pointing the nuances of the good old Aussie vernacular is spot-on, and his characters are always society's off-cuts, but ultimately likeable souls.  Theft: A Love Story was a highly enjoyable and recommended read. But unlike his brilliant True History of the Kelly Gang, it seems that Carey wasn't sure how to end this wonderful tale, and lets it fizzle out rather than leave you with the same enthusiasm you had for it in the beginning

</review>
<review>

Michael Boone, a thirty-something painter who has gone out of fashion, is desperate to have his newest work noticed and to reestablish himself as a success. Michael is also the reluctant caregiver to his mildly autistic brother Hugh, who has a disabled yet perceptive view of his frustrated brother. In THEFT: A LOVE STORY, these Boone brothers narrate a story of thwarted talent, desperate ambition, fraternal responsibility, and loutish dependence, which becomes a mystery of theft and love when they meet Marlene Leibovitz, a beautiful art authenticator who may know something about a valuable stolen painting. The question that this fascinating novel poses is: How far will Michael Boone, who is angry at the art establishment, go to achieve artistic and emotional success? Where does he draw the line?

Similar to TRUE HISTORY OF THE KELLY GANG, MY LIFE AS A FAKE, and other Peter Carey novels, THEFT: A LOVE STORY is totally engrossing with wonderful poetic writing that absolutely flies along. This book is highly recommended for everyone. But lovers and inhabitants of Manhattan will get an insider's thrill as the Boone brothers lurch through New York and its art scene. Bravo Peter!

</review>
<review>

This is a smart, funny exploration of one of the lesser-known elements of the high-stakes art world -- the right of an artist's estate to declare a work "authentic" or not.  The questions of authenticity that drive the plot are also reflected in the book's narrative structure, in which the story is told through two competing voices -- one a defeated, cynical, world-weary artist and the other his slow-witted, demanding and cantakerous brother  Neither is a particularly reliable narrator, but the truth that emerges from their combined account is surprisingly sweet.

</review>
<review>

A swirling canvas of art scams, art history, and Australian attitude is just backdrop. This book is really about two brothers, Slow Bones and Butcher Bones aka Hugh and Michael Boone. One is mentally impaired (he thinks in capital letters and likes to sit on metal folding chairs and watch the traffic go by.) The other is an artist. Each, by his nature, must be different from the rest of the world. Slow Bones can't save himself in social situations or manage city thoroughfares. And Butcher, though more adept, is just as likely to tick everyone off by his insatiable needs to gratify His Art.

Theft deals with the balance between these two brothers as they ride the seesaw of great art thefts, beautiful women and the international art market. I found it charming and amusing. It was the first book I picked out for my book group ahead of time, showing up for the meeting with six copies tucked under my arm. I have to confess, though, that it wasn't so totally beloved by all.  Ah, well.

</review>
<review>

After reading a less than fully positive review by Updike in the New Yorker, I thought is was time for a first encounter with Carey's work. I am afraid I have to disagree with the old boy. Theft is a masterpiece.

In many respects "Theft" is an update/extension of Gaddis' "The Recognitions". Again authenticity and reality get analyzed and satirized with virtuosic abandon. Yet, Carey adds a femme fatale and a helpless brother to the mix and takes Gaddis's masterful groundwork to the next level.

The current art world is a parallel Universe of such a self-referential absurdity that any outside attempt to satirize it seems futile. Faithfully reading the aforementioned weekly and Jed Perl's pieces in the National Review you cannot help but conclude that we have reached a point at which the artist has in many respects become the least important player in the game. Critics and sellers/auctinoneers is what the current game is all about.

As in "the Recognitions" authentication and forgery are important elements of this novel's plot line. However, the book fully delivers on the author's characterization as a love story. That love is on the one hand highly conditional, when it comes to Marlene, the con artist sans pareil, and "innate/genetic", as far as the relationship between Bones and his dependent brother Hugh is concerned.

What ensues is a carefully plotted two-part-invention in which Bones and Hugh's voices alternate. Authenticity and reality may be important to the aussie brothers; much less so to their entourage. Fame and recognition seem to be the least meaningful aspects.

While the carefully constructed plot justifies the price of admission many times over, Carey's writing style is even more impressive. In a warm, masculine expressionist style the brothers get portrayed in Halsian brushstrokes. To me the depictions of the genesis of the authentic "I the speaker" and the fake Leibovitz were truly impressive. Characterization of other players and their surroundings were equally great.

The book ends in style: fame as a painter may be nice; mowing lawns with your brother is priceless.

</review>
<review>

First rate story - I highly recommend this book

</review>
<review>

When I the reviews to this book I thought to myself: this is going to be the read of the summer. So naturally, I went to my local bookstore and paid $24.00. A few hours later, I went back and returned it. It was vulgar and had a story that went absolutely nowhere. I don't know why so many liked it but it was so mean and pointless, with no execuse for its swearing. Literature isn't trash, Mr. Carey.

</review>
<review>

Daniel C Dennett is a very confrontational philosopher, much like Peter Singer; and like Singer, he is a strong atheist.  Dennett will brook nowhere for what he regards is muddled thinking about anything which hides the true nature of things, and for Dennett, natural science and the idea of evolution are the true nature of things.

Dennett is not so crude a reductionist he blandly regurgitates the writings of scientists.  As a professional Philosopher, he is deeply aware of the overall tradition of Western philosophy, especially modern philosophy (he is one of the leading experts in the field of cognitive science and philosophy of mind).  He feels that Darwin's discovery of biological evolution does not just revolutionise biology, it changes everything.  Indeed he remarked in a documentary on evolution that evolution is a more important discovery than either the heliocentric motion of the Earth around the Sun, and the discovery of universal gravitation by Newton.

At the heart of this revolution is the new picture of nature as neither the creation of God or as a teleological mechanism leading somewhere, but as essentially an endless process of change and flux ruled by chance and natural laws.  Over time these two things blindly produce the 'apparent' design of living creatures by the well understood mechanisms of evolution, with no need for any designer in the process.  For Dennett, this vindicates David Hume's essential arguments against the existence of God, which attempted to demonstrate that the existence of a supernatural being could not be inferred from the perfection of creatures or from the structure of the cosmos.

Dennett accepts there is a 'God', but not the being of monotheistic religion but rather just nature or the universe, in the sense close to Spinoza believed it to be.  Dennett believes evolution opens up a wonderful and beautiful vista of endless change and creativity in which nature simply makes itself out of very simple parts (atoms and molecules) and explains coherently and in a perfectly naturalistic way the beauty and order of nature.

In this sense Dennett is well at home with the materialistic tradition in Western philosophy, pioneered by thinkers such as Thales and later by Democritus and Epicurus.  The interesting thing is that the mechanistic world picture changes over time, and the speculations of the ancient atomists seem well off the mark today.  Who knows what science will discover in 2000 years time, about the universe and the things in it?  I prefer to see science as an endless quest, and in my view evolution is not the final say or answer to life's questions.  While I believe religion plays a valid part of the endless quest for wisdom about the nature of things, I do not feel it is right or necessary to dismiss evolution out of hand because one has a religious view of the world, nor is it necessary to reject a religious view of the world if one accepts evolution (as Dennet and Dawkins vigorously do in other books).

The primary strength of this work is Dennett's excellent research and understanding of evolutionary biology and related disciplines like sociobiology and evolutionary psychology, while the primary weakness is when his confidence in the theory becomes rigidly dogmatic and in his rather ignorant dismissal of religion in general as a useless attempt by myth-mongers to explain what science now explains.

Some of the things Dennett argued for are now a bit dated as science has moved forwards, but this book is essential reading for anyone curious about the philosophical implications of this scientific theory which is having important influences on how we understand human nature and being, ethical questions, psychology and theories of the mind, and our place in the universe

</review>
<review>

"Darwin's Dangerous Idea" by Daniel C. Dennett is a fantastic book but definitely not for the faint of heart. The book is almost 600 pages long and written in a style that requires college-level analysis to understand. My review can hardly do it justice but hopefully it might encourage you to buy it or at least to check it out of the library for a couple of weeks of interesting reading.

Dennett, a foremost philosopher of our time and professor of Cognitive Studies at Tufts University in Massachusetts, says, "Charles Darwin's fundamental idea [expressed in "Origin of the Species" in 1859] has inspired intense reactions ranging from ferocious condemnation to ecstatic allegiance, sometimes tantamount to religious zeal.... Almost no one is indifferent to Darwin, and no one should be.... Darwin's dangerous idea cuts much deeper into the fabric of our most fundamental beliefs than many of its sophisticated apologists have yet admitted, even to themselves." He goes on further to state, "The fundamental core of contemporary Darwinism...is now beyond dispute among scientists. It demonstrates its power every day, contributing crucially to the explanation of planet-sized facts of geology... down to the latest microscopic facts of genetic engineering. It unifies all of biology and the history of our planet into a single grand story."

There were so many good quotes that I wanted to underline or highlight most of the book. Dennett takes the time to carefully explain what Darwin's theory is and what it is not. He chastises those who have tried to "defend" the theory by packaging it in more palatable form and creating a new, non-defensible theory when the original was just fine. In fact, Dennett believes that all the attacks on Darwin's theory has simply made it hardier, more robust.

In the process of explaining Darwinism, Dennett describes how it covers so many more areas than just biology. Language, culture, "memes", and even mathematics are explained through natural selection as well. What we're left with is a richer appreciation for nature and the "tree of life" than we might have had with the mythical explanations that have come to us through religion.

Religion is treated respectfully by Dennett. However, he classes religion with wild and dangerous animals. Kept in a zoo cage or on a preserve, the lion should be allowed to live so that future generations can appreciate the animal. But we cannot tolerate saving the animal in his natural habitat "at any cost" which may entail the death of humans or loss of other, more valuable opportunities. Likewise, religion (if it behaves itself) can be valuable for study and observation. But it cannot be allowed to exist in its wild state where human rights are made secondary to dogma, where human sacrifice or murder is condoned or even encouraged. Even those who, under the guise of religion, misinform children about the truths of evolution, should be condemned as much as would someone who advocated teaching that the earth is flat. The future of our world depends on our children being taught reality as it has been discovered.

Dennett ends the book by claiming that Darwinism can best be described as the Beast in the story Beauty and the Beast. While having a form that appears dangerous and frightening, Darwin's dangerous idea is really a powerful defender of the truths and values we cherish. Excellent but challenging book

</review>
<review>

Dennett's metaphor for Darwinism is that acts like a Universal Acid upon everything it touches--and that means literally everything.  It eats into the foundations of the hard sciences, the various and rather less solid underpinnings of the social sciences, the sometimes ridiculous and sometimes incisive branches of psychology, and the claims made as to any potential (though often simply vaporous and intentionally obscure) philosophical or theological `truths' in the round.  There is nothing that it does not take a substantial bite from, and that fact cannot be avoided unless you merely opt for silly, ignorant avoidance, i.e., you either refute or run for cover!  Bravo Dennett, then, as somebody needed to say this as loudly as possible.  ALL the work we have done to understand ourselves and our origins needs to be refigured in the light of Darwin, and thankfully Dennett is both brave enough and smart enough to take the heat and rebound the criticism from numerous sources.  Anyway, here are the facts as offered:

We evolved via an unguided process which, while merely running dumb, non-conscious algorithms, didn't care in the slightest that it would produce us.

Most of our evolutionary history is bacterial.  Nothing much happened for billions of years and then multi-cellular life literally stumbled onto a process by which it could reproduce itself more effectively.  You then find functional fit all the way up and all the way down.  A goal was never on the agenda.

There is no teleological drive in the cosmos - not one single hint of it.  So, bang goes Intelligent Design and bang goes Creation Science.  Rather than a God of the Gaps there are rather very few gaps (which are, in any case, closing all the time) and no God needed for the process.   In place of that we have only brute facts and a `designer' that is no more conscious of its effort towards any perceived result than a coin-toss tournament is conscious of its overall activity.

Life is a chemical process which doesn't care about us at all.  As Dawkin's so aptly stated, blind fortuitous luck, suffering and unremitting process are exactly what we should expect from a cosmos of the kind we inhabit--and that is exactly what we find when we survey our existence with an informed eye, stripped of idealism, religion and dull-witted superstition.

Our consciousness is a product (certainly not a cause - please check the evidence, not the foo-foo, highly selective and pre-scientific rubbish touted by people like Ken Wilber or any other religious Advaita/Buddhist/Hindu/Christian or otherwise Mystical salesperson) of the above stated process.  We are not special in any religious sense, our children are not special in any religious sense, and any awareness we have of life in general or of our own existence will terminate at the point of our death as it depends on our biology.  Following Dennett and ALL the neuroscience I can think of, this is true from top to bottom.  The brain is the mind and the brain is a product of evolution - end of story.  Read James Austin to see how spiritual experience can be related to nothing more than a function of the brain, or read Pascal Boyer to see how  religions generally are the products of Darwinian evolution.  Also, Daniel Dennett has written a superb cutting-edge book--although overtly polite and politically tactful in addressing the ignorant religious US right--which carefully refutes religion entitled Breaking The Spell.  In that you will find a number of collated arguments which shatter religious nonsense and call it to account.

Finally, life has no ultimate meaning but only the provisional, varied meanings (which are nonetheless important) that we give to it.  We live, we die and nobody is out there (or in there) recording the event.  As Martin Rees has it, we live in a Cosmic Habitat which has surrounded us and formed us, and that is why we can relate the structure of the world to our lived experience 1-to-1.  There is nothing spooky about that so we can either paddle in an artificially prolonged mystery, or notice the overt contrary evidence.  The choice is ours and hopefully it is just our own time, while not our children's, that we are wasting coming to a solid conclusion.

Anyway, 10 out of 5 points to Dennett, while to any religious reader I suggest that they should get a life like I did! ;-)  The perspective from real evidence is truly magnificent and completely awe-inspiring, at least compared to the childish myths that I grew up with and managed to dump before I turned 20.  As Dennett asks, if God made the world then who made God? Supergod?  And if then a Superdupergod made Supergod then who made him, and onwards, into the ridiculous.  Get beyond it, guys, and find out out how you got here!

</review>
<review>

This is an amazing book which should be of interest to all those in the general public who are interested in science and the question "where did we come from"

</review>
<review>

All I can say is that after reading this book, I had to read all of Daniel's other books. Very well written book and it makes you realize that no matter how well you know evolution, there are some clever implications of evolutionary algorithm that you may not have considered in the past.


</review>
<review>

There have been many comments on this book in the ten years since it was first published. I think what Carl Sagan said about the book is perhaps the most accurate: "a breath of fresh air". Contrary to many other people I thought the book by Dennett was easy to read, very well written, very straightforward, and not some sort of heavy philosophical discussion. He has lots of examples and many references to real science. It even contains pictures and many schematics. The basic point of the book is that despite any rumour or suggestions to the contrary, scientific, social, religious, or otherwise, the basic tenants of Darwin's original ideas for the evolution of the species remains sound, and it is the only viable theory of evolution. If anything, it has solidified its standing as a durable and accurate theory of evolution.

Darwin's theory as we understand it should start with a definition, and here I quote a definition: " The process in nature by which, according to Darwin's theory of evolution, only the organisms best adapted to their environment tend to survive and transmit their genetic characteristics in increasing numbers to succeeding generations while those less adapted tend to be eliminated." Dennett points out in his discussions that many non-evolution scientists, that is, those in other fields of research, do not really understand this simple idea. They still seem unwilling to accept the theory, although adaptive change has been proven in the scientific literature through extensive DNA and protein studies - see for example a more recent article 7 years after the Dennett book: February 28, 2002, Nature, authors Nick Smith and Dr Adam Eyre-Walker. They measure (quantitatively) the adaptive changes.

There are a number of sub-themes here and one being Gould's theories of evolution. Gould was famous and in the public eye, but back behind the scenes in the evolution world among his peers - according to Dennett - it seems that the situation was a lot more turbulent and controversial for Gould. Dennett describes Gould's "punctuated equilibrium" theory, a sort of stop start idea of steps in evolution that was supposed to overturn Darwin. Dennett thinks that the elimination of small Darwin adaptive steps was a confused and half baked idea (my paraphrase). This of course contains much irony since Gould himself wrote Wonderful Life based on the errors of Walcott and the Burgess Shale. As pointed out by Dennett elsewhere, Dennett explained to Gould that he was writing the book and was commenting on the flaws in Gould's theory. He met with Gould and received all his publications from Gould. At first Gould was helpful, but when Dennett found the inconsistencies among them, Gould went silent in their communications for almost a year, and refused to answer questions pertaining to Dennett's questions. The problem is that Gould had flip-flopped and back-tracked over the years until Gould's sudden non-linear jumps, followed by periods of little genetic change, were in fact toned down to just "speed changes" in Darwin's theory of small adaptive steps. It was no longer a revolution in evolution by Gould.

This Dennett book is far ranging and covers many topics in genetics and evolution. It is 18 chapters long and covers the subjects in a chatty style. The book is not a quick read and would take about a week to read, on and off 3 or 4 hours per day. I read about a quarter in my first read and got excited when I got to pages 156 through 163. Here starting on page 156 he describes how the first molecules or structures of life were formed. He tells us about a possibly of a replicating parasitic macromolecule, or a type of partial or pre-virus. It is likely, or at least possible, that first life was based on fragments of proteins and RNA being attracted to silica surfaces or similar. It is all very interesting, especially the idea that catalysts might have increased the mathematical probabilities of interaction to produce life, and that it is based on just common inorganic molecules found in the silica rich clays of earth's streams and lakes. He has numerous other topics such as the tree of life, ideas about the species, Mendel, "the computer that learned to play checkers", so on and so forth.

I would like thank fellow reviewer Stephen A. Haines ("bigbunyip" - or see my profile page and go to Amazon friends) for bringing this book to my attention. I highly recommend this exceptional book. Here are some other sophisticated science books for the general reader:
Genome (1999) by Matt Ridley, The Fabric of The Cosmos (2004) a physics book by Briane Greene, and Life on a Young Planet: The First Three Billion Years of Evolution on Earth (2003) by Andrew H. Knoll, and for a light treatment of genetics and society read: The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins (1989 version updated from 1976), or the original book: The Origin of The Species, Charles Darwin, Modern Library (original 1859, reprinted 1993)

</review>
<review>

Darwin's idea is very very simple; it goes like this.

1-Organisms pass their characteristics on to their descendants, which are mostly but not completely identical to their parent organisms.
2-Organisms breed more descendants than can possibly survive.
3-Descendants with beneficial variations have a better chance of surviving and reproducing, however slight, than those with non-beneficial variations.
4-These slightly modified descendants are themselves organisms, so repeat from step 1. (There is no stopping condition.)

That's it. That's all there is to Natural Selection: a simple four step loop; a mindless algorithm that displays no intent, no design, no purpose, no goal, no deeper meaning. This simple algorithm has been running on Earth for four billion years to produce every living thing, and everything made by every living thing, from the oxygen atmosphere generated by plants to the skyscrapers and music created by man. Dennett writes that it is the algoritm's complete mindlessness that makes Darwin's idea so dangerous.

Dennett devotes the major portion of his book to aggressively arguing the above. He reviews how the algorithm could have "primed life's pump" eons ago and spends some time on describing evolution and biology. He argues that biology is engineering and thus reducible to algorithms. He also explains how simple algorithms can lead to computers that play brilliant chess and here he makes an important distinction: brilliant chess doesn't have to be perfect chess.

There is in fact an algorithm to play chess perfectly: examine all possible moves and discard all moves that do not lead to a win. The problem is that the number of possible moves is Vast, and the number of good moves is Vanishingly Small; there isn't enough time in the universe to use this algorithm. Therefore, software designers have developed imperfect but powerful (i.e. heuristic) algorithms that play merely excellent chess. Dennett uses this nuance to refute Godel's and Penrose's objections to Mind as being something "special", something more than the result of a Darwinian process.

Having argued that mind can evolve through a Darwinian process, he goes one step further: ethics can too. Darwin's world is amoral, without good or evil. We have invented the concepts of good and evil and Dennett ends with this. He reassures us that while a mindless, godless, amoral Darwinian process is at the root of everything, we can embrace morality, ethics, and beauty. To quote Dennett, "the world is sacred".

Vincent Poirier, Toky

</review>
<review>

In the early 90's, Dennett taught a seminar on Darwin  and  Philosophy - most of that college course is in this book.  With this 500-plus page persuasive treatise, Dennett examines every corner of evolutionary theory.  Some aspects of evolutionary theory are established beyond any reasonable scientific doubt - other fine points are argued within scientific circles.  Within this book all of the above are discussed in detail and Dennett takes on all arguments. In every case, Dennett leads us to conclude that, in biology, nothing makes sense outside the theory of evolution.  New discoveries may lead to shifts in the basic theory, but the hope that it will be "refuted" by some earthshaking breakthrough is about as likely as the hope that we will return to the idea that the sun revolves around the earth.

DDI is a huge compilation of ideas.  Although published in 1995, it is probably still the most current and most quoted popular source on evolution today.  It is divided into three large parts, the last part being devoted to philosophy of evolutionary science.  If I had a criticism, it would be that the diversity of its chapters is so vast that not all chapters will appeal to everyone.  The philosophy section will be the favorite of some, yet others will not see its value.  I would recommend picking and choosing your subject matter out of the excellent table of contents, and taking your time with this book.

With that in mind, prepare for a thoughtful and philosophical journey, and be ready to abandon your "skyhooks."  Darwin's Dangerous Idea when applied liberally, throws acid on beloved  traditions, but in the end, it may be just what we need to preserve and explain basic values we cherish.

In Dennett's words, "This book, then, is for those who agree that the only meaning of life worth caring about is one that can withstand our best efforts to examine it.  Others are advised to close the book now and tiptoe away."

</review>
<review>

David Barrett and Todd Johnson at the World Evangelization Research Center in Richmond, Virginia have just completed the 2nd edition of the World Christian Encyclopedia. This 2,400 page, 2-volume reference set tells the status of Christianity and of evangelization in great detail for every country, people, language, city, and province in the world -- together with a trove of other information, statistics, and resources for the decision-makers in the world of missions. A companion CD, the World Christian Database, is planned to follow. This particular work, when complete, will help facilitate the analysis now missing from this monumental enterprise, a truly impressive work of religious, especially Christian, demographics. There is really nothing like it in terms of sheer raw data

</review>
<review>

Almost 20 years ago the initial edition of the WCE was a great advanbce in religious information and statistics. The second edition (now 2 volumes) reflects much of the change in the religious scene in the last 2 decades and that alone is worthwhile. What is interesting is that the projections made 20years ago for the year 2000 have often turned out to be 'spot on' and this adds to the value of the work. I commend this latest effort w/o reservation and look forward to updates more frequently. Religion is one of the things that everyone shares-we all have it. This book should be in every library-esp. religious ones.As a priest who follows and studies and interacts with this world I can recommend it most heartily

</review>
<review>

Professor Putnam has written a superb review of the decliine of community in the United States through the end of the 20th Century. He points to television, urban and suburban sprawl, generational change and changing work habits as being the major causes of the collapse of the American community.

He provides massive amounts of survey and study data to prove what most of already know: Americans don't get together with their friends, neighbors, fellow citizens or even their families as much as they used to.

The presentation of the data is the best part of the book. Putnam's explanations are often insightful and though he also frequently turns a blind eye to the causes of the destruction of the American community, namely several decades of relentless left-wing attacks on American society. The church as a staple of the community? Destroyed by left-wing secularism. The family as a core unit of community? Destroyed in some places by left-wing policies that made family formation not only impossible (i.e., the ban on female headed welfare households admiting to a male presence)and by left-wing agitation for "sexual freedom."

Interestingly, Putnam provides evidence of the proof of the foregoing and more in some of his own data. The places where "social capital" and community remain intact are the so-called Red States, the very communities Putnam's academic colleagues at Harvard deride day after day.

Putnam's cure for the decline of American community, not surprisingly, requires lots of government intervention.

Putnam's book is fascinating if you disagree with his reasoning. What would be more interesting is the same data reviewed by conservatives. There is no doubt that they would agree that the American community has declined, but the reasons given for it and the ways to its revival would be markedly different.

Jerr

</review>
<review>

I can't add anything that isn't already on the backcover. Putnam has detailed research showing the loss of social capital in the U.S. and insightful analysis of the implications as well as possible solutions. It's a highly readable book for academics and non-academics alike. A vital read that will be relevant for years to come

</review>
<review>

This book definitely gets a little bogged down in statistics at points.  A couple of the chapters could have been easily trimmed down by a couple paragraphs and tables (and boy are there a lot of tables).  However, I still think this book is an important contribution to the discussion of american community versus radical individualism.
The other nice thing I would like to point out is the multiple positive reviews from across the political spectrum.  It's not all the time that a book gets approval from the nation, the national review and the economist.  It's as nonpolitical as it can get, despite the politically sensitive material

</review>
<review>

Way too full of statistics and other sociological data for my tastes but when it points in the direction I agree with, like any old ideologue it's hard not to plug it.

The book is about how community activity and activism has fallen dramatically in the past fifty years, beginning with the baby boomers generation, and how my generation has only continued the slide. The title comes from the decline in bowling leagues to bowling merely when time allows.

A lot of what Putnam blames is TV (curse you infernal tube, err screen) in sucking up time with only passive reaction. How pretty much every other activity requires an active response and that this has caused people to stop caring.

He also discusses how sports have become far more spectator than participatory, allowing for more tv watching.

The difficulty he runs into is that, though published in 2000, the internet was not adequetely advanced and so is not adequetely covered. For it is a physically passive activity sans porn that can be menatally rigorous or passive due to the desires of the participent. But it also has engaged more people in a new pseudo conversation than ever existed before. A conversation without bounds of physical place or honest presence which allows for great deception but also great forthrightness.

It is absolutely packed with statistics so for those inclined to that method of persuation it could be quite successful, but merely on the sheer breadth of topics discussed it is worth the read

</review>
<review>

Robert Putnam's book bemoans the declne in "civic participation" among Americans since its heyday in the 50's and 60's.  Although few would argue that bridge clubs aren't what they used to be, who would have predicted the rise of 20,000 member mega-churches back in 1962?  This underlines the basic problem with this book: it focuses too much on what constituted "communities" and "activities" in the past, without looking at how people form new and different kinds of communities today.  While I agree that television has dramatically increased the couch potato index, and participation in traditional FORMAL organizations has declined, I would argue that membership and participation in new kinds of groups that are more relevant to people in the 21st century has risen.  For example, while young people famously are less likely to vote in our dual-party system, college students today volunteer more that any generation before them.  In addition, while participation in mainline Protestant churches has stedily declined, engagement in evangelical churches has risen dramatically.  While I personally feel that the sterile suburban, drive-everywhere-in-my-SUV existance is soul crushing, and the popularity of reality TV may be a sign of the apocolypse, I also don't pine for the days where mom was expected to stay home with the kids and go to the bridge club once a week, while dad worked 9-5, returned home to supper, and went to the Men's Club on Tuesdays at 8.  And while Putnam's basic premise may resonate with many, its fetishization of days past blunts the strength of his overall argument

</review>
<review>

Putnam has hit the nail right on the head. Public policy makers world-wide have taken note. His constructs of 'bonding'and 'bridging' to the broader community through social networks to add value, or social capital, to society have gained wide currency.  His research is exhaustive, more than necessary perhaps to make the case for disengagement of citizens. But, he has confirmed empirically what so many know intuitively to be true, hence the appeal of his findings.  His recent work with John Helliwell published in the 2004 proceedings of the Royal Society on social capital and well-being, reported in the media as the science of happiness and the object in my own work on positive networking, advances the discipline even further. Positive networking works, it takes leadership and, when done right, adds social capital to the community. Putnam's work is compelling. His arguements are powerful...highly recommended

</review>
<review>

I'm resident in Germany, I like the Workman Cat Calendar very much and all my friends like it too. I think, the Calendar could not be better, so each year I order the Calendar as a Christmas gift for me and my friends!
Purchase and fast delivering is without any problems, absolutely perfect. Many thanks to Workman Publ. and Amazon!
Greetings from Germany,
Ingeborg Vetter

</review>
<review>

Workman Publishing is famous for the "bad cat" calendars and the 365 Kittens a Year Calendar. If you love cats it is more than likely you have either seen these items or own them and buy them every year. You can even enter the Cat Calendar Contest and possibly see your very own cats in the calendar the following year. What a fun and inventive idea! This creates some of the best cat pictures you will find because of the wide variety of pictures to choose from each year.

In the 2007 Page-A-Day Calendar each picture is accompanied by lore, health and care tips, trivia, personal information about the cat featured or breed information. Each picure is just priceless and you can't imagine how anyone was able to get six cats to sit together for a picture. This alone is a miracle and more than likely one of the reasons this picture won second place.

Some of the picture make you smile, some make you laugh and all of them are filled with feline perfection. My favorite picture is of two kittens watching Cat TV on a Dell Screen. There is information on where you can find the DVDs to entertain your cats for hours at a time. They really will watch TV if the right DVD is played. My kitten Meesa watches Amazon IMAX the most for some reason. ASIN: B00022PYZ2. The Jaguar and the river scenes really capture her attention. It was pretty funny!

~The Rebecca Review

</review>
<review>

This book is high entertaining and intellectually slightly challenging.  If you like satire, thinking outside the box- and subtle humor I recommend it highly.

If you wondered why you had to read all those long generally depressing books in literature class, this series is your reward

</review>
<review>

It's late. Your spouse says, "Turn off the light. It's after midnight." You mutter, "One more chapter." This is that kind of book. And it's LOL good.

</review>
<review>

LOST IN A GOOD BOOK may be a painful rite of passage for a linear thinker.

Here, in author Jasper Fforde's England of 1985, people keep dodo birds as pets, a special police unit drives stakes through vampires' hearts, Tunbridge Wells has been given over to Russia in war reparations, London to Sydney travel time is 40 minutes by Gravitube through the Earth's center, air travel is by lighter-than-air airship, cheese is contraband, there's a duty on custard, Homo sapiens neanderthalensis has been recreated from recovered DNA and now provides society with its minimum-wage untermenschen, time travel is a reality, and 249 wooly mammoths in nine herds migrate back and forth across Britain.

So little of this parallel universe makes sense that I at first doubted my ability to finish the book. But, intrepidly, I carried on.

The heroine of the story is Thursday Next, a Literary Detective in department 27 of SpecOps, the national law enforcement megaforce. The mission of SO-27, among other things, is to validate the authenticity of recently discovered works by dead authors. The title of the book refers to the ability of certain trained adepts to physically enter book plots in real time, much as Mary Poppins and her young charges were able to pop in and out of chalk pavement pictures in the film MARY POPPINS. This talent is so rare that, here, Next is coerced by a representative by the world's monolithic business corporation, Goliath, to rescue his unsavory half-brother previously marooned by Thursday within the pages of Poe's "The Raven" in the first book of the Next series, THE EYRE AFFAIR. In return, Goliath will restore Thursday's husband Landen, who has been eradicated. And, as if that wasn't enough of a bother, Thursday must also thwart the imminent destruction of all Life on Earth by rampant strawberry flavored Dream Topping.

Perhaps you can see where a linear thinker might suffer a migraine.

The enjoyment of becoming lost in LOST IN A GOOD BOOK isn't related to a nail-biter plot because what plot it possesses isn't; the word "peripeteia" comes to mind. Rather, the joy comes from the expectation of reading what clever quirkiness the frisky imagination of Fforde cranks out - sort of a present-day version of ALICE IN WONDERLAND. Indeed, the Cheshire Cat is one of the book's characters. It's that imagination that compels me to award the novel five stars though it goes against my grain.

I'm not particularly driven to read THE EYRE AFFAIR, but I have ordered the next in the series, THE WELL OF LOST PLOTS. It will undoubtedly spend time in the waiting room with the twenty-some more linear works awaiting my attention until I get the urge to lose myself in a bit of benign madness

</review>
<review>

I was 'knocked out' by the "Eyre Affair" and very sad when I approached the end. However, I learned of the "Next" installments and immediately ordered them. "Lost in a Good Book" has been a wonderful read and I have been once again immersed in Mr Fforde's wonderful imagination and Quixotic characters. I pray he keeps his health and writes quickly.

</review>
<review>

if you haven't begun this series by fforde YOU should.
it's a great fantasy novel that has many laughs and you can really root for thurday

</review>
<review>

These novels are worth the price of admission just to experience Fforde's imaginative powers. Plus, where else can you find such a mixture of whimsy, detective fiction and literary references

</review>
<review>

Jasper Fforde is seriously bizarre and it shows in his incredibly creative premise for the Thursday Next series.  All of these books are very well written and can stand on their own (as complete novels), but if you read the books in sequence -- Thursday Next's story becomes better and better.  Each book answers questions that I did not even know to ask -- and the story becomes even more satisfying.  I refused to loan the books "out of order" to friend, because I felt that she would enjoy the entire series -- not just the one title that she asked to borrow.  I highly recommend the entire series -- and so far -- anything else Jasper Fforde has written.

</review>
<review>

I was a bit annoyed by The Eyre Affair but also intriqued about the book jumping and time travel. So I read this sequel and found it to be more fun :) that I am willing to forget my bugs with the first book. The jump can happen from-to a book, between one book to another, sometimes to something that was not a book at all! Just a 3-4 lines of washing instruction could do the trick ;) While the time travel with Next's father was exhilarating.

However, there are some time lapses between the actions that were not fully described/ explained because I found myself wondering why Friday was a long way from Tuesday (well, certainly has not happened in all my days)? It really needed one more day to accomplish what Next was doing, but guess what, later on, there was a dialog indicating that it has been 2 weeks. Well, what do you know. Time 'slipped'? where have the days gone by? @_@

But then, an unexpected twist happened near the end and I was very satisfied by the play that I don't really mind about the missing day(s). I admit the story still needs some polishing but the science fictional thoughts popped in it are too good to be passed by

</review>
<review>

In this sequel to The Eyre Affair, Thursday Next must rescue Jack Schitt of Goliath Corporation from the pages of The Raven, where she left him in the previous book, or else Goliath won't bring back Thursday's husband, Landen, whom they've erased! This volume also introduces us to Jurisfiction, the counterpart of Special Ops that exists within books.

This is wildly creative stuff, from a hilarious scene in which Thursday must appear on trial before the judge from Kafka's The Trial to meeting a very unhappy Jack Schitt in the pages of The Raven. Fforde keeps the clever puns and wordplay coming: at one point Thursday's father describes an alternate universe in which World War II ended in 1945 but most things are similar, including the existence of the painter Carravagggio (but that is his name is spelled more sensibly there).

On the other hand, the plot of this book feels less focused than The Eyre Affair. Towards the end, we do gain some insight that ties together earlier events, but takes a while in coming. And this book very much sets us up for the sequel: on to The Well of Lost Plots

</review>
<review>

This more I think about this book, the more thought provoking it becomes.  First, I find it amazing that anyone could take a belief that's widely known (practically a cliche), add nothing of substance to it, and actually write a book about it.  Second, I find it even more amazing that it took 134 pages to make the Golden Rule applicable to business.  Third, and perhaps the most amazing of all, is the fact that I actually spent my own hard earned money on this book.  What amazing insights did I think would be uncovered?

I'll save you $9.72 (+s/h) and the 45 minutes it'll take you to read this.  Here goes... Unless you were raised by wolves, it's pretty likely you've heard of the Golden Rule.  Ok, now think about how this rule can be applied to all of your business dealings.  That's it - you got it!

Whew!  Now that you have an extra $9.72 in your pocket and 45 minutes of free time, go practice that Golden Rule by treating your kids/grandkids/neighbors to some ice cream

</review>
<review>

In a recent newspaper, in one day ...  Enron chief pleads not guilty, Adelphia execs found guilty, no retrial in stock scandal ... and this was just the front page of the business section. On that same page, I noted the use of the phrase, "ethically amoral." Have we finally reached a point where we can construct such phrases? Corruption, moral relativism, the meaning of "is," have you had enough?

If you are looking for some insights into the problem and perhaps an alternative approach, here's your book, There's No Such Thing as "Business" Ethics. Maxwell writes, "...There's only ethics." Maxwell is right, and through interesting stories and common sense he argues for the adoption of the Golden Rule: Treat others the way you would like to be treated.

I read this book in hopes to validate my own research for my book, Swapping Lies! I felt that perhaps my call for a return of honor to the workplace was a bit too much, too naive. I was surprised to read that I am not the only one who feels this way. Maxwell is calling for the Golden Rule! Many will consider the Golden Rule a bit nave in today's world, yet it is principle that successfully guides us in our business endeavors. A principled and focused leader is not nave. In fact they are a constant source of strength and confidence to all. Spend just an hour to read this book. It may change you and your company.

</review>
<review>

The application of the Golden Rule to our everyday lives is something that we can all agree is good.  John Maxwell does a good job or defining the golden rule, its worldwide acceptance, and how we can apply it to our everyday.  It was more like a walk down memory lane; to a time when a teacher or mentor first explained the concept to us.  However I do have a few concerns with Mr. Maxwell's book.  First there might need to be a better job at researching Fletcher thoughts on Relativism...in his book he labels Fletcher as the father of mordern day Realativism...quoting (or rather misquoting) Fletcher's statement that love can justify anything.  I am in not postition to defend Fletcher, for I am not that familiar with his work, however he does not just use the term love.  Rather he uses the term Agape Love, coming from the ancient Greek...the highest and purest form of love...one that God would have for us, a term any minister or pastor of the Christian Faith would know very well.  Second after page 86 the book get repediative and seems to get off track.  This links to my last issue with the book and why it gets a bit off track, as it turns into an advertisement for Mr. Maxwell's corporation, the last several pages are nothing but adverstisements asking you to visit their web site for free character quiz and then taking you down a road of Buy...buy...buy our products.  Not what I expected and was somewhat disappointed.  In short taking some know concepts, putting a somewhat of a new spin on them and then publishing to add another book to the list of those authored.  Part of the disappointment is that I know this book could be better

</review>
<review>

Excellent Book.  Simply written but loaded with information.  If you are tired of the ups and downs of dieting, this book is very helpful

</review>
<review>

I found this book  to be one of the most life changings books I have read todate. The author gives you a really clear path that makes you focus on your life and you as a person. The insight that I have gained about myself was really freeing. I read the book through once and then I started all over again with Chapter One. I got a journal and I have begun writing, meditating on the scriptures from the book and really learning how to connect my poor eating habits to the stressful or negative events that occur in my life. I will be using this book for the next few years. This book can really be applied to any addiction that a person may be dealing with.

</review>
<review>

This is the last weight-loss book you will ever need!  Thin Again teaches the reader how to deal with the inner causes of over-eating first.  I have never read anything like it!  It's not man-made psychological principles that will make permanent changes.  It's the application of Scripture and the healing ministry of the Holy Spirit.  Thin Again is a gentle, non-threatening, non-judgmental treatment of the problem of obesity and food-addiction.  I have read volumes on these subjects, but this one changed my life, and I am encouraged for my future as a much thinner person

</review>
<review>

Judy Wardell wrote one of the very best, and first, non-diet books for achieving desired weight loss -  and quot;Thin Within and quot;. Then she got married. I can only blame her husband for converting an imaginative, insightful writer into a Bible-beating fundamentalist who quotes scripture in every paragraph

</review>
<review>

I used to participate in Weigh Down Workshop, which had similar guidelines for hunger and fullness, but after multiple problems I encountered with the religious teachings, I dropped the program. Then a friend told me about 'Thin Again' which was actually around BEFORE Weigh Down! What a refreshing alternative, and easy reading! Now I'm back on track with my weight and guilt-free!

</review>
<review>

This was a wonderful book!  This bridges the gap between spirituality and weight loss.  There are no  and quot;formulas and quot; or  and quot;forbidden foods and quot;.  Just a lot of helpful, soulful advice

</review>
<review>

I highly recommend this wonderful God-given book! I am a former Weigh Down Workshop coordinator, was searching for a less condemning approach, and God led me to this book! The  and quot;Hunger Scale and quot; is easy to abide by and the spiritual approach is very inspiring, uplifting, and healing. I believe the answer most people struggling with weight control is looking for; it certainly was for me!  It is written in a format that can be used personally or in a small support-type group setting

</review>
<review>

yes, the writer seems to repeat herself a lot in the story. i almost thought there were only two characters after reading the first 100 pages. but then it grew better, and even more appealing towards the last 100 pages. it is a decent novel, and i'm glad i read it. it is not as thought-provoking as the two novels of anita shreve i read, but i certainly enjoyed the reading

</review>
<review>

I had never read a Danielle Steel book before, and decided to give her a try, given that she is so popular and has so many books published. I was pretty disappointed. I agree with the other reviewers that the plot is unrealistic; however, if a book is unrealistic but well-written and engaging, I would still like it. I think the biggest problem with this book is the author's excessive repetitiveness. Yes, I get that this character is really cold and unloving---that was already covered 50 pages ago! In addition, character traits could have been better conveyed through situations, rather than simply stating, "so and so was a devoted mother" and repeating this fact again and again and again. These flaws in the author's writing kept me skipping through whole sections of the book. This book did not leave me wanting to read more of Ms. Steel's books. It is an ok book if you like romance and very easy, repetitive reading.

</review>
<review>

This the first of Daninell's books I read.  I learnt that she was the Queen of romance novel since I was a teen.  I'm a little disappointed by the book because it's really boring for most of the part. It's like reading an alternative version of Princess Diana's traffic accident.  I realize that Daniell likes to repeat herself a lot.  There are too many reptitions of descriptions of all kinds.  It's also too predictable.  To me, everything that Bill did is really cheesy and unreal and his stubborness of rejecting and denying Anabelle after he became paralysed makes me wonder what a tyranny psycho he is that he just wants to inflict pain on the woman who loves him and who has nobody there for her at all. It's really hard to believe any man who acts so unreasonably stubborn on his own version of love and happiness that he can actually be an ideal partner for any woman.  Men like that are normally pretty controlling and emotionally abusive. This is the major element in the book that really turns me off.   I have to admit that the last part where Anabelle finally convinced Bill to be with her is quite touching.  I think Ms. Steel does have her crowds of fans.  My boyfriend's mother had been crying all the way thru the book.

</review>
<review>

The Kiss is the second book I have read by Danielle Steel so far. It was great. My first book of hers I read was The Wedding. I highly recommend that one. Both are excellent books. I love romantic books. They suit my personality beautifully. I even have considered trying to write a love story, with my own experiences. Real life is a lot better and more complex then fiction ever could be. But I do like fiction as much as I love biography or autobiography. Any genre is fine by me.

This is an inspirational book. It deals with disability and how people overcome hurdles in their path. It has some touching moments. Some moments I adore. In the hospital. And one person's strength to bring someone between life and death back to life. No matter what the resulting burdens may be, after a horrific car accident with a bus during one long and only everlasting kiss.

Two people in strained marriages. One with an invalid boy and daughter. The other in another loveless marriage and affairs. The only contact they share is moments from time to time during the year, and phone calls. That keep their lives fullfilled. Two people who love each other but cannot take the next step to make their lives better and be together. Mainly due to commitment to husbands and wives. No matter how hopeless or worthless an existence it may be with their partners. Yet slowly things are unravelled and secrets that have lay hidden for years are exposed.

I think I have made a pretty good summary of the book for people who don't know the book I read. I think it is worth reading. The story seems quite simple and it is. But like always, I am surprised how things turned out and the marvellous twists and turns the story takes. To secure Danielle's place in romantic fiction for sometime to come. I would read more of her books. They are lovely.

I wanted to read 'The Kiss' because I felt it was so perfect for me. I love kissing girls. Friendly kisses more then boyfriend/girlfriend type kisses. I know it may sound strange but I think to fully understand it, and my e mails sometimes you may have to meet me. Or a least listen to my voice on tape one day. To pick up on some of the humour I like to inject into my e mails most of the time. And sometimes how I see the world and live my life. As movie-orientated as it is.

Danielle Steel is pretty light reading usually. She's the best! I don't really want to read Barbra Taylor Bradford. Although I do wish they would make a movie of 'The Wedding'. It would be so good. It would be harder to make a movie that affects people with 'The Kiss'. But since I read the book, I'd be happy to watch any resulting movies they might make. I haven't seen any Danielle Steel books adapted to movies. I'm sure they are extreamly sappy. But I can handle it I think.

I don't think I will read all of her books, just the ones that look most interesting to me. 'The Wedding' was special because I have never been to a wedding before. 'The Kiss' was good because I love to kiss girls. Plus I am a pretty affectionate person. I also think quite tactile too. I'd take any opportunity to give someone a hug or show affection. I am full of compliments usually.

</review>
<review>

Another romantic novel by Danielle Steele... this time the setting is Europe. Isabelle Forrester is stuck in a miserable marriage with a wealthy and obnoxious French man who treats her really bad. Bill Robinson is stuck in a life-less marriage to a wife who does not care about him. The two come together and over time fall madly in love. One night in England, together in a limousine, they give each other a breath-taking and long-lasting kiss. The kiss turns out to be a life-changing event for both of them...

A moving story with a happy ending

</review>
<review>

Ms.Steel is truly the Queen of repition. She needs to get some new editors and listen to them or unplug her word processeor. I see that is the ongoing critism of her books. I swore I was never going to read another of her soaps(I can't stand those either) but this given to me by friends that said it was sooo good.  I'll stick with the authours I know I like from now on. And I hope she finds some new descriptions to use besides impeccably and exquisite/exquisitely, she has worn these out. BUT she's laughing all the way to her banks and investment brokers

</review>
<review>

A must have for anyone who writes or teaches writing or is learning writing. My 7 yr. old 2d grader loves this book but so do I as a writer and teacher. My son finds it easily understandable and it is written in such a way it is fun for him to use. As a result he is far ahead of most children his age in his writing skills.

What sets this book apart from other books or grammar is not only is it superbly organized but it has numerous examples which make the principles of grammar easily understood. That is one reason is is useful for a teacher in that it provides so many examples for use in the classroom.

The book begins with the theme of sentence buildng and the user learns how to build sentences. That is a valuable concept in both learning and teaching grammar.

I enthusiastically recommend it

</review>
<review>

I found several parts of this book exceptional, meaning much better than the average grammar book.  The coverage of first person, second person, and third person writing in both singular and plural forms was well-done, including a later section on first, second, and third person pronouns.  There are also excellent sections on object of preposition and object complement (yeah, I didn't know what that was either).  The sections on pronouns are extremely complete and go on for pages--I didn't realize how many pronouns and types of pronouns there were.  Verb tenses is also covered very thoroughly with many examples of present, past, future, present perfect, past perfect, and future perfect.  Prepositions are covered very thoroughly, including explanations for when they're used (to tell location, direction, time, relationship, etc.) and then a list of prepositions.

This book also has an excellent appendix with various unique parts.  One section covers the term "IVAN CAPP" which is an acronym for remembering the order of parts of speech--Interjection, Verb, Adjective, Noun, Conjunction, Adverb, Pronoun, Preposition.  One of the appendices sections has "initials, acronyms, and abbreviations", which is also helpful.

The sections I've described above are often in grammar books, but not fully explained and it is even harder to find all of these in one book. My one disappointment was in the coverage of when to capitalize, which was a bit short and with few examples. For such a concise book, that's still pretty good

</review>
<review>

This book it is a great help when I am not sure how to guide my kid...very good just followed the rules in this book

</review>
<review>

Since my original language is German it was a great help to have this book now that my daughter is a student in an American school. Although I understand the basics of English grammar this book showed me steps on how to teach my daughter English grammar without making it too complicated. It also helped me refresh my grammar. I have also recommended this book to my daughters 1st Grade teacher as an ideal companion for any parent whose kids are starting to write stories of their own.

</review>
<review>

I've recommended this book for people, who want to improve the writing skill. I found this book very helpful for foreign people. The book contains the basic ideas and good examples

</review>
<review>

This book is a masterpiece that everyone, student or adult, shouild read.  It clearly illustrates the fundamentals of good writing and conveys complex ideas in an understandable way.  Mr. Terban has clearly written the best grammar book on the market and every classroom should have a copy.  Plus, it is a very useful tool for highschool student studying for the SAT's or SAT2's in writing.  I highly advise anyone who wishes to improve his or her grammar to pick up a copy

</review>
<review>

I have all of NR books. This is one of the few that I have not been able to read. I have carried the hard cover book since it was first published, from MA, to California now to New Hampshire. When packing space is premium this book is not worth taking up space. I have read up to the first 50 pages and can not progress from there.

I move on to the next contract in 3 weeks and Blue Smoke is going into storage. That will leave room in the suitecase for her next book... A JD Robb I believe.
I was so glad to read the other reviews that had the same problems with reading this book as I did

</review>
<review>


I loved this story line. Nora makes it so easy to picture every tiny detail. The big Italian family, the restaurant they own, and the small town. I couldn't put this book down. Usually I have a problem with stories that keep jumping into the future, but I had absolutely no problem with this book whatsoever. Actually, being able to watch the characters develop and grow over that time period was one of the things I liked most about the book. By the end of the story I felt like I knew all the characters.

</review>
<review>

I loved this story!  I am from a large Italian family and I thorougly enjoyed the picture that was portrayed in this book.  I could picture the city and the small Italian restaurant.  I could also almost taste the food.  I thought the plot was excellent and the characters were well painted.  I wished that the person who was the arsonist was a little more difficult to guess.  It was the most obvious.  But, I highly recommend the book...you could almost smell the smoke!!!!!!!!!!!!

</review>
<review>

Mine got unsuspended with the second boyfriend's death.

I am a great fan of Nora Roberts and really looked forward to this book.  Believe me, it is not one of her best.

I started off admiring her setting and characterization of the Hale family, but, then, this went on way too long.  It also took way too long to get to the real story. The middle of the book bogged down to the point that I had to make myself keep reading, which is very unusual for Nora Roberts.

Much of the plot was over the top unbelievable.  How many boyfriends of one person can be killed?  The 20 year mystic connection with Bo doesn't quite come off, either.

I'll certainly remain a great fan of Roberts, but no one's perfect, I guess.




</review>
<review>

Great story!!  Excellent in fact.  My beef is with the narrator and editor:

As someone who grew up in the Baltimore area, I thoroughly enjoyed the local references.  However, it is frustrating to hear the narrator mispronounce Baltimore icons, like Boog's BBQ at Camden Yards.  For the record, it is NOT pronounced Bow-g!  It is Boo-g... Do better research!!

</review>
<review>

The loving Italian family, smart and capable protagonist Reena Hale, compassionate and good-looking boyfriend, and sex "off the charts" in Blue Smoke will satisfy loyal Roberts fans.  However, if readers are looking for the afternoon delight kind story sometimes associated with Roberts, this book is not for you.  Blue Smoke is harsh.  Sadistic rape, murder, and a truly evil sociopathic character may put unsuspecting readers right off.  But after reading Blue Smoke, I have even more respect for Ms. Roberts as she shows her ability to work in yet another genre.  Except for some minor logistical problems associated with a handgun during the story's denouement, Blue Smoke works.  It shows that talented writer Nora Roberts can play with the big girls of this genre (Reichs, Gerristen, Slaughter, early Cornwell, et al). I hope Ms. Roberts keeps Reena Hale on hand for a few more adventures. Good job, NR

</review>
<review>

Perhaps the most amazing thing about this book is the reaction to it by various readers.  Those who detested it said it was because of the violence.  Those who like it apparently liked it because it was by Nora Roberts.

There are the usual Nora Roberts fixtures here:  a beautiful, independent, tough heroine; R-rated sex scenes; handsome and talented lovers; flowers, etc.  It has been touted by some as a mystery of sorts, but there's nothing very mysterious about it.  Anyone who doesn't know who the arsonist is after the first fire hasn't paid much attention.  In fact, I kept wanting to tell Reena to wake up and go get him.

Perhaps the biggest departure from Ms. Roberts' previous books (for me, at least) is the rather humdrum atmosphere.  Ambience is the writer's strongest suit in other works--Alaska in winter, an island off Boston, Chesapeake Bay, Ireland, Louisiana etc.  Old Baltimore neighborhoods and a pizza shop aren't quite the same.

Still, the writing is mostly good and I kept reading.  A second-rate Nora Roberts book is still more interesting than most other novels being published today

</review>
<review>

This book was so different from the usual NR story.  The burn scenes were too graphic and the rape scene was too graphic.  If you want romance, skip this.  It also seemed to take forever to get the book set up

</review>
<review>

I have been reading romance stories for the last three years, and just as I was getting tired of them, Nora comes with something different!  It was an entertaining book to read.  I particularly liked the timeline that she did following the main characters through years to develop the story line.  It was also exciting to watch the two romantic heroes to "narrowly" miss each other over the years and to see them finally met.

In this book, there is more dynamic plot than in some other Nora's books.  If you read "Black Rose" you would know what I mean.  It seems that sometimes Nora has pages and pages of the pretty much the same "stuff" and it feels like she is just trying to fill the pages to get the book to the publisher.  Not in this one.  Sure, there are some repetitions, such as you get to read about the family being established in the community, being close, loud and helpful to each other.  But it does not get to the point that you see the same sentences over and over again.  And in my experience, some of her books do get that.

I'm glad this book was published in summer, because it made for a perfect book to read on vacation.  And once again, she did not dissapoint with a slightly different style than her other books.  Well done

</review>
<review>

If you like books on influence that have a strong academic foundation and plenty of real world examples, you'll like this one. And I loved reading it.

Just before starting to write this review, I saw something that illustrates how each of us often sees certain things differently. Another reviewer believed the book's example of a car dealer's sales process lacks the details a reader needs to design a sales process. That example is precisely the one I'd decided to mention to you.

Levine uses ten pages to detail this nine-step process. It's a terrific, practical example of getting the customer to make a series of small commitments that greatly increase the likelihood of a sale. You'll get enough info about each step and the overall process to adapt to your sales system to the extent you want. Most of us will choose to borrow parts of this and other processes you read about. One reason is that this particular process included unsavory steps.

Sure, it will take some work and thinking on your part to improve your sales process. That's part of customizing sales systems so they work best for you.

Interestingly, the book gives the real name (Mike Gasio of Fresno, CA) of the super-slick salesman...and notes that he left the auto sales business and became a teacher and counselor for at-risk young people. Mike now uses the same process of gradually increasing commitments to help these troubled youngsters make healthy changes in their lives. What a great story. And illustration of how we can effectively adapt persuasion tools to create either sleazy or healthy results. Once we have the information...the choice is ours.

One of my favorite books on persuasion.


</review>
<review>

A very intersting introduction to the psychology of persuation, how everything from car salesman, education, religion, through to cults manipulate their victims. The book has certainly made me curious to find out more about the subject and I intend to read guidebooks on how to apply these principles in everyday life.

In other words this is an intro to the psychology, but not a guide on how to apply it. For example the book talks in general terms about the process that car dealerships design for persuading a customer to commit to a sale, but gives not enough detail to how to design such a sales process

</review>
<review>

Easy to read. Lots of new material. Doesn't have a sales focus but is still a must for every salesperson.

An academic who doesn't try and impress you with who he is. This is a fine book. Along with Hogan's The Psychology of Persuasion, this is one of the best.

D

</review>
<review>

This should be a book that every consumer should read. What I find very interesting was that many of the techniques employed by sales people or con artist that was used on me was discribed step by step in this book. Though I didn't fall for them back then, it was eye opening to see 'their' textbook on persuading you.

Most of the information and studies in this book are quite old. But nonetheless it is still revelant today. This most fascinating part for me was how retail stores and supermarkets showcases their merchandise. Or how simply by putting a more expensive item next to the cheaper item will generate more sales on the cheaper item. Sounds simple, but it isn't, that is why companies spend so much money on marketing and research.

More rational people will generally not fall for tricks illustrated in this book. But unfortunately, these tricks do work because there are enough irrational people out there that are susceptible to them.


</review>
<review>

The first chapter is this book made me sweat. I thought I would read this book to continue my study in persuasion just to make me a better marketer, that I was in fact immune against most persuasion. Not so, says the author. His opening chapter about the illusion of invulnerability, shook me. It made me realize I'm just as easily swayed by ads and marketing as the next person. And so are you. This book is a great warning, a powerful education, and a great research tool. I'll use it to improve the marketing I create, but I'll also remember it the next time someone trys to market anything to me. Great book. Get it. Read it. Use it. - Joe Vitale, author of way too many books to list here ...

</review>
<review>

A quick, efficient reference with the most commonly used words for students on the go

</review>
<review>

A good quick reference book, but I will say that some words are not listed.  It is focused for 2nd - 5th grade in my opinion.  A handy addition for a home reference library

</review>
<review>

I use this book in my classroom.  It helps my students come up with better ways of saying and writing things.  It is quicker for them to look through than a thesaurus.  It helps ESL students widen their vocabulary easily.  It also helps me when I work on papers while getting my Master's degree.  It is a great aid

</review>
<review>

I was a bookseller and this was one of the most eagerly sought after children's books of its time. And now that I have my own little 'Alexander' I am thrilled that it's still not only available, but doing so well.

It's never too early to learn that you can have a bad day! And Alexander's bad day (comprising of no prize in his cereal, friend trouble, teacher trouble, a cavity, new sneakers in the WRONG COLOR and HE CAN'T FIND HIS YO-YO! And I won't even mention what happens in his dad's workplace!) can happen to anyone.

Happy reading! Your little ones will root for Alexander (and want to know where Australia is!

</review>
<review>

I can recite most of it from memory, I love it so!  I tell people about it all the time and recommend it (along with Alexander Who Used To Be Rich Last Sunday) as a staple in every library.  It's a great one to have even if you don't have kids (sometimes the little buggers show up for visits!) This book does a hilarious job of pointing out to kids that some days just stink and that you live through them anyway.  The illustations have some great humor for the adults.  Read it aloud to someone you love! Aura Mae, Author of Get Some Hairapy - a hairdresser's prescription for happiness

</review>
<review>

This book is an interesting read! It helps make you see that once in a while you may have a bad day. But this gives a good example that if you're having a bad day and just think tomorrow will be a better day. Children can laugh along and enjoy this book of Alexandrer's Bad Day.

Cynthia Marie Rizzo, author of "Julie and the Unicorn" and "Angela and the Princess

</review>
<review>

I grew up with this book and today, at the age of 22, I was cheered up with just the thought of it while having my own horrible, terrible, no good, very bad day.

Lets just say that this is a book that stays with you.  Even in Austrailia

</review>
<review>

My children grew up with this book and loved it. Now I've bought it for my [...] grandchild. It's a timeless, gentle, wonderful little story about how sometimes life just isn't what we want it to be

</review>
<review>

My daughter, who is 3, just loved this book. She likes to hear about how Alexander wants to go to Australia.

</review>
<review>

This is a book that every child should read.  My son thought it was very funny, and we enjoyed it a lot

</review>
<review>

Kids can certainly relate to all the bad things that happen to Alexander and they understand the importance of each. From getting gum in his hair to a cavity to not even getting the pair of tennis shoes he really wanted, children can commiserate with his woes from their own experiences. This book is a great reminder that even though as an adult we may think it isn't a big deal, to a kid it's a major bummer. (And of course, tomorrow is another day, so things may not be so bad afterall.

</review>
<review>

Book #9 in the In Death Series.
This is one of my favorite books in the series. In this book while Eve and Peabody are investigating the murders and organ thefts of victims, they come across a cop with an attitude.  After Eve gives this officer a dressing down on record, the officer writes a complaint.  WHen that officer turns up brutally murdered, Eve is asked to give up her badge while the investigation is underway.
You have a very dynamic story line.  While Eve's inner circle support her she still struggles with what life would be like if she can't be a cop.  There are some very emotional and heartbreaking scenes.  Also a very funny one when Roark gives her some ideas for alternate "jobs".  An excellent book and you wont want to put it down!
We meet Troy Trueheart in this book and some secondary characters really shine

</review>
<review>

Generally, I love the "in death" series, because of Eve and Roarke. I liked this book, but I thought it was so sad when Eve was suspended from duty and had to turn her weapon and badge. But she did not give up. She is a strong woman and I love strong women, because they show real women that they can be just as strong, yet vulnerable

</review>
<review>

In this series, each story is as interesting as the last.  Eve and Roarke's relationship progressively develops but they still maintain their individuality which is quite humorous at times and never boring.  What really made this story of conspiracy in the medical/political world of hotshots work for me is the supporting cast of characters - Roarke, Feeney, Peabody, McNabb, Louise, Mira, Mavis, Whitney, Tibble - they all work together to make Eve Dallas a believable and heartwarming heroine and achieve the effect of a fascinating supporting cast to the storyline.  The mystery involved in this story is based on a shady character with superior surgical skills playing God with people's lives, including Eve's!
I particularly found Feeney's father figure role interesting and would love to see that developed further in future storylines.
Thank you, Nora, for the great stories; you never seem to run out of ideas.  Keep up the great work!  I am waiting for a movie (or TV series) to come out based on Eve Dallas and company.

</review>
<review>

I was wrong. Ok, I've admitted it. I always thought science fiction or futuristic type novels weren't my cup of tea. While reading Conspiracy in Death I realized I couldn't have been more wrong - I love this futuristic series!

A homeless man is murdered and the case is assigned to Eve Dallas, since it's not a random act of violence. This man, Snooks, died when his heart was surgically removed by what appeared to be a very skilled surgeon. When Dallas digs a bit further, she discovers that this crime is connected to another committed in New York City where an aged LC (licensed companion) died as the result of her liver being removed. After even more digging, Dallas discovers a case in Chicago and one abroad that were all similar.

These were not the result of black market organ sales since all of the victims were within a few months of dying. In order for Eve Dallas to find the murderer she had to figure out why these victims were chosen. The closer she got to that answer, the more nervous very influential politicians and doctors became.

When she got too close to the truth, the villain had to put a stop to her investigation. The best way to get Dallas off the case was to have her suspended from the police department. This was a simple procedure since there was a conflict between the patrol officer who discovered Snook's body and Dallas. When that patrolwoman was brutally murdered suspicion fell on Dallas. Stripped of her badge and weapon, the very items that have been the heart and sole of her during her adult life, she has to deal with not only the idea of not being a police detective, but also with trying to solve this crime having her hands tied.

The main plot was interesting but the villain was predictable and no surprise. There was excellent character development and as usual J.D. Robb (AKA Nora Roberts) draws the reader into the suspense to the point of not being able to put down the book. What makes this book above average and falling into the excellent range is the fantastic subplot of Eve Dallas being stripped of her identity as a policewoman and how she must deal with the various facets of that. At times, it was more intense and more exciting that the main plot.

This is definitely one to read, as all of the "In Death" series books have been. Start with the first book when reading because J.D. Robb always has a couple of instances where she reflects on previous happenings. Or you can start with the first book just because it's the beginning of an excellent adventure!

</review>
<review>

This is one of my favorite series because it blends two of the genres I like most, fantasy / sci-fi and mystery. Nevertheless, I have found that in a couple of cases I feel that one of the books in the series is missing something. In this one the storyline was not particularly interesting to me, and I think that J.D. Robb did not progress as far as she could with the development of the different characters.

Lieutenant Eve Dallas is summoned to a very unusual scene: a homeless man was murdered and his heart was removed with surgical precision. The killers, because the medical examiner determines it has to be more than one, used high quality tools and have to be experts in the surgical field. This creates a real problem for Eve, because it is hard to figure out a motive. Man-made organs are fully perfected and even though rich people prefer human organs, these have to be in prime condition and, needless to say, the ones from the victim weren't.

Besides having to deal with finding the killers, Eve is faced with an uncooperative and outright confrontational female officer that will take part of Eve's energy away from the case and drive her close to desperation and doom. Also, when her investigation leads her to the Drake Center of Medicine, Eve realizes that she is very close to two of the members of the board: Dr. Charlotte Mira, her psychologist, and Roarke, her billionaire husband.

J.D. Robb has a very special way of presenting what I interpret as her vision of a better future through some of the features of the world in which the series develops in the year 2059. For example, firearms are banned, there are licensed companions who can carry their business in privacy without getting in trouble with the law, and the Drake Center is named after the man who discovered the anticancer vaccine.

As I mentioned, this is not one of the best books in the series, and it made me feel as if Robb was in some kind of schedule to release another novel for a certain date and had to go with the first idea that came to her mind. Maybe my slight disappointment is partly my fault, because I have been expecting five-star books in every time I start an Eve Dallas' mystery. This one falls a little short of the mark; but there is no way around it, those who have been following the series have to read it and hope that the next novel will get better.

</review>
<review>

My wife got me hooked on this series and I have read it beginning with the first book, Naked In Death. Some I enjoyed more that others, however, Conspiracy in Death is the best one yet!  When Eve is faced with not only a complex case of someone who is using great medical skill to kill for no apparent reason, but also with accusations of abuse from another cop, the intensity level keeps rising

</review>
<review>

This is another chapter in the continuing story of Lieutenant Eve Dallas and her husband, Roarke-along with the cast of supporting characters: Feeney, Peabody, McNab, Dr. Mira, Mavis, Nadine, Summerset, et al-in the year 2059.

Eve and Peabody are called to the grisly murder scene of a sidewalk sleeper. Someone had stolen the corpse's heart. When the two arrive on the scene, not only do they have to confront the body, but officer Ellen Bowers, who has it in for Eve.

As Eve and Peabody begin working the murder other homeless dropouts are found dead, with various organs sliced out by a first class surgeon. But organ-legging has been obsolete for decades, because of cheaper, better, artificial replacements. So the crimes don't seem to make any sense. As Eve worries about this, Bowers weaves her web to destroy her. An internal investigation based on Bowers' complaints ends with Eve's suspension. Gone is her shield, her identity.

Ms. Robb may have gone a little more scifi this time, with the discussions of future medical procedures and advanced artificial organs and all, but she's still given her readers a story that will keep them burning the midnight oil. Also, it was nice that we get to see Eve rely on the help of her husband and her friends, rather than to try and take on all her burdens herself. It made her appear more human, more identifiable

</review>
<review>

I've read all the "In Death" books published so far and I have to say that "Conspiracy in Death" is my favorite.  I cried when Dallas lost her badge (temporarily, thank goodness.)  It was so heart-breaking. Can't wait for "Imitation in Death" to be published!  The stories get better and better!!  Yahoo JD Robb (aka Nora Roberts)!

</review>
<review>

I bought this book after examining its beautiful pages various times at the bookstore.  Last night I cooked from it for the first time.  It was a lot of effort, but it did pay off.  Last night I made the Deviled Chicken Thighs.  My work began Sunday with four trips to different stores to assemble the various necessary ingredients.  Yep, two supermarkets, the liquor store, and a bodega (I live in Jersey City, just outside Manhattan).  Then the next day was the cooking.  Altogether it took me about four hours for that part of the task.  Honestly, halfway through I seriously considered giving up.  But I persevered, the author's directions are very precise and very clear, so I just concentrated on completing each step.  When I was done, my kitchen smelled wonderful (between peals of the smoke alarm set off by the cooking of chicken in oil) and I had a beautiful and delicious meal to serve.  So, my thoughts are this . . . don't pick this book if you expect a quick and easy meal to toss onto the table.  This is serious cooking and it takes a lot of work and dedication to get through it.  But, wow, when you are done, you feel like you've climbed a mountain, and you have this wonderful meal to show for your efforts.  Also--now that I have been through the entire recipe, I bet I can do it again, with much less effort and pull it off again more easily.  Meaning -- I learned some things about cooking while working my way through it.  Not something you can say about a lot of cookbooks.  I'm going to put this book aside for a month or so, and then carefully pick a recipe and do it all again.  I recommend this book heartily to someone who is interested in cooking and most of all LEARNING

</review>
<review>

I really like this book. I has it all!!--beautiful to look at, fun to read, and very inspiring. It is set up nicely too, by season, so you will use the freshest ingredients. For me, having the menus laid out is very helpful. We will have some fabulous meals from this book

</review>
<review>

This is a gorgeous book and the recipes are simple, quirky, thoughtful and elegant.  It's perfect for someone who doesn't have hours so spend in the kitchen, but is looking for something new.  It is organized around the seasons, and the emphasis is on market-fresh ingredients.

Some of the recipes are preceded by a little commentary explaining where they came from and their relationship to the restaurant. Knowing that I am making a dessert Suzanne Goin has made since childhood - or a salad that was devised for a special occasion makes the process more interesting for me.  I love that she included "70s mom's chocolate bundt cake."  We children of the 70s can relate!

This is also the kind of book that can inspire you to use a new method or riff on a recipe, even if you don't have all the ingredients pictured.  The flavors are indulgent, but not over the top, and the recipes are interesting but not too complicated.

That being said, I've found some of the instructions to be imperfect.  Some of the techniques are a little fussy, and some directions a little vague, but if you already know how to cook and you are interested in putting some new flavors together, I think you will really enjoy this book.


</review>
<review>

This book is by far one of the best cookbooks I have. While many of the better recipes in the book require a good deal of planning, the reward is well worth the effort!

</review>
<review>

This book is beautiful, full of great and fantastic recipes - and most of all encouraging -- Ms. Goin tells us that we can do it - don't be intimidated...so I made the ricotta gnocchi, several of the pork and chicken dishes - outstanding!  Buy this book

</review>
<review>

This cookbook is simply devine.  Suzanne is right on the tip of what American cooking should be about right now. Her food is modern without being pretentious. I love her little comments and tips before each recipe.  I can't wait to try some of the recipes.

</review>
<review>

Sunday Suppers At Lucques: Seasonal Recipes From Market To Table provides an outstanding set of recipes from a Los Angeles restaurateur whose cooking has won her accolades since 1998. Here are over a hundred of her recipes, arranged into three-course menus organized by season. Lest you worry they are geared for professionals or restaurant owners - they've been edited for home use and are divided into step-by-step preparation tips for quick and easy reproduction, and paired with color photos to encourage polished results. Be ready to use some exotic ingredients, though: Chilled Red Pepper Soup with Sumac, Basil and Lemon Yogurt and Spiced Pork Stew with Polenta, Root Vegetables and Gremolata provides plenty of flavor and require access to fennel, sumac and other spices and vegetables peculiar to more urban markets.

</review>
<review>

I haven't had much success with cookbooks from celebrity chefs-either they're overly complicated, with pages of ingredients, or they're the 'food network' type of cookbook (where one wonders who really came up with the recipes, the author, or a team of testers)?

So I purchased this cookbook primarily because the recipes themselves really intrigued me.  They seemed simple, yet unique at the same time.

The recipes are time consuming, definately. But once you make a dish once, you can easily streamline the directions yourself, cutting out unnecessary steps.  I tend to cut back on marinating and salting time, for example, and haven't had any negative effects.

Because the dishes take time, I've found I've been happiest when the end result has been unique enough to be worth the effort.  The Devil's chicken thighs, for example, were delicious, and different enough from any other chicken dish I've made that I happy to have spent the time it took to make. Same goes for the halibut with roasted beets, and the torchio with cavolo nero, both of which I made on a weeknight after work.

I was also impressed by the attention to detail.  Every recipe is designed for a group of 6--something so small, yet I find it so frustrating when a cookbook has quantities all over the map. The directions are extremely clear and concise, and I really appreciate the notes on prepping ahead.  A home cook with a decent level of experience will have no problem.  And the ingredient overviews at the beginning of each chapter are a perfect introduction to the seasonal menus.

A outstanding book that I love to cook from.  I can't wait for the next one!



</review>
<review>

I haven't gotten excited by a cookbook in years but Sunday Suppers was just the thing to get me back to the kitchen cooking new dishes. I love her sense of food and  her unpretentious writing. Also, her focus on local foods from farmers and her simple ways to prepare them -- never too much nor too little. Thank you Suzanne, for a great book.

Will have to say I am amazed at a couple of the pretentious reviews here. I mean really, start your own blog already and stick to the subject. Per favore

</review>
<review>

This book is a wonderful account of life in the attic as told by Anne Frank. I read the book in high school and then recently read it after my husband and I visited the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. It was so interesting to read the book after having visited the real. I would almost recommend reading it before and after visiting the site

</review>
<review>

I have just finished the Diary Of a Young Girl and i have the strong feeling that i was moved back in time, as if it was 1944.
The diary is incredible, almost hard to belive that if was written by a 13 old gilr. If olny she'd had a chance to live- she would have been an amazing writer.
The book is written so clearly that you are able to imagine, almost touch everytching that's inside the secret annex.
you'll have a feeling that you are one of those 8 people who were living there for 2 years.
I really recomend this book for those who emphatise with the holocaust victims and also for those who don't know much about the hard times the Jews had to go through. Hard to belive...

</review>
<review>

The diary of a young girl is an inspiring story where I learned about some circumstances and events in the time of World War 2;
but this story is really about the meaning of life from a teenager's point of view.She writes events and stuff that she thinks while she is hidding with her family for more than 2 years.When she says in her diary that she wants to keep living, her diary then ends, and she was found and was set to a concentration camp and died.

</review>
<review>

A year ago, I was forced to read this book by my english teacher... At first, looking at the cover, (it was red with a picture of a girl) I had an impression that i would not enjoy reading it...

After a couple of days, i was surprised to see myself bringing the book everywhere I go... During break times, lunch, and spend 2 full hours reading it at home...

Reading this diary, made me picture how Anne had her teenage life.. It was really different from mine. Nothing beats how a 13 year old girl manage to live a life like a prisoner in the attic. No other friends to talk too... Same people she sees every single day... In a small place called the "Secret Annexe".

Can you imagine that that kind of life? That you have no idea if you can eat or not, if you should talk or remain silent for the whole day... or if you can still get out of that Annex and live a normal life again... Can you imagine??? But still, they remained hopeful until the last air they breathe...

For me, those people are the real heroes. They never gave up. They sacrificed and united. And best of all, their faith in God reamined strong.

This book influenced millions and millions of people from all over the world. This is a real story of a real world... And the fact that this happens too to so many people. Sometimes we ask, "Why do we need to repeat History?"

Read this book and you'll realize that this is different, worth it and remarkable...

</review>
<review>

This was such a well written book, that you would think an adult wrote. To know that a young lady wrote this was truly an inspiration for all those young people with writing dreams such as Anne's. Anne and her family went through such a hard two years and still remained hopeful and positive. This book really gives a great picture of what the Jewish community went through, all the unjust moves against them. It made me gain more respect for ALL religions and races. This book makes you wish that more help was sent to these people. We can never understand all the hardships The Franks went through, but we can help those going through similar persecution.

</review>
<review>

It was very interesting and exciting to delve into the life of a family hiding from the Nazis during WWII. I highly recommend this book and I hope I can one day go see the Anne Frank museum where the family lived during this time

</review>
<review>

Zero coupon bonds are the bonds spoken of in the book's title. Zero coupon bonds do well in falling interest rate and stable, low interest rate investing environments as we had 90% of the time from 1982 to 2004. Now is NOT the time to use this book's advice, wait until interest rates fall again (2010??).
but it is true, by not owning any stocks O'Higgins outperformed the greatest -and longest- bull market in history

</review>
<review>

Having read many books on various financial subjects, this one is on my list as one of the top 10 wastes of time.  In fact I am only writting this to hopefully save you time!  Warning! When the reviews are from annonymous 'a reader' be suspicious

</review>
<review>

I agree with much of what has already been said as far as the amount of filler and the editorial glitches.  And can anyone figure out the last chart -- table 11.1?  These numbers make no sense and don't even correspond with the info on table 9.1.  I began the book with some excitement but ended up feeling very uncertain about the method

</review>
<review>

I bought this book because I wanted to learn more about investment products OTHER than common stocks. Instead, (in the book on tape), I got 5-10 minutes about the different types of bonds, a little detail about T-bills, and the frank admission that this book  and quot;doesn't really discuss corporate bonds and quot;. WHAT!? The whole rest of it is spent preparing you to run for cover for the upcoming crash of 2000 - for that, I must say he was prescient (Too bad I didn't read this in 1999!). More time is spent describing the basics of common stocks, and how the major industrial averages are calculated than is spent on bonds! Oh - and that WRONG formula for computing the price/sales ratio erroniously also made it onto the cassette version. I actually had to rewind the tape to see if I had heard correctly

</review>
<review>

The method of BTDWB is good, but the book is VERY POOR!!! There is serious mistake in the method described. Dont forget to go to Corrections to  and quot;17 Simple Steps to Super Returns and quot; for a further reading. (You can find it in Amazon website----Editorial Reviews) But the correction is still containing mistake.  Please note the Gold Price of the example in Corrections to  and quot;17 Simple Steps to Super Returns and quot;!

</review>
<review>

Although there are some holes, they do not ruin the basic info provided. I think that in trying to keep it simple, O'higgins might have made it too simple. In the end he shows that this is a strategy that doesnt take alot of complicated research to use and that is the true beauty. It is especially relevant in todays stock market

</review>
<review>

I really liked this book.  The author gives you information the media ignore.  He even tells you what the media are really like.  Best of all, the information put forth in the book is right from Scripture.  A must-read for all who want to know the truth

</review>
<review>


As witnessed on his television program, Mr. Levitt was a master armchair raconteur, (he went to be with the Lord April 19), and more so when sifting through end time puzzles.

"Dateline Jerusalem," therefore supplies the reader a delightful read, especially those akin to Mr. Levitt's theological leanings, though one reviewer has already noted agreeing with Zola greatly while still disagreeing with his most important conclusion, that Jesus is Ha Maschiach.

Perhaps the greatest test of a work is it's staying power, and this work shall be enjoyable however long the Lord should tarry before entering the author's dateline city.

Importantly, positions are firmed in regards to many of the major issues of the day including insights into his testimony, the Jews, the Muslims to name just the first few chapter headings.

An essayist of the first order in an age when that rank is sadly thinning, Mr. Levitt's exit still leaves his projection of wisdom and courage yet needed for this hour.

TL Farley,
author,
When Now Becomes Too Late



</review>
<review>

From keen insights into media bias, to refreshing keys to Israel's proper role in world affairs, Dateline Jerusalem is packed with hard-hitting analysis plus new and startling information. What is the Palestinian agenda? Will Israel survive in today's hostile climate? Can America win the war on terror? What End Times events are just around the corner? After giving his testimony in the first chapter, Zola devotes chapters to the Jews, Muslims, Palestinians, the government, media, education, churches, End Times and, finally, questions and answers. Brilliant book - highly recommend it!

</review>
<review>

I'm a Polytheist.  And the author is a Christian who converted from Judaism.  Those are both monotheistic religions (to me, they are both atheistic religions, given that there isn't any difference to me between believing in one God or zero).  So why did I read this book?  Because the author and I are both Zionists!  And I want to see what he has to say.

The first point that Levitt makes is that the Arabs and Jews in the Middle East would all do well if they were to cooperate.  I agree.  They would.

Now, is the land Arab or Jewish?  I'd advise taking note of the fact that when the Levant has been heavily populated, the majority has been Jewish.  Levitt says the land was given to the Jews by God.  I do not accept that.  But I accept the fact that this statement is taken seriously by many Jews!  And that means I can understand why Jerusalem has been the Jewish capital, and why many Jews have shown great interest in the region.  Levitt continues by saying that Jews have lived in the Levant for 3500 years, well before there were any Muslims anywhere.  That's true, but it still is ancient history.  He also says that the archaeology of the land is Jewish (all but one Levantine city existed in times when the Jews ruled).  And, most important, the Jews won their war for survival in 1967 (and in 1948, I would add).

Now, what about the Muslims?  Are they trying to take over America?  As a descendant of Muslims, whose side would I be on if they tried it?  Well, I'm not too happy about Islamic intolerance and its treatment of women.  So it all comes down to whether we non-Muslims are already in a fight, or if we're the ones who are starting a fight.

After 9/11, my guess is that we're already in a fight with at least some Muslims.  Levitt agrees, and he gives the incident of the fight over Notre Dame University's attempt to hire Tariq Ramadan as an example.

What about the Levantine Arabs?  Are they a famous and ancient people, a nation from eons ago that merely wishes to have a State?  Or are they simply people who are trying to attack the Middle East's Jews?  I think the latter is the case, and Levitt agrees.  It seems that Levitt is making quite a few good points!

What does the author say about Hanan Ashrawi?  Well, let's just say that he seems to agree with me about her as well.  And Levitt has some useful things to say about media anti-Israeli bias.  As well as some problems academia has been having in teaching about Israel.

I'm not all that interested in the religious aspects of this book.  However, I can't ignore the fact that many Christians have taken sides.  Some favor the Muslims, even to the extent of supporting anti-Christian terror.  Some favor the Jews.  And the author has some ideas about which group is making more sense.

I think there is plenty that can be learned from Levitt's book.  Unfortunately, many of the people who might benefit from it the most are unlikely to have much interest in reading it, let alone in taking anything in it seriously.






</review>
<review>

This is an important book for women who choose to work from home or who decide to start a home-based business. A big, big minus to working from home is the sense of isolation and lack of daily networking opportunities. It is critically important to maintain visibility, and that takes a concerted effort! Publicity must be part of the strategy for success - and it especially important for home-based businesses. I'm not talking about advertising; I'm talking about community visibility - personal publicity that lets potential customers and clients know who you are, what you do, and why they should buy from you or work with you. The women in this book are a good example of how even a small amount of the right publicity can produce a big, big payoff. Certainly all home-based operations will not hit the one million mark. But that's not a bad goal to keep in mind! (Reviewed by Marion E. Gold - author of the  and quot;Personal Publicity Planner: A Guide to Marketing YOU and quot; and  and quot;TOP COPS: Profiles of Women in Command

</review>
<review>

In Millionaire Women: Success Secrets Of Sixteen Who Made It From Home, marketing professional and lecturer Jeanne Torrence Hauer draws upon her more than twenty years of experience to create a primer for financial success, enhanced with the careers of women who achieved millionaire status in the male-dominated business world. Written specifically for women who aspire to become millionaires in their own right, Millionaire Women combines brief biographies with savvy strategies and sound advice for making a business grow into a major operation. Millionaire Women is enthusiastically recommended as an upbeat, go-getter guide which is packed from cover to cover with examples and advice applicable to women seeking to make their mark in the highly competitive marketplace, be it local, regional, national, or international

</review>
<review>

Jeanne Torrence Hauer really put together quite an inspirational book.  Each of her sixteen subjects were unique in their own experiences.  She presents them in such a way that I did not want to put the book down.  This is a must read for anyone who is looking to change the path their life is taking or would just like to be entertained by the successes of others.  This book would make a good gift

</review>
<review>

I was really moved by this book.  I felt the lose of a love in a family and the total destruction of a marriage and what "could have been" slowly slipping away from two people who had loved one another and they watched as the grew so far apart.

I felt for the children who saw this tragedy take place right before their eyes.  Both parents literally destroyed.

What I still question is why did she ever go into the parking lot in the first place.  I honestly believe he only was determined to end his own life and she stepped into the car to stop him and was hit by a bullet herself.

I a waste of two young parents and two lost children.

Great coverage and presented clearly.

Thanks

</review>
<review>

Most Cops are Criminals
I really liked this book.  There needs to be more books like this because most cops are actually outlaws.

I have long said that direct action needs to be taken against corrupt cops including all options.  If we don't fight back at least read more books like this one.

</review>
<review>

Browsing the bookstore's true-crime section last month in search of a page-turner I hadn't already read, I spied an unfamiliar jacket: Paul LaRosa's TACOMA CONFIDENTIAL.  The synopsis was riveting.  I only hoped the reading would be half as good as the compelling details promised.

It was.  But an even bigger surprise unfolded as I progressed through the first chapter.  LaRosa can write.  Where has this guy been hiding?  All throughout, I was keenly aware of his sensitivity to the overall politics involved. And you can be sure that, where the chief of police murders his wife, political intrigue seethes through every line.  Yet LaRosa never milks it, or takes liberties or cheap shots where plenty of opportunities abound for same.  Quite the contrary, what the author DOESN'T say, divulge or speculate but only hints at, speaks a lot louder.  Understatement, I maintain, is extremely sexy in an author.  Who can resist a subtext which says: you're an intelligent reader, connect the dots yourself.

The problem with finishing a book at 3:00 a.m. is you can't talk about it with anyone.  The best I could do was recommend Tacoma Confidential to my bookworm friends and urge them to read it - fast.  I needed meaningful discourse. There's nothing so delicious as getting into the details of a book with other readers and discovering how totally different they may understand or explain them.

I appreciated LaRosa's inclusion of an interesting and extremely plausible alternate theory of the murderous event toward the end of his story.  It's an incredibly generous debunking of the purported nefarious motives ascribed to both of the main players.  The theory not only sets the conditions for healing, it provokes an entire reinterpretation of the facts.  Good stuff, Paul.

My recommendation:  Read this book.  It's satisfying on many levels.  A good story, interesting facts, absorbing characters.  Suspenseful for sure.  And if good writing turns you on, well, that's an extra bonus.

Therese Hercher

</review>
<review>

The detailed research has resulted in a wonderful narrative which makes a great read. The sad story of these star crossed partners is
very detailed and worth the price of the book.

</review>
<review>

David Brame was a chief of police who committed at least one rape of a woman other than his wife--whom he raped repeatedly---and terrorized certain members of his department, mostly the women.  He harassed and tormented his wife.

This book could benefit from a little feminist perspective. In fact, it's not that shocking to find some cops are wife-beaters; it's a macho culture.  Nor is it shocking to find a chief of police beating his wife----to whom, after all, would she report him? His own department?

</review>
<review>

Paul LaRosa did such an extensive investigation it was as if he was there himself watching this brutal marriage and the lives and death of David Brame and his wife Chrystal. You can't put this book down for minute. So  much research in the details of this horrible crime,from the family to David's Co workers to everyone around the both of them.  Paul Larosa is an incredible author and can't wait to read his next book. This book is a must read

</review>
<review>

LaRosa has done an excellent job of presenting the facts of this tragic case in concise, easy-to-read detail.  I grew up in Tacoma and one of my closest childhood friends was one of the first Gig Harbor police officers on the scene.  LaRosa's account of the events leading up to Crystal Brame's murder and David Brame's suicide meshed completely with what was going on behind the scenes that only the police knew about at the time.  Tackling the issue of spousal abuse is never easy; it's even more difficult when one of the parties involved is in a high-profile position of power. What could have easily been a cumbersome, he-said/she-said book became a solid true crime story through LaRosa's obviously well-researched words.  The area, the people and the aftermath were vividly portrayed.  I highly recommend this book

</review>
<review>

I had never heard about this case so I didn't know what to expect when I started the book.  It immediately had a "you are there" ring to it because of the easy flow and the details and descriptions.  It read like a novel.  This is such a sad story, especially for the children.  How sick does a man have to be before somebody notices and does something about it?  Do these psychopathic men really hide their evil so well?  I can think of Scott Peterson, of course, and Laurie Hacking's husband, as well as others -- and David Brame fits right in with them.  Nobody notices the sickness in these men until it is all over and their wives are dead?  It is so sad.  In any case, this was a very well-written book and I am going to check to see if Paul LaRosa has written any others

</review>
<review>

Mr. LaRosa has done a very good job of laying out the information, in a balanced manner, concerning a tragic incident that had a very convoluted and contentious history.  He also rightly raises important questions that remain in the aftermath and deserve to be asked.  This book is well-written and its reading moves quickly

</review>
<review>

The Brame murder/suicide was big news in this area for a long time.  I didn't really expect to learn too much new from a book.  However, I did learn a lot.  The author has done extensive investigation into the circumstances of the marriage, separation and relationships of this couple.  The book was more balanced than I would have expected too.  In general, the story has been told with all the good on the side of Crystal and all the evil on the side of David.  This book told the other side too, in case the reader wants to make up his/her own mind.  The theory at the end about how the shootings occurred was interesting and made sense to me.  Well worth reading

</review>
<review>

This review refers to the Penguin Classics edition of Henry Mayhew's 'London Labour and the London Poor' which is an abridged version of the original four volume version published in 1851-52.

Though Henry Mayhew wrote several novels, his name is primarily remembered as the author/complier of this journalistic work 'London Labour and the London Poor.'  The present selection gives the best part of the original four volume book, which captures exactly what the title says -- London labour and the poverty-stricken people living there.

The selction includes some figures or statistics about the working class people, such as the estimated amount of money these workers gain every day (and meagre one), but the most interesting part is the first-hand records about the ways of life of various lines of works in London, directly taken from the people engaged in these works.

The jobs (and some of them  hardly deserve the name 'jobs') recorded here are, to name a few, street-sellers such as fried fish, watercresses, matches, baked potatoes, etc.; street-buyers such as old clothes or 'dust'; street-performers like 'conjurors,' musicians, or fire-eaters (with his own descriptions about how to eat fire), but the most fascinating is the records about boys (and some girls) who run away from parents, and lives in the street of London, who literally lives by begging or stealing.

Many interesting facts are recorded by Mayhew (or his assistants), directly from the persons the book deals with, and the original words spoken by there labourers are preserved as much as possible.  To read, or to listen to them is one of the greatest merits of the book, for the languages of the interviewees retain the peculiar speeches you find in many Dickensian characters, and in fact you will realize that Dickens didn't exaggerate when he created Sam Weller.

And the London you see here is the London Charles Dickens knew.  What did Jo in 'Bleak House' was sweeping in the street?  Who gave that permission?  What is the nature of 'the dust' you hear in 'Our Mutual Friend'?  What was the regulations of the 'workhouse'?  All these thing are answered in this vividly realized collections of the Victorian working class portraits.

This book is still a valuable source for anyone who is interested in Victorian period, and will be.  Buy one now.

</review>
<review>

Henry Mayhew, founder of Punch magazine, wrote this four-volume  sociological classic during the 1850's.  If you are at all interested in  the Victorian era, in British history, in London, or in urban history in  general, this is a must-read.  The Penguin version is abridged and is a  distillation of the  and quot;best and quot; of the multiple-volume set.  This  distillation is itself over 500 pages, so imagine the impact of the entire  set!  The utter destitution of the London poor is set out in such vivid  detail than one cannot help being shocked at the conditions human beings  were forced to live in in the greatest city of its time.  The only fault I  find with this book is Mayhew's occasional lapses into preaching.   Otherwise a fine boo

</review>
<review>

I really enjoyed this book and thought some of the theories were monumental. Maybe we are just a simulation right this moment, we do not know. Actually the vibration we are is a simulation from stillness, MAYBE?
This was over all a good and interesting read, some pieces were a little scientific for the layman but struggle through, its worth the read

</review>
<review>

Even though the book is controversial and presents ideas and theories that will appear far-fetched and unproven, it is still worth reading.

</review>
<review>

Imagine the entire cosmos conquered by nanotech self-replicating machines?  That's just one of the far-out ideas to chew on in this book.  Even if the whole theory doesn't hang together, a lot of the parts are extremely interesting.
Note: Readers without a background in science or engineering will find this tough going

</review>
<review>

while I appreciate what Tipler was attempting to accomplish, he fails miserabley both from a theological and a scientific perspective.  skip this one!

</review>
<review>

Tipler says that he used to be an unquestioning atheist, but his work in quantum cosmology has brought him to the conclusion that there is a physically justifiable theory of how "God" and "immortality after death" might make sense. I only skimmed the book, but I have to say that, as a physicist, I was surprised to find the quality of his arguments to be a lot better than I expected.

(Talk about having "proved" the existence of God is greatly overstated. It would be more accurate to say that, if certain physical conditions could be shown to hold, then the existence of something vaguely like God might be remotely plausible based on his arguments. But see the end of this review.)

The compressed version of the theory is... Tipler (as I do) subscribes to the "strong Artificial Intelligence" belief that if you translated the dynamics of what goes on in our brains into another medium (e.g., a futuristic computer), in a sense it wouldn't make any difference -- our "emulated" selves would be as conscious and real as we are. He outlines a scenario under which, in a closed universe, in the final moments of the universe, there could be an infinite amount of computing that occurs. So much in fact, that all the human lives that ever occurred (or ever could have occurred) could be emulated through infinite subjective time. The computing entities that exist at the end of the universe would get there via exponentially replicating intelligent machines that we (or conceivably another intelligent race) send out into the universe. Based on game theory and economic arguments, he makes it plausible that the intelligences at the end of the universe would be highly altruistic. And then based on quantum cosmology, he argues for bidirectional causality between here and the end of the universe (I haven't digested that argument).

Not exactly something most traditionally religious folks would recognize. But, as a theory of how "God" and physics could be merged, to my mind it's pretty brilliant. (Doesn't mean it's right.)

Note, however, that the book was written in the early 90's. Tipler provides some experimental tests one can do to assess whether or not we're in a universe where the conditions are right to make his scenario possible. One of the most important tests -- verification that we're in a closed universe -- has already been answered (we seem to be in a defiantly open universe) in a way that implies we are NOT in a universe where Tipler's scenario could hold true.

Still, very interesting reading

</review>
<review>

Tipler says many times "as I have proved".  Huh? What the f is he talking about?  There is no proof in this stinking pile of filth.  He's got an abundance of physics in the back of the book-I'd like to hear from a physicist if any of that crap makes any sense, but I don't think it should matter.  I am intelligent enough to understand basic physics concepts, and Tipler just doesn't make any sense.  His writing is so bad that anyone who reads this entire thing will have wasted a colossal ammount of time.  The more books you read, the sooner you know when to stop reading, put the book down, and read a work of fiction instead, which can play with such ideas without boring you to death

</review>
<review>

I ran across this book at a local library and it picqued my interest.  Tipler's theory of immortality, in a nutshell, is the following: 1) the planet earth...and all its living creatures are doomed as the sun will engulf the earth in ~1 billion years. 2) Man will make self-learning and self-replicating machines (can Windows XP do that?) that will colonize, over millions of years, our galaxay and, eventually, the entire universe. 3) These machines will be capable of individual thoughts, emotions, etc and are essentially "alive." 4) As the universe begins to collapse, the machines will be able to manipulate this collapse and prevent total destruction of the universe. 5) All the knowledge possessed by these machines will eventually coalesce into one "super being" at the center of the collapsing universe...this super being is the "omega point." 6) The omega point, via its "all knowledge of all things" will be able make emulations (exact duplicates) of all biospheres, including earth.  Within these emulations, individual humans (you and me!) will be emulated.  Thus we will again be "alive" as these "beings" in these emulations will be unable to tell if they're real or virtual....PRESTO...immortality for all.  The book (theory) reeks of circular logic and assumptions.  It's an interesting theory, but it's just that, an interesting theory by a theoretical physicist.  PS: Tipler denies the resurection of Christ and in  the last chapter admits to being an aetheist.  (I wonder if he's a God-fearing aetheist?

</review>
<review>

One of the top five, if not the most interesting book, I have ever read. If you are familar with any Omega point theories, this is another one, but Tipler attempts to incorporate more traditionaly Christian elements as opposed to Hegel or Spinoza-like view of reality. I am not a religious believer myself, but if you have even the slightest interest in how a traditional theology might be merged with science, this book is definitely worth your attention

</review>
<review>

When I recieved "The Essay's of Warren Buffett...", I have to admit I was disapointed. I could gather the essays from Mr. Buffet's Annual reports myself. However, the book's organization is where the value lays. The author has spliced together associated topics from various essays in a manner that makes it appear that they were part of one to begin with. What results is an invaluable source on Mr. Buffett's thinking on a broad range of subjects and how some of his positions have evolved over time. I was truly happy that I did not disregard what I initially percieved to be a poor purchase on my part. Enjoy

</review>
<review>

Short and sweet, this book is a collection of Warren Buffetts essays!  He one of the riches and most financially savy men in the world, he might not be 100% right 100% of the time, but he is damn close!

Amazing book, you will be glad you purchased it

</review>
<review>


These essays are collected from Berkshire's annual letter to shareholders, which are available for free on Berkshire Hathaway's website. The essays Lawrence Cunningham selected provide a good synopsis of Warren's investment philosophies and cut through to the point of some very important concepts. Both Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger are the clearest-minded, sharpest, to-the-point thinkers when it comes to investments and their openness in sharing their true beliefs is an unbelievable blessing for those wise enough to pay attention and study. I doubt there is any other billionaire who would share his innermost thoughts, beliefs and secrets to success in the fashion that Buffett does.

OK enough praise, I could go on and on about his successes but here are a few tidbits from the book:

"Inactivity strikes us as intelligent behavior. Neither we nor most business managers would dream of feverishly trading highly-profitable subsidiaries because a small move in the Federal Reserve's discount rate or because some Wall Street pundit had reversed his views on the market."

"Obviously many companies in high-tech businesses or embryonic industries will grow much faster in percentage terms than will `The Inevitables- Coke, Gillette and his latest perchase BUD'.  But I would rather certain of a good result than hopeful of a great one."

"In our view, though, investment students need only two well-tought courses-How to Value a Business, and How to Think about Market Prices. Your goal as an investor should simply be to purchase, at a rational price, a part interest in an easily-understandable business who's earnings are virtually certain to be materially higher five, ten and twenty years from now."

"In the final chapter of The Intelligent Investor, Ben Graham points our: `Confronted with a challenge to distill the secret of sound investment into three words, we venture the motto, Margin of Safety.' Forty-two years after reading that, I still think those are the right three words."

"Beware of past-performance `proofs' in finance: If history books were the key to riches, the Forbes 400 would consist of librarians."

"Market commentators and investment managers who glibly refer to `growth' and `value' styles as contrasting approaches to investment are displaying their ignorance, not their sophistication."

Berkshire's purchase criteria:
1)	Large purchases (at least $50 million of before tax earnings)
2)	Demonstrated consistent earnings power (future projections are of little interest to us, nor are turnaround situations)
3)	Businesses earning good return on equity while employing little or no debt
4)	Management in place - We cant supply it
5)	Simple business (if there's l;ots of technology, we won't understand it)
6)	An offering price

Some interesting stats on See's Chocolates which was bought in 1972 by Blue Chip Stamps- a subsidiary of Berkshire:

Bought early in 1972 for $25 million and was earning about $2 million after tax. (which was 25%  return on net tangible assets of $8 million)

In 1983 See's earned $13 million after taxes ($27 million pre-tax)

In 1995 it earned $50 million pre-tax

By Kevin Kingston author of A 20,000% Gain in Real Estate: A True Story About the Ups and Downs From Wall Street to Real Estate Leading up to Phenomenal  Returns

My Blog:  The Real Estate Investors Blog

</review>
<review>

This excellent book was hard to put down.  Mr. Buffett is as innately talented a writer as he is a businessman.  The book  funny, entertaining and highly informative, is sure to add significantly to the knowledge of any aspiring investor.  Buffett takes topics like corporate accounting malfeasance and makes you laugh at them while at the same time providing profound insight into the inner workings of the corporate enviornment.  This title is definatly one you will want to own.

</review>
<review>

By analyzing the essays Warren Buffet has written over the years, a reader can obtain a general, intuitive, though non-technical guide (for that Intelligent Investor) to Warren Buffet's investment method. Although appearing to be common-sensical in it's folksy mid-western prose, "Essays" explains in succinct and clear detail Buffet's fundamental analysis of businesses. Among these are a strict adherence to full disclosure of accounting transactions, the concept of economic goodwill, and confidence in conservative, factually confident and integrity filled management decisions. A solid, yet gap-filled introduction to Buffet's value-based investing principles

</review>
<review>

This is a collection of valuable insights on how to determine real economic value, as opposed to accounting value, accounting gimmicks or financial nonsense.

All that and some humor too. Grat book

</review>
<review>

For all of you investors who want to invest like Warren Buffett - that is, successfully - this is what you really want to read.  There are a large and growing number of books out there that will claim to make you think/act/be like Buffett; here you can actually read his thoughts.  As WB has often said, go to the source material (not the analyst reports, etc.) to make your judgments, and that is true in studying Buffett as well.

On top of that, Buffett is a much better writer than most of his biographers.  The editor of this compilation has done a good job of organizing Buffett's writings into themes with a light hand.  You get a good idea of how Warren thinks.

Buffett has an amazing way of penetrating the thick coating of B.S. that covers most of what passes for investment theory nowadays.  He ruthlessly applies Ockham's Razor to cut things down to their essential truths; two of the most basic are that owning stock in a company is truly owning part of a business and that the future is full of uncertainty.  Obvious, right?  But, when you really absorb these concepts the answers to the questions of when and why you should buy a stock become much clearer.  I won't attempt to boil down any more of his thoughts - you can find plenty of that elsewhere.  Suffice it to say that, although I am a Chartered Financial Analyst and have advised others regarding investments for over 20 years, when reading this book I had many "V-8 moments" - where you want to slap yourself on the forehead and say "of course!"

While I first heard of WB many years ago (before he was cool), this book was my first significant exposure to his writings.  He writes well, with wit and wisdom, and makes fairly complex subjects amazingly accessible to the uninitiated.  I wish I had read this book much earlier, but I'm not sure if I would have been mature enough to put much of it into action anyway.

One thing to keep in mind when you hear about all the easy ways to make money from following charts, or are tempted to buy the latest idea emanating from your brother-in-law - or a talking head on CNBC: what Buffett does REALLY works.  To put it crudely, it isn't an accident that he is, per Forbes, the 2nd richest man in the world - out of over 6 billion people.  (I haven't seen any chartists make the list yet.)  If you are really a serious investor, why would you NOT want to read what he has to say?

However, I can tell you why you probably won't actually put into practice most of what he says - it's no fun!  It's no fun (for most) reading 10-Ks and 10-Qs.  It's no fun keeping your own council and avoiding the crowd.  Also, why wait, perhaps for years, for the "fat pitch" of a great company at a great price when you can get your kicks day-trading?  After all, if most people were willing to wait until the odds were truly in their favor before they risked their money, lotteries would disappear and Las Vegas would be a dusty little village.  Even those who acknowledge Warren's achievements and study his words will find putting his seemingly obvious concepts into action surprisingly difficult.

But that is how you actually earn the money.

Finally, here's a story, retold by Buffett, that illustrates the herd mentality you must overcome to succeed.  I quote:

Ben Graham told a story 40 years ago that illustrates why investment professionals behave as they do: An oil prospector, moving to his heavenly reward, was met by St. Peter with bad news. "You're qualified for residence", said St. Peter, "but, as you can see, the compound reserved for oil men is packed. There's no way to squeeze you in." After thinking a moment, the prospector asked if he might say just four words to the present occupants. That seemed harmless to St. Peter, so the prospector cupped his hands and yelled, "Oil discovered in hell." Immediately the gate to the compound opened and all of the oil men marched out to head for the nether regions. Impressed, St. Peter invited the prospector to move in and make himself comfortable. The prospector paused. "No," he said, "I think I'll go along with the rest of the boys. There might be some truth to that rumor after all."

-Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway Letter to Shareholders, 1985

</review>
<review>

Buffett has a very uniquly apt understanding of many modern business practices and investment strategy along with the ability to explain these concepts in a down to earth framework.  I highly recommend this book to anyone who has ever felt they didn't understand what was going on in corporate america

</review>
<review>

This book very effectively organizes Warren Buffet's essays.  Cunningham extracts selected passages of Buffet's essays from 1979 to 2000 and organizes them into chapters.  This is a great summary of Buffet's essays and well worth reading.  All of Buffet's letters for Berkshire Hathaway shareholders can be seen on the Berkshire Hathaway website.

</review>
<review>

Most of the reviews that I have written for Amazon are based on the books, the DVDs, and the CDs that I already own. I occasionally buy a new product via Amazon, but I mostly review the stuff that I already own.

I own this book...this play because I read it while in a Humanities course in college. I went to college rather "late" in life...whatever that means...and yet I derived more from the experience than I probably would have had I gone right after High School. I am one of those people who believe that it's not college that makes a "well-rounded" indivividual, but life experience. If colleges and universities handed out degrees based on Life Experience, I'd probably have a doctorate three times over...

We were given the assignment of reading this play and seeing the live production that the college I was attending just so happened to be putting on. With my primary focus being on philosphy, I embraced the Existentialism Unit that we were now focused upon. My best friend, who was/is an "atheist" was less receptive of these Existentialist ideas he considered strange and elusive. You think he, being an atheist, would have been more open to them than I who had already been bitten by the Metaphysics/Spirituality plague. Truth be told I think the only reason he says he's an atheist is because he's a cheapskate and doesn't want to shell out extra money for Christmas gifts.

So we go see this play and people were getting pretty agitated. In this play everything goes round and round but never arrives at any final conclusions and I noticed how we, as a society, love our answers. We are not soothed by questions and proposistions and "what if?" scenarios. We feel the need to latch onto something because something is better than nothing.

Isn't it?

The Existentialists believe that the universe is random, chaotic, and ultimately meaningless and so in a sense they "give" meaning to meaninglessness. Just like an atheist believes in non-belief. You see, the human species cannot not give meaning to his/her life...we cannot not believe...we can "pretend" that life is without meaning and that we don't believe but everything that falls onto the screen of our perception, will take on the shape of our perceptions.

I loved this play. I loved the merry-go-round type dialouge. Isn't this what we all do? We get a belief so engrained in our heads and we think that it is the only way to believe and so we spend a lot of time trying to convince someone who may not be as receptive to our point of view as to why it's valid. What I have learned over the years is that the only reason why a belief is valid is because we are the ones who validate it. It doesn't make us "more right" than the person who doesn't believe it, it just makes us believers of the belief. And contrary to popular opinion, the more people you have who also believe the same way you believe does not prove that it's any more valid than if only one person believed it.

This play did not dissolve me into a puddle of desperation and futileness, in fact it added more meaning to my life which would probably make Samuel Beckett gag. It made me fall in love even more with this crazy life that only I can live. Nobody lives by proxy. Each of us are liberated and imprisoned by our beliefs. The best we can ever hope to be is determined by what we are willing to believe at any given time. This is why it's a good practice to sit down and journal about your beliefs from time to time and question why you still believe what you believe. You may have outgrown certain beliefs, certain ideas, certain ways of being in the world but don't be like the two "bums" in the play, don't keep postponing what it is that you eventually desire to see; see it now, live it now, be it now. If you are going to be an atheist, be the best atheist you can be. If you are going to be a Christian, be the best Christian you can be. If you are going to be an Anarchist, be the best Anarchist you can be. Just don't think that everyone is going to believe exactly as you believe and don't make others wrong simply because they may have another point of view. In the end, none of us truly know what's on the other side. Yes, we've had people with Near Death Experiences, but nobody has ever come back after being completely dead with a report, we just have reports from people who have been "mostly dead".

Take life with a grain of salt and enjoy the ride.

Peace  and  Blessings.




</review>
<review>

Waiting for Godot was dubbed a "tragicomedy" and there doesn't seem to be any other word better suited to describe this play.  The random and wandering personalities of Vladimir and Estragon, the main characters, lend an amusing air to the entire work.  However, their inability to accomplish anything or even grasp what is really going on around them inspires some sympathy (and irritation), though it may be weaker or stronger depending on how strange the book strikes the you.  Unless one goes into Waiting for Godot expecting the existentialism it can be somewhat confusing, and may seem a bit more pointless than it is meant to be.  Knowing a little bit about Beckett and his beliefs will probably make it more enjoyable, but it is interesting and well written enough to stand on its own.  What I love the most about this book is Beckett's ability to make the absurd seem so close to reality.  Vladimir and Estragon are most certainly not your average Joe, but a lot of what they say seems familiar and most of the time rather humorous.  Waiting for Gogot is really what you make it, because while at its core it is a just a story of two confused homeless men, it is also a meaningful and slightly endearing tale.  Go in looking for a meaning, and knowing how Beckett means to get things across, and I think that this play will end up reading much better than if one goes in just cold.  A short read, and worthwhile, I would say, at least for its originality and humor

</review>
<review>

Samuel Beckett's play seems to endlessly perplex reviewers: they want to see in it concrete associations that it generally denies them. Is Godot God? Are Didi and Gogo heroes for their seemingly indefatiguable faith he will arrive, or fools for hinging all their hopes and dreams on a man who never seems to arrive to help alleviate their suffering?

Waiting for Godot, in proper Modernist fashion, strips away all the layers of narrative and form and leaves nothing but the naked husk of a play, which Beckett no doubt felt revealed the human condition at its most basic. But the play's power doesn't really come from that. Rather, what makes Waiting for Godot so compelling is its wide applicability: it's a story about random oppression, brutality, and dreams deferred by harsh realities. It has been performed as an allegory of apartheid South African, the Jim Crow South, the horror of the war in Bosnia and about every other possible situation imaginable. Why? Because as Benjamin Kunkel pointed out in a piece in The New Yorker not so long ago, "[N]ot everyone has a God, but who doesn't have a Godot?"

Beyond the metaphysical implications of the play, though, it's popularity stems from its near-perfection: for all the philosophical meaning people see in it, the action progresses with virtually no direct reference to it, and every line which seems to suggests some sort of grand significance has a very concrete meaning in the action. Take the infamous opening: Estragon, the first of the tramps, struggles to pull off his boot to relieve his swollen foot. Unable to get it off, he gives up and announces "Nothing to be done." Vladimir, wincingly wandering onto the stage and grasping at his crotch (precious few readers and actors for that matter seem to grasp that one of the play's running jokes is Vladimir's venereal disease, which causes him immense pain when urinating), thinks Estragon is commenting on his own ailment, and announces, "I'm beginning to come round to that conclusion myself. All my life I've put it from me, saying Vladimir, be reasonable, you haven't yet tried everything! And I resumed the struggle."

On the one hand, the lines relate concretely to the action of the play; on the other, they have become representative of modern man's ambivalence towards a cruel and uncaring world, and such clever cynicism has linked Beckett to the French Existentialists in whose circles he moved after the Second World War. But seen merely as declamatory statements of world-weary cynicism, the lines lose all their power; Beckett's achievement comes from his ability to link such nihilistic sentiments to extremely comic moments, and it is the humor that carries the reader or the theatergoer through what would otherwise be an unbearably cynical  play. Steve Martin, who played Vladimir in a famous 1982 production at the Lincoln Center in New York, put it best when he said that he sought to serve the humor of the play, because the meaning could carry itself but the humor could not. That's a lesson which, sadly, precious few theater directors seem to grasp, but which the careful reader discovers in Beckett. Definitely a must-read, but read it before seeing it, because few productions do it justice

</review>
<review>

Some think Waiting for Godot is an argument for existentialism. Others believe it is about man's eternal struggle for the answer to the ultimate question. Neither seem correct.

In short, this is a play for those who prefer to strip everything down to the most basic form of language, to strip life down to a mere game of waiting. That is, in essence, what this is all about. We have two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, who both wait for a man who may or may not ever show up. They don't know why. They don't know exactly when he will be there. Still they wait, eternally, by the tree, by wherever they think he said he would show.

This isn't an absurdist play, although it has been labeled as such. Absurdism, though, seems such an insulting way of labeling such a masterpiece. We oftentimes go thorugh our readings with the idea that everything has to be complex, that there has to be a theme placed deep within a convoluted story, but with Waiting for Godot, we have a simple theme: waiting.

The two characters symbolize nothing. They are, quite simply, not waiting to be analyzed. They become, in effect, victims of Samuel Beckett's own game: they are his quotation, and he only says what needed to be said at the time, and so he wrote it, whether people would catch on or not, whether they would label it absurdism or not.

If you were to take every line of this play and utter it aloud, very slowly, word by word like a robot in a very monotone fashion, you would probably capture the idea. If it's any indication, he wrote everything in French first--his second language--and then translated it in to English, just so it can be simple. I don't assume, of course, that this work should be cherished simply because it's an exercise in simplicity. But I submit that it should be cherished because it's a genuine, themeless--somehow--masterpiece about two people waiting for the most unimportant, unknown thing that may or may not ever come. It is frequently hilarious and constantly frivolous, but somehow, it manages to charm. It is like one of those songs that you can listen to over and over again, and it has no lyrics, and no meaning--as far as you know--but it still makes you feel good under glaring adversity

</review>
<review>

I'm not a big fan of existentialism to start out with, but I began this play expecting at least to find an interesting theme or philosophy concerning the nature of life and existence.  This work, however, is pure tripe.  Critical appraisal should not even be attempted for this drivel- it's akin to the random scribblings of a two-year old or a mud-splattered canvas.  The drawing on the front cover has more artistic value than this play.  In my mind, it doesn't merit serious consideration and analysis, because it is by nature pure absurdity and nonsense.  Beckett sure accomplished his goal though- look how many reviewers commented on the "extremely difficult themes" and "brilliant artistry" of the play

</review>
<review>

WAITING FOR GODOT is somewhat akin to a conceptual artwork, in which the concept behind the artwork is more important than the sensual aesthetic experience or the entertainment value. In this case, however, what is behind the artwork is a non-concept, the impossibility of creating a masterpiece. After the monumental impossibility of Joyce's FINNEGANS WAKE, what remains for the serious artist? WAITING FOR GODOT is about the impossibility of a masterpiece in the modern world. In that sense, this play is the last masterpiece of "high art." The torch has now passed to movies and popular forms.

Many critics have tried to convince us that WAITING FOR GODOT is very funny and entertaining. I remain skeptical. There are a few moments of wry humor, but not enough to make up for the emptiness of "waiting." There is literally "Nothing to be done" in this play. "Waiting" is a non-action. What's interesting about the play is that the inconsequential dialogues and trivial actions are presented as significant; there's something like an "alienation effect," or a "defamiliarization," as we are invited to ponder how and why this drama is meaningful.

Why is there "Nothing to be done"? Is it simply because it's all been done before? Or is it because life in the modern world is without any serious purpose or meaning? In many ways, WAITING FOR GODOT is a reaction to the Holocaust and Hiroshima. The characters who have "something to do" in this play are Pozzo and Lucky, who by their stupidity illustrate the futility of action in the modern world.

</review>
<review>

Samuel Beckett's, soon to be classic, drama about two men, Vlad and Estro, transcends stage-play drama. Beckett's relatively short story is a pioneering foray into the mixture of a dramatic, literal story.

Most drama should be seen on stage, so that the performers can give their characters shape, bring in an audience, and produce a night of dramatic arts. That is not how this story seems to go; not at all, indeed.

Beckett's story can be seen as a naturalistic look at the life of the poor. Here are two men, both obviously at the end of their ropes, but each keeps this asinine hope that "GODot" will show up. But, he never does. Extra characters, like Pozzo and Lucky, simply add to the intended confusion.

As several previous reviewers have taken note--there is not action. While this idea is spurred by "The Threepenny Opera," Beckett takes postmodernism another step further. The characters' are so disillusioned the question becomes, Godot isn't coming, so did he ever care? Could Godot actually exist he allows these poor fellows to exist in such a state.

A fantastic read, and one of the best dramas ever written. This fairly short play should be read by EVERYONE.

</review>
<review>

Many readers of 'Waiting for Godot' obsess about the identity of Godot and whether he represents God or any other almighty being. It is unlikely that Beckett was referring to God as the man for whom the characters are waiting, as religion is only ever mockingly referred to in Beckett's theatre.

Although Beckett was not referring directly to God the name is not without importance. Godot is seen as a messianic being by the characters who will bring salvation for those who believed he would come. The wait for God is not represented by the play, but is used as a template.

'Waiting for Godot' is essentially a sustained metaphor for how most if not all human beings spend their whole life waiting for something that isn't coming. Beckett was not able to identify Godot because of the subjective nature of such a being. As critics have written, this play is a written ink-blot test and a failure to see any coherent meaning says more about the reader than the play.

This is yet another example of Beckett's chilling insight into human nature, and his readiness to state what others are unwilling to accept

</review>
<review>

Waiting for Godot, a play about two men who cannot communicate and always wait for something that never comes, attempts to show us the futility of waiting for that phantom message or meaning humanity is obsessed with--it is a call to action. This play is packed with nonsensical dialogue. The plot does not exsist. Yet, once we realized that Waiting for Godot is a parody of human existance it starts to make sense--at least in subtle ways. Much of the play cannot be interpreted in any finality, but, that is what has kept this play alive throughout the twentieth century. It's enigmatic, a puzzle of words, poetry, and philosophy. I recommend this to anyone who wants a challenge. The play is short and does not take too much commitment. Take a quiet evening and give it a shot. What are you waiting for

</review>
<review>

Dave Kindred has done lovers of sports and history a favor with Sound and Fury.

Using two cultural giants - Mohammad Ali and Howard Cosell - he has produced a fresh and readable social history of the latter half of the Twentieth Century.  Let me be clear.  I love Ali.  Kindred refers to him as the most influential sports figure of the last century.  In my mind, he understates the case; Ali is the most influential person of the last century.

Cosell, on the other hand, may have hesitated to tell you he was. He was not.  Trained as a lawyer and gifted with the ability to articulate complexity, he brought a thinking man's view to radio and television sports journalism.

Individually, they were interesting.  Together, they were hypnotizing.  They produced controversy, drama and comedy almost every time they appeared together.

Dave Kindred tells the story of this alliance from a unique perspective.  As a newspaper and magazine sports columnist with nearly 40 years experience, he covered Ali's early fight days as a reporter for the Louisville Courier-Journal before moving on to the The Atlanta Journal- Courier and The Washington Post.  He draws upon his experiences to re-create the Ali-Cosell story in ways I have never seen attempted.

The result is a fascinating portrait of two outsized figures - their heroics and their demons.  Drawing on personal observations, fresh reporting and interviews, Kindred writes a page-turning treatment of two lives that together changed sports, television and I would argue, the world, forever

</review>
<review>

Sound and Fury (14 hours, 11 cds, unabridged, Blackstone Audio) is a duel biography of Howard Cosell and Mohammed Ali.

Sport writer Dave Kindred knew both men, he has written a bio that transcends his knowledge of both men. His text is an honest, no hold barred , warts and all biography. When a third person (like Kindred) writes a biography, he tends to put his personal touches with his own bias, this book is NOT that.The book showed an unlikely partnership created by media hype.

In the audio narrative hands of Dick Hill, this audio project seems more like  a docudrama in its scope. Hill's narrative voice takes on verbal personas of Cosell and Ali, without mocking them.  His talent has grown from the days at Brilliance Audio.

Sound and Fury is an amazing production . . . you won't forget it audio,  long after you heard it

Bennet Pomerantz AUDIOWORL

</review>
<review>

David Kindred has written what amounts to a duel biography of the controversial odd couple that is Muhammad Ali and Howard Cosell.  The author tells us that Ali elected to not join the military because the Muslim Nation told him not to.  To cross them was to literary toy with his life.  The assassination of Malcolm X being used as an example.  While not necessarily agreeing with Ali's decision Cosell supported Ali stating that taking his heavyweight championship away from him without any semblance of due process was completely wrong.  There appears to be evidence that Cosell may have already been experiencing dementia when he came out with his second book entitled I Never Played the Game.  Aware of the criticism in his book of his cronies in the TV booth for Monday Night Football Cosell was asked before publication whether he wanted to include these strong opinions.  Since he always prided himself on telling it "like it is" he felt it would be hypocrisy of him not to do so now.  Cosell was a devoted family man while Ali ventured into nocturnal delights.  It was hard for sports fans to be neutral in regard to either of these men, but boxing was the ingredient that brought these two men together first in mutural respect and then in friendship.  Incidentally, page 247 has a hilarious anecdote of Howard using his colorful vocabulary in breaking up fisticuffs involving teens in Kansas City.  Whether you are a fan of either man or the part they played in sports you will find this to be an extremely enjoyable book to read.

</review>
<review>

Howard Cosell and Muhammad Ali are American icons.  One turned sports broadcasting upside down, the other energized and stylized sports in this country.  Both displayed extraordinary courage and conviction.  Both were one helluva lot of fun.
Ali is one of my heroes and I'll never forget the day I met him and shook his hand.  I never had the privilege of meeting the late Mr. Cosell but greatly admired him.  Cosell in fact, was the type of personality you could both hold in high regard and poke fun at simultaneously.  (That voice! That somehow lovable pretense!)
Growing up in the '60's as I did, in Berkeley no less, Ali and Cosell provided diversion from the weighty issues of the day.  Ali, the flamboyant and brilliant boxer, Cosell the outspoken trailblazing sports broadcaster and commentator.  Yet both, like so much in that tumultuous decade stood for something.  Ali risked jail by standing up to the draft and was unjustly stripped of his livelihood.  He'd already embraced Islam and stood for a new kind of black athlete who, as we said back then, "did his own thing."  Cosell tackled such issues as the injustices visited upon Ali and others, championing the causes of the oppressed.  It would not be an overstatement to say that Cosell was the Edward R. Murrow of sports.
In "Sound and Fury", sportswriter Dave Kindred tells the tale of these two who played such key roles in one another's lives.  Many sportswriters, even ones who write books, are, quite frankly hacks, but others are practiced wordsmiths who know how to tell story with economy and grace.  Fortunately, Kindred is most solidly in the second camp.
In "Sound and Fury" Kindred has the huge advantage of having been around both his subjects at the very times they were making news.  He brings this personal perspective along with a thoroughly done research job to fully illuminate the story.
Much of what Kindred tells of Ali is familiar to those of us who followed his career, yet he manages to bring new material and offers some of the old from a new perspective.  What I particularly enjoyed was some of the back story about Cosell, being unfamiliar with almost all of it.  We follow Ali from his boyhood days in Louisville, through his boxing career, political stands, return to boxing glory and his failed attempts to thwart father time.  We start with Cosell in his Brooklyn childhood, early love of sports, law career coincident with his determination (despite that  nasal New York Jewish twang) to break into broadcasting.  Next are his big breaks including Monday Night Football.  And of course, we see where the twain met.  Beautifully playing off one another in one of the best unscripted shows in TV history.
For anyone interested in either Ali, Cosell or both (and if you like one you probably at least appreciate the other) "Sound and Fury" is an absolute must

</review>
<review>

The praise given Dave Kindred's book "Sound and Fury: Two Powerful Lives, One Fateful Friendship" on its back cover doesn't even begin to do it justice. This "tri-biography" of Muhammad Ali, Howard Cosell, and the partnership between the two, is a wonderful book and a novel concept that only a few had the knowledge, connections and talent to write. Thankfully for all of us, Kindred has.

Two books on Ali stand out for me -- Thomas Hauser's defining "Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times," an oral history that Kindred rightly cites as generating relevance for Ali more than 10 years after his retirement, and David Remnick's majestic "King of the World: Muhammad Ali and the Rise of an American Hero," which chronicles Ali's rise in the context of the often-frightening period during which it occurred. In his acknowledgements, Kindred admits that he had wanted to do an Ali biography but was overwhelmed by all the current work, so he offered to do one on Cosell. His agent suggested a biography of both. "Great agent," is the author's comment on that suggestion.

Kindred, a longtime sportswriter for The Washington Post, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and The Sporting News, among other publications, knew both men well. How well? In his introduction, he describes a scene in which he crawls into bed with a naked Ali in order to get a list of the names in the fighter's entourage, then segues to a scene at Cosell's house on Long Island in which the broadcaster emerges from his bedroom in his underwear, sans toupee, and flexes his muscles to show off to the author. Kindred has a genuine appreciation for both men, but his book is far more than an homage to their greatness.

The author paints a balanced portrait of both as flawed human beings, who rose to fame together in the turbulent 1960s, both minorities who dealt with persecution and rose above it. Despite their most obvious differences -- age, race, religion, marital history, and looks -- they had a great deal in common.

First, they were both driven by their own insecurity. Ali (then Cassius Clay) was driven to the Black Muslims by the sense of belonging they gave him, even as the group was undergoing a philosophical split that would result in Malcolm X's murder. His proclamations of his greatness before the cameras were driven by self-motivation as much as showmanship. Cosell was a perfectionist who feared the worst before almost every broadcast but managed to deliver every time. His selection for "Monday Night Football," the gig that cemented his celebrity, came only after a series of calls to badger creator Roone Arledge, which finally drew a return call and this hilarious ensuing exchange:

Arledge: "Get over here as soon as you can. There's something I need to talk to you about."
Cosell: "Ahhhh, from the desperation of your tone, I can only conclude that the bon vivant who is Roone Pinckney Arledge is beseeching me to rescue the trifle he's devised for Monday evenings. Am I not correct?"
Arledge: "As always, Howard."
Cosell: "And you no doubt expect me to shoulder this Stygian burden without additional compensation."
Arledge: "Yes, Howard, I do."
Cosell: "I accept."

Yet for all their haughty speech and insecurity, both worked to get where they were. Ali fought his way out of the Jim Crow South, took out perhaps the most feared champion of all-time in Sonny Liston, took on the government over the Vietnam War, regained the heavyweight title twice more, and retired with five career losses -- three of which came in his final four fights, when his body had already begun deteriorating and he was going for the paycheck. He is one of the most beloved men in the world. Cosell put himself through law school, joined the Army during World War II, directed his own early work, jumped to television at precisely the moment it was taking off in the national consciousness, and had a sixth sense of where to be when a major story was breaking so that his was the first voice you heard when you needed information. Followers have called him one of the "three C's of television:" Carson, Cronkite and Cosell.

So often Cosell's path intertwined with Ali's. A political liberal, Cosell defended Ali's right to take an anti-war stance (though Cosell was careful not to adopt the same public stance himself). He read the fighter's on-air statement announcing that he had refused to enter the service. Cosell was the first to reach the new champion upon his miraculous dispatch of Liston. He attended every Ali fight thereafter except the former champ's career-ending loss to Trevor Berbick, and shared numerous interviews along the way, probing Ali's thoughts and intentions. Their exchanges were often playful, occasionally serious, always memorable.

Both fell from glory at roughly the same time. Ali's final fights were money grabs to support himself after divorces, the Black Muslims and hangers-on who had taken advantage of Ali's good nature, had drained much of the champ's bank account. He refused to train seriously and was beaten soundly by Leon Spinks, Larry Holmes and Berbick. Cosell, who helped establish "Monday Night Football" as an American tradition, left it bitter with his broadcast partners and done in by a scandal in which he had, ironically, called Washington Redskins receiver Alvin Garrett a "little monkey." The man who did as much for racial equality than anyone in sports was wrongly labelled a racist, but no one could overlook his increasingly boorish treatment of his broadcast partners and his self-serving rants directed toward the hypocrisy he now saw in sports.

Heroes are the people we wish ourselves to be, at least for a while. And at their best, both Muhammad Ali and Howard Cosell filled the bill. We wish to see the Ali who danced around the ring as a youth, who outran Liston, outsmarted George Foreman and outlasted Joe Frazier. We wish to see Cosell on the television describing the boxer he knew best, or uncovering the story behind Tommie Smith and John Carlos' Olympic protest, or opining on Reggie Jackson's dramatic homers or Lynn Swann's acrobatic catches.

Most of all, we want to hear them. For both were masters of language. Ali's street poetry and off-kilter proclamations that somehow became reality made him more intriguing than any athlete of our lifetimes. Cosell's polysyllabic hyperbole couldn't obscure the truth or conviction from the words he spoke and brought him at least a grudging respect. We want to hear them again, at the top of their profession, perhaps together in a boxing ring or a TV studio.

But Cosell has been dead nearly 11 years, and Ali is stricken by Parkinson's disease that has rendered him mute. It has taken another man with a gift for language, Dave Kindred, to restore them to us.

D

</review>
<review>

May your feet always be swift,
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift.
May your heart always be joyful,
May your song always be sung,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young,
May you stay forever young.

Bob Dylan's song, Forever Young, serves as one of Dave Kindred's melodic themes in his wonderful book, "Sound and Fury". Sound and Fury is a biography of Muhammad Ali, Howard Cosell, and the relationship between them.

Sound and Fury carries the reader along as Muhammad Ali, born Cassius Marcellus Clay, and Howard Cosell, born Howard William Cohen, burst like stars upon the public's imagination in the 1960s and takes them through their respective heydays and then to their inevitable fading away.

Kindred, a sportswriter for close to forty years, began his newspaper career at The Louisville Courier in Muhammad Ali's hometown.  He covered Ali since his earliest days, his glory days. It also seems he was one of the few print reporters that Howard Cosell respected and liked. They stayed in close touch with each other until Cosell's death.  But, although it is quite clear that Kindred admires and respects both men, and with feelings toward Ali that are powerfully affectionate, even loving, Sound and Fury is no hagiography.

The book takes us quickly through Ali and Cosell's early days.  As Kindred alternates between Ali and Cosell's struggle for success in their respective fields one can see the similarities between the two, particularly a single-minded determination to achieve their goals.  Ali and Cosell came together in the public imagination after Ali's conversion to the Nation of Islam and his decision to refuse induction into the Army after being (finally) classified as draft-eligible. Ali's famous line "I ain't got nothing against them Viet Cong" made him something of a marked man. Ali was stripped of his title, denied the right to box, and convicted of draft evasion, a conviction later overturned by the Supreme Court.  Cosell was one of the few to stand up Ali and it was this stand that helped make Cosell as controversial as Ali. Kindred does an excellent job covering the evolution of the symbiotic relationship between the two men. Kindred points out that Cosell was always very careful never to endorse Ali's views about religion or the war in Vietnam. Rather, Cosell always made it very clear that he argued only that Ali had a fundamental right to hold those opinions and no one had the right to deprive him of a livelihood simply because he held unpopular views.

Kindred, for all his respect and admiration for both men, is quick to point out those instances in which Ali and Cosell acted badly.  Ali's treatment of his original religious mentor, Malcolm X, after Malcolm was tossed from the Nation of Islam and then killed is covered as is his brutal and unfair characterization of Joe Frazier (calling him less than a man and an Uncle Tom when in fact Frazier had grown up in greater poverty and experienced more racism than Ali had).  Kindred does not hesitate to take Cosell to task for his vaunted insecurity and his callous treatment of those around him, particularly print journalists whom he considered to be inferior beings.  Kindred's coverage of Cosell's stormy tenure on Monday Night Football is both informative and balanced.

Kindred is at his finest in describing the twilight of each man's career, Ali's descent into a Parkinson's syndrome induced shell of his former self and Cosell's withdrawal into retirement, seclusion after the death of his beloved wife Emmy, and eventual death.  Kindred comes close to capturing that which cannot truly be captured: the ineffable feeling of loss that someone experiences when time has passed them by.  This feeling must be particularly intense in the case of those who once were the center of worldwide (Ali) and national (Cosell) attention.

That indescribable notion is set out in the second melodic theme that marks "Sound and Fury". Cosell's favorite poem, one he recited at length with or without prompting, was Keats' Ode to a Nightingale and one which Kindred cites often in his book.  If Dylan's Forever Young serves as a theme for Ali and Cosell's early days, Keats' Ode serves as a mournful and extraordinarily apt coda.

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;

Dave Kindred has written a wonderful account of Ali and Cosell and their lives spent at the intersection of sports and the media.  It will satisfy sports fans and non sports fans alike.  It was a great read.

</review>
<review>

This is the first book by kindred that i've read.  i knew of him mostly as a columnist for the sporting news who seemed to dislike everyone and everything, especially anything new or unusual.  but i have always been fascinated by both cosell and ali, and was willing to give this a shot.....thankfully.  this is one of the best sports books of recent years: cosell and ali as individuals and their relationship (which in reality took place almost fully onscreen) is covered in full, but the author also shows these incredibly complex characters, warts and all, as they maneuver through their respective careers.

ali was never more alive than when he was in the ring, or training for a fight: that is why he, as so many other fighters, was loath to leave the life he loved, fought for several years more than he should have, and of course paid a dear price for it.  the fact that he may be the most beloved human on the plane today owes more to our society's need for heroes than anything else: ali is no longer able to cheat on his wife(s), turn his back on his friends (since his current spouse controls his schedule), or be manipulated by religious leaders and businessmen with their own terrible agendas (since he has little income, there is little need for the con artists of the world to carve out their pound of flesh).  now, we can project all our own ideas on to this man who reportedly spends the bulk of his day in prayer, harmless to all.

cosell, having passed away years ago, can be looked at in a much more balanced and subjective manner now than when he was alive.  his combination of ego and insecurity was toxic to most who associated with him, apparently, but there can be no doubt that he deserves to be considered a groundbreaker and a risk taker.  while the rest of american media villified ali for attempting to evade the draft, cosell sided with the boxer.  this and other events recounted by kindred show cosell, as compared with his contemporaries at least, to be a man of courage, vision and conviction.  the fact that he became a casualty to his own ego later in his career (ex: trying to become a news anchor, distancing himself from the sport that made him famous once ali left the scene, the bitter jealousy aimed at his MNF cohosts) does not reduce his greatness.

a wonderful, moving work that will not make you want to nominate either cosell or ali for sainthood (far from it), but instead will provide the reader a deeper understanding of both, as well as the times they lived through

</review>
<review>

Mr. Kindred is a wonderful storyteller in this very readable dual biography of two controversial men: Muhammad Ali and Howard Cosell. Like "Beyond Glory" -2005- by David Margolick (which tells another story of a white man and a black man linked by history in the 1930's), "Sound and Fury" is a history of a later era, the chaotic 1960's, and a history of two outsiders. Mr. Margolick makes clear that their relationship was less of a friendship and more of a partnership -- the two of them never hung out socially but each saw the other as a genius in their domain who could further their respective careers. This book is a wonderful introduction to their lives for any reader who was born after the time when Muhammad Ali and Howard Cosell had already come and gone, and as a reminder to those of us who were there

</review>
<review>

For those of us who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s, The Sound and Fury is a wondrous re-telling of the period through the lives of two unlikely partners, Howard Cosell and Muhammad Ali. It is not a boxing book. It is a work of social history, responsibly reported and told. Dave Kindred's superior writing and interviewing have made a book that should last for many years. The tales of Cosell's and Ali's lives, each up-from-bootstraps, and their accidental friendship, will impress even the most jaded sports fans and grownups.

I could not stop reading this once I began

</review>
<review>

Never read anything like this, much like I've never read anything like House of Leaves, much like I've never read anything like Only Revolutions. Conclusion: Mark Z. Danielewski is the best writer going today

</review>
<review>

One of the most compelling parts of the brilliant "House of Leaves" was Appendix II, Part E -- the "Whalestoe Letters."

But is it worth getting the novella, if the original book already has the "Whalestoe Letters"? Yes, frankly -- Mark Z. Danielewski did a brilliant job expanding the letters and characters in the original appendix, where a mother's devotion turns out to be the tip of the iceberg.

The book compiles the letters from Pelafina H. Li?vre to her son Johnny Truant. Pelafina is in the Whalestoe psychiatric clinic, although at first it isn't clear why. She sends doting, poetic, adoring letters to her young son, who is being raised by an abusive foster father.

But when Pelafina stops taking her medication, her mental state deteriorates. She becomes paranoid, hallucinates, and sends bizarre nonsensical letters and limericks to Johnny (including a jumbled one that is made up almost entirely of "forgive me"). But even when the doctors manage to pull her back from the brink, Pelafina's desperation consumes her.

"Letters" books are usually disasters, because the authors cannot put enough feeling and energy into the letters. Mark Z. Danielewski is definitely the exception. This one-sided correspondence is enough to inspire plenty of pity and horror -- all the worse because this sort of thing happens in real life.

Danielewski plots the story almost like a mystery, dropping little hints during Pelafina's more sane moments. At first she seems normal if a bit overdevoted. But as she spirals into madness, we see just how mad she is, the things she has done before her institutionalization, and the terrible event which caused Johnny's father to have her locked up.

This edition is somewhat different from the original "Whalestoe Letters," since Danielewski added in some new letters. These flesh out both Johnny and Pelafina, and give background to her mental illness.

Danielewski is brilliant not only with plots, but characters as well -- Pelafina is the proof. She seems normal at first, but her chilling insanity comes out in little spurts until we find out what she did. And yet, you can't help feeling sorry for her, no matter how disturbing her manic love for Johnny is.

Disturbing and bittersweet, the "Whalestoe Letters" are a good accompaniment to "House of Leaves," and a good illustration of just what a great writer Danielewski is

</review>
<review>

I've read House of Leaves twice, and neither time I felt like I was able to get through Pelafina's letters. However, it was much easier to read all of them in The Whalestoe Letters. Perhaps because they are all included in proper sequence? The introduction is nice as well

</review>
<review>

Many Great Writer's From Kurt Vonnegut To H.P. Lovecraft Have Taken Elements Of There Stories And Used Them Again So You Can't Criticize Danielewski For That.  And Of Course It's Not Going To Be As Good As House Of Leaves.  House Of Leaves Had More To It. It Is A Good Book As A Sort Of Sidestory To House OF Leaves

</review>
<review>

Overall I thought the book was good.  It starts at the basics, explaining aperature, film speed, etc.  A good overview of all the different types of photography (landscape, portraits, etc) is also included.  The only complaint I have is the book is a little dated.  The majority of the book covers film cameras, with only a small section on digital cameras.  However, I just bought my first Digital SLR and many of the features it has are just like the older film cameras the book describes.  So, it was still relevant

</review>
<review>

A few weeks ago my digital camera quit working at a very bad time. I had to break out my twenty year old 35mm film camera and use it. I was stunned at the quality that my old Yaschica had over my digital camera. So I bought this wonderful book and never looked back. It is filled with great tips that are easy to understand. Tips on how to use differant lenses, filters and film. Not to mention great flash tips that almost eliminate red eye. My wife and friends are amazed at the quality of some of the pictures that I have taken. Plus digital pictures won't last but a few years stored on disk and a negative is almost forever. So if you want your memories to last a lifetime break out the old 35mm film camera and BUY THIS BOOK!!!!

</review>
<review>

Excellent book for beginner photographers or even for persons who would just like to take better family or vacation pictures

</review>
<review>

This is a wonderful book for starting in photography. It's only problem is that, even in its latest edition, it treats digital as a new technology that has yet to enter mainstream. It just dates itself in several ways, such as saying that APS is also a new technology. Really the techniques it gives are wonderfull no matter what, its just the equipment guide to 'Choosing a camera" that needs to be updated

</review>
<review>

I bought this book because I just bought a Canon G2, and wanted to learn the basics to take advantage of the features of my new camera. Prior to this book, I have no idea what aperture or depth of field mean. I finished this book in one sitting -- very easy and engaging book to read for beginners. I like how it covers many of the common scenarios, such as shooting at night, shooting at mid-day and when to use manual adjustment to accommendate difficult shots. I can say now after reading the book, I feel confident to take on the many features of my camera, and I'll definitely come back to it for reference in the coming days

</review>
<review>

Wright presents no new information about Al-Qaeda, leaves out plenty of information about Al-Qaeda and neglects the USA side of "the road to 9/11."  Understanding Qutb's radicalization of Islam is important to understanding why Ayman al-Zawahiri and Usama exist and also why they failed at creating theocracies and were lame ducks until the USA found a use for them as an enemy.  What cannot be neglected is the myths spread about the United States by the Neoconservatives and followers of Leo Strauss.  The United States is not a unique and beautiful snowflake.  The liberal idea of individual freedom was decried by Strauss as destructive of the society of the USA and he told his followers to keep the public in line with grand myths about US exceptionalism.  After the the Soviet Union was kicked out of Afghanistan, both Qutb and Strauss' followers believed they were the cause of it.  Since the Cold War the US has been working off of the "friend and enemy" model of policy formulated by Carl Schmitt and 9/11 presented the US with what Schmitt called a "state of exemption."  If you think jihad was the cause of 9/11, ask yourself why Richard Clarke found Bush and his advisors saying find a way to tie this to Iraq hours after 9/11.  See the BBC documentary, "The Power of Nightmares" or "From Secularism to Jihad: Sayyid Qutb and the Foundations of Radical Islamism" by Adnan A. Musallam or the Political Ideas of Leo Strauss by Shadia Drury for a better analysis of Qutb and Strauss than Wright has in his book.  If you prefer to stick with fiction about "the road to 9/11," check out Patrick S. Johnston's novel "Mission Accomplished.

</review>
<review>

this book made me realize we must not forget and we need to boost our information gathering procedures.  We are not isolated and we need to be aware that our world has changed forever after 9/1

</review>
<review>

The Looming Tower is a very good book about the modern beginnings of Islamic radicalism.  The book's timeline starts in 1948 with the banishment of an Egyptian to America and progresses to the childhood of Ayman Al-Zawahiri and Osama Bin Laden and their transformation to Islamic fanatics.  Wright presents some of the individuals pursuing Al Qaeda, including one who wanted to kill Bin Laden but was denied, and another who wanted to arrest him.  I watched the interview with Lawrence Wright on Amazon.com and after reading his book was left with the opposite impression about the war with Islamic radicalism.  His take was that we are creating more terrorists by fighting them while my belief that radical Muslims are motivated more by idealogy rather than as a result of our actions or any other country's was reaffirmed.  It seems that they are driven by a desire to bring about worldwide Islamic domination.  This book  is well researched and easy to read.  I enjoyed this book for the history of Al Qaeda and would recommend this book for anyone interested in learning more about Islamic radicalism

</review>
<review>

I bought this book to get a better understanding of the Al-Qaeda movement, the Muslim religion and the politics of the Middle East.  Despite being a learned person in some areas, and somewhat knowledgeable in others, I must admit that I knew very little about the Middle East, its countries and history.  This book was a starting place for me.  It explained the birth of Al-Qaeda in brutal Arab prisons, the life of Osama Bin Laden, his growth into a rebel and then an extremist and finally to the lack of communication between the FBI and CIA which helped to lead up to the travesty of September 11, 2001.  I must admit that I would have to read it again to absorb all of the details, and I might.  Lawrence Wright has written an excellent well-researched and readable book, I highly recommend it

</review>
<review>

I can not laud this book too highly.  It is meticulously researched and intelligently presented.

You will be astounded.  Stunned, maybe.  Did you know that the deadly form of the religion of peace got its start in Boulder, CO?

Can you imagine that the people who were smart enough to bring down the World Trade Center were such superstitious morons that they thought a glucose IV bottle was attracting Soviet bombers?

Well, you will if you read this.  And that's just the start

</review>
<review>

Someone had just sent me a documentary film called "Loose Change" which makes a case for the US government being responsible for blowing up the World Trade Centre. This book blows that little theory right out of the water.

Extremely well researched and foot noted, the author goes into great detail about the backgrounds of all the persons involved in plotting 9/11 and even back to those who developed radical fundamentalism long ago and passed the ideas on to this generation.

I felt that the author was very even handed in his portrayals of all concerned and spent much time laying out the whys and wherefores that pushed them into becoming the radicals that they are.

An excellent read. I could scarcely put it down

</review>
<review>

I found this to be very well researched and full of interesting information, however it took a lot of concentration to keep all of the carachters apart. I learned much about how the militant terrorists justify their actions and was dumfounded by how poor the cooperation between our anti terrorist agencies was. Definitely worth the effort to read it

</review>
<review>

Well-researched book and well-written. It's amazing to trace the formation and progress of Al Qaed

</review>
<review>

A must read for anyone who wants to understand 9/11.  Well written, objective, and factual, it's the scariest book I've ever read.  This is a warning and we must take heed.

</review>
<review>

This book is divided into short reviews of various historic sites across the US.  It's a great learning experience to read about some of the sites.  Loewen gives the history of the site, including why it was established and often what the politics were at the time.  There's some amusing information about misinformation that the sites portray.  I have truly enjoyed reading this, and because of the way it's set up, it's easy to read in short bursts when you just have a few minutes

</review>
<review>

I first thought that the book was pretty entertaining until the section on the Mining Hall of Fame.  I actually know about this museum in Leadville Co.  The author falsely alludes to the museum being a product of "big business" to promote their agenda.  This museum actually took many years of interested individuals' efforts to create.   The author seems to be upset because the museum doesn't tell the whole story about mining methods and their impact.  This museum was never intended to do that.  There are dozens upon dozens of mining museums across the country that does this.  The Mining Hall of Fame primarily focuses on notable people who have contributed to mining in the US.  Many of the inductees had not only a major impact on mining in the US, but also the world.  The author is critical because the type of people HE would like to see inducted in the museum are not represented, and alludes to racism.  He uses an example of a Native American "discovering" uranium in the 1950's in New Mexico, and asking why this person is not in the Hall of Fame.  Gee, could it be that uranium was actually discovered many years before?  After all, they did mine uranium in NM for the atomic bomb during the 1940's.  I did not finish the book because it was obvious that using actual facts were beyond the scope of this book....

</review>
<review>

"Lies Across America" is a wolf in sheep's clothing.  Disguised behind this book's apparently innocuous political correctness lies a new form of pernicious censorship.  Even though the author claims that he has no intent to rip down monuments, much of his reasoning is deeply flawed.  Instead of doing original research into the various subjects that he writes on, like a good professor should do, he summarizes a book, says it presents correct conclusions, and then says that the old thinking is wrong.  Case in point, is the chapter on the burning of Columbia, South Carolina during the Civil War.  Instead of looking at all the evidence on what happened when Sherman marched into the city in 1865, Loewen quotes two books which he seems to think draw the correct conclusions, and says that Sherman really had nothing to do with burning the city.  Thus, almost all the historical markers in Columbia are wrong, or so Loewen seems to hold.  Not the most convincing argument.

Loewen goes on to say interesting things in his book but goes absolutely nowhere with them.  For instance, he says that the Confederate Relic Room in Columbia may be "the least accurate museum operated by a state government anywhere in the United States."  Why does he say this?  What evidence does he have to support this other than the museum says that Sherman and his troops burned down 80 % of the city?  Another diatribe against South Carolina is found in the appendix, where Loewen says that John Calhoun has no "redeeming characteristics, so I suggest removing him to museums from Marion Square in Charleston, the South Carolina State House, Calhoun College at Yale, the United States Capitol, and wherever else he sits in a place of honor."  Loewen pretends to be upholding historical realism with quotes from Paul Fussell (a real Historian), but in fact his true agenda is just liberal censorship.

We in America are fortunate that we do not have a strictly homogenous society.  The United States is a society founded by all different types of religions and ethnicities and we should celebrate these differences.  However, just because we disagree with cultures and ideas long ago, that does not mean they are not worth studying.  There are always people that we agree with, and disagree with.  The beautiful thing about open societies like America is that we can read and listen to people that we disagree with, and then make up our own minds.  The great jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote long ago that "the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas -- that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out."  Censorship, whether propagated by liberals or conservatives, can only stand in the way of this marketplace of ideas.  To say that an important 19th century politician like John Calhoun is not worth studying is just simply intellectually dishonest, especially from a professor.  In conclusion, a book like this should have a place in the marketplace of ideas, but when it comes down to buying into Loewen's theories, I'm glad I checked it out at the library.

</review>
<review>

Did you know that, in language backdated from the McCarthy era, Helen Keller was a "Com-symp," a Communist sympathizer? Well, no, because that wouldn't be so edifying.

But it's the truth; she even sent Lenin a letter congratulating him on the Russian Revolution. And, this Alabama native was also a strong supporter of the NAACP.

Of course, you won't find either one of those facts mentioned at her white-run, white-bread historical site home.

Nor will you find the possibility of President James Buchanan's homosexuality mentioned by guides at his home.

In Lies Across America, Loewen tours our country's historical sites, markers and monuments, knowing they likely have history wrong, to see just how wrong they got it -- and why.

And, of course, understand what America really is requires that we face why our society has covered up, suppressed or distorted so much history

</review>
<review>

Lies Across America: What our Historic Sites Get Wrong is an excellent book by James Loewen. He starts first with the western half of the United States since most history textbooks start with the eastern side. All of the information about historical markers is broken up into small sections for easy reading. Loewen proceeds to give state-by-state accounts of historical markers and their errors or in some cases their silliness. Many of the markers honor people as heroes who were in fact overt racists. Other markers are notorious for telling one side of the story. Most of the markers in the south dealing with the Confederacy are found to slant towards confederate sentiments or just to omit what really happened at historic confederate sites. We also find out that many markers dealing with Native Americans would refer to them as savages or other racist terms. In many instances I was appalled by the honoring of people like Jeffrey Amherst in Massachusetts who intentionally initiated the spread of smallpox among Native Americans to exterminate them from the landscape. Loewen also points out our country has never been able to come to terms with gay or lesbian leaders and honor them. You can take a tour of Willa Cather's original home in Nebraska but never once hear anything mentioned about her being a lesbian. Another instance of outright silliness is when Plantation homes talk endlessly about silverware while you tour them but fail to mention anything to do with who built the homes, did the work there, and were held in bondage to the owners. These are just some of the things that you'll find contained in this book.

This book is very thought provoking and helps correct historical inaccuracy in the past. Historical inaccuracy prevents Americans from coming to terms with things that are important today such as: racism, homophobia, class inequality, and the glossing over of important events that could help us learn from them so as to prevent them from happening in the future. After all, George Santayna once admonished, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Do yourself a favor and read this book and let it help you start dialogue with others about our important and rich history

</review>
<review>

It took me 3 years to read this book - should I end the review now? It's not because I am an extremely busy person, or because the book was so enormous that I read it endlessly for that long. No, the reason it took me 3 years to read this book is because it's just not very good. As excellent as Lies My Teacher Told Me was, this was equally bad.

The book is a collection of small essays about various roadside memorials, or statues, or other historical tidbits that adorn the United States landscape. Loewen goes on to expound how incorrect all of them are, in the process suggesting that - now get this - there is racism in this country. Nothing in this book is eye-opening, by a long shot. While some essays do shed some interesting light on our history, the majority of these essays can be summed up by saying that white people have treated black people and Indians poorly. What a surprise. In his next book we may find out that the sun rises in the East.

I'm utterly baffled how anyone can give this book 5 stars. This is a 2 star book which narrowly escapes the fate of a single star only because some of the history here is enlightening, to an extent. The vast majority deals with the deep south and it's predilection towards racism.

In any book which the author doesn't have enough material to sufficiently back his claim, he will resort to such tactics as telling one side of the story or failing to give the full history of the situation. Loewen does both, often times leaving the essay a bare skeleton of what it might have been; leading the attentive reader wondering why things don't seem to add up on the pages of his text.

I feel like the motivating force of this book was to make money, and little else. Perhaps there was a drive to create controversy. But the book is so tame that it can hardly do that. The pages are mostly a chore to get through, as evidenced by the 3 year period it took me to get through it. Truth be told, it may have been sitting on my night stand for 4 years. Either way, I found it dreadfully difficult to pick it up most days.

Entirely not worth it

</review>
<review>

Leaving not a state or an oppression unturned, Lies Across America is the enormous, exhaustive sequel of kinds to Lies My Teacher Told Me, taking a look at the monuments and markers across America that overwhelmingly paint a dishonest and unrelentingly positive view of America's past.  What he provides here isn't just vital history, it tells the vital sociological truth about history's continued impact on regional landscapes.  Many have complained that his section of the South is too long and too anti-Confederate (it's now controversial to be anti-Confederate?).  But why it's such an important section is in representing the continued oppression and inequality of the region as part of a process of sugarcoating our history and who was disenfranchised in the process.  Plus, his points demand to be considered - never has a work so thoughtfully, credibly, and humorously elucidated the flaws and implications in the way we tell history.  Read this book with an open mind, and you'll never look the same way at our use of the word "discovered" (a loaded Euro-centric term that denies people living in certain areas for hundreds of years), the undertones - and occasionally overtones - that glorify racism in countless southern monuments, or the continued dialogue between how to represent historical items in a specific time and representing what actually happened.  This is a book whose importance in representing both the past and present cannot be overstated

</review>
<review>

James Loewen is an academic scholar who feels very strongly about the misinformation presented at places of historical significance. This book presents a listing of ninety- five historic sites, historic parks, and historic markers that don't quite get the story correct. Arranged in the book from west to east, each state in the U.S. includes at least one listing and some states have several. They all have one thing in common: They either lie outright or they present misleading information about what took place.

Even though this book is titled "Lies Across America" the truth is that most of the places presented in this book are not necessarily giving out false information to tourists. Rather, they are failing to tell both sides of the story. The themes most commonly mentioned in the passages of this book are those that de-emphasize the role of Native Americans in the settling of the North American continent; fail to mention the bad treatment of African Americans; or that fail to tell the truth about the role of the Confederate and Union leaders in the Civil War. These historic places tend to explain things in a mostly positive way, leaving out anything bad in order to make people feel better about a person or place or to avoid controversy.

Loewen has some interesting facts to share about different historic sites around the country, and some of the things you will read in this book will surprise you. He feels that the negative and/or controversial facts, even if they don't sound good, should still be presented in their entirety. Historic sites shouldn't try to hide the truth- they should let the facts be known to all.

This book presents some good history lessons about some of the forgotten moments in U.S. history. Loewen writes in a clear manner, but I really wish he would refrain from using so many exclamation marks. On most every page of this book, he has an exclamation mark someplace. Maybe he is just so fascinated with his own work that he can't help himself. But I really wish he would refrain from his tendency to shout.

History majors and other lovers of the past will enjoy this book most. It does get a little carried away with topics about the Civil War and coverage of oppressed groups of people. But I still think it's a good book with some important information for all to read. What we hear is not always the full truth, and Loewen wants this to change.

</review>
<review>

What happened in the past is the past and what we say about it is history, James W. Loewen says as he opens Lies Across America (21). In the course of 95 vignettes Loewen demonstrates that much of the time history, as it is presented to the public through historic sites across the country, takes the form of non-controversial hogwash. Loewen points out that historic site visitors should realize that each location tells two stories: the story of the event or person it is commemorating and the story of its erection or preservation. The former is the truth and the latter is what those who erected or preserved the monument want the general public to think is the truth. Loewen argues many erectors suffer from the "heritage syndrome," the impulse to only remember what is attractive or flattering and ignore all the rest (47).

Through an often humorous and sometimes sarcastic tone Lies Across America demonstrates that European-Americans decidedly feel that nothing important happened until they arrived on the scene and after that what they did was all that mattered. The title of one entry says it all: "Don't `Discover' `Til You See The Eyes of The Whites" (74). Time and time again Loewen illustrates how many historic sites and place names slight Native Americans. Many tribes are known by negative names - names their enemies gave to them - and some monument monikers stigmatize Indian religion and culture, such as Devil's Tower in Wyoming, whose name blasphemes local Indians because to them it is a holy site (133). Across the landscape, Native Americans do not get the credit they deserve, such as two historical markers in California that omit the Indians' contribution in building Sutter's fort and some of the Catholic Church's missions.

Loewen contends that some historical markers present invented history, while others don't present enough. A monument in Almo, Idaho memorializes a massacre that never took place (89-93). Visitors at the preserved homes of Helen Keller and 15th president James Buchanan see a wonderful array of period furniture and architecture but learn little of the famous people who lived there. Nothing is spoken of Keller's radicalism at her home and at the former Buchanan residence visitors do not hear about the former president's political views and homosexuality (367-370).

Lies Across America teaches Americans to be highly critical of how history is portrayed across the landscape. It teaches visitors to take what is presented in every historic site at face value and not assume the monument depicts the whole truth. In the second appendix, Loewen includes questions every visitor should ask in order to get the real story of each monument or marker, and any visitor would benefit from asking the questions and uncovering their answers.

The book's one weakness is organization. Each entry is arranged geographically, when it would be a smoother read if done topically. Organizing entries together by topic would avoid disjunction. However, the volume is highly readable and should be enjoyable to anyone interested in history, both academic and laymen. Every entry grabs readers' attention no matter if they have prior interest or knowledge in the subject presented. Its content generates a whole host of trivia questions and answers while also discussing the more important themes of American history - racism, sexism, slavery, and exploitation.

</review>
<review>

Good insight into the mind of a talented thinker. Unfortunately he dwindles of toward the end, but definitely worth reading

</review>
<review>

Tolstoy really hit on the fact that people work their whole lives in pursuit of something that will make them truly happy. "The more I get the happier I'll be". It doesn't work like that. Even at his best he was miserable, suicidal. The answer is God. Plain and simple. He is the only thing that Tolstoy discovered would lead him to a more peaceful,satisfying life. This was a great book

</review>
<review>

The starting point of this work always fascinated me. Here is a great genius of mankind, recognized throughout the world as an immortal creator of Literature. He is the father of a large family and has a wife he has loved and who has loved him. He has great wealth .In other words here is a person who seems to have almost everything most human beings strive for in their lives and do not attain in any way close to the level at which he has attained them. And yet it all turns meaningless to him, and he in despair asks the question of whether there is anything to truly live for, what can give life true meaning. For he too senses that Death will take him and all his worlds, and their meaning away.
His answer comes from within his own personal Christian faith. It is not a formal church faith but rather has to do with the message of God he hears in his heart, the message of love for all of mankind. Meaning is to be found according to Tolstoy in living in a spiritual way in which stress is placed in goodness with others and sharing with them whatever one has to give.
The meaning of life is living according to this voice of God he hears within.
This is the answer Tolstoy gave, but the evidence of his life suggests it did not satisfy him. For his questionings and doubts persisted throughout his lifetime, and his life did not end in some great gesture of affirmation and love but rather in his running from the once- beloved wife, who for years had embittered his life, as he hers.
This work cannot of course compare to Tolstoy's great novels in scope or even in human interest. It is a look at a great man's ' soul' at one stage of his life but in giving that life omits many of the great skills Tolstoy made use of in other writing.
As spiritual guide it has never seemed to me to provide the kind of answers to life meaning I have been looking for.
Yet I understand how it may be of much help and consolation to all those who have suffered crises similar to that of Tolstoy.

</review>
<review>

Tolstoy's honesty at his own selfish motives and his dissapointment with the true value of his accompleshments is wonderfully refreshing.   His writing is so personal and open that I don't think anyone can walk away from this unmoved.  I was dissapointed that he rejects the concept of a personal active God in the conclusion of his search

</review>
<review>

Tolstoy's Confession was written during his time of deep internal spiritual struggle.  Upon his renunciation of a life of aristocratic wealth and worldly pleasure, Tolstoy longed for the sense of true peace that he saw in the peasant class.  Thus he embarked upon a search for meaning and happiness through a life of simple faith, manual labor, and poverty.  He formulated his own Chrisian philosophy based on Christ's Sermon on the Mount stressing the existence of the Kingdom of God within the human heart, civil disobedience, and total pacifism.  This  and quot;law of love and quot; is explored deeply in confessional form throughout this autobiographical work.  Although this particular approach to living the life in Christ ultimately did not cultivate in Tolstoy the deep inner peace that he yearned for, I feel that many of his ideas can be beneficial to people both within the Church as well as not.  Regardless of the validity of his doctrine, it cannot be denied that this is an authentic, genuine, and very human confession of a man searching for God and some meaning to life on earth.  Although I personally disagree with many of Tolstoy's points, I still hold his Confession to be a universal work that deserves a fair exploration by all who have ever felt a similar need for inner peace and true reconciliation with God

</review>
<review>

Tolstoy's personal account of the existential crisis he faced after having published War  and amp; Peace and Anna Karenina.  If you've ever laid awake late at night wondering,  and quot;What will come from what I am doing now, and may do tomorrow?  What will come of my whole life? and quot; then Tolstoy's Confession is a book for you

</review>
<review>

I'm a student who takes a philosophy class every semester, despite the fact that it does absolutely nothing for my graduation requirements. I always do well in the philosophy classes, but there is one part I hate: the reading. I was convinced that there was no point in philosophy that one could not talk through with another person; the words and semantics in philosophy, meant to clarify arguments when spoken, simply seemed a muddle to me when read. So it was with trepidation that I picked up my latest assignment--Tolstoy's Confession. I read it, and was shocked to find myself completely engrossed. Here, finally, was what I'd been looking for...the On the Road of philosophy, the self-effacing Jack Kerouac of the field. Everyone who's had worries about the fleeting nature of life and everyone who's worried that it all means nothing, this is your book

</review>
<review>

What a surprise.  From the title and cover art I was expecting a 4th of July - My country `tis of thee - stand at attention and salute book full of patriotic drivel. But this is a very substantial and thoughtful study of America's institutions and its critics. And the author has a gift for straightforward, easy to understand exposition.

Dinesh D'Souza came to the U.S. as an exchange student from Bombay, India in 1978.  He has had an illustrious career in this, his adoptive country. He's been active in politics as a Presidential advisor and in other capacities, but is mainly a scholar and writer.  He spent ten years with the American Enterprise Institution and at the time of writing this book was a Fellow at the Hoover Institution.

The first chapter tackles all the criticisms of America, from the Left to Europe to Islam. In a style that characterizes the entire book, D'Souza presents the arguments and/or complaints against America, its actions, culture, or whatever.  He then replies with a calm, logical, polite but emphatic refutation.  As well as being informative, this book is a lesson in the proper way to conduct a debate.

Not all the complaints against America are refutable.  America is not perfect and D'Souza is the first to admit it.  He never engages in casuistry but admits the faults, past and present,  with candor.  In a Chapter titled "Two Cheers for Colonialism" he describes the wrongs of Western Colonialism, but also argues convincingly that by and large the benefits for those Colonized have outweighed the wrongs.

He avers that the reason the West became the dominant civilization in the modern era is because it invented three institutions: science, democracy and capitalism.  The freedom in the West derives from this combination and allows the human being to become a different sort of person than those still living in traditional societies.

As D'Souza concludes:  "America is a new kind of society that produces a new kind of human being.  That human being - confidant, self-reliant, tolerant, generous, future oriented - is a vast improvement over the wretched, servile, fatalistic, and intolerant human being that traditional societies have always produced, and that Islamic societies produce now."


</review>
<review>

Alaister Cooke became famous in Britain via his regular broadcasts termed 'Letter from America", whereby he attempted to explain current events within America to a British audience.

He lived in America - came to identify himself deeply with his adopted country and yet I do not think I ever heard him tackle what makes America great in quite the same manner as Dinesh D'Sousa who also is a first generation immigrant (and one who became a citizen).

I am myself a first generation immigrant from Africa. And I was fascinated by the observations that D'Sousa made, having made some of them myself (though without the deep analysis and connecting the dots that D'Sousa did).

I wonder - to those in America who hate this book; what is it that you hate so much? There are many who have moved here who have a deep respect for this country and its ideals. We understand that mistakes are made - but we come from countries where the political elites will not admit to those mistakes and worse, will never attempt to correct them.

Like the flag burning debate - I sense that to many Americans who are born here, then the right to burn the flag and hate this country - are issues that are 'protected' under the Constitution.

But to many who immigrate here - we can (and do) love this country deeply, acknowledge that errors have and will continue to be made but can also seperate the actions of some of its citizens instead of identifying them with the spirit that is America.

D'Sousa's book should be read - it is not 'hate-filled' polemic, instead it reasonably asks some questions, provides some answers and established a framework for discussion and debate. All of which is done in the best sense of a liberal tradition.

Dont be close minded - you dont have to agree - but to reject these ideas first you have to be familiar with them?


</review>
<review>

This is a smooth, easy and short read. D'souza ideas have a nice and consistant flow to them that makes this a pleasure to read with out making this a war-n-peace dissertation on some of the cultural warfare present in our day.

D'Souza's main thesis is to acknolwedge the debauchery caused by the unbridled use of freedom in our society from what he calls the ethic of authenticity. Also by acknowleding this he also points out where the Islamists and multi-culturalsts do not. This is the most important aspect of his book, where by that same freedom when engaged in virtues such as altruism have a greater meaning in the greater context of the culture and in the world.

He talks about several key cultural issues in America and portrays them in an unapolgetic prose that acknowledges the short comings of America while also expressing them as great strengths. For instance, racism in America. We were the country that led the charge to abolish it. It took the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans in battle to do it as well and our Republis survived. This is not to America's discredit becuase it has flaws but to its credit that it is unique in the sense that it overcame those flaws. Mr. D'Souza is quick to point out that the West has been responsbile for great progress in the world and that even in the tyranny of colonialism, his native India benefitted from the imposition of the British where they outlawed the practice of killing female infants, child marriage, and more.

I found this book amazingly refreshing and I would assume that most multiculturalists, who continue to blame America first for all the woe's of the world will probably find it troubling. Mr. D'souza, I enjoyed reading every single page. As an American, a service-member in the military, a father, and husband in a two-parent home... I'm am convinced that some ways are better to live. This is not to the discredit of those who are chosing a different path but American altruism and invention are at the heart of almost everything that defines my life and for that I am unapologetic and greatful. For that I've seen first hand how the rest of the world revels in that same special 'stuff' that is unique to America. Thanks for articulating this as you have. It's refreshing to not have to trudge through some angry American historian who's ashamed to be an American. My hat is off to you sir!

</review>
<review>

Got the Audio Book and his arguments are cogent and well reasoned.
Well worth the money invested

</review>
<review>

Dinesh D'Souza is the Thomas Paine of our day. His insight, logic, grasp of the English Language, and wit make him, I believe, the best political author alive.
What's so Great About America is one of the greatest books I have read. He digs down beyond the usual debate over the war on terror and aptly defines it as a war between two mutually exclusive philosiphies: Freedom v. Coerced Virtue. He doesn't deny the faults in our system, but he shows that those problems are better than the alternative. This book is well worth the money I spent on it, and I am looking forward to reading other books by the author.

It is a shame that the devisive climate of our country would make some people deny the brilliance of this book because it doesn't fit their point of view. There have been uncalled for opinions that don't reflect the book, and even quotes from the book taken out of context (someone claimed that he said that European violence agianst Native Americans was "isolated instances", when he actually said that "there were isolated instances of Europeans purposely spreading smallpox"). Don't believe the negativity, and buy this book

</review>
<review>

This book says absolutely nothing about the condition that America is in today; it says nothing about American history, nor the American people. It is just a collection of mindless warblings, fatuously childish ad hoc remarks by a doddering old fool who has made a career out of bootlicking the racist right. I would not recommend this even for kitty litter. Burn it

</review>
<review>

Without any prior knowledge of this book's contents and my urgency to find a book for a particular class of mine, I chose What's So Great About America solely based on the title, and I must say I was not let down.  As I read the title, the question filled many thoughts in my head and made my curiosity run wild.
The author Dinesh D'Souza, an Indian immigrant and now American citizen, gives his unique, and well researched, outside-in view on America.  D'Souza is clearly conservative but still gives very insightful thoughts analyzing both liberal and conservative arguments alike.  The general question he tries to answer is what many US citizens ask to themselves probably all the time; Why does everyone hate us?  He argues his point by incorporating three different worldly critiques from Europe, Asia, and the Islamic world.
Even though I am not very researched on any of the topics the author covers in the book, the arguments were clear and easily understood, while still being articulate and in-depth.  His honest and really quite frank views were really refreshing and also well respected.
This book helped revive in me an interest in my own country which was well faded.  Being born and raised in the United States, I think I took a lot of things that are unique and really quite special in this country for granted, and this book brought about awareness to many topics that I had never thought about.
I have, am, and always will be very proud to be an American, but after reading "What's So Great About America" I'm much more excited to call myself American.

</review>
<review>

Dinesh D'Souza, who emigrated here from Calcutta in 1978, displays a level of ignorance of American history, politics, economics and culture that is laughable.  But for the Immigration Reform Act of 1965 - which was bitterly opposed by those conservatives who now treat D'Souza as their pet token, yet which was pushed through by the liberals he so despises - D'Souza probably wouldn't even be in this country.  For him to accuse both Pat Buchanan AND the Rev. Jesse Jackson of "hating" America demonstrates the pathetic level of his discourse.  Don't bother

</review>
<review>

This book explains the reason why so many people "bad-mouth" the U.S. and "American culture", but yet, millions want to move to the U.S. either short-term or long-term. The truth is, the U.S. provides the best life in terms of wealth and freedom, and they just can't get that back home. The book is by a man who moved here, and explains, from the outside in, why the U.S. is so great.

</review>
<review>

In fact, this a very good book for someone interested in this style of investing (ie. buying a handfull of rental houses for bettter or earlier retirement). Its easy to read and I found several important points not covered in some of the more famous books. You prolly needs to read a few more books before beginning an investment enterprise, but this shold be one of them

</review>
<review>

This is on the overall a good book as the other reviews have testified.  There is one major problem, the author talks very little about risk.

She recommends that you get deeply into debt and use that leverage to make money.  That's ok and many people have made money that way.  Many people have also lost their shirt that well as well.  The book would have been much enhanced is she spent a chapter talking about the risks involved with taking on massive amounts of debt, especially for the small investor - the target audience - who likely doesn't have much to lose.  She should've included several case studies, some that look those who have successfully used leverage (debt), and looked at some who lost everything.  Then she could've analyzed what were the underlying factors and decisions that led to either failure or success.

Instead the author casts debt in an overly positive light, saying almost nothing about the risks involved.  This is all well for her, she began to buy several years before the biggest real estate boom in the history of the country.  But there have been plenty of real estate markets in the past where investors took on too much debt and lost not only their investment properties, but everything else as well.

Any credible book about investing has a responsibility to spend a healthy amount of time discussing risk.  It's like being enthusiastic about a medication but not saying anything about the potential side effects or hazards.  Such an approach is bad medicine, and Ms. Thomas' book is bad teaching because she ignores the subject of debt, and for that reason I took off 3 stars.

Beyond that, it's a very good starter book.

</review>
<review>

This is my 3rd book on real estate investing and I must say that each is totally different, with different ideas and different strategies.  I think it's important to keep this in mind because there is not one single book that can tell you everything you need to know.

I like how she talks about goal setting, something I've learned from Tony Robbins and that I feel is really important.  I like how she calculates the rate of return.  I like her differing point of views.  I would have never considered an adjustable rate mortgage before reading this book.  Overall I learned a lot, despite having already read 2 other good books.

A few things I didn't like:  I would have liked more information on selecting and comparing properties.  And especially calculating if I can afford it or not.  The information she gives is quite good, but since this is the most important topic I think it deserved even more.

The book is well worth the price and if you're serious about investing I highly recommend it.

</review>
<review>

This book has gotten me excited about getting into single family rentals, while at the same time, it's not letting me get too hyped up in getting rich quick (as rich as you want to be).
This book was a joy to read, and a page turner at that. I have read recent novels that were less exciting.
This book is full of priceless real world examples. It also made me think of rental income and equity in a different light.
The only downside, even though it spells every scenario out, I had to go to the internet to find out what some of the real estate words meant. All and all, worth it

</review>
<review>

In her own conversational style, Suzanne P. Thomas communicates a wealth of information for the small investor in a compact package.

While researching real estate investing and landlording, I read about a dozen books that I carefully selected from the library. Out of the dozen I read and the others I perused, this is one of two that I bought.  This book is an invaluable resource, and I've read through the majority of it at least four times.

This book begins by getting you thinking about your long term goals for investing.  For example, is your focus on creating cash flow for income, or are you interested in capitalizing on appreciation?

A nifty section of the book is on the subject, "Why Doesn't Everyone Buy Real Estate?"  This small section changed the way I thought about real estate investing.  After discussing obstacles to investing, Thomas clearly conveys that capitalizing on real estate takes patience. You won't find Thomas trying to fill your head with get-rich-quick schemes or promises of unrealistic fast returns.

One of Thomas' statements is a clincher.  Thomas says, "Just remember that there is a difference between investing and speculating.  Speculators need to get out before the market tanks, and this can be difficult to time correctly.  Investors have a long term plan that can handle ups AND downs."

About the time I read Thomas' book, I still had lingering thoughts about "flipping" properties.  I have to admit that "flipping" is enticing.  Although people do make money flipping real estate, this method is a gamble.  So, unless you have a lot of cash to invest that you can afford to lose, I wouldn't recommend it.

The chapter on "Selecting Properties" was especially helpful.  I do not consider myself a "Slum Lord" and want to own properties that my family would be pleased to live in.  We just completed work on fixer-upper home in a modest, older neighborhood.  The home is now a nice place with some class, and we've enjoyed renting it to another family who fell in love with it.

In Thomas' book, there are excellent chapters about loans (with sharp insights into ARMs), 1031 exchanges, qualifying tenants, etc.  Each chapter has multiple tidbits of information.

WHAT THIS BOOK IS NOT:  Although this book contains good information about landlording, it is not a nuts and bolts landlording book, nor does it profess to be.  You should seek the nuts and bolts from landlording books, from other investors, from a real estate attorney, and also from an experienced investor/teacher (community education programs usually have someone in the area who is an expert and teaches investment and landlording classes).

This book is excellent and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants a down-to-earth, information-packed book on this subject.  I hope Thomas writes more books on landlording and related subjects.




</review>
<review>

Rental Houses For The Successful Small Investors by experienced house-investor Suzanne P. Thomas is an expertly instructive guide to becoming a successful small investor in a specialized sector of the real estate industry. Enhanced with an easy-to-use, step-by-step construct replete with practical information on how to predict profitability of individual properties, discover where to get down payments, learn how to select the best properties, understanding exactly how loans really work for investors, selecting the best tenants, creating a comprehensive lease, properly managing property, and an informative exploration of what advantages 1031 tax deferred exchanges might allow an investor, Rental Houses is an excellent reference for all investors. Rental Houses is very strongly recommended for all readers interested in exploring the prospects of profitable investment in rental housing, as well as to those already in the practice of being a home rental landlord.

</review>
<review>

The second edition of this title was released January, 2006. However, Amazon.com takes most searches to this page for the old edition. To get to the page for the second edition, click above on Other Editions. The second edition is the same price but you'll get 25% more pages, and 10% of the old pages have been edited or replaced to bring them up-to-date

</review>
<review>

I first read this book three years ago and it still stands as one of the best books I have ever read on real estate investing. If you have read any amount of REI books you know that this area of publishing it is flooded with 'motivational' books that are full of fluff and short on details (Rich Dad series comes to mind). Suzanne P. Thomas's book delivers the real info that you are looking for. She offers pro insights on cashflow, down payment, selecting a property, different loans to consider, marketing, finding the best tenants, day-to-day details, etc. The focus is on single family rentals, but the info can be applied to most real estate investing situations. If you are a beginner investor this is the book you want to start with.

</review>
<review>

This book is ideal for the novice investor or beginner investor looking to get into rental houses. I read the first edition of this book and was very impressed. I then read the second edition and was pleasantly surprised at the amount new info. The author updated a lot and added a lot of additional info, so if you have read the first edition already, it's certainly still worth reading the second.

The author provides literally everything you need to know, from how you will qualify a rental property for mortgages, insurance, ads, how to screen tenants, literally everything. I wish I had read this book first before I had read my other real estate books, as this book answers literally all of my questions I had trouble getting answers for. Well worth the purchase!

</review>
<review>

I've read this book 3 times.  It is written very clearly with specifics about the author's experiences in purchasing and managing rental homes, very little "fluff".  Geared more towards beginning investors, but intermediate investors will also pick up some good tips.

If you're starting out in this business, get this book

</review>
<review>

Since this is one of many previous reviews, I will be brief. This is one of the most extraordinary novels I have ever read. But not the easiest one. The first time I read it I felt overwhelmed and undereducated, until I saw a another book written as a companion to the novel. It helped a lot with the unfamiliar cultural references, of which there are many. And I felt better. I read it a second time, on a couple of flights back and forth across the Pacific (perfect place - you're captive, with few distractions). And it took a few more hours than that to finish. In the end, if you can read no other novel, or if you are going to be isolated on an island with no chance of escape, and can take a book to read, take this one. You won't regret it

</review>
<review>

I truly feel sorry for Pynchon, knowing that writing this atrocity of a novel probably cost him many months of life.  By all means, if you want to read it, get it from the library as I strongly advise against laying out cold cash for this mockery.  Does anyone really care that a man's sexual episodes predict German V rockets falling on England?  Is it really important to World Literature that a man dreams he is being sucked down a toilet surrounded by crap and toilet paper and can even smell which race the crap came from?  The so-called Intellectuals who praise this claptrap are the same Great Thinkers that believe Ulysses by James Joyce is the best novel of all time.  I would rather read the worse writing of de Balzac than waste one more second perusing either of these novels.  Both these "novels" are truly "sound and fury .... signifying nothing."

</review>
<review>

Perhaps extreme paranoia is one way out of, or at least our only healing response to our existential loneliness. (The other way, of course, is love, but this takes a second place in Pynchon's world view.) "They have done this to me, I am Their victim", is perhaps a more comforting world-view, than "I am completely irrelevant." At least one can have some kind of fun or meaning to life in finding out who They are and why They have done it.

thelectern.blogspot.co

</review>
<review>

Since there are already 250 reviews of this book, I am just going to say that the earlier portion of the book may contain the very best English-language prose style ever written--even better than Joyce and Nabokov!  Oh, and also, Pynchon was not only robbed of a Pulitzer Prize, but also (so far) of a highly deserved Nobel Prize (also true of John Ashbery)

</review>
<review>

I lived in Germany a few years ago and found this book in a train station.  Someone had just walked off and left it.  After about ten pages, realizing that Pynchon was an intellectual rip-off artist, I secured it a trash can where no one could find it.  I like to think I protect the public from pollution.

</review>
<review>

Rarely is pretentious drivel so profoundly trite.  Perfectly exemplifies the great post-modern con.  A chaotic assemblage of random terms to which meaning is later ascribed, so much like a certain nostradomus.

There are two principle types of literay work:

1. That which is to be read. and of course

2. That which is to be carted about, the title clearly visible, with a look of supreme smugness upon the owner's face.

Gravity's Rainbow is quite obviously a work of the latter category.

You see, I've come to the think of myself as something of an amateur post-modern poet; here is an example of my work:

Ball, Kite, wolf, sky, space, heart, moon, expand, window, flowing, profound, pompous, gravity's rainbow.

You see i'm quite the literary genius, somebody give me an award!!!

What you fools fail to realize is that the post-modern style is simply a tool enabling those of simple mind to veil their lack of true artistry behind absurdity

</review>
<review>

I was expecting a real blockbuster ending to this series, and I was a bit disappointed. I thought the killers would turn out to be people way more involved in the series, and I was disappointed that they were really fringe characters. I felt let down by that.

Still, you can't go wrong with a Mariah Stewart book. She's one of the best out there when it comes to keeping you rivited.

</review>
<review>

Working a case in Central America, FBI Agent Connor Shields stumbles across a horrifying sight-dozens of young children being herded into a cargo truck, obviously doomed to a future of slavery or as unwilling participants in the international child sex trade.  Conflicted because he's on a very important mission, Connor is about to intervene when he's accosted by a colleague who assures him that everything is under control, that both local and US authorities are on the case.

Heartened by this news, Connor departs for his scheduled rendezvous.  What he doesn't realize, however, is that his trusted associate is in league with the kidnappers, and that, because of his poor timing, he and all those he holds dear have been placed in mortal danger.

The fourth and final book in Stewart's "Dead" series (following Dead Wrong, Dead Certain, and Dead Even), Dead End cannily combines two disparate premises (the investigation into the deaths of several schoolgirls at the hands of a serial killer and the travesty that is the child sex trade), resulting in a tale guaranteed to hold readers' spellbound until they reach the last page.  Although her writing is not as polished as one might expect from such a seasoned author, Stewart nevertheless manages to wring all the tension she can out of her compelling subject matter, offering her audience a book that provides suspense and social commentary in equal doses, a story dealing that effectively illustrates the toll crime takes on victims, criminals, and law enforcement officials.


</review>
<review>

Good, but not great.  Stewart tries a little too hard in this book.  It's still good, and I would recommend reading it, but it's not worth reading at the hardcover price

</review>
<review>

If you haven't read the first three books in Mariah Stewarts "DEAD" series--DEAD WRONG, DEAD CERTAIN, and DEAD EVEN--go pick up a copy today.  Although not necessary to enjoy DEAD END, you'll get a much better feel for some of the main characters--plus just three really good reads--if you read the other books first.

That said, DEAD END centers around Dr. Anne Marie McCall, an FBI profiler, and her new love, police Detective Evan Crosby.  At a mutual friend's wedding, Evan is surprised over the jealousy he feels by how close Annie still is with the Shields family.  Her fiance, undercover agent Dylan Shields, was murdered two years ago during a covert op.  The Shields family, with its many children all in FBI positions, is a close-knit one who still has a place for the memory of what Annie and Dylan were to each other.

Evan, attempting to get over his jealousy but knowing that Annie will never be at peace until she knows what really happened to Dylan, suggests that they take one last look at the file on his death--hoping that maybe this one last shot might provide Annie with the closure she needs, and that a new set of eyes might come up with new leads in the investigation.

What they uncover are more questions, missing files, and situations that prove more and more dangerous.  Who was really the intended victim that night?  Does the locale of Dylan's death have something to do with the current case Evan is working on?  Why are members of the extended Shields family ending up in questionioning situations?

Ms. Stewart has written another winner.  I'm sad to see the "DEAD" series end, but I was happy to see that with the release of DEAD END all the questions from the last three books were answered.  A real winner, you won't want to miss this book.  It's an excellent offering in the romantic supsense genre!

</review>
<review>

Anne Marie McCall is a psychologist and one of the FBI's most skilled profilers.  She is still grieving for her dead fiance, Special Agent Dylan Shields, who was killed more than two years earlier in an undercover operation that turned sour. Pennsylvania Detective Evan Crosby is now Annie's lover, but he is having a hard time competing with Dylan's memory.  After a nasty quarrel with Annie, Evan suggests that both he and Annie reexamine Dylan's death to see if they can uncover any fresh leads.  Little does the couple know that by opening up this old case, they are trespassing into dangerous territory.

Meanwhile, Evan has other pressing items on his plate.  A series of wealthy young teenaged girls have been found dead, the victims of a serial killer, and he and his colleagues are trying to find clues that will lead to the perpetrator.  Equally perplexing, when more corpses of teenaged girls turn up, they are of unidentified Hispanic girls who have never been reported missing by their parents.

Thus begins Mariah Stewart's "Dead End," a fast-paced romantic thriller that features engaging protagonists and a compelling plot.  Stewart deftly balances her large cast of characters, including FBI agents, county detectives, and assorted villains and victims.  The dialogue is, for the most part, realistic, although there are some stilted exchanges when the loose ends are tied up at the end.  Stewart inserts clues and hints along the way to give the reader a fair shake at guessing the outcome, and she also puts in enough red herrings to keep us off balance.  However, the outcome will not greatly surprise most attentive readers.

To her credit, Stewart expertly handles the love story between Evan and Annie.  They are equals in every sense of the word; both are respected professionals who value one another not just as lovers, but also as human beings.  Their relationship provides a solid backdrop to the story, and as their investigations progress, they learn to rely on and trust one another implicitly.  Annie and Evan make a good team, both on and off the job.  "Dead End" works because Mariah Stewart is a competent writer who doesn't condescend to her public.  Her prose style is clear and crisp,  her story is complex but not convoluted, and she is not afraid to kill off some good people for the sake of realism.  Fans of romantic suspense will find "Dead End" involving and entertaining

</review>
<review>

In December 2002, FBI Agent Shields had completed his mission in Santa Estela, Central America. He was on the docks, en route to the boat that would begin his journey back to the States, when he stumbled upon men and vehicles in the process of buying children. It was a child-slave trade obviously. As Shields pondered what he should do, his cousin (another agent) appeared and informed him that the child-slave ring would end that very night. Shields met his boat contact and went home, secure in the knowledge that his cousin's team would save the children.

Dr. Anne McCall, FBI Profiler, had been engaged to Dylan Shields two years ago. But Dylan had been killed in an undercover drug deal gone bad. The Shields clan still considered Annie to be one of their own though. The entire clan was either in the FBI or retired from it. Annie knows she is lucky. Not only does she have the deep affection of the entire Shield family, but she also has found love a second time in the form of Homicide Detective Evan Crosby.

Annie and Evan attend the wedding of Mara, Annie's sister, to Aiden Shields. It is there that Evan realizes the relationship between Annie and himself could go no further until Dylan's death is put to rest. Evan offers to look into Dylan's case, as a fresh set of eyes, with Annie. It is something the couple plan to do together, as time permits. Evan's primary focus is on a serial killer. Pre-teen girls were being targeted. Some of the victims have a tattoo. Those with the tattoo have no ID and no one has filed missing reports on them. As Annie and Evan investigate the serial killer and Dylan's death, coincidences begin showing. Then people with possible leads begin to die. As both cases begin to make even a little bit of sense, Annie realizes that she may be walking around with a target on her back.

**** This is the fourth and last novel in the "Dead" series. Fans of the CSI television series will adore this book as the two main characters work through all the evidence. The plot is complex and will keep your mind working as you follow along. If you have read the other books of the series, you will see familiar names and faces. By using past characters in secondary roles this time around, the author has made the story seem more realistic. Excellent series that I highly recommend to all. ****

Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews

</review>
<review>

In Avon County, Pennsylvania, Homicide Detective Evan Crosby is sick when he sees the fourth victim in under a month.  Each casualty was pretty young female, ages 12 - 14, attending a private school, and left without shoes.  His lover, FBI profiler Annie Marie McCall tries to give him solace, but knows how difficult coping with this case is.

At the wedding of Annie's sister to a Shield sibling, Evan feels left out as the happy occasion is more a wake to FBI Agent Thomas Shield, who was assassinated.  Upset, Evan leaves when another girl is killed without a word to Annie who is inside the Shield zone since Thomas was her fianc, which bans the detective from entry.  Not long afterward, knowing she needs closure, Evan offers a fresh pair of eyes in investigating the murder.  As they work together on the Shield murder and the serial killings, an agency insider watches them very closely because he will have them eliminated if they get to close to him or his young girl black market ring.

The fourth Dead tale is a potent romantic suspense tale starring two likable protagonists in love yet struggling to form a relationship because of the ghost of her murdered fianc.  The Shield Zone is tighter than ever, denser than a black hole as no matter escapes this closely knit family to the chagrin of Evan.  Annie is terrific as she balances her second strike of love's lightning bolt with her first hit, but still needs closure, which Evan knows means uncovering who killed Thomas.  Mariah Stewart is dead on with this tale and series.

Harriet Klausner

</review>
<review>

I'll keep my review pretty short; pretty much all the good points the other reviewers wrote are pretty much true. So I'll just add my two cents.

1) This is mainly futures trading, even though some plays sometimes apply to stocks/options/forex. Still even if you're not into futures, the section on psychology, methodology, trading plan, etc. are worth the book.

2) The examples in this book will really help you understand how a real trader should trade - emotionlessly. The whole idea that you need to have chosen a stop exit, target exit, entry point, whether you should scale in/out is very well described here.

If you're looking for forex trading, I recommend "Beat The Odds" by Igor Toshchakov. His english isn't perfect but the book is filled with useful info

</review>
<review>

This book is amazing! It is a very engaging read and never gets stale. The knowledge you get out of it is priceless. The tactics I learned in this book were very successful when applied to swing trading for me. Highly Recommend

</review>
<review>

Well, Amazon invited me to write a review about this book.
I must give it 5 stars because I gave other books on trading which were not that good 5 stars as well.
I bought this book based on the reviews already written here.
And yes, I was quite delighted. I liked the chapters on psychology very much. I'd like to cut these chapters and paste them into Vadim Graifer's book "Techniques of Tape Reading", and delete his chapters about his losing experiences as a beginner. That would be the perfect trading book for me.

The setups, they're okay. But I'm using none of them since I got my own pair of setups. But they're a great starting point for someone who's traded with no setups at all.
There is one reviewer who's concerned that Mr. Carter might be blabbing away too many secrets. Don't you worry about that. Like William Gann said: a chemist's biggest secret won't make the carpenter any wiser.

You shouldn't take over Carter's writing one-to-one. I didn't like what he said about Moving Averages and Stop levels. If you use a technical stop be sure that you really want to lose that much money. As a scalper for years now, and quite successful, his suggestions were beyond my comfort level. You gotta find out for yourself how to fine tune your system. I've found out for myself that I am not the kind of a trader who goes for the big moves. Use Carter's suggestions to create your own trading system. This book will definitely help you. Actually there were some ideas that I could use to improve my trading.
All in all, Mr Carter is very (!) generous in sharing information and knowledge with the reader/trader. There's sure something for everyone which can be used to make money right away.
But only experience will make you a better trader

</review>
<review>

This is an easy to read book with very specific trade setups and easy to follow instructions. So far after 2 weeks using the morning gap play it is consistently profitable. If you've traded you know two weeks doesn't prove anything, but it's nice to see something work right off the bat. A couple of his plays in the book I'm not comfortable with but I haven't tried them, and a couple of them require buying his tradestation codes, to be fair he does tell you how they work so if you want to code them yourself you could. No wishy washy theory here, just simple to follow set ups with profit targets with stop loss and real good advice on risk and amount of account needed per contract and how to wright a trading business plan and some info on computers. Overall a good book

</review>
<review>

Well, I wrote about 10 reviews on trading books so far, so that should clear off some doubts of the previous reviewer.

This book just covers almost every parts of trading, from psychology, money management, risk, trade plans, daily routines, computer hardware, software, useful websites and even a part on health requirements.

Big portion of the book is on setups that the author recommended. Those setups seem more on Indexes and Futures trading, plus you must have required software and services (tradestation, esignal) to run, so it may not be suitable for all.

Interesting enough, the author quoted many books I have read and reviewed before. He just absorbs and takes things in action better than me. E.g. he can explain Mark Douglas's concepts in `Trading in the Zone' better than what I can find in the book itself.

That would be credited to his good writing style and openness, I just got the feeling that he really wanted to help inexperienced traders out in this book.  Never mind that there is some selling about his products along the way.  Ok with me

</review>
<review>

Every reviewer rates this an exceptional book and every reviewer has only rated one book, this one. Isn't that strange (rhetorical question). I read a great many reviews of trading books; go to a book by Elder or one of the other market gurus and you'll find reviewers who have read and reviewed scads of trading books. There's of course no way for me to know, but maybe the author's real talent is writing trading book reviews

</review>
<review>

I bought this book due to the excellent reviews and I agree with all the 5 stars that everyone has given it.

It is so good that I worry too many people reading it, since it is going to be very difficult to take their money if they apply what they read. So please don't read it, I won't make money so easely.




</review>
<review>

There are at least 10,000 trading books out there.  I know because I have probably read half of them.  I also believe I have learned something from every one of them.  Most of the books are like Doctors, they specialize in one area or another.  This book, "Mastering The Trade" is different.  Its the "General Practioner" that really knows what he is doing.

John Carter really covers enough ground to help a trader get profitable.  He covers all areas of trading - hardware, software, psychology, basic mechanics of markets, and most importantly a traders business plan.  Just those items alone more than cover the cost of this book, but then he also adds about a dozen market set-ups.  Mr Carter does not just show one or two of each set-up like most books, he shows dozens of each example.  Some more profitable than others, but enough to give you a good feeling of what he is trying to explain.

While I do believe this book alone will not make you a great trader, I know it will help you in your journey.  This is not an absolute beginner book, you need some market knowledge to get through this comfortably.  With that said, I think this is one of the best books out there on trading.  I am giving it to my son who has recently become interested in trading after he learned about compound interest.  Watch out world, because he is only 14 and is going to start much better prepared then the rest of us!

One last note about this book, you will not read it and become a better trader.  Learning to trade is like learning to drive a car.  You can't read a book and then go out and drive successfully.  You have to practice.  You have to see whats working and do more of it, and you have to see whats not working and do less of that.  And most importantly you have to do it enough so you get to the point where you feel comfortable with anything the road (or market) throws at you.

Good luck

</review>
<review>

A hands on authentic book.  Very practical.  Easy to follow. Excellent focus on the psychology of trading and the management of trading

</review>
<review>

This is an excellent text, which will allow you to become a decent beginning trader. Carter discusses psychology, computers, trading platforms, quote software, market sentiment indicators, and gives you 8 trading setups. A brilliant book

</review>
<review>

OUTSTANDING book! Mark provides very practical examples of promoting your product or service...It is easy to read and there is plenty of white spaces on each page. This makes it easy for any type of notation and ease of use of the highlighter...I read the book in one sitting while awaiting my delayed flight and I was excited after reading the book and I was not upset with the delayed flight...The only section I disliked in the book was the section on magic BUT I understand his viewpoint of why he wrote about magic...Buy a copy and see how you can profit rather quickly and learn about magic

</review>
<review>

I bought this book because I have read article written by Mark before.  He is an excellent writer and very clearly presents difficult information.  He goes above and beyond on this book.  It was hard to put down even when it was 1 am.  I have read it once and put it aside for a few days to digest all that he gives you.  I have it on my calendar to pick up and reread again next week.  It may take a time or two through the book to truly get it (and by get it I mean absorb it, believe it and implement it).  He provides concrete examples, concise practical laws of marketing and business building.  An excellent read and worth multiples to your business if you implement even 1/100th of the information he provides

</review>
<review>

I consider myself a marketing expert.  I've built two hugely successful million-dollar mail order companies within just a few years and thought I knew ever trick in the book from Gary Halbert to Dan Kennedy.

And I found a new gem in this book!

There wasn't anything "new" per se but the way the author had "updated" the importance of marketing techniques was a refreshing polish on things that have gotten dusty over the past few decades.  His point of view has been welcomed and long-needed in direct response.

He actually includes testing examples that he's done.  For instance he tested using the "7" which is Ted Nicholas' marketing trick from eons ago.  He gives you information on when he tested the $99 price-point versus $95 and $97.  He give you exact figures on which pulled the most.  Many other authors who talk about the "7s" will tell you that they pull more but never give actual figures on which pulls the most, probably because they've never done a real-life test themselves.

This book focuses on the "offer" and the "benefits" to the customer.  As broad as that may seem this author seems to get deep into the nitty-gritty on EXACTLY how to push people's buttons to get people to buy.

And within 3 seconds.

And he does it in a fun, easy-to-follow, lightning fast manner that makes reading the book cover-to-cover a snap.

All of the traditional marketing "secrets" are brought up to the 21st century standards.  There is so much information that bombards people everyday that you have to HIT PEOPLE QUICKLY AND HIT 'EM HARD.  Other marketing books by the greats are outdated because of that huge main fact.  Life isn't the same as it was before the Internet.  Therefore we have LESS TIME to get people's attention.

This book is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for those of you who have studied Dan Kennedy, Ted Nicholas, Gary Halbert, Jeff Paul, or any of the other marketing greats.  This is an UPDATE for the 21st century and is VERY NECESSARY if you are going to sell things to people who are becoming desensitized to advertising.

And if you think you're a marketing expert, you need this book EVEN MORE!

Isn't it the truth that those of us who think we know so much about marketing that we tend to "lock out" new discoveries (or forget about the "oldies" but goodies)...and then we become dinosaurs (perhaps as Dan Kennedy and others have become)?

And that's why, as a marketing expert, you need this book more than anyone else...BECAUSE YOU NEED A BLOCK OF WOOD TO KNOCK YOU UPSIDE YOUR HEAD!  As a marketer you can NEVER think you are an expert because the world is changing too much!

HIGHLY, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.  I will even go so far as to say that this is one of the TOP 5 marketing books out there!  And that's saying a lot from someone who has most every marketing book there is

</review>
<review>

I found this book really enlightening, both from a business and a personal perspective.  Mark's writing style is relaxed and friendly which made the book an easy read.   It is also very clear - no room for ambiguity.   I especially liked his comment on Think and Grow Rich - it has certainly made me think about reading a book versus acting on the information shared in the book.

</review>
<review>

At around 200 pages, The Irresistible Offer is not exactly a hefty tome. Actually, author Mark Joyner had to use a few formatting tricks to get the book up to even that modest page count. One cannot guage the value of a book by its size, though.

In this easy to read text, Joyner presents information beyond value to any business person. Whether your business is online or offline, you can apply the lessons of The Irresistible Offer to your marketing and promotional efforts.

The book's subtitle, How to Sell Your Product or Service in 3 Seconds or Less, only tells part of the story. Yes, Joyner does focus a great deal of time on those things which have impact on a potential buyer or customer immediately. Because we are all barraged with information and sales messages on a continuous basis, it's so important as marketers for us to be able to break through the clutter and get our messages heard. This book definitely defines how that can be accomplished.

It's more than that, though. The Irresistible Offer also talks about how our marketing messages can be shared and spread - delving in to the essense of so-called "viral marketing". This is something you have probably heard about. Joyner does a great job of explaining viral marketing in an easy to understand way.

At all points of the book, clear examples are used to help make important points and show the principles being discussed. They help to make this book one you will read not just once, but probably many times

</review>
<review>

The Irresistible Offer gives you a simple formula to use in marketing your product or service.

It can be applied to written and verbal sales

</review>
<review>

Mark Joyner is that well known in the marketing world you wonder if he can actually live up to his own reputation in a book.
Fact is he's that on to it you can't help but get stuck right into this book and what it stands for.
His ability to relate in a way that pretty much any business person can understand is undeniable.
He breaks down what many marketing "gurus" try to make as complicated as possible, into easy to apply logic.
That is the brilliance of this book.
So many business's get sucked into promoting their ego instead of tapping into what their customers really want.
This book will get you in touch with that.
At the end of the day thats what will make you a dollar.
What you want to spray into the marketplace about yourself, your customer won't even hear.
Boil it down, take out your ego, get to the core of what makes your offering an actual "offer" in the first place.

This book will help you do that.

Don't worry, if you follow the advice they will come.

John Blake
Blue Rocket Business Systems
[..

</review>
<review>

Mark Joyner gets straight to the point.  He explains in plain language the exact steps you need to take sell your product or service.   He explains exactly what makes a business stand out above their competitors, and how you can do it too.
I am sure I can make money using the ideas in this book

</review>
<review>

Just started and finished this book in one four hour run. In marketing there is one genuine good book out of ten copycats. This is one of the genuine ones.

This book is written in an easy to understand language, with great examples and analogies. It is about how to position and market your product or service, no matter what it is. A must read

</review>
<review>

Good read for those who want to market their product or service with the power of words and psychology. A must read for anyone in the advertising industry

</review>
<review>

The history of the book when it was published tells it all. After a media blitz and great anticipation with what would be written - due to Brando pocketing an absolutely huge advance - the sales were so abysmal that it was discounted by fifty-percent or more less than two weeks after sitting mostly unsold on store shelves.

It was supposed to be the reflections of arguably the greatest actor of his generation, but unfortunately Songs My Mother Taught Me is nothing but psycho-babble with a text that can be read (skimmed) very quickly.

The only thing I determined was Brando very early in the writing process decided he was going to be as difficult on this "set" as he reportedly was with most of his film directors.

Next to Gerald Ford's brief and boring book published after his controversial presidency, Songs My Mother Taught Me is perhaps the most disappointing publication by a major public figure in the latter portion of the last century.


</review>
<review>

After I read Marlon Brando's own memoirs, my view on him changed. That he was one of the most brilliant actors in history is a fact most people are aware of, but what fewer know is that he was a very intelligent man who helped discriminated folk groups more than many. I knew this even before I read this book, SONGS MY MOTHER TAUGHT ME. But what I was not aware of, was how sensitive and funny he could be when he felt comfortable. I believe much of his "tough" behavior simply was an image. Not all the time, of course, he was very masculine and could --which he admits in this book-- be brutal at times, but this side of him is obviously exaggerated by the press through the years.

After a four-page long introduction by Robert Lindsey, who put this book together with Brando, the actor opens chapter I with the sentence, "As I stumble back across the years of my life trying to recall what it was about, I find that nothing is really clear." I respectfully disagree with this. Brando tells his story with so many interesting, funny and sad details and comments that I can't do anything else. The sentence that follows, however, is more telling -- "I suppose the first memory I have was when I was too young to remember how young I was. I opened my eyes, looked around in the mouse-colored light and realized that Ermi was still asleep, so I dressed myself as best as I good and went down the stairs, left one foot first on each step."

Ermi was the childhood love of Marlon (or 'Bud,' as he was referred to at that time). She was his nurse maid, and he writes lovingly about how she took care of him during his earliest years. But only a few months after his first school year began, she married a man Marlon never got a chance to even see and left him. Although Marlon tells the story with understanding, there is a clear bitterness between the lines. At the time Ermi said good-bye, Marlon discovered a heart-breaking fact -- his parents were abused to alcohol. This did, of course, not make the situation more pleasant.

Marlon's picture of his mother, Dorothy is filled with bitter-sweet love, while his father, Marlon Sr., is described as a "brutal bar-fighter." He had his reasons. During his teens, he and his sisters (two and four years older than him) had to bring their mother home from the police station often once a week after a "night out." In these circumstances, it happened now and then that their father took his wife upstairs and beat her. One time when this was the case, Marlon ran up to the bed-room, put his teeth in a Goliat-position and said terrifying, "If you ever touch her again, I will kill you."

In spite of such unhappy memories, Brando's pre-acting years are also often described with much humor. Escpecially one episode impressed me. While he was in a military school --which he hated but his father had sent him there-- one thing annoyed him more than anything else -- a bell that rang every quarter. One night he stole the bell and buried it. The next day, the school had never been as quiet before. They finally had to use a tromphet to make the ring signals, and every time the instrument made a sound, Marlon fell on the ground with laughter.

When he was twenty, he went to New York to make a living as an actor (though "only to survive"). He began his career on Actor's Studios, where later many other great actors, James Dean among them, would start their careers. His "wonderful teacher Stella Adler" saw what she had between her hands, and after some small parts in a couple of so-so Broadway plays, he got his chance as Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee William's masterpiece A Streetcar Named Desire in 1947. Brando was praised from the beginning on. But Brando himself has several times --also in this book-- claimed that he don't care about Stanley Kowalski, a brutal bar-fighter (do you see the resemblances?). "He isn't impressed of anything, I detest the character," is Brando's words, which puzzled a whole world, myself included. Marlon Brando's portrait of Stanley Kowalski is --together with his portrait of Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront and Don Corleone in The Godfather-- the best acting he ever did.

Streetcar was filmed in 1951, and was a huge hit. It made Brando world famous. But he admits in his autobiography that he truly would have been happier if he had not been a movie star.

Brando describes each film he appeared in with interesting and funny notes, how he became the characters he went into, etc. A deilightful surprise was that he actually co-wrote a lot on several of his movies, including Sayonara, The Young Lions, The Godfather, Last Tango in Paris, The Missouri Breaks and Apocalypse Now. The characters in these movies were his creations in every way.

Although he has left out information about his three marriages and comes out with only a little --actually very little-- stuff about his children, Brando's private life is tension and funny reading through the whole book. He tells shamelessly about a handful of his affairs with all kinds of women, about his love for animals, about his temperament --like when he knocked out the front windows of a bus with both fists-- and when he gradually learned to control this anger. The life on Teitora --the island where he had the happiest moments of his life-- are described with deep love and yet honesty for the Tahitian people.

There is something for everyone here, but personally, I found the chapters where he confirms his political opions most interesting. I agreed with almost everything. It helped me a lot to understand human behavior and it was a very good source to a school test I was forced to do while I still was reading the book.

No doubt. Marlon Brando was one of the greatest actors in history, we know that. But besides, he was also one of the greatest storytellers in history. Buy, rent or steal this book (personally I bought it here on Amazon.com), read it, and then you know everything you need to know about the genius Marlon Brando. You don't need to be a fan of him already to enjoy this book, but it is doubtful that you can read it through without becoming it.

Forget the ridicilous tabloid-books - this is the one you need

</review>
<review>

I HAVEN'T READ THIS BOOK AS IT WAS A PRESENT TO MY MOTHER.  I HEARD GOOD REVIEWS ABOUT IT ON THE WBAI RADIO HERE IN NEW YORK

</review>
<review>

Marlon Brando-in my opinion- is the world's greatest actor. This autobiography is one of the best I have ever read-if not the absolute best. I own several biographies, and often, I get bored, put the book down, and never touch it again.
NOT WITH THIS BOOK!
Marlon Brando was made into a person with this book. He was sensitive and caring-or at least that's how the book made me perceive him. I've read this book three times since it came out a decade ago, and am sure I will read it again in the future.
I've loaned my copy out to friends that weren't particular fond of Marlon Brando, but after each person read this book, they fell in love with it. Now, they are avid fans of his movies. I urge anyone interested in old Hollywood, or films in general to read this. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BE A MARLON BRANDO FAN, but BEWARE, you just might be when you finish the book

</review>
<review>

This book provides great insight into Marlon Brando, the man, and his view of the world and himself in it.  Marked by poignant, eloquent, intelligent, and fascinating interludes on philosophy, history, and--perhaps most surprisingly--the craft of acting itself, readers will enjoy getting to know the Brando behind the tabloid images and salacious gossip mongers.  Brando also almost succeeds in his thinly-veiled project of deconstructing his own myth.  Perhaps betraying just how deeply his father's early and constant beratements of his abilities and potential affected him ("You'll never amount to anything"), Brando cannot seem to believe that he did anything out of the ordinary.  He is beyond disparaging about his own acting and dismissive of his titanic achievements in cinema, art, and cultural redefinition.  Generally considered the finest actor of all time, Brando--in two separate decades--twice revolutionized acting and redefined the medium.  He was a liberal and a humanitarian eminently more interested in making a contribution to humankind in some other (in his words, "more important") endeavor than acting.  He several times states that not all is black and white, it is a "polka dot" world, and he is understanding of the shortcomings of others.  Yet he is a harsh judge of himself and seems to view his own life in either/or terms.  He succeeded in important ways in helping mankind or he frittered away his talents on the meaningless if lucrative game of acting.  Still, his achievement as well as the pervasiveness of his cultural influence (think blue jeans and t-shirts), despite his own discounting of it here, was remarkable.  Sensitive, thoroughly enjoyable, very funny, and exceedingly humble, this memoir is not complete, but it gives us a window into the mind of one of the most remarkable and influential personalities of the last century.

</review>
<review>

Brando was also a terrific storyteller. This book puts to rest so many rumors and gives an honest self-appraisal of this large and largely misunderstood genius. His life was filled with deepest tragedy, but Brando managed to stay positive and he kept his killer sense of humor. The book is funny! Brando was an actor, but also a humanitarian and a true friend to those without a voice. I encourage fans to hear his story from his own voice, rather than one of the many gossip-filled bios available

</review>
<review>

The paradox that is Marlon Brando has always been the allure for me, besides the obvious brillance as an actor. I'm far from alone in my opinion. I think it was appropriate that he didn't write about his marriages and children. Such things, as we know, are private matters too painful and complex. Confessionals and tell-all autobiographies are not interesting anyway, and rarely do they reveal the true character of their subjects. I learned a lot about who Brando was just by reading his description of autumn leaves in Libertyville and the night sky over Tetiaroa.

Brando was a human being with passions, demons, and needs just like the rest of us. He loved Chimps, traveling, Afro-Cuban music, fart jokes, and good books. He was more instinctual than analytical. This is evident by the terse analysis he gives of his film characters. Brando did not "piss away his talent" as Dick Cavett had said on an NPR phone interview last year. As this book reveals, Brando never had the acting bug. That's why he only worked when he wanted or needed to work. And that's why he didn't have the work ethics or ambition that our culture expects from a talented film star. If Brando had contempt it was for Hollywood and it's pretentions, not for his craft. In the book, you'll find admiring and humble tributes to his mentors and fellow actors, including Stella Adler, Elia Kazan, Karl Malden, James Dean, Robert Duvall, and Kenneth Branagh.

I'm glad Brando lived long enough to get old and fat, and that he didn't die tragically young like Marilyn, JFK, or Jimi Hendrix. I'm thankful for the films and words he did leave behind. This book reveals what a natural born trickster he was, his generous and tempestuous nature, how he was seeker of truth and a voluptuary. Brando was all this and more. I truely miss him.

</review>
<review>

Before reading Songs My Mother Taught Me, I recommend printing out a copy of Brando's filmography from imdb.com and then watch as many of his films that you can find.  This will help you enjoy the book, because Brando assumes the reader has watched the films he talks about.  I watched most of his movies and became a fan.

As many other reviewers stated, this book is an easy read.  I felt as if he was in the room with me telling his story.  Brando's life is a fascinating journey.  His philosophy on various topics can leave the reader with mixed emotions.  I left the book a lot more curious than I did going into it.  I wonder if his facts about HUAC, Isreal, and the Native American are true.  My future project is to seek out the information and decide for myself.  Unlike many of today's celebrites, he doesn't come across as arrogant or pretentious.  He had that reputation, but the book suggests otherwise.  Brando is humble about his talent, his role in various causes he joined, and his place in Hollywood as one of the greatest actors.

Any aspiring actor should read this book.  Brando advocates the 'Method', which includes bringing your life experiences and incorporating them into the role you are playing.  In the same breath, he tells the reader not to overresearch the role as he did at times.  Later on in his career, he admits to 'winging it', because summoning up strong emotions are taxing when you get older.

I respect his choice to leave his family and marriages out of his book.  It really isn't necessary.  I get the sense that his experiences with women haven't embittered him by the time he wrote the book, but he does admit to spending a large portion of his life as an angry man.

Brando considering acting a means to an end.  That's all.  In his words, the hours are good, the pay great, and you only have to work three months out of the year.  I respect the fact that he didn't get sucked into the whole 'Hollywood' scene.  He explains why he refused the Best Actor Award for The Godfather.  His reasons make perfect sense, even if you don't agree with them.

I highly recommend this book.  If you can find it new, buy it.  It's worth the money.  Brando's viewpoint isn't definitive, but you can get a better understanding of a man who in many ways is still a mystery.  He's someone I would've like to have met.  I envy people like Edward Norton and Johnny Depp, two actors around my age, who had a chance to work with him

</review>
<review>

OK, so this book is a bit old now and I found it late.  But- the advice is timeless and very useful.  Unlike so many decorating books that are just filled with pictures of beautiful rooms in beautiful homes, this book gives you some basic principles so you can make your own stuff beautiful in your own home.  Some of the decorating that I had already done in my home I really like, and this book tells me the principle behind what I did - why I like it.  Some of the decorating I have done in my own home I don't like, and this book tells me what I can do to fix it.
So, the mysteries of balance, alignment, furniture arrangement, displaying stuff,  grouping pictures, etc are solved.  My only problem with the book is the section on wall color. That was very brief and not very satisfactory, and she basically suggests that white walls are a good (safe) choice.  There is no section on decorating color schemes either and that would be helpful. This is why I gave the book only 4 stars rather than 5

</review>
<review>

For those who say this book is boring and has too many rules, I would ask: if all the 10,000 books out there full of glossy photos and little explanation were all that helpful, why did you need to buy this book in the first place? Decorating is like any other creative profession; the foundation of the "magic" that a good decorator can provide actually consists of basic principles that can be learned by anyone. Oh, and I think the reason some of the photos appear dated is that we are used to seeing design books incorporating the latest trends. She used photos of real homes, which, I'm sure, contained furniture that the owners had been collecting for years. That's kind of the point of this book.

I love the books full of glossy color photos of dream rooms, and I'll continue to look at those for inspiration and ideas. But THIS book has made my home look better NOW

</review>
<review>

No other book has ever shown us novice decorators how to light a room, arrange our art and furniture as well as this one. It is easy to follow and sticks to its promise that we do not have to buy all new furniture to make our home look really pretty.
Anyone who would like to give their home an extreme makeover without throwing away what they already have will be truly amazed at what they can accomplish after reading Use What You Have Decorating

</review>
<review>

The good: the author's room plans actually take into account furniture placement around windows and glass doors as well as entry points. Her examples show REAL homes with odd, mismatched furniture. Clear before and after pictures and floor plans, even if they are in black and white. She has some good rules of thumb to at least think of, which you may or may not agree with, and tends toward the neutral (white/beige) as far as paint--you can always add color with your choice of furnishings and art. She tells you which one should win out between beautiful view and fireplace when you have both in a room.

The bad: Most of it is about living rooms, and she apparently assumes that you are doing a  good deal of formal entertaining there. There are virtually no ideas for people who use their living rooms for anything else, e.g. home office, exercise room, playroom, etc. Not everyone entertains in their house--some have backyard BBQs, and others entertain at restaurants or the local park.

Where I disagreed with her:  If you have a library of books that you actually use, you would never organize them by size, you would organize them by subject/author, except of course for your truly oversized books. Pillows on sofas--hmmm. I think you can use them on futons or sofas with hard armrests, but on your typical overstuffed sofa, they're overkill. Would rather see a nice handmade afghan.

To the critics who were upset that she "ignored" the TV: It is an etiquette thing, actually. The TV is not supposed to be more important than your guests, and she is by no means the only decorator who says to hide the TV in an armoire or better yet, put it in another room. These days a lot of the newer homes have dedicated "home theater" type rooms, anyway--with a less-expensive alternative being a spare bedroom.

Besides, if you're having a Superbowl party or some such TV-related event, it would be smarter to have a TV in the kitchen/family room area where hopefully there is no carpet, and nothing furniture-wise that could be ruined by food.

Bottom line: This book has a lot of useful ideas for furniture arranging, geared primarily to the living room and family room, but you can also use them as a jump-off point for rearranging other rooms. Some good ideas for some of the other rooms, like dining rooms you don't use because your kitchen is plenty big enough to eat in. I thought this book was much, much better than Decorating for Good by Carol Talbott

</review>
<review>

Once in a while a book has a great impact on your life and Use What You Have Decorating is one of those books for me. My house looks like I brought in an expensive decorator but I did it myself just from what I learned by reading it.
The title promises you can transform your home quickly and the results confirm that. Principles are shown in photos of real homes and the author makes it easy to understand what was wrong with the rooms and how the mistakes were corrected without buying  furniture. What is most impressive is that the rooms in the book look totally different in one or two hours.
It took me more than three hours to finish my living room and dining room with a little help from my better half and now both rooms look amazing.
If you want to give your house a fast makeover look no further.




</review>
<review>



This book was a huge dissapointment.  Every single layout was the same. Arrange your sofa and loveseat facing each other, throw a crappy plant against the wall.

The pictures were dated looking and in black and white.

There is nothing this book has to offer that you cannot glean from watching 1  evening of HGTV

</review>
<review>

If I could have given this book ten stars, I would have.  Christopher Lowell and his Seven Layers of Design should have taken a page from Laurie Ward's excellent book which was practical, easy to read and sensible. The "before and after" pictures of a variety of rooms helped greatly. She was right -- in less than 1/2 hour, using her principles I transformed my crowded, awkwardly-arrange living room into a beautiful and stunning arrangement that encourages conversation and looks much larger at the same time.
This book really helps in that the design principles are adaptable and applicable to any size room or home and really gives you concrete ideas to use in creating comfortable and beautifully arranged living spaces.  Brava Laurie and thanks

</review>
<review>

I haven't read all the 100+ reviews already written for this book, so my apologies if I point out things that have already been said.

My favorite thing about this book is that it's straight-to-the-point and simple.  Ward doesn't waste our time with unnecessary descriptions and adjectives (i.e. "...the velvety fabric drapes sumptuously over the chair adding a dramatic look").  Instead, she lists and explains the 10 design principles that most designers use (but don't tell us) in books and magazines.  In cookbook-format, Ward focuses on topics such as placing furniture in a way that achieves balance and cohesiveness.  Among other tips, she explains the rules for creating a focal point, minimizing a "rollercoaster" effect, arranging wall art, and displaying decorative objects and collections.  Although, she mainly uses living room areas to explain her design principles, they can be applied to every room; but she also includes a few pages of tips for each room in the house.

Photos of before-and-after rooms are presented in black  and  white.  I really think this was a great idea, because you can see the layout problems and solutions more clearly.  I think that color photos would have taken away from that.  For both Before and After rooms, a photo and floor plan of each are presented to show the differences.  I also liked the little sidebar quizzes in which you look at the before photo and try to pick out the design problems.

The furniture in the room examples may not be that appealing, but they DO look like furniture used in most typical middle-class homes.  I like that because it makes the book seem so unpretentious.  Ward doesn't give off that snobby designer impression; instead, she seems down-to-earth and in touch with those who don't live in mansions and spend $52,000 on a bed.

I have to comment on one last thing:  There's a small section for women on handling the "decorating-phobic" men in their lives.  From her experience over the years, she has found that men tend to resist change and that as long as it's functional, they don't usually care what it looks like.  So Ward has a little section titled "Here's What You Can Do", and then offers up a scheme to get your man to cooperate.  I just think that was so funny and cute!  Probably because I can relate.  My husband has shirts in his closet from the 90's and REFUSES to part with them, then complains that he doesn't have enough closet space.  Anyway...

I don't give many books 5 stars, but it is well-deserved.  I refer to it often and have about 18 sticky notes in it, along with the underlined and highlighted passages.  I continue to buy the beautiful designer books and magazines for ideas and inspiration, but now (proudly) when I look at a photo I can see the design principles at work and how the "look" was achieved

</review>
<review>

The Writer's Book of Hope, released in 2003, continues to be a beacon of hope to those on the long and tumultuous path to publication.

Keyes gives anecdote after anecdote on writer's rejected who went on to become best-sellers.

Excerpt:

"Ursula Le Guin sent out her first story when she was eleven. She got her first acceptance at thirty-three. James Dickey endured years of form rejections before he finally saw hand-writing on one that said, "Not bad."

According to James Lee Burke's agent, 100 editors turned down Lost Get-Back Boogie (including multipe editors at the same house) before Louisiana State University Press bought Burke's first novel for a pittance.

It's a rare writer who doesn't have to hack through a jumble of rejection slips before (and after) getting published. Some of history's best-known books were rejected many times before finally being accepted. The Ginger Man, by J.P. Donleavy--now considered one of the best 100 novels ever published--was turned down by thirty-six publishers before it found a home..."

Besides happy endings to rejected beginnings, Keyes takes us inside the world of publishing. Some of the Chapter titles:

~AFD Syndrome~ (before drinking hemlock)
~Dealing with Discouragers
~Rites of Rejection
~The Publishing Tribe (Why publishing Resembles High School)
and more...

This book is one of the few writing books I can't bring myself to give up. Every so often, I find myself discouraged beyond reason, and this book takes me back from the ledge of despair.

It's a must read for any pre-pubbed writer needing an injection of optimism.

REVIEWED ON: www.firstnoveljourney.blogpsot.com
(author interviews, book reviews, and fiction related discussion

</review>
<review>

Keyes does a great job presenting the case for finding hope in the writing process. This book specifically discusses: dealing with anxiety, frustration and despair, overcoming the discouragers in your life, exorcising excuses for not writing and pursuing a career in writing, the rites of rejection, the nature of publishers and editors, and how to keep hope alive.

Years ago I had a basketball coach who taught "if you're not getting at least four fouls in a game, you're not playing defense." He didn't like fouls, but his point was, in the process of playing the game aggressively, fouls are going to happen. Fouls are not necessarily indicators of defeat, they are indicators of effort. Likewise, Keyes' approach to rejection is that all successful writers deal with rejection. In his book he provides numerous examples, including Nobel and Pulitzer prize winners, of authors who face rejection even after winning critical acclaim. Rejection is a fact of life, Keyes say, learn to deal with it. Easily stated, but it still hurts. According to Keyes, writers who have not experienced rejection are not sending out enough material; and, writers who don't learn to accept rejection as part of the writing process, are doomed to quit writing altogether.

Keyes is the author of another book titled "The Courage to Write," which I highly recommend. Similar books by other authors which I would also recommend for the aspiring writer include: "On Becoming a Novelist," by John Gardner, and "The Forest for the Trees," by Betsy Lerner.

Ron Atkins is the author of two children's books, Abby and the Bicycle Caper, and his upcoming (January 2005) Abby and the Bike Race Mystery.

</review>
<review>

Every writer needs hope.  And hope is what I always get when I read and reread Ralph Keyes's book, The Writer's Book of Hope.
As an experienced, many times published writer, people might think I've got this writing profession figured out.  But I don't.  And on those days when I'm feeling lonely, dejected and sometimes rejected, I know I can turn to Keyes's book to help me realize I'm not alone in my insecurity and feeling of flakiness.

There are days when I wonder if it isn't too late to go to plumbing school or enroll in the matchbook school of mosaic tiling.  Writing does that too you.  Plays games with your mind and confidence.

But when those days creep up on me, I find solace in Hope.  It makes my green skin turn less bright when I read John Grisham received twenty-some odd rejections and agents turned down JK Rowlings.  Yet they persisted.  And that, among other things is the difference between writers who stay the distance and those who let the publishing world get the better of them.

Keyes has been there.  He's one of us.  He's not on a perch talking down to us wannabes.  He's simply further in his journey than many of us.  And that qualifies him as a leader.  And the fact that he's willing to share the good, bad and ugly of this writer's world is generous.

Reading the book is like sitting in an easy chair talking to a wise sage (with a little bit of mischief in his eyes) talking about the world of writing.  Eyeball to eyeball.  Writer to writer...friend to friend.  And by doing so, Keyes offers us that thread that tethers writers together in this profession that is not for the faint of heart.  And for that I'm grateful.

Susan DeBow, writer

</review>
<review>

Ralph Keyes' books about writing have helped pull my ambition out of a tail-spin twice. His first, The Courage To Write, helped me finish my first novel, which eventually got published. The follow-up to that, The Writer's Book Of Hope, helped me get started on my fourth book, at a point when I was beginning to feel frustrated with both the business of writing and the relentlessly demanding craft of it. What Keyes does in this book and in the first is to map out the tricky and sometimes dangerous emotional landscape of writing, and he does it by giving us examples and anecdotes from famous and sometimes legendary writers who've had similar frustrations. Better than practically any book on writing out there, The Writer's Book Of Hope offers those of us who spend our days in front of typewriters and computers making up worlds with words the boost we need to carry on. And Keyes does this not with some sugar-coated inspirational messages, but with honest, realistic and historical examinations of the traditional difficulties that all writers, regardless of their fame or lack or it, face  and how they have coped and kept writing. Highly recommended

</review>
<review>

Yes, I bought this book with the hope of increasing my hope regarding writing.

First, I was first disappointed by the style of the author. The text rambled with anecdotes, that began to repeat themselves so insidiously by the middle of the book gave up and went to the last four chapters hoping there would be some more helpful and encouraging matter. Unfortunately, those chapters read like the earlier ones.

Second, I was surprised to find ninety-percent of the text were anecdotes strung together about horrible trials of famous and not-so-famous authors. The anecdotes are depressing, not hopeful. Quite honestly, reading about hundreds of authors, each of who sounded like Job in their trials, was depressing. Given I wouldn't fancy myself as a future Grisham or Rowling or whatever, reading awful stories about how they almost didn't make it don't inspire hope.

Books I have enjoyed much more include Zinsser  and quot;On Writing Well, and quot; which melds interesting stories with great writing and instruction; Stephen King's combination autobiography and how to,  and quot;On Writing and quot;; and of course, keeping track of the guest columns in the New York Times on writing..

</review>
<review>

This book really opened my eyes to the reality of the publishing world.  It also helped disapate a lot of anger and self pity I was feeling.  Who knew you had to work this hard?  Well, now I do.  So it goes.  I can now forge ahead without feeling so sorry for myself

</review>
<review>

This book had great practical advice for each stage in your child's reading life.  Particularly helpful were the suggestions on overcoming difficult stages when children might tend to become apathetic towards reading. I also appreciated the emphasis on the total experience of reading, rather than the simple ability to identify words on a page.  In addition I found it reassuring to hear that my husband's and my own enjoyment of reading will go a long way towards influencing our kid's desire to read

</review>
<review>

I really enjoyed this book by Nora Roberts.  It is set in the Carribbean which makes it a good book to read in summer, IMHO.  It has romance, treasure hunting, and a little magic....really great!  I liked it alot

</review>
<review>

This has got to be my all time favorite book...I could not put it down....I read it several years ago...

The Scenery, mystery, romance all intertwined makes for a great novel.


</review>
<review>

This is one of my favorite books by Nora Roberts. Setting is her specialty. She really knows how to take the reader with her on every adventure. You really come to care about these characters, and it's great to escape with them to the sunny ocean setting and go deep-sea diving for the very first time in your life! This one earned its 5 stars!

</review>
<review>

I took this book to Hawaii with me and found out very quickly it was a perfect choice.  I loved the relationship between the two main characters.  I felt like the ending may have been a little rushed, maybe because I did not want it to end! Also, I felt a bit of a personality change in the leading male character towards the end of the story. Matthew Lassiter seemed to became a bit passive towards the end of the book.  Other than that I loved the book and still felt it was worth five stars

</review>
<review>

With the chilly season setting in here in Washington State, the thoughts of a tropical vacation keep me going all winter long.  I must admit that what attracted me first to this book was the palm tree, the blue-green water, the sand and the longing of wanting to be there.  This is the first of Nora Roberts I have read, however I am an avid JD Robb reader.
This book was so well written that you could just envision yourself in the sea diving for treasure or aboard the boat in the warm sun.  How exciting!  The plot was wonderful, the characters were likable, the villians were nasty.  This is one book that I am going to buy for myself as a guilty treat, and I will read it again when the cold starts setting in, so that it can take me away again for a warm exciting adventure.

</review>
<review>

I am fairly new to Nora Roberts.  But this book is not only my favorite by her, it's one my favorite books altogether.  It was so well written it made me feel like I were diving and hunting treasures myself!  And it has such a sweet, romantic storyline.  I was really sorry to see it end.  I hope there will be a sequel.  I recommend any woman to read this book, whether you like romance novels or not

</review>
<review>

First, let me say that while I have read many of Nora Roberts books, more often than not I am somewhat disappointed.  While she is always a reliable read, her stories tend to be very formulaic, and too often forgettable.  I picked up The Reef almost by accident at a friend's, for lack of anything else to read.  Having read a few of Nora's books before, my expectations weren't that high; I was pleasantly surprised.  Unlike the predictability of her other books, this one went against convention in many ways, while still developing a satisfying romance and mystery.  Generally Nora sacrifices an intriguing plot for the central relationship, but she balances the two beauifully here.  Not only did she create an intriguing villain, but the love story was touching.  As other readers have said, I liked how she spread it out over the years, which made it slightly more realistic, and somehow much sweeter at the end.  The development of secondary characters was also a welcome change from typical Nora.  In short, if you're not typically a Nora Roberts fan, give this one a try!  Not the best romantic suspsense I've ever encountered, but definetly worth the read

</review>
<review>

I can't say enough good things about THE REEF! It shows a strong female character in a field that used to be dominated by men, and a strong sensitive male that isn't afraid to dream.

This is a fantasy come true and involves marine archeologist Tate Beaumont and Matthew Lassiter and their families. The families run into each other while treasure-hunting for Angelique's Curse - a treasure that has eluded everyone, and many think it is only a myth. But this artifact is worth everything to some, even worth killing another.

As this joint expedition continues, it holds all of the elements needed for a great story: mystery, romance, secrets that can't be shared, deceptions and threats. There are so many angles that could have been pursued the reader isn't sure which avenue Nora Roberts will take until she delivers them to it. This always keeps you on the edge of your seat, and gives you a first hand "view" of the undersea world of beauty and intrigue.

I highly recommend THE REEF and only wish it would have continued - or at least had a sequel in the works! Great characters and fantastic plot will hook the reader from the beginning. One of Nora Roberts better works!

</review>
<review>

I am a huge reader of history, and this is one of my favorites of all time.  While full of interesting facts and stories, it is set apart from most books by the depth of the analysis it provides.  It walks the line between history and social science, hinting at a theory of civilization and capitalism based on case studies from around the world.  Though professional it is not dry (though I am infamous for enjoying a good dry book).  My only criticism of it is the parts where it ventures into the cyclic theory of history.  This is a European (or French) historiographic technique of trying to edition long recurring cycles.  Frankly I find the concept forced (even more frankly, it's bunk!) and it always annoys me when I come across it...but it is part of the historical tradition Braudel was involved in, so it must simply be tolerated as a blemish on an otherwise stunning achievement

</review>
<review>

Braudel was one of the greatest economic historians of all time.  His scope alone was incredible.  But what in the end hurt him and significantly diminished his findings was his unfamiliarity with the work of Harold Innis, whose landmark "Empire and Communications" was published a quarter century before Braudel published this book in the original French.

Only Innis early work on the Canadian fur trade is referenced in Braudel's bibliographies.  His later work on information in the creation of markets is not.

Both looked at the economics of space and time, but what for Braudel ended in a series of uncertain conclusions ended for Innis in a profound theory of how the falling costs of information altered trade and communications patterns on a global scale.

Put the two together and you have a clear picture of paradigm shifts over the centuries and an excellent framework for understanding outcomes in today's globalized economy

</review>
<review>

Among the reviewers, I am in a minority that does not think this book is such a high achievement. It is a mixture of facts and speculation, with theoretical terminology superimposed upon them. There is no clear criterion why some facts are included and others are excluded, and I have no idea what the lesson of this book is supposed to be. In fact, this is a self-indulgent exercise in historical erudition. I don't care what anybody else says, this is a philosophy rather than history book. The author gives a lot of facts, but he also frequently mistakes logical constucts for facts. The author tries to integrate almost everything under the Sun into this tome, and that is why he ends up with a bloated work that oppresses the reader with needless information

</review>
<review>

This book is a linear commentary on the little things in life. Each page and comment has a picture of an animal that adds meaning to the comment -almost always in a make you smile or outright laugh kind of way.

It is a gentle and sensitive light hearted book that everyone will enjoy and gain something from. Of course it doesn't answer the big question, it just gives you food for thought about it.

The only minus about this book is that all the pictures are in black and white. Color would have been so much better.


</review>
<review>

I love this book.  Everytime I read it I get something else from it.  My kids like it to because of the great animal pictures.  I have let co-workers borrow it and they had to buy their own.  Wonderful for all ages

</review>
<review>

Would recommend the book for anyone looking for a lightly thought provoking ideas

</review>
<review>

We all have those cast-off generic "gift books" that lay around in some unused corner of our dwelling.  You know, the books with children's letters to the tooth fairy, or little flowery poems about mothers.  These books are hastily bought up from Hallmark stores and Walgreens each generic holiday and tossed in a gift bag with some half-rate chocolates and a crumy 99 cent card in our last-dash effort to conjure up a last-minute gift.  These are usually obligatory gifts that we feel we have to give, even though we may really love and care about the recipient and feel like a jerk because we can't think of something else, at the last minute, to gift them with on our way to Aunt Helga's family reunion, late as usual.  Two days later, your gift book finds its self laying with other passed-on rejects at the inventory check-in counter of your local used bookstore while the clerk groans to see yet another gifty bound volume of mushy valentines prose. Being continuously re-gifted is the career of these books until some kind soul mercifully chucks them to the trash heap with a mighty swing of disgusted zeal.

I used to be there.  I was on both ends, a shameful purchaser of these thankless books, and also a silently groaning recipient of the book world's version of fruit cake.  Then one day upon the tank of my toilet, I find this green little hardback, The Meaning of Life, laying unassumingly on the barren porcelain turf.  Knowing my mother must have left it hoping I would take a moment from my workaholic life to indulge in a book, I did just that.  Is it awfully cheesy to say that this little book touched me most profoundly?

I sat, reading page by page, and simply breathed in the peace and stillness of just a few moments of my otherwise rigorous day.  The simple words in uncluttered typeset reached my heart and soul as profoundly soothing.  Roll your eyes if you want, but I've read this book uncountable times since, in both times of sorrow and joy, and it has continued to have the same result on me.  Of course, the humor of these books also deserves to have a comment.  Both the text and the unique photos on each page spread, will make even the most hardened grump crack a grin.

A few years later and it still rests on the same spot my knowing mother left it, however, now it lives in a simple basket joined with Bradley Trevor Greive's other witty, heartfelt volumes, each a work in its own.

Do yourself a favor...break the fruit-cake-gift-book syndrome and gift your love one with this true jewel of a treasure.  Aunt Helga will thank you

</review>
<review>

This book is a cute/light-hearted flip book that does not take itself too seriously. I highly recommend it.

As far as the detractors on this website go, a self-proclaimed "doctor" believes that books like this are the cause of society's evils.

"WHy there is so many deadbeat dads"

It must be difficult for a doctor to graduate with a degree considering he can neither use proper grammer or style when writing a sentence my seven year old son could do effortlessly.

People can be mean spirited, even about light hearted books like this one, don't listen to them

</review>
<review>

I first noticed this book in a Hallmark store, bought it to give to someone, and read it myself first.  The photos are top quality shots mostly of animals mimicking various human emotions and situations.  They are the light side of the book.  The text is more weighty, but brief - I'd even call it profound.  Put together, they give the reader a fun, yet meaningful reading experience that makes an impact.  I've since purchased additional copies for gifts

</review>
<review>

As someone who always says I am looking for the Meaning of Life, this title caught my eye (even though I didn't think it actually contained the answer).  It does tell you that you need to find your own meaning (guess I knew that) but the quotes are SO true and the pictures SO cute, I thoroughly enjoyed them and they give me the message that I am on the right path.  I look forward to the day when "I'll be excited about beginning another day and be filled with heartfelt joy."  Sounds great to me!

I you are interested in this topic I would highly recommend  Finding Your Own North Star: Claiming the Life You Were Meant to Live by MARTHA BECK.

Good Luck on your search.



</review>
<review>

I really enjoyed the counterpoint of these beautiful and sometimes humorous black and white animal photographs

</review>
<review>

I'm thankful that I was able to get this book at the library and didn't spend $15.00 buying it.  I own The Blue Day Book by the same author and I think it's fantastic and it cheers me up right away.  He should have stopped with that book. It claims to be a witty, thought-provoking book that makes an ideal gift for anyone who's seeking their true purpose and wants to laugh along the way.  The only thing this book has going for it is the amazing animal pictures.  It did have one thought that I really liked:   and quot;Some people say that life is all about acquiring knowledge.  If that's true, then why do smart people dress so badly? and quot

</review>
<review>

A simple, predictable, yet powerful story of an old-school pitcher, Shaara's novel is a classic baseball tale.  Billy Chapel, a future Hall-of-Famer who has just learned of his trade after 17 years with the same club, decides to hang up his cleats rather than leave the team he loves.  He is not interested in money (yes, this is an obvious work of fiction), and pitches primarily for his "love of the game."

Shaara provides a unique formula for story-telling, as he interweaves flashbacks of Billy's life into his final game on the mound.  In it, Shaara shows the total concentration and focused mind of an all-time great pitcher as he progresses through his last effort as a ballplayer.  Through flashbacks, we learn of Billy's past relationships with his parents and his girl, Carol.  And during the game, Shaara provides simple, direct descriptions of the events, in an nearly non-emotional, detached tone.  Indeed, Shaara allows us to delve into the mind of a pitcher as he pitches a perfect game (although he doesn't even realize this until the 8th inning).  And, yet, the primary focus is not baseball, but his retrospect on his life and his place in the world.

Although this book may have been more polished if Shaara hadn't died suddenly, this is still a superb book and a classic "old-school" baseball tale.  For baseball purists and baseball lovers alike, this should be on the short-list of any reading list.  And even for non-baseball fans, this is still a compelling story

</review>
<review>

I read this short novel because I greatly admired Shaara's Pulitzer Prize winning "Killer Angels," and because I'm a baseball fan.  The novel feels more like an outline or first draft than a completed work about an aging pitcher.  It's a bit shallow and predictable in its plot.  The characters are what one expects in all too many sports novels and short stories.  The feel or atmosphere just isn't quite there.

Any baseball fan will see flaws in the book right away, flaws that distract and damage the work.  Shaara sets most of the novel in Yankee Stadium with the Hawks playing the Yankees.  Why the author chose to have one real team against a fictional team is unclear.  The Hawks apparently are from Atlanta, but an Atlanta team, Braves or Hawks, whichever, would not be playing the Yankees interleague on the next to last day of the season.  Finally, when a visiting pitcher goes out to warm up before the game, he does so in the semi-hidden bull pen down the left field line in Yankee Stadium--not on the mound on the field.

This book was published posthumously and Mr. Shaara perhaps never had a chance to polish his prose--prose that was excellent in "Killer Angels."  It's unfortunate.

There are glimmers of interest in the book, but not enough to recommend it to baseball fans or fans of the author's other book

</review>
<review>

Heard FOR LOVE OF THE GAME by Michael Sahara,
a posthumously published baseball novel by the Pulitzer Prize
winning author of THE KILLING ANGELS . . . you might have
to dig some to find it, but your search will be worth the
effort.

This is a short, surprisingly moving tale of an aging baseball
superstar who is pitching the last game of the season . . . through
a series of flashbacks, you learn about his career and the
one woman he loves (but who is leaving him).

The writing is compelling, and it makes you feel that you
really get to know the guy . . . plus, it has you rooting for
his every pitch and caring about what happens to him.

There's a great ending, too.

</review>
<review>

Don't get me wrong this was a really good book.  And I am so close to giving it 5 stars.  It was just a little too short for me.  The story invloving the ball game was great and showed why baseball is so pure at its core.  The only thing that was lacking in the story was the story outside of the game.  You will fly through this book, it is a good story and you will feel satisfied after reading it, even after that mild short coming I mentioned.  Just my opnion, I could be wrong

</review>
<review>

This book was eye opening for me to apply personalities and personal relationships between Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton and of course Adams among others. The vibrant times of enlightened thought in the formation of the country with the Declaration of Independence then in the midst of war and politics and thereafter the early years of forming the Constitution and the political infighting was very interesting. These were passionate men who lived in an incedible time. I never had seen these founding fathers as real people before this book.
I recommend this read.


</review>
<review>

I purchased this audiobook for my husband, who listens to books while he works. He never watches movies a second time and he never listens to books twice. But after checking this out from the library, he talked about this book so much he ended up checking it again. He continued to fill me in on the life story of John Adams and told me several times that he wouldn't mind owning this one! Needless to say, he made it easy for me to decide on an anniversary gift this year and he couldn't have been happier

</review>
<review>

I decided to read this book after enjoying "1776."  I was instantly enthralled by the life of John Adams.  McCollough is such an interesting writer and this book has been thoroughly researched.  I became quite connected to John Adams during my reading, and I was moved to tears at several points in the book.  I knew so little about him before reading this biography, but when I completed this book I felt like I had lost a dear friend.  In addition to his personal life, the reader will learn more about the Continental Congress, The Declaration of Independance, the forming of the U.S. government, early U.S. foreign relations, and of course all of the interesting men and women who lived during the early years of the formation of the new country.  This is a wonderful, compelling read

</review>
<review>

The book biggest strength is that it uses many quotations of John Adams, Abigail, John Quincy Adams, and Jefferson to tell its tale. These people were intelligent and very good writers. I enjoyed the biography. I enjoyed McCullough's writing style and the leisurely pace he sets for himself. The biography clearly portrays a man who lived long, did many great things, and died at peace with himself. The book glosses over Adams' weaknesses and I thought spent way too much time on what Jefferson and Adams thought of each other, but these are minor flaws. I enjoyed Morris's biography of Roosevelt more, but this book was a good summer read and was far better than McCullough's 1776. I learned how this nation owes a great debt to this great, but flawed man.

</review>
<review>

Like another reviewer, my interest in history is quite new. The author's presentation of John Adams left me wanting to know much more of this great man. David McCullough's excerpting of Adams' professional and personal writings exposed a passionate man of deep convictions and possessed of an intellect and idealism beyond his generation. While Mr. Adams was acutely aware of and deplored his own ego, he, at the same time was critical of his own limitations. Even with this conflict, Adams could still say, "I thank God that he gave me stubborness when I am right."

While I read history for breadth of understanding and perspective; learning the character, strengths, weaknesses and foibles of great men and women who accomplished much during their time on the stage challenges me to dare more and risk more in the time and place God has entrusted to me.

I would very much liked to have met John Adams

</review>
<review>

First of all, I did not exactly 'read' this biography. Instead I purchased the CD version which I distilled via my car sound system every morning on my way to work (I have enjoyed countless biographies of great american figures this way, and still been able to read many more technology related books).

I had great expectations from this book, having recently enjoyed three biographies of Lincoln. I have to confess that I was sorely disapointed. I found the research of Mr McCullough to lack the kind of details that I have enjoyed in biographies from Walter Isaacson, Richard Carwardine, or Doris Goodwin. I do not seek a beautiful story in a biography, but rather a reliable source of facts that I can use to form my own opinion of a character. In this context, I find Mr McCullough's use of superlatives or long emotionally charged sentences to be a distraction from the subject matter of John Adams and his contribution to America. I also enjoy direct quotes from letters, speaches, autobiographies, as they help me refine my impressions of the context (the period, the relationships to contemporary characters, ...) surounding a promonent figure. Usage of the English language in politics has dramatically evolved since Mr Adams' time, and I missed 'hearing' the voice of John Adams. Instead, this biography felt like reading a translation where the personality of the translator overshadows the personality of the original author. Finally, having read other biographies of the founding fathers, I was disapointed to find so little about the complex relationship between Adams and Franklin.

All in all, my lasting impression is that Mr McCullough did a great job at bringing John Adams and the early American Revolution to the masses through a very appealling product that may however leave readers asking for more historical details and less emotional opinions. Had I known that, I might have passed on this biography and instead explore Mr McCullough's fictional work

</review>
<review>

This book isn't really for legal scholars, serious historians or those interested in Adams' writings. It is, however, a very well written personal biography of a great figure in American history with a special emphasis on trying to understand the hows and whys of Adams, how he responded to criticism, how he came to conclusions, why he made the decisions he came to etc...It is difficult to provide enough color sometimes when presenting such a 'long' life and McCullough I am sure had difficulty deciding when to slow the narrative to dwell on important events when there were so many to choose from. All and all, a very solid, thoughtful mainstream work.


</review>
<review>

What a fantastic way to learn about John Adams! What a great way to be introduced to excellent historical biographical writing!

McCullough is a brilliant and exciting writer. He truly makes Adams come alive, and when Adams inevitably dies at the end it is a very sad thing!

Adams is truly a hero of the Republic. A great friend, then a great rival, then a great friend again of Thomas Jefferson, Adams is undeservedly overlooked by many students of American History.

Adams the republican vs Jefferson the populist was the great debate in American history and still continues today. Adams saw the horror of the French Revolution for what it was and predicted that it would end in depravity and violence and likely cause a savage reaction which would bring about the end of the French Republic itself. He was right, Bonaparte quickly followed the French Revolution and war across europe was the result. Jefferson on the other hand embraced the French Revolution as an expression of the people's desire for liberty. How wrong he was!

Adams was a brilliant Statesman, and student of history. A wonderful family man and superb husband Adams' correspondence with his wife Abigail is a classic in American literature.

As a youth I spent many hours on the grounds of the Adams Mansion soaking up all the history there as much as is possible. McCullough does so well what so many biographers do so poorly and that is he captures the times of the subject and places the person in his rightful context. He brought me back to the grounds of "Peacefield" through his beautiful evocations of it as it hosted great people and great events.

History is best studied by understanding how historical figures lived and understood their own lives and times, as they lived them. Hindsight is an overrated tool in historiography.

Bringing the past to life in writing is a special gift and McCullough has it. Enjoy his talents and get to know the foundations of the American nation a story that is not fully known by so many. Adams' story deserves to be told. What a brilliant man, and McCullough does him superb justice in this highly readable biography.

So much can be said here about Adams, but it's not necessary as McCullough has written the definitive John Adams biography and says it better than I. Get to know John Adams through this superb book, you will be glad that you did. And your opinions on Jefferson will likely change, too! 10 STARS!

</review>
<review>

As a newer student of history I'm fascinated by all of the research and reconstruction that goes into putting together biographies of some of our early leaders.  This book is no exception.  The story at times becomes a little bogged down in details that can distract, but overall the reading is easy and the content stays with the reader

</review>
<review>

Simply outstanding.  McCullough brings history alive.  It's not "history," it's a real story.  It may not be perfect historically, but it's pretty darn good.  And there is no such thing as "perfect" anyway when it comes to history.  It is perfect, however, when it comes to conveying - it's vivid, it's fully understandable, it's exciting, and it's not hyped because history at that period of time and the life and role of Adams was so exciting.  I love it.  I love it.  I love it

</review>
<review>

I wonder if the creators of that operating system had this book, would anyone know of Bill Gates or Microsoft; or if Xerox held its research and development of the paperless office, would the Information Technology field be totally different- yeah you know where I am going with this.

If you are a creative mind searching for a way to protect your hard work and development, GET THIS BOOK for it is a sound minded investment for your greatest assets:  ideas that move the world and generate money.

This book explained all the types of Creative Assets Protection out there.  Granted it does not read as the other Rich Dad books, not as personal, but its lessons and information are vital not only to understand various intellectual properties, but also to seeking the best legal representation in both the physical and cyberspace.

</review>
<review>

I think I know how this book was written.  A whole lot of cut and paste from U.S. Law code with some mediocre story telling sprinkled in.  If you want to be technical and write in the language of professional law, fine.  But this is not the series to do it in.

</review>
<review>

Unlike the rest of the Rich Dad books that I've read -- which were for the most part fantastic -- this book was terrible.  Michael Lechter may indeed be a very bright guy and a star in his field, but he is an absolutely horrendous writer.  The intro by Robert Kiyosaki was the only really enjoyable part to the book.  Lechter immediately jumped into complex explanations of the various types of IP protection available without really clarifying anything for the lay person like me.  And no real life examples of anything -- just references to a couple hypothetical "horror stories" that he relays at the beginning of the book.  The only reason I gave this book 2 stars and not 1 is because at the very least I was able to get some basic definitions of IP terms down.  But I guess I could've gotten that from a dictionary too

</review>
<review>

Micheal Lechter has done us all a valuable favor by writing this book! As an experienced attorney dealing with copyrights, patents, and trademarks, his experience, illustrations and insights are priceless! If you are a business owner, investor, inventor, author, or doing just about ANYTHING that has income potential beyond a 9-5 job, then you NEED to read, absorb and apply the knowledge of this book to protect yourself from the competition and  and quot;thieves and quot; out there who would like to profit from your intellectual property--at YOUR expense. This is a  and quot;must read and quot; as a part of your overall business and investment education. I also recommend ALL of Robert Kiyosaki's  and quot;Rich Dad and quot; books, and thus far, all the  and quot;Rich Dad Advisor and quot; series that I have read (of which this book is a part) are also worthy of your time and investment

</review>
<review>

I hear Michael on CNET Radio on Online Tonight with David Lawrence.  I've just finished reading  and quot;Protecting Your #1 Assets and quot; and was really happy to get it.  It was filled with answers and it really helped give me focus  for goals I had at the office.  In particular, it hit home in regards to the importance of protection.  This is not an easy subject to find good information about - Michaels book really made it much easier for me to learn what to do and how to avoid some of the nightmares I was almost ready to discover first hand

</review>
<review>

I read the book and thought it was an excellent primer in intellectual property law.  I also spoke to a friend of mine who works in a large law firm (100+) attorneys in Milwaukee.  He told me that the attorneys in the IP department in this prestigious firm use this book as a reference.  I think that speaks quite highly of the book.  I strongly recommend it

</review>
<review>

Although I have found Robert Kiyosaki's books to be excellent, I am SO unimpressed, bored, and resentful of this book. Basically, it is almost 300 pages of this phrase right here: "Get professional help". There- done. You have now read the book. I agree with many of the other reviews here, in that it really isn't helpful to someone interested in protecting their ideas, but only helpful to Kiyosaki and the author. This is an "Advisor" series book, and it has made me skeptical of the rest of them. Sales Dogs is also not helpful unless you are already experienced in sales

</review>
<review>

This is my wifes rating since she finished the book and I have only started.So far ,I agree.It's another completely different area of the country which make her books so interesting

</review>
<review>

I've been tearing through Nevada Barr's Anna Pigeon mysteries ever since I discovered them.  The tighest and best story in my opinion is Firestorm - this one was a little harder to follow and I'm not sure I ever totally understood the denouement of the mystery.  But like with all the Pigeon novels, the characters and physical setting were interesting and well-drawn, and the story arcs that continue from book to book are intriguing, such as the relationship between Anna and her sister, and the relationship between Anna and Frederick the FBI agent (be prepared to be surprised!)  I don't think I'm going to read anything else until I've finished all the Anna Pigeon books out there - on to Blind Descent!

</review>
<review>

I love listening to this book as Cindy Williams has an enjoyable voice and does a good job reading. The story is enjoyable as well but it is so changed from the book at times it bares little resembelence to it. I am not referring to the fact it is abridged and much is left out. I refer to the fact for example that a character that is a man in the book is a WOMAN on the tape. Such changes alter the structure of the story and make it into a DIFFERENT story than the one you expect to hear. If you have not read the book this is a moot point but if you have your in for some surprises

</review>
<review>

Anna is in the south again - but this time on one of the islands off the coast of Georgia.  And she's not 'wrastlin' gators this time, it's turtles instead.  There's a plane crash, Bambi (real name, Flicka), cannibus (marijuana), and more.  She's still contemplating moving to Chicago to be with the distant Frederick, but that possibility seems to always be on the backburner. As usual, Nevada fights the good fight, goes skinny dipping, gets her hair cut, and is finally free of her ex-husband (in a hilarious manner), while discovering the the secrets of Cumberland Island's murders

</review>
<review>

I was not familiar with Thomas Friedman's New York Times columns.  This book contains a sampling of his columns.  The book mainly portrays the difference in the Arab vs. the culture of the West. The book opens with the shock of the events of 9/11, considered a tragedy by the West and a cause for celebration for many places in the Arab and Muslim world.
The author goes onto explain the Arab world's rage against America is the result of the idea that America represents, globalization , modernity, plurality.  Muslim populations in the middle east are generally ruled by oppressive regimes that are failing their populace, providing a limited world vision, while censoring information.  The author made an interesting observation, India has the second largest Muslim population of any  country in the world,  but the Muslim rage in not present, as the author notes, chanting "death to America" is not the favored occupation of its populace.  The reason,  India is a democracy,  the people are concerned with bettering themselves  through government.
And so it goes,  The author's main point is that when the Middle East can be democratized, and the poverty alleviated it will be ready to join the modern world.
I really believe Tom Freidman is right on target with the ideas within this book.

</review>
<review>

Friedman's writing is consistently thoughtful, and this book is no exception. I appreciate deeply the care with which this book has been prepared. It belongs in every thinking person's library

</review>
<review>

Thomas Friedman's "Longitudes and Attitudes" is a very readable book based on a collection of columns he wrote for the New York Times just before the attacks of 9/11 and for the year following those attacks. The last quarter of the book contains a kind of diary in which he attempts to put into context where he was in the world when he wrote these columns and how he was personally feeling at the time.

It is a very personal collection, often invoking the image of his children's future. Friedman's primary mission, as he relates it in meetings with educated people across the Middle East, is his search for the rationale of the terrorists, why they killed, and how they were radicalized.  He frequently relates how depressed he got when talking to educated Middle Easterners who unflinchingly believed in conspiracy theories of the highest order. The most common canard he constantly ran across was that four thousand Jews were notified on the morning of 9/11 not to go to the World Trade Towers. Another astonishing "fact" he constantly confronted from academics, clerics and the media in the Middle East was that there is no proof that Muslims were the 9/11 hijackers in the first place. In general, Friedman relates, most Muslims in the Middle East also believe that the attack was a plot by the CIA (or Jews) to discredit Muslims and that all the American media is run by Jews.

Throughout the book, Friedman does not shy away from the fact that he is Jewish. He is balanced and critical of both sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - decrying the brutality of the Israelis and Palestinians and he especially singles out the stubbornness of Arafat in that Arab leader's failure to accept the Clinton peace plan, which would have given Palestinians a state encompassing 95% of what they asked for and could have stanched the bloodshed.

Friedman relates his amazement that the Middle East is bombarded by an incessant 24-hour-a-day attack in the Arab media upon Israel and the United States, particularly via TV programs that run through the night simply playing martial music and showing images of Israeli brutality against Palestinians - which is always portrayed as one-sided.

He is unabashedly and constantly critical of the Saudi Arabia regime, from which, we are frequently reminded, was home to 15 of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers. Friedman seems particularly upset that Saudi Arabia did not apologize for the involvement of its nationals in the attack against the US and has refused to cooperate with the FBI in their investigation. He also makes it abundantly clear that Saudi Arabia, along with Iran, seem to be in a race to provide money to Islamic madras's across the globe that teach virulent intolerance and hatred against America and Israel.

Friedman doesn't simpy rail against the world as he sees it, he does prescribe some remedies for what he refers to as an ongoing "Clash of Civilizations," a term he borrows from Samuel Huntington.  If we don't address the tumult we find ourselves in and Usama bin Laden "wins," Friedman warns us that, "The war of civilizations will be coming to a theater near to you."

First and foremost, he calls upon Arab nations to forge a new future for their citizens by letting go of the past and looking to the future. Too often Arab nations and leaders deflect true change by blaming all their troubles on someone else... their problems are America's fault, or Bush's fault, or Israel's fault and so on ad infinitum. True leaders in the Middle East should create plans for the future, not just laying blame for present and past real and perceived slights. Arab leaders should come up with plans for educating their children, making governments more responsive and creating jobs for the exploding number of young people in the Middle East. Friedman goads Arab leaders by saying things such as, while other emerging nations "make microchips, you are making potato chips," and that the GDP of Spain is greater than that of all 22 Arab states combined.

Friedman could be called a liberal hawk. He firmly believes in globalization, with a caveat that the Internet can be "an open sewer." He also believes that the concept of engaging and talking with your enemy is the only way that problems can truly be resolved. An example: The U.S. and Israel engaged Arafat and came up with a plan that gave the Palestinians a state encompassing 95% of what they wanted. This pleased Friedman the liberal. Arafat torched the olive branch that was extended to him and Friedman the hawk reminds us that Arafat had many maps that did not even show modern Israel on them. Friedman the hawk also applauded the fall of Saddam from a humanitarian viewpoint (reminding us that Saddam killed more Muslims in the 20th century than any other individual) and asked his readers to "give the CIA a break," and "give war a chance."

One of the most important ideas this book relates is that, unlike Christianity and the Jewish faith, Islam never went though Enlightenment or a Reformation. What this means is that Islam never separated church and state the way that the West has done and therefore Islam has not been able to move its society and culture forward because of the constant influence of clerics who can't effectively run a modern nation.

Lastly, the last quarter of the book that was written in a diary format was primarily a rehash of ideas spelled out earlier in the book -  merely reformatted to fit the geographic contours of where and when Friedman wrote his columns. This part of the book added little new information and seemed that it was almost an afterthought... an awkward attempt to tie together all the canned columns.

</review>
<review>

This book is a collection of newspaper columns and journal entries that Friedman wrote before and after the September 11th attacks.  Friedman is very familiar with the Middle East, having been a news correspondent in Beirut and Jerusalem for ten years before becoming foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times.  Although he himself had stressed that one consequence of globalization has been the creation of super-empowered individuals with a grudge against the United States, and that bin Laden was just such an individual (The Lexus and the Olive Tree), even Friedman did not see it coming on September 11th, 2001.  This book features reprints of Friedman's columns analyzing the reasons why the September 11th attacks happened, and the reaction in the following months throughout the Islamic world.  The book also includes a short journal section, in which Friedman describes his travels in the Middle East while he was collecting material for his columns.

The events of September 11th 2001 found me and my husband in a Lebanese restaurant in the Dubai neighborhood where we had been living for four years.  The waiters were listening to the radio, and from all the cheers and excitement, we thought some Arab country was winning a World Cup soccer match against a European powerhouse.  But the waiters wouldn't look at us.  Finally one came over and with a face that alternated between embarrassment, concern, and glee, told us something big had happened in the U.S.  We went home immediately to check the news on CNN.  The following day, Western-educated Arab colleagues would give us their condolences, but not long afterwards, every one of them told us they believed the CIA and Mossad were behind the attacks, and that no Arabs were involved.  Bin Laden's face appeared on the wallpaper of my Emirati students' computers and cell phones-for them he was clearly a hero, not a demon.  In seeking to understand the events, I read the newspaper daily, and was amazed that Friedman, with a New York byline, could be so well informed about what we were seeing all around us.  While I don't agree with everything that Friedman espouses in this book, I think his analysis of the Muslim world following September 11th is about as accurate as any Western journalist could develop.

Friedman is a fierce patriot, for all the right reasons.  He lived overseas long enough to appreciate the qualities that make America great.  He reminds us that "American power and wealth flow directly from a deep spiritual source-a spirit of respect for the individual, a spirit of tolerance for differences of faith or politics, a respect for freedom of thought as the necessary foundation for all creativity, and a spirit of unity that encompasses all kinds of differences...Lord knows, ours is hardly a perfect country.  Many times we have deviated from the American spirit or applied it selfishly. But it is because we come back to this spirit more times than not, in more communities than not, that our country remains both strong and renewable." Friedman notes, "It will be a tragedy if Arabs and Muslims adopt the position that there is no conceivable reason why Americans might be upset with them today and that any criticism they face in the U.S. media is entirely the result of some Jewish campaign of vilification....Whenever a people reduces all its problems to a conspiracy by someone else, it absolves itself and its leaders of any responsibility for its predicament-and any need for self-examination...  No civilization has ever prospered with that approach...Only in a society that embraces self-criticism can the political process produce real facts to cope with real problems....The standard view of America in the Arab-Muslim world is that America is rich and powerful because it is crass and materialistic...The truth is exactly the opposite.  America is successful and wealthy because of its values, not despite them.  It is prosperous because of the way it respects freedom, individualism, and women's rights and the way it nurtures creativity and experimentation."

According to Friedman, although Arabs will point to US support for Israel as the reason behind the anger against the US, the real reasons for Arab anger come down to stagnating domestic Arab economies and hard-line autocratic governments which permit anger to be expressed only about the occupation of Palestine.  He notes how governments support hate-mongering imams, and how the Arabic media presents images of Israeli violence unceasingly on television. Thus, even those who are not drawn to religious institutions are kept perpetually angry, but their anger is safely diverted from domestic issues.  In an October, 2001 column, Friedman points out "Since September 11, the President of the United States has given several speeches about how Islam is a tolerant religion, with no core hostility to the West.  But the leader of Saudi Arabia, the keeper of the Muslim holy places, hasn't given one."

In trying to understand the deeper message of 9/11, Friedman writes "while the world is being globalized, shrunk, and tied together ever more closely in technological terms, this has not been accompanied by a better mutual understanding between cultures, countries and civilizations. There is a mismatch.  We are technologically closer-and culturally and politically as far apart as ever, at least among certain communities."  In one of my favorite columns of the book, "Changing the Channel," Friedman presents a tongue-in-cheek analysis of why watching the Golf Channel is a lot more fun than watching the news from the Middle East.  When I returned home from the Middle East myself, my first inclination was to wall myself off from news about the region because it made me angry.  But Friedman argues this is counter-productive.  "In the long term, the only answer is to figure out ways to change the attitudes and intentions of the people on the other side of the wall, or at least narrow the gap between differing cultures and political traditions so we can share this shrinking planet." That's a challenging undertaking

</review>
<review>

I remember back in the day when I was a blind follower of Michael Moore and Al Franken thinking that Tom Friedman was some right wing jerk.  For no real reason either, he just seemed to fit that mold to an extremely naive liberal.  It certainly makes me uncomfortable to think back to those days, because I am now a pragmatic and realistic moderate and I certainly had Friedman pegged wrong (and also because I now realize Moore and Franken are mostly useless).

Longitudes and Attitudes is a collection of Friedman's New York Times columns from 9/11/01 to 4/20/03 plus a short travel diary at the end that takes some of the stories from the columns and fleshes them out a bit to provide more details and context.  The book's format makes it amazingly easy to read and Friedman's writing style is superb.  He does a fantastic job at communicating his ideas in an easy to understand fashion.

I didn't agree with everything he said in these columns, but he really made me think about what I thought about certain issues.  I think that's the sign of a great writer and analyst.  Especially when I think of the subject matter he writes about, I'm glad someone like Friedman is out there because I really do think that if more people in America read his books and columns with an open mind, this country would be better off for it.

My only real complaint that I feel warranted mentioning here is that Friedman hinted several times at the lack of Muslim response to 9/11, as if there were no Muslims that condemned the attacks.  I'm sure Friedman talked to a great many people all over the world, but there were quite a few Muslim sources of outrage and condemnation after 9/11.  I wish he would have perhaps looked a little harder to find them.

I think this would be a great book for anyone even remotely interested about terrorism, foreign policy, etc. to read.  I certainly plan on reading the rest of his books and look forward to what he will produce in the future

</review>
<review>

When I bought this book, I didn't realize it was mostly just a consolidated writing of Friedman's collumns in the Times.  I think Friedman is a great author with lots of great insights, but he isn't able to go into his ideas in depth as much as I would have liked in a bunch of detached 750-1000 word segments.  Since the sections are arranged chronologically, there also isn't the opportunity to tie the themes together.

If you really like Friedman, then it's worth a read, but if you are in it for just one, I'd read The Lexus and the Olive Tree first.  It is by far his best

</review>
<review>

Tom Friedman has a regular column in the new york times. I have always loved his columns and this book is excellent (It is actually a collection of his NY Times columns). A must read for anyone who is interested in politics in the middle east, terrorism and its origin and the iraq war

</review>
<review>

Tom Friedman's writing style is easy to read and his overarching concepts-webs and walls; states v. markets v. individuals; and the comprehensive failure of the Arab street, leadership and Muslim clergy to combat the really tough and valid questions of the day-are extremely well thought-out. From reading this compilation of NYT columns, I understand where Friedman conceived many of his ideas for his current best-selling book, 'The World is Flat.' Although I sometimes disagree with his opinions, his ability to see the big picture is spot on

</review>
<review>

may not make you wise.

My immediate response right after finishing the last page of this book: Had the author published a new book after this? To my very disappointment, the answer is negative.

I am a Chinese living in Hong Kong who knew very little about the Middle East beforehand. This book is really an eye opener to me. I couldnt imagine that in 2002, "There are now 84,000 prostitutes operating on the streets of Tehran and 250 brothels, ... 60 new runaway girls hitting Tehran's streets everyday...Forty percent of all drug addicted women in Iranian prisons have AIDS...Unemployment which is already around 30 percent) is steadily rising."  pg 280

Of course this book is not about showing bad looking statistics from credible Middle East sources. It preached viable solutions that Bush had not adopted. To name a few: "Frankly, I hope Saddam disappears tomorrow. But even if he does, that's not going to solve our problem. Saddam is a conventional threat who can be eliminated by conventional means. He inspires no one. The idea people who inspired the hijackers are religious leaders, pseudo-intellectuals, pundits and educators, primiarily in Eygpt and in Saudia Arabia, which continues to use its vast oil wealth to spread its austere and intolerant brand of Islam,  Wahabism. June 2002." Pg 265 and "If we've learned one thing since 9/11, it's that terrorism is not produced by the poverty of money. It's produced by the poverity of dignity. It is about young middle class Arabs and Muslims feeling trapped in countries with too few good jobs and too few opportunities to realize their potential or shape their own future - and blaming America for it. We have to break the cycle...June 2002." Pg 270

To counter the pro American impression from the examples I quoted above, "This is not to say that US policy is blameless. We do bad things sometimes. But why is it that only Muslims react to our bad policies with suicidal terrorism, not Mexians or Chinese? Is it because ...Jews could not be so strong on their own...the United States created and supports Israel? Mar 2002" Pg 197 and "Mr. Bush has repeatedly told the world: If you're not with us, you're against us. He needs to remember this: The rest of the world is saying the same thing to us. March 2002" Pg 207

In short, a well written book of wisdom. It's ideas are really true, useful and can pass the test of time, especially after the bombings in London last Thursday. Dont miss it.

</review>
<review>

Written in the context of the Cold War, the author emphasizes the need for free markets and an open society for a society to property function.  It stresses the importance of the individual and the needs of the individual against the backdrop of an "ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country" era and the basic economic honesty of selfishness in general.  There are several ideas in the book that probably need to be revisited (which is why you should read it) since they are becoming issues again in today's world.

</review>
<review>

An all-time favorite of mine, Capitalism  and  Freedom creates a framework of classic liberalism and argues forcefully in favor of free-markets and decentralization over the expansion of government involvement in economic and social affairs.  Friedman builds his argument from the ground up by identifying coercion as the State's distinguishing feature over all other societal organizations.  From the (classic) liberal's perspective, this aspect shapes the relationship between citizen and government, and strictly limits the appropriateness of State involvement in society, particularly with regard to well-intentioned programs and policy.

Friedman uses this foundation to build a case for limited government in economic matters, citing in particular the consequences of monetary and fiscal policy abuse.  In an exceptionally apt comparison, Friedman argues that the same rationale that limits government interference with free speech should likewise apply to government interference in the economy: namely, that constraints be applied to monetary and fiscal policy to limit the potential for government to do harm in its pursuit of doing good.  Friedman gives numerous examples in which government officials, exercising carte-blanche economic authority, have further aggravated economic crises by applying a case-by-case standardh to different economic scenarios.

Having clearly laid out his political philosophy, Friedman builds his case for free-markets, detailing control measures intrinsic of a laissez-faire economy.  From floating exchange rates to voucher-funded schooling, union contracts to charity, Friedman argues that the free-market harnesses the productive potential of millions of individuals and corporations, reconciling their preferences in a competitive process far more efficiently than any collective body.   Throughout the book, Friedman debunks popular myths, disputes misunderstandings, and challenges the conventional wisdom prevalent among intellectuals and social elites of his day and ours.

The book's only drawback is its age and somewhat antiquated writing style that would certainly make it difficult for some readers to fully understand (particularly those who are victims of public school "education").  Friedman references several examples that would have been more easily recognized in the 1960s, but will not be immediately familiar to younger readers.  Still, this brilliant work presents the core principles of laissez-faire capitalism and classic liberalism in a relatively clear manner, and is a must-read for anyone studying the dynamics of free-markets and free societies

</review>
<review>

This book probably should not be treated as "capitalist manifesto" a la Marx but more like an attempt to present a position opposite to famous Galbraith "The Affluent Society" (1958). Reading the book without reading Galbraith first creates an impression of cheap advocacy of capitalism and unrestricted market almost in best libertarian (anarcho-capitalist) style. But as a polemic with Galbraith vision of post-capitalism (post-industrial society) the book looks like an interesting historical document.

In his book Galbraith stressed that to become successful, post-WWII America should invest heavily in infrastructure (highways, phone infrastructure, etc) as well as education using funds from general taxation and government intervention. At the same time he felt that the government power should be balanced against the power of capitalists using some countervailing forces (he mistakenly assumed that unions can play such a role). He also noted that large companies are actually exempted from competition on a national level because they are closely linked with the state and competition is limited to small companies (and most of their profits are expropriated by banks, landlords and state). In essence he argued that the USA society is no longer a capitalist society but some different dualistic social organization that combines elements of socialism (planning) for the largest firms and government (macroeconomics) with limited "free market" capitalism for small fish (microeconomics). Many argues that GM troubles proved that Galbraith was wrong. But if you look at GM problems it's clear that it was not national competitors who squeezed Detroit.

Friedman definitly was the most intellectually astute opponent of Galbraith post-industrial society vision. He pointed out that the great virtue of the market is that it enables people who hate each other to cooperate economically. But most of the content of the book is detached from reality and looks like a draft of yet another utopia. Sometimes the level of radicalism of this advocate of "free market" suggests that he is closer to socialists (especially Trotskyites) then conservatives and from defender of "status quo" turned into promoter of a new and dangerous social utopia, a new economic messiah who preached that free market + fiat money used with a specific rule of money stock expansion (3-5% per year ) will save mankind. Freidman's libertarian-style absolutization of the market ("In Goldman Sacks we trust" using Galbraith catch phase) as well as advocacy of fiat money (he played a role in the USA unilateral withdrawal from gold standard) in a way makes Friedman's views very similar to Marxists (extremes meet), although his utopia proved to be definitly less costly for mankind. It's funny that the latest administration that proclaims "market, markets" and praise Friedman actually behaves more like "Military Keynesians" then "free market" advocates. The same was true for Reagan. Still it was during Reagan's years when conservatism had grown into more and more dangerously utopian social vision ready for dangerous experiments with society.

Freidman's arguments that planning is unnecessary and that market forces have built-in checks and balances and can do wonders if they are freed from any and all government intervention can be understood seriously only in context of polemics with the representative of the opposite extreme views (statists). For readers in 2006 and especially European readers it's clear that Friedman's views of the market are anti-historic and "free market" described in the book never existed and probably will never exist in human history. Market never exists in vacuum and always is intrinsically connected and always experience significant level of control by the government (level greater then roles of an arbiter of disputes and the provider of the currency presuppose). The opposite is also true and market tend to influence government in many ways, especially dangerous if there are large national firms which depends by-and-large on government contracts (military industrial complex). Some proposed in his book "solutions" like eliminating medical profession licensing in the name of free market are pretty bizarre.

It looks like the main problem with Friedman's book is that unlike Galbraith he did not understand the importance of balancing government power with the freedom for market forces. Extreme positions that proclaim advantage of a single social force always look extremely dangerous. For example if everything is just a "free market" why buying politicians should be prohibited ? Is not this a discrimination against free market? (the same question is applicable to judiciary). What about the danger of natural creation of heredary elite by market forces and resulting "natural" conversion of parliamentary democracy into oligarchy (like "Iron law of oligarchy" presuppose) ?

Failing to address those problems makes his book mostly irrelevant for the reader in 2006, but still important as a historical document that criticized Galbraith views (it was Galbraith who coined the term "countervailing power".) Today we face the fundamental question: at which point "laissez-faire" capitalism/"unrestricted market" and associated with it corruption of government should be stopped (and some too hot and/or crooked practitioners probably jailed) and where and when unchecked state powers expansion should be stopped (preferably with similar type of punishment) to prevent sliding of society into also stagnant and completely corrupt version of "well developed socialism, Brezhnev's style."

Society probably needs to deal with the market the way tennis players deal with tennis racket: if player holds it too tightly his game suffer, but is he/she holds it too loose he cannot play well either. In this respect "former socialist countries" were not so much socialist (the famous joke in the USSR was that any "capitalist" European country contains more communists then the whole USSR) but countries with too powerful and unbalanced by any other forces government. And it was probably the internally grown oligarchy and not initiated by Reagan arm race (" military keysianism") that eventually defeated communist party control of the state, the oligarchy the was naturally created by the state after WWII and consisted to a large extent of party members in high positions. They were direct beneficiaries of the system collapse that happened with blessing (and probably financial help) of those oligarchs under the weight of economic problems and siege of nationalist forces. In a way we can believe in the "theory of convergence": both unrestricted "free market forces" and unrestricted government control eventually lead to the rule of oligarchy.

I am not an economist but it looks very strange that an avid advocate of "free market" is at the same time a proponent of demonetarization of gold and usage of fiat currencies. In this sense his Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (often incorrectly called Nobel Prize in Economics) looks somewhat strange. With fiat currencies  all businesses are hostages of the government.  And the ability to switch money printing press to full speed any time the government finds convenient (usually to cover war expenses) provides an easy way of confiscation of wealth of people by government without any communist coup d'?tat. How stable is the world of fiat currencies remain to be seen.

It should be noted that lately Freeman himself abandoned his "monetarist views" (and that makes chapter III, one of the central chapters of the book just a historical curiosity). But unfortunately Britain already serves as a guinea pig for his utopia. As for implementing his and other economic utopias I like the quote attributed to German Iron Canceller Otto von Bismarck about suggestion of one of German parliamentarians to implement socialism; I do not remember exact wording but it sounded like this: "OK let's do it, but let's first choose for this experiment a country, that we do not care about".

</review>
<review>

In only 202 pages (who said professors can't boil things down to the essentials?) free market solutions are outlined to address some of our most serious problems. This is a win-win book. The ideas contained in it, if properly applied, could improve our economy and enhance our freedom at the same time

</review>
<review>

Milton Friedman, now approaching 94 has for his entire lifetime been the vanguard of freedom in academia. "Capitalism and Freedom" dispels the so-called myths about capitalism that have become prevalent in society. The book was orignally writeen in 1962 so that is the era in which his point are made. However, they are points that never go out of sytle. He refutes the lie that the free-market caused the depression (it was actually a tyrannical Federal Reserve), that socialism can be democratic, and others. Friedman discusses public education, roads, minimum wage laws (which he calls, "the most anti-black law on the books,"), as well as the how so-called "progressive" tax system and welfare actually hurt the poor.

Please understand that Friedman is NOT a "right-wing" extremist as some knucklehead below states. He is a libertarian. He developed the idea of the negative income tax to help the poor. His ideas were to help people not hurt them with the free-market. Someone who says otherwise doesn't know what they're talking about.

</review>
<review>

One of my faves. Friedman was one of the best. Also read THE ROAD TO SERFDOM by F. A. Hayek.

As for Reviewer T.A. Turner: the good news is that your lobotomy IS reversible. There are a lot of brilliant ex-Marxists about these days. Reading Thomas Sowell for starters just may restore your mind. Of course, if it's your heart that's the problem....

Putting forth a man like V.I. Lenin who said:

"It would not matter if 3/4 of the human race perished; the important thing is that the remaining 1/4 be communist"

---as an paragon of "compassion" is truly pathetic!

Yeah, the "compassionate" followers of Marx, Trotsky, Lenin, Mao  and  Pol Pot have thus far "liberated" by mass murder between 95 and 150 million souls. Purges, Pogroms and Killing Fields!  No other political party in human history has shed so much blood in the space of a single century. And Mr. Turner's colon is is knots over a Goldwater cartoon! Give me a break

</review>
<review>


The only thing Milton Friedman has going for himself is that he says out loud what other reactionaries will only whisper.

Ayn Rand would have loved Friedman's disdain for the poor--for anyone, in fact, lacking the "initiative" famously shown in a 1963 cartoon in which Barry Goldwater stands in front of a poor person in a Southwest ghetto and says, "Why don't you show some initiative? Why don't you go out and inherit a department store like I did."

If you think the status quo was ordained by God, or that capitalism is the best that humanity can come up with, this book is for you. If not, start reading Trotsky, Lenin, and all the people with vision, compassion, and utter disgust for the sad mess that the fat cats have made of this planet.



</review>
<review>

This book is the apotheosis of freedom. Friedman should be studied not only by economists but also by politicians.
Definitely a must

</review>
<review>

Milton Friedman is one of the great economic thinkers of the 20th century.  Based out of the University of Chicago, this Nobel Prize winner in Economics has consistently and cogently argued for the benefits of capitalism over any other form of economic organization.  This, along with "Free to Choose" are his two major works establishing and explaining his beliefs.  Within it, he argues against many established policies in the US federal government such as the minimum wage, subsidies, rent controls, and licensing requirements for practice in fields such as medicine and law.  Likewise, he argues for many market-orientated alternatives to today's arrangements, such as increasing the use of school vouchers.

The author argues that the concepts of capitalism are very similar to the concepts of democracy, and that the spread of one helps the spread of the other, and hence both should go hand-in-hand in terms of public policy.  This book, along with his other writings, are the bedrock of modern-day economic conservatism and its creations such as health-care savings accounts, school vouchers, tradeable pollution emission allowances, etc...  By reading this book, one gains a very thorough understanding of modern-day American conservatism.

Unfortunately, the book minimizes the power of corporations and financial markets - speculators.  The book also does not pay enough attention to the mining and energy industries, two sectors of the economy which often produce scandal and disasters when given over to the rule of free-market forces; i.e. Enron...  Last, the author misses one key difference between democracy and capitalism.  In democracy, one person gets one vote.  In capitalism, this is rarely the case; some individuals will end up having more dollars (more votes) than other individuals.

Overall, a good book, though not a great one.  The book's arguments are well made and warrant understanding, though they  are by no means universally correct.

</review>
<review>

It is amazing how little has changed in our political dialogue in the 40+ years since this book was written.  Friedman had chapters about social responsibility of business, taxes and incentives, free trade, vouchers and the role of government in the education system, and "fair" distributions of income, and trade protectionism to protect domestic industries and workers from "unfair foreign competition."

Friedman compellingly argues that Capitalism is the best means of promoting freedom man has yet devised.  He observes that "underlying most arguements against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself."  People who speak of failures of the market are generally actually referring to market outcomes that are inconsistent with their views of propriety.

He makes the telling point that politics forces conformity in decision making.  Some form of majority decides issues, making that decision binding on all.  Market forces "reduce strain on the social fabric by rendering conformity unecessary."  It seems obvious then that the more decisions we leave to individuals, the more free we will be as a society.

I found it interesting that much that Friedman is criticized for is done on fallacious grounds.  He very clearly sees a role for government.  Government should do the things the market can not do for itself.  The most important of which is enforce the rules of the game and adjudicate disputes over the interpretation of those rules.  Further, government can be profitably involved when neighboorhood effects, or externalities are present.  He rightly cautions against the continued extension of neighboorhood effects, often just an excuse for a group looking for a special dispensation.

He cautions us that one of the things we should fear most is the concentration of power.  This is especially relevant today, given the continuing expansion of our Federal Government.

He makes the interesting point that high marginal tax rates are impediments to becoming wealthy rather than a tax on being wealthy.  This is right on the money and may help to explain why Americans of all income groups are opposed to very high marginal tax rates on income groups above their own.  This is something the left should take note of.  I also found his point that very high tax rates caused the wealthy to be much more risk averse to be quite revealing.  The wealthy of the time properly perceived that with high marginal tax rates the wealth they had was all the wealth they would ever have.  When Washington took 91% of your marginal income the odds were low that you would ever recoup a significant capital loss.  I don't think it is a coincidence that as those rates have dropped the American economy has grown faster and become the premier innovator and new business developer in the world.

Finally he has some interesting observations on the motivations of the egalitarians in society.  He draws a great distinction between equality of rights and equality of outcome.  The left insists on the latter, he feels the focus should be on the former.  The conversion of the American intellectuals to communism/socialism has always puzzled me.  How could people seemingly so intelligent espouse a system that has never been effective anywhere it has been tried.  Friedman suggest that the "conversion of the intellectuals was achieved by a comparison between the existing state of affairs, with all its injustices and defects, and a HYPOTHETICAL state of affairs as it might be (emphasis mine).  The actual was compared with the ideal."  It now seems fairly well proven that the ideal is unattainable and also undesirable.

For those of a libertarian bent this will be a great read.  For those of a collectivist bent but an open mind this is well worth the time and may change your mind just a bit.



</review>
<review>

I like these @ first, but then I just stopped reading them, and I have no idea why.

Klaus is the middle child in this trio. He is amazingly smart. Violet can build inventions out of anything! And the youngest person in this trio is a girl named Sunny, who has amazingly sharp front teeth.

I love the plot of these books. Count Olaf is a great character and I love to hate him!

I juat have to read the twelfth book and then I've read them all. I definetely plan to read the next book in this series

</review>
<review>

These books are some of the most incredibly creative and oringinal books I have ever read. I may be seventeen but I absolutley LOVE thse books. My best friend Ashton let me borrow them and I read the first one and I was hooked. No other author I have read can write as cleverly as he can. I could never choose a favorite, I love every one

</review>
<review>

The books I received were in very good condition. I feel it took a bit long to actually receive the items. Especially due to the fact that I have ordered from other vendors before and saw a much faster turnaround

</review>
<review>


Prime pasta.  Perfect pasta - that's the only kind served by the authors in their Providence restaurant, Al Forno.  Billy Joel claims their pizza is the best in the world.  While I wouldn't argue with him, for me  the easy to follow  recipes offered in this imaginative, enormously satisfying cookbook are among the best to be found.

The author's love and enthusiasm for the type of food they prepare is obvious on every page as they experiment, create, and enjoy.  Explaining  that work nights end late for them, they add that they're hungry so together they prepare what they call "midnight spaghetti."  It's really a fun-loving competition between the two of them with simple rules: "Prepare a delicious sauce in the time it takes for a pot of water to boil and the pasta to cook."

Among the dishes favored for these nocturnal feasts are Spaghetti with Fresh Spinach and Gorgonzola, Pantry Spaghetti, Vintner's Spaghetti, Pappardelle with Olives, Thyme, and Lemon.  Recipes for these and other mouth-watering pasta dishes, whether appetizers or main courses, are found in this temptingly illustrated book.

Of enormous help are the hints offered by this couple who have cooked tens of thousands of pounds of pasta at their restaurant.  For instance, a good rule of thumb is four ounces of pasta per person as a main meal and half of that for a starter.  Plus, a list of must-haves for your pasta pantry is indispensable, and saves hasty runs to the super market.

Couldn't possibly choose a favorite from the many recipes offered but high on my list is Jo's Fast "Cheater's" Lasagne.  Granted, I'm biased as pasta has always been a favorite dish, and I tend to heartily agree with the authors'  admonition: "Don't trust people who don't like pasta."

Highly recommended - enjoy!

- Gail Cooke

</review>
<review>

My title is way to simplistic for this story, but it gives you an idea.  Tananarive Due brings us a unique look into suspense and horror that I have not seen before, giving us a cultural lesson at the same time.  An engrossing read.  I couldn't put it down

</review>
<review>

From the minute I opened the book...I couldn't stop reading.  It's refreshing to read such an entertaining novel from start to finish!


</review>
<review>

I absolutely loved this novel. I usually read L.A. Banks Vampire Huntress series but I decided in a slight change of pace and boy did I get it. The story is about a woman trying to run away from her tragic past, with her child gone from a freak accident Angela doesn't know how to bounce back. After advice from a friend she decides to pick up the pieces from its point of origin, her grandmother's old house.

This is a great ghost story but it involves so much more. It's a ghost story, a mystery, a drama, and of course Due uses a certain traditional African American religion as the basis of the novel.  At times I feel like the author was channeling Steven King and I really did enjoy it, while the pace was a little slow in some parts the mystery of the story strings the reader along. Unlike Due's novel Joplin's Ghost the action starts on the first page and gets the reader invested

</review>
<review>

I listened to the unabridged audio edition of this novel, and what can I say? I loved it. I've never read anything before by this author, but the narration, the spinechilling series of events and the loveable characters made me want to read more. I sincerely hope there is a sequel.

The story involves an ancient curse placed upon a woman's family which is unwittingly unleashed by her likeable teenage son, Cory. Cory's family must bear the brunt of a demon's tricks and wrath, which does at times have fatal consequences.

I particularly liked Shawn/Cory, Naomi and Onyx. I really do feel taht Tananarive can write excellent male characters. Her male characters seem very realistic and heartfelt.

5 stars

</review>
<review>

Not very scary, too long, and poor character development.  There are a lot of good reviews about the book.  Maybe I missed something

</review>
<review>

I found The Good House to be an exceptionally well written and suspenseful novel. The author did an excellent job of developing the story and the characters.

There were only two minor drawbacks to the book. One was that at times I found it too frightening to read at night...but then again that's why people read books like this. Also, I agree with others who have pointed out that the ending is a bit on the Hollywood side. However neither of these was enough to prevent me from giving the book a 5 rating.

This was my first book by Ms. Due but it most certainly won't be the last

</review>
<review>

I really enjoyed this book - it kept me guessing what would happen next.  I didn't want to put it down

</review>
<review>

Angela Toussaint has nothing but warm, wonderful memories of her grandmother Marie, and summers at the Good House.  And while her Haitian grandmother evokes only thoughts of goodness in Angela, the fact is that her grandmother was a very powerful voodoo priestess who was widely known for her powers.  Angela is also blissfully unaware that many years prior her grandmother, driven to do so by anger, pride and a need for vengeance, summoned a spirit that would only mean death and destruction for her descendants.  Being the powerful priestess that she was, she was able to put the demon to sleep....where it has lay dormant within the earth of the Good House all of these years.  Returning to the small town of Sacajawea, Washington with her son Cory as she has done many times before, a simple task of cleaning the attic has sparked young Corey's curiosity in his grandmother; and before you know it, he is pouring through her book of spells and trying some of her magic.  Magic that eventually unleashes the fury of a being that has been dormant for almost a century, bringing with it death and destruction to all of the Toussaints......

Fabulously well-constructed tale that draws the reader in with the very first paragraph.  Too scary to read alone, yet too wonderful to put down.  I have found a new favorite in this author.



DY

</review>
<review>

Ripping off King, but with more sex, shallower characters, and a Hollywood ending. Leave it on the shelf

</review>
<review>

A must for dog owners and a guide to go by. For 'do-it-yourself' instead of costly obedience classes.

</review>
<review>

The Intelligence of Dogs by Stanley Coren takes a unique approach to assessing the intelligence of our canine companions.  Coren is a psychologist and animal behaviorist and uses some innovative methods, typically used to measure human intelligence, on dogs.  He gives interesting background information on canines and how philosophers once viewed them as biological machines incapable of thinking or feeling.  This book would be helpful to a person trying to decide on a breed for a pet because of the breed specific information provided.  I highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in Man's Best Friend and whats going on in his mind.

</review>
<review>

This was a book that I found absolutely delightful to read. Since I am a thorough-going dog nut the topic seized my attention immediately, and Dr. Coren did not disappoint. His style is lucid and thankfully free of a lot of jargon. This made for pleasant and informative reading. Enjoy

</review>
<review>

The press on this book indicated it was written with charm and wit.  Unfortunately it did not live up to that notice.  The author is pedantic and takes himself and his subject much too seriously

</review>
<review>


I couldn't even begin to count all the things Stanley Coren gets wrong in THE INTELLIGENCE OF DOGS.  For instance, in one section he claims that dogs have the ability to do math but in another part of the book he claims they can't tell the difference between a tug toy and human skin.  The first is clearly way beyond a dog's capacity, while the second is something which comes totally natural to them.  How did Coren get things so backwards?

And the "intelligence" tests he provides have nothing to do with intelligence but in how focused or driven a dog is to do the test (or game) while you're doing it.  For instance, I tried one of the tests with my dog by putting a piece of food under a towel, then waited to see how long it took him to find the treat.  I'd still be waiting if I hadn't decided he'd never look under that towel.  Then I tried the same game by teasing my dog with one of his favorite toys.  Then I hid it under the towel, and it took him less than a second to get that toy.  So my dog is apparently both on the smarter and dumber ends of Coren's intelligence spectrum.  (This is just one example, by the way: the whole idea of testing a dog's IQ like this is bogus.)

And don't get me started on Coren's pedantic retelling of the alpha myth.  Granted, he wrote this book before the latest research on wild wolf packs proved that there's no such thing as a dominance hierarchy, or an alpha wolf, or the rest of that alpha nonsense.  Though, I doubt if even that data would change Coren's mind.  After all, he seriously recommends rolling your dog over on its back every day and pulling one of the animal's hind legs in the air to create a posture which supposedly "signifies submission to the pack leader."  (Really?  Dogs use "signifiers" now?)

The funny thing is, shortly after reading that passage I saw a wolf documentary on TV and the papa wolf did the exact opposite or what Coren recommends!  He rolled over on HIS back and let the pups jump on top of him and bite his nose!  They loved it!  So I tried what the papa wolf did with his pups with my dog--an alpha male, if there ever was one--and HE loved it.  And later that night, on our last walk, he was ten times as obedient to me than he had been before I'd mimicked the papa wolf's behavior.  Again, Coren had everything exactly backwards to reality.

This "through the looking glass" quality persists throughout the book, with Coren even saying that dogs are capable of hypothetical, symbolic, and conceptual thinking.  Wha..?  I'm sorry.  I love dogs and I think they have wonderful abilities that should be honored and respected, but the abilities they DO have are geared for being a dog, not a mini-me with four legs and a tail.  For one thing, fully one third of a dog's brain is devoted to processing olfactory information, and none to processing symbols and concepts.  I think Coren needs to do a little more research on comparative neuroanatomy and actual wolf behavior before he makes more ridiculous claims like the ones he made in this inane book.

</review>
<review>

In this The Intelligence of Dogs: A Guide to the Thoughts, Emotions, and Inner Lives of Our Canine Companions, Stanley Coren looks at how dogs think and what they feel by analyzing their actions.  He begins by providing a persuading argument that dogs do think and show emotions.  Then an interesting history is given of the views on the dog's mind throughout history, along with the three main proposed views of what dogs were first domesticated and used by people.  Coren provides a few sections that are especially useful in interpreting what your dog is thinking or trying to say.  I am a veterinary assistant and am around a lot of dogs all day, and these lists did provide me with some new information.
The book also talks about the three different kinds of intelligence that dogs have.  Coren clearly describes adaptive, working, and instinctive intelligence with the use of many personal examples.  These examples are often interesting and entertaining to the reader, while strengthening Coren's point.  In addition, Coren provides tips for the reader to evaluate his own dog's intelligence.  I found the canine intelligence test and the personality test to be a fun activity for both me and my dog.  The intelligence test helps you understand how your dog's intelligence compares to the rest of the dog world.  The personality test determines what kind of personality your dog has and what the best techniques are for training it.
The last few chapters of the book describe useful techniques for increasing a dog's intelligence and an easy-to-understand description of how the dog's brain works.  The tips for improving my dog's intelligence seem to be really practical.  The explanation of the science of the dog's brain is surprisingly easy to comprehend.  Coren explains the brain's complexity in everyday terms.
Overall, this book is very informative of the dog's mind, and it also seems to be partly biographical with all of Coren's stories and explanations of how he reaches his conclusions and conducts his research.  This slight mixture of genres keeps me from becoming bored with an only informative book.  I definitely recommend this book to any dog enthusiasts that are looking for an informative and entertaining book to read

</review>
<review>

I can't believe I didn't know anything about this time in US History before.  The Chicago fair as background to a serial killer is facinating.  This book is very well written.  You'd think a book about architecture might be dry, but its really not at all.  Highly recommend this book.  Its a slo a great book for a book club

</review>
<review>

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS EVER, AND I READ 2 A MONT

</review>
<review>

As a criminologist, I have a small library of books that range from sociological and crim theory to true crime and collective behavior and no book as given me more pleasure than this one.  The research is impeccable and there are so many passages that will never find their way into a textbook, so it is now my goal to utilize this work by incorporating it into my lectures.  This is a must read for anyone interested history, the impact of the industrial revolution on society and a study of the criminal mind in creating the victim-offender relationship.    Bravo to Mr. Larson.

</review>
<review>

Reads like a murder mystery, but represents itself as being factual.  A really incredible story and a piece that should be read by all Chicagoans.  (I live in Colorado but was born there.)  Fran

</review>
<review>

Extraordinarily well written.  Highly recommeded for anyone interested in, not just Chicago history, but turn of the century events

</review>
<review>

A fascinating look into Chicago's life and times at the end of the 19th century with the background of the World's fair and the personalities of the major movers and shakers of the era.

</review>
<review>

A strangly fascinating book...didn't expect it to be so engrossing. Lived in Chicago for a time, and find I knew little about the history.
The parallel plot was a stroke of genius...the bright lights...the century
of progress, and the horror that was patiently waiting in the shadows!!
JUST TERRIFIC!!

</review>
<review>

I learned some odd new things reading this.  Fascinating book- made me do more research on the exposition

</review>
<review>

This book had me from the first line -- a perfect example of real life being more enthralling than fiction.  Two stories are told side by side, one about the fair itself and another detailing the crime spree of a serial killer who makes Jack the Ripper pale by comparison. The result is a book that is almost impossible to put down. It left me with an appreciation of the energy, talent and sheer will it takes to put on a world's fair and the genius of inventors like George Ferris.

</review>
<review>

Not only is the story heartwarming, the artwork is beautiful.  Besides having this book in my personal library, I have purchased several copies for friends with dogs and give it as remembrance when their beloved pet goes to the Rainbow Bridge. It is definitely appropriate for any occasion, but there is a certain comfort when it is received during the difficult time after a pet is gone.  Anyone who loves dogs, has to love this book

</review>
<review>

For anyone who has loved and/or lost a dog, this book is peace for the soul. Since not many people know how to express condolences over the loss of a pet, this is a great place to make a memorial. Steve did a great job expressing the love and joy of having a K9 friend with his humor and expressive illustrations

</review>
<review>

While attending a conference in Vermont, I was fascinated by several woodcuts of dogs by folk artist Stephen Huneck which were displayed in a local craft store. The ones which particularly caught my interest involved labrador retrievers engaged in simple tasks which captured the essence of the breed, e.g. loyalty, friendliness, joyfulfulness, and perserverance. I then noticed that the artist also had published three children's books incorporating woodcuts of his black Labrador retriever Sally at the beach, in the mountains, and on the farm. However, the book to which I was drawn both by the storyline and the pictures supplementing and illustrating the text was THE DOG CHAPEL. I learned that the author and his wife in fact live in St. Johnsbury, VT with their four dogs and that he has constructed THE DOG CHAPEL on his farm as a place that welcomes visitors of "all creeds [and] all breeds, [but with] no dogmas allowed".

The preface briefly and movingly describes the near death experience which transformed the artist's (because that is the real occupation of this author) life and led to the construction of the chapel. The book is also movingly dedicated to Sally, the black Lab and his constant companion who helped nurse him back to health after he miraculously awoke from his coma but was unable to speak or move. During his recuperation, he was inspired (or as he puts it, he had the wild idea) to build the chapel to commemorate and share with others "the messages my dogs have taught me about the nature of love, joy, friendship, play, trust, faith, and peace". The next several pages of the book consist of gorgeous photographs of both the interior and exterior of the chapel. They succeed in capturing its simple beauty in the marvelous setting of the Vermont hills. There are simple stained glass windows and wonderful woodcarvings (the artist also is a sculptor and artisan who fashions hand carved furniture), as well as the accommodations being enjoyed by both human beings and their dogs. ( Of course, the chapel has its own dog door.)  The remainder and overwhelming majority of the book is then devoted to woodcuts illustrating the various attributes and encapsulating the sort of experiences which lead to the deep bond which forms between people and their dogs.

This is a book to be savored and repeatedly enjoyed. It is the sort of book to be left on the table next to your favorite chair so you can open it up and smile at the pictures which capture the essence of some of your favorite moments with your dog. It can also serve to ease the deep pain from the loss of a canine companion. Finally, it will then be conveniently at hand for the enjoyment of any guests who also happen to be doglovers. (Of course, given the prominence of retrievers in Huneck's artwork the book probably had some extra added attraction for me since we currently own a black Lab mix and a Golden Retriever and still mourn the death several years ago of our yellow Lab - Great Dane mix.) Although the price might seem a little expensive for such a slim volume, the cover and the binding are of high quality and the pages display the artwork to great advantage. I highly recommend this book, and as the commentary accompanying one of the illustrations suggests, after buying the book "if you feel that you are too old to play, [perhaps your next task should be to] buy a ball and a dog to go with it".

Tucker Anderse

</review>
<review>

This book is amazing.  I recently lost my beloved companion of 9 years, and when I saw this book I had to buy it.  I am proud to say I'm originally from Vermont and have been a fan of Steven Huneck for years. He has outdone himself with  and quot;The Dog Chapel. and quot;  The illustrations and simple phrases reflect the love between a dog and his person.  I miss my friend, but Huneck's book has helped me to grieve and heal

</review>
<review>

Mr. Hunek conveys the power of the animal/human bond through beautiful photos of the chapel and whimsical woodcuts that describe the characteristics of our canine companions.  The book tells how this unique chapel came to be built following the authors critical illness.  As the sign outside the chapel says,  and quot;All breeds and all creeds welcome.  No dogma allowed and quot;.  This book would make a cherished gift for all dog lovers regardless of their religious or spiritual beliefs

</review>
<review>

This is a wonderful book for the creative spirit or crafty mom. Instead of spending your hard earned cash on flimsy costumes that may get only one wear, you can make your own. It includes a multitude of colorful photos and easy to follow, step-by-step instructions to make many exciting and unique costumes. Some of them include: a king, robot, knight in shining armour, magician, cowboy and hula girl. This would be a great book to use for Halloween costumes as well as for dress up and role play. Many of the costumes can be made by kids themselves. It will save you money and the kids will have a great time

</review>
<review>

I enjoyed this book because most of the items for making the costumes you can find around the house.

</review>
<review>

This book is creepy.
If you like ghost stories, with a twist its pretty good.
I enjoyed this book , however its not my favorite.
The reason I gave it a 4 star is because it maintained my interest

</review>
<review>

Ask a King fan what book is his best, and you will most likely hear "It" or "The Stand" as the answer. Maybe the occasional "The Shining", or you may have asked a Dark Tower fan who puts those books above and beyond the rest of the canon.

As for me, I'd simply say "Bag of Bones". I've read almost everything King's done, and a lot of it is great. Really great. He's easily my favorite author, but in my opinion nothing he's written has topped Bag of Bones.

I don't want to say much about the story, as you really need to just experience it yourself, but it is poignant, scary, and somehow awe-inspiringly beautiful.

Read it. You won't be disappointed. Then read his new one, Lisey's Story, which is in more than one way a kind of "mirror piece" when compared to Bag of Bones. By the way, I actually think I read once that King himself believes Bag of Bones to be his best. If so, he and I agree

</review>
<review>

King did an excellent job keeping you guessing in this one.  There were some areas that could have been condensed and were sometimes confusing.  For the most part, not bad.  Would make a good movie

</review>
<review>

Not to take anything away from my favorite author BUT I thought the book was way too long.  The story was suspenseful and descriptive but I found myself getting lost in the superfluous background. (And this is someone who has read The Stand at least six times so it's not the length of the book that bothered me as much as the length of the storyline.)  Stephen King fans will still enjoy the book but not as much as some others such as The Cell which I thought was great

</review>
<review>

It's amazing how fast King drew me into this story. Then he broke my heart a few times before the end of chapter two, and after that I just read on like a man possessed. A few bits feel plotted, but I don't care. King's novels have never been about their plots. That's news to Hollywood, I think, but not to you and me.

King doesn't write short books you can devour in a single sitting or two. Nah, you spend a week with one of these babies, savoring every moment. He's fully capable of being a sick bastard, don't you doubt that, but he's equally capable of messing with you on far more disturbing levels.

I bought a big pile of King novels at the Xinhua Bookstore on Yan An Lu, which probably means the author got his royalties. (Yes, I do live in China.) I assumed I'd quit reading at least some of them after the first 10%. But, pleasant surprise here, I've read every single one from cover to cover and enjoyed them all. I'm so happy about that. I've dwelled upon them after my reading and reviewing was done. And, while I can't be certain because my Kings are in a box instead of on a bookshelf right now -- I have no bookshelf -- I think this is the last one. Egad!

Just so my subscribers know -- all three of you, haha! -- the protagonist is an author named Michael, and his wife dies suddenly in first paragraph. Does that give King special access to what I fear the most? Nah, it actually makes me giggle at the coincidence.

No matter. King writes so well that I forget to giggle. So well that can only say "wow" and forget my jealousy. It's enough that I can read his books. I don't have to write them. Hey, writing is hard. Reading, if the author does his job, is easy. King does his job. Oh yes he does.

</review>
<review>

It may seem self-indulgent for King to make his protagonist a writer of romantic suspense. King sounded a bit defensive on the promotional tape his publisher sent reviewers. Wambaugh was a cop, and he writes about cops, King says. You have to write about what you know, he goes on, just like he writes about Maine.

There are many themes and mysteries in this book. Some of my favorites are the ideas concerned with recreational reading. King and his editor both suggest that this book owes a lot to Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca. So not surprisingly, it is a ghost story. With some fictional monsters, like vampires or zombies or what ever, our suspension of disbelief in order to enjoy the story may involve considerable effort. But ghosts? For anyone who has ever experienced the loss of a loved one, it is almost impossible not to believe in ghosts. An interesting fact that King's character encounters constantly is that women in this country read more than men. Men characters in the book, when they meet the author, always say something like "You are my wife's favorite writer."

Another story that is referred to frequently is "Mars is Heaven" by Ray Bradbury. I love this story, even more so because it is part of a cycle of stories which Bradbury wrote known as The Martian Chronicles. I am a bit concerned about King's use of the story here, because he summarizes it a bit abruptly, and it is a tale which relies on a surprise ending, so it would benefit readers to find a copy of The Martian Chronicles and read that
first, before reading Bag Of Bones. I believe "Mars is Heaven" is the original title, and the title that was used in several anthologies many years ago. It would be hard for readers to find it with that title now, however, as I think it was published as "The Third Expedition" in The Martian Chronicles.

Bag of Bones, simply summarized, involves a popular writer who's wife dies unexpectedly. Soon, he finds himself griped with a paralyzing writer's block. He flounders through his life, in the course of tying to put things back together, and finally visits their summer house in a tiny village which he has avoided since his wife's death, because of the feeling that it was mainly her place. It is here that he begins to encounter various spirits. Not to mention a young widow and her three year old Shirley Temple-sweet daughter. He soon becomes romantically involved with the widow as he tries to protect them from a rich and evil step father. He begins to unravel secrets that his dead wife has kept from him, which mysteriously involve the history of their summer house and the surrounding community. King conjures enormous suspense and finally resolves the plot with some rather violent incidents and horrible revelations.

I know everyone will be annoyed by my nitpicking, but one bag of bones in the plot is "dissolved" almost instantaneously with a strong solution of lye. I just have to point out that lye isn't very suitable for dissolving bones, as it is an alkaline. A strong acid would have worked better, quicker. King mentions in his promotional tape that he doesn't like doing research, but someone should have been able to point this out.

As I've mentioned, one of the interesting things about this book is the thoughts about recreational reading. Toward the end, King's character deplores violence, even fictional violence like the killings which are frequently the basis of murder mysteries, and by extension part of the violent conclusion of this book. I enjoy analysis of mysteries and detective stories, and I have always wondered why, exactly, murders seem to be a necessary part of a large group of entertaining, memorable stories. I share a bit of the uneasiness that King expresses here. Overall, I think fictional violence is part of a mechanism that writers use to stress the characters they create

</review>
<review>

I read about one hundred pages and then, when the consistency of the plot did not improve beyond that of an extra runny rice pudding, I quit. This was my first King book and I am not rushing out to buy another one, especially since it appears to me that this author is unable to pen down anything less than a 1000 pages.

Is it any wonder that it is selling on Amazon for a penny? Actually, I would not even pay that for a product that is as exciting as a bag of wet hair

</review>
<review>

Four years back, a friend introduced me to Dean Koontz. I fell in love, and started buying his books. Koontz was a name I never knew, but Stephen King was a name I grew up on. I was hooked on Koontz, and realized I wanted to give the same chance to King...someone in a similar genre (whose name I recognized).

I have since discovered that King continually has something that Koontz does not always have. Koontz is a master of keeping one in suspence, sure, but King is a master of words. He can make something sad, horrific, painful...seem appealing. He writes just beautifully, and is a rare writer who evokes a sort of external emotion.

I can't give the book a 5 (it could have been probably 50 pages shorter and had the same affect) but I want to give it a 4.5. It is just that good. I teared up, I was shocked, I laughed, all together when I read this book. It is not so much a thrasher, horror-type novel (as one might be used to seeing from King) as it is a love story which continues after one of the two-person party dies, with some severe dedication mixed inbetween. Please, go read this book, I can't wait to read it a second time.


</review>
<review>

Bag of Bones presents a mystery/suspense sans the typical gore of Stephen King.  I am a fan of King and have read many of his books simply for the intrigue they bestow onto me; however, Bag of Bones breaks free of the typical King paradigm and soars to new heights.

Mike Noonan, a mildly successful author, experiences great tragedy when his beloved wife, Joanna, dies suddenly from a brain aneurysm.  When he travels to their summer home, entitled Sara Laughs, to properly grieve his late wife, he encounters a poor, young widow whose daughter is greedily coveted by her wealthy grandfather.  Noonan is instantly immersed in a struggle between an old billionaire and his daughter in law's child.  While doing all that he can for his widow friend, Mike unravels another mystery in Sara Laughs.  He discovers another presence is in the house with him and refuses to leave until Mike learns what the presence wants him to learn.  At first, he thinks the ghost is that of his wife, Joanna, but the more powerful the presence becomes, the more Mike is forced to question its true identity and... his own safety

</review>
<review>

This book surprised me in that I enjoyed it so much.  I mean I have always loved King's work but this one resolidified me as a fan and more proof that King knows exactly what he's doing when he writes.
The book surrounds Mike Noonan, a writer, who's young wife dies suddenly.  After four years of writer's block and never being able to move on Noonan goes to stay at their summer cabin Sara Laughs in a small (you guessed it) Maine town.  What follows is a story about lost loves, new friendships and love, haunted houses and a secret that the town has had hidden for over 100 years.  For some it might be long (732 pages) but I found its pace to be so good you end up reading it into the wee hours of the night.  This is one of those books I just couldn't put down because I wanted to know the solution to the mysteries.
Definetly read this book, in a way it's so unlike King's normal ventures because it has a whodunit feel, that is not common to his novels.

</review>
<review>

A great portion of the book is very boring. I really felt like rushing through the book. I don't recommend this book to other

</review>
<review>

and even if you know nothing about baseball like me, Kearns Goodwin has hit a home run with "Wait till Next Year."  You will learn all about the rivalry between the Mets and the Yankees and the history of Goodwin's beloved Brooklyn Dodgers. She tells all about her heroes Jackie Robinson, Gil Hodges and Roy Campanella. All of these great baseball nuggets are woven into her story of growing up in Brooklyn in the '50s, and is so evocative of a time and place that was quintessentially American. This book will make you long for a town like Rockville Centre, sometime between 1949 and 1957

</review>
<review>

I, too, grew up on Long Island in the 50s and early 60s (two years in Queens and ten years out on "duh oyland".)  I'm a few years younger; the Dodgers were already in Hollywood and I rooted for the hated Jankees.  But the images of this beautiful memoir were so resonant with my childhood, from soothing sound of Red Barber's voice coming from the tinny transistor radio to the edicts from the diocese of Rockville Centre, read periodically in lieu of a Sunday sermon, mostly asking for more money.

I have only occasionally returned to Long Island since we moved away when I was 14, and like everywhere else, it is just not the same.  Ms. Goodwin's experiences are just about as close as I have ever come to going back home.  For those of our generation who grew up in parts of the country other than Long Island, I believe, at least I hope, that these recollections can return you to that wonderful time the way they did for me

</review>
<review>

Doris Kearns Goodwin seems to have written a book about her growing up in the NY suburbs for her own pleasure of simply remembering the "simpler" days before free agency, adulthood and the pressures that come to all of us as we move along in years.  Her storytelling is at times pure magic, when it was the Dodgers of Brooklyn, the Yankees of The Bronx and the Giants of Manhattan and the Polo Grounds.  The hope of a baseball fan shows beautifully and reminds us all that we needn't lose all of our childish passion simply because the years pass.  One is reminded of the past couple of years with the Red Sox ending "the Curse" and the White Sox winning in style in the South Side of Chicago.  It leaves Cubs Nation truly understanding this concept - Next Year.

While the book is clearly a pleasant read one cannot help but wonder if any author by Dr. Goodwin would have gotten this published.  That doesn't mean it should not have been; rather she had the ability, through her name as a writer of history, to make this book happen.  A wonderful summer read.

</review>
<review>

Just re-read this book.  Wonderful story about growing up in the sweetness of the 1950's, but also about overcoming childhood loss, to become a very successful person--author, wife and mother.

</review>
<review>

Doris Kearns Goodwin took a break from national history to get personal in this 1997 memoir of her experiences growing up a Long Island girl in the 1940s and 1950s rooting for the hard-luck Brooklyn Dodgers. Like Bob and Ray used to say, her loss is your gain.

I admit approaching this book with some trepidation. Clearly the book was inspired by Goodwin's participation as one of many talking pinheads on Ken Burns' self-important 1994 TV documentary "Baseball." On that show, where various hoi pollois traded their mortarboards for Yankee caps and extolled the Wagnerian ideal of a Whitey Ford fastball, Goodwin was a frequent, annoying presence, obviously trotted in to water down the testosterone as if George Will wasn't enough to accomplish that.

And for the first hundred pages of this not-big book, I felt justified in my prejudices, as Goodwin fills her pages with pat descriptions of suburban life loosely connected to a baseball team she writes about her enthusiasm for without any evident enthusiasm.

But once the book got going, my opinion changed. That happened when little Catholic Doris enters a confessional before her first Holy Communion. With wholesome piety, she tells the priest her darkest, most sinful secret: A wish that Yankee pitcher Allie Reynolds would break his arm.

That's not all. "I wished that Enos Slaughter of the Cards would break his ankle, that Phil Rizzuto of the Yanks would fracture a rib, and that Alvin Dark of the Giants would hurt his knee."

The priest is put out, not at her fantasies of carnage but because he's a Dodgers fan, too: "I believe they will win the World Series someday fairly and squarely," he tells her. "You don't need to wish harm on others to make it happen."

But it's easy to imagine Doris thinking otherwise, especially after Bobby Thomson slams a Ralph Branca fastball along with the Dodgers' hopes for making the Series in 1951. As Goodwin writes about that and later seasons, her account takes on a riveting poignancy that reminds one why Goodwin's books are so celebrated in the first place, not for her originality as a historian but for her synthesizing skill as a writer.

She even gets the chance to see her heroes close up, and unlike the baseball stars of today, they don't disappoint. Gil Hodges accepts her gift of a St. Christopher medal to help him out of a batting slump with gentle affection. Jackie Robinson signs her autograph book with a bit of hard-earned wisdom: "Keep your smile a long, long while."

No, the book's not perfect. It starts slow, and her attempts to tie her childhood in with big stories of the day like the Army-McCarthy hearings and the integration standoff in Little Rock feel like strained, politically correct cocktail chatter rather than a real accounting of a young life amid confusing times.

But most of the way through, you get a really sweet and sharp picture of what it was like to care about baseball when it was worth caring about. Goodwin has a gift for making history live again in the pages of her books, and like Ebbets Field, presents her readers here with a real diamond in the rough

</review>
<review>

I love Doris Kearns Goodwin's work, and this book is no exception. It's very different from her other books, but very enjoyable.  It brought me back to my childhood while reading about hers.

Very short in comparison to her other books, but worth the time and the money.

I have heard complaints that she got some of the baseball facts wrong, but I am not a baseball historian, so this didn't bother me in the least bit.


</review>
<review>

It's been a while for me since I read this one, but one impression clearly stuck, happy bright childhood in the 1950's and, yes, baseball.

It was overall well written memoir, very optimistic, full of childhood memories of a neighborhoodly and cozy streets and people.
I think that besides being a well written woman's memoir a baseball fan should find the book to be a treat as well

</review>
<review>

In 1949, when Doris Kearns was six and living in Rockville Center, NY, her father taught her how to chart and score a baseball game, the primary (radio) entertainment of her community.  In these years, it was baseball that unified the local community, though whether one was loyal to the Brooklyn Dodgers, as Kearns was, the NY Yankees, or the NY Giants was a different matter.  For Kearns Goodwin, the youngest in the family, it was baseball which served as her ritual connection to her father, since she sat with him after dinner each night and related the scoring of that day's game.

It is to these baseball narratives that she attributes her early interest in data collection and in story-telling (since she discovered her father stayed interested when she could keep him in suspense), traits which she believes helped make her the world-renowned historian she has become.  As she describes her life during 1949 - 1956, when either the Dodgers or the Giants played in the World Series, usually against the NY Yankees, she connects her life at home and in the community with her fierce love of the Dodgers, and especially her hero, Jackie Robinson.

Showing how team loyalties were related to the social structure of her town, Kearns Goodwin characterizes the friendly rivalries within the community.  Becoming the official "window" scorekeeper one summer for the local butcher shop, in which the two butchers, Giants fans, kept the neighbors up to date re the Giants record, Kearns Goodwin ("Ragmop"), then eight, was the "official" scorekeeper for the Dodgers.  The high point of her baseball "fan-dom" was the Dodgers win over the Yankees in 1955 for the World Series championship, when she was twelve.

Throughout this remarkable memoir, Kearns Goodwin connects her family life to baseball.  Her father's sad life before his marriage, in which he was orphaned at a young age; his love for her mother, always ill as a result of childhood rheumatic fever; her devotion to her older sisters; and her interest in family history are all connected in her mind (and in this memoir) with baseball.  Her trips to Ebbets Field, where she sought autographs; her adolescence, in which her interest in baseball competed with her interest in boys; and the importance of baseball in her life following the death of her mother, attest to the cultural allure of the "all-American pastime."

Capturing a moment of social history, Kearns Goodwin puts the early fifties into perspective, and shows the lasting importance of baseball on her professional and personal development.  A remarkable memoir by one of the all-time great baseball fans. n Mary Whipple



</review>
<review>

I finished reading,"Wait Till Next Year", last evening and I would like anyone who enjoys memoirs or simply appreciates beautiful writing, to run out and grab Ms. Goodwin's charming book. A recollection of the life she led in Long Island N.Y. and the journey she made with the Brooklyn Dodgers. It is not just about baseball, it's about growing up in the late forties and fifties, about family life, a coming of age story for Doris and "Dem Bums".This past summer  was the 50th anniversery of the Dodgers first world championship in 1955 and it seemed an appropriate time to read Ms. Goodwin's memoir and I'm so very happy I did.

</review>
<review>

I've re-read this book several times now. Lani Diane Rich is a master of romantic comedy and the offbeat heroine. For those of us who are tired of reading ultra-perfect female heroines, Wanda's a breath of fresh air, slightly tinged with the scent of Scotch. It's hard for me to believe that other reviewers here never let go with a four-letter word when things aren't going well, and the author's willingness to go there with her character gives Wanda the feel of "the real".

Any woman with a pulse (and a closet Jimmy Stewart fan,) will fall in love with Walter and his quirky smile, his protectiveness, and his obvious love for an imperfect woman. The secondary characters are excellent, the story draws you in, and before you know it, you're reading it again.

Great book. I truly enjoyed it. Lani Diane Rich, YOU don't write fast enough ;-)

</review>
<review>

or any book written in the first person, but i did enjoy this book.  The heroine was flawed, which i liked, but the hero was a saint, which I didn't quite believe.  Oh, don't get me wrong, Walter is a man any woman would want, but the big question is WHY did he want Wanda?  Even so, I thought the book was better than average.







</review>
<review>

I can't believe people are actually raving about this book. I was so offended by the inappropriate language that I could not possibly enjoy the experience of reading the story. The main character is acting like she is 3, rather than 32. This is hardly destined to be a classic and I would not recommend it to anyone who has any literary taste.

</review>
<review>

I met this author at the Romance Writers of American national conference in Reno, where I learned she had been nominated for a Rita (think "Oscars" for Women's Fiction) for best first book.  She was such a delight that I had already decided to buy the book-even before she won the award.  I was certainly not disappointed.  I like characters with a lot of hubris, and I especially enjoy female protagonists who do not require a prince charming to "fix" their lives.   Even if they meet him.  Fun secondary characters (Bones is great!), too.  Terrific read-I highly recommend this book

</review>
<review>

A friend referred me to this new author, and I truly owe her one. Lani Diane Rich made me laugh and cry, and also kept me entertained for the entire story. At a time in my life when reading something "grown-up" is a luxury at best, this book provided a wonderful escape. I can't wait to get the next two books, and hope she continues writing for all of us that are now hooked on her characters. Thanks for a great read

</review>
<review>

Good golly this is a terrible book!  I endured the first 100 pages hoping it would get better and when it didn't, I skimmed to the end.  The plot is vapid, the writing is choppy and awkward, and I could guess the outcome by page 15.  Rich plows through the story,  not really explaining or developing anything, seemingly writing down the first idea that pops into her head.  Her lame attempts at humor are just that - lame.  There is no character development or realism here.  This is a book where total strangers become best friends in a five minute phone call, loving parents disown their daughter because she is trapped in an abusive relationship, a 32-year-old names all her bottles of Scotch "Albert," and terms like "Hoo-wah" and "bo-doob-oom-chaa" are meant to convey that a character is falling in love.

One of the things I really hate is when authors serve up a perfect character, one absolutely devoid of flaws or realistic human behavior, in an attempt to make the readers care.  Rich has swung too far the other way and has developed one of the most loathsome and irritating protagonists I have ever had the misfortune to meet.  Wanda is a selfish, obnoxious, loud-mouthed brat and by the end of the first chapter I was earnestly rooting for her complete and total demise.  The other character's sudden affections for her are wholly without merit and seem contrived, to say the least.  The front and back covers are littered with glowing tributes by other authors.  If they really think this is good writing, I'll make sure to avoid their works as well as Rich's.

The author's note brags that the first draft of this book was written in 25 days.  I believe it.  Maybe she should take a bit more time with her next attempt, if there is one

</review>
<review>

Lani Diane Rich made a booming debut with Time Off for Good Behavior. I originally read the book when it first came out and recently re-read the novel; it was even better the second time around.
Among legions of cookie cutter chick lit authors, Rich stands out with her snappy, humourous dialogue and delightfully flawed characters.
If you're a lover of chick lit or you just enjoy witty conversation and authors who hold nothing back, you'll love Time Off For Good Behavior

</review>
<review>

This was a really entertaining story.  My only complaint is that I was able to finish it in a few hours.

The dialogue is natural and funny, and Wanda is lovable in spite of her obvious flaws.  I can't wait for Ms. Rich's next effort

</review>
<review>

Hard to resist - impossible to put down. It was terrific from the get go. I found Wanda to be a very likeable character and  no more litigious than the next person who was blown up in a gas leak and left in a coma from the cross examination of a "pencil faced" lawyer. I was rooting for her.

It's hilarious, like when Wanda looks like a matchstick after a haircut, and the storyline is fresh. For me, the story went from enjoyable to "must recommend to others" when Wanda discovers the music mystery - everything this author came up with - all the details mentioned are incorporated into the storyline, not just thrown in. It makes for a very satisfying ending. (There's no surprising last minute silly coincidences just to wrap up the story).


My only complaint is that it was over too soon. I'm anxious to read the next book from this author!

</review>
<review>

one must read this book. This book is a great experience of every reader who can go throughly

</review>
<review>

This book is a parody, a satire written by a very knowlegebale author.
It is about a young Jewish immigrant,Vladamir, who has lived in the USA for 15 years and at the opening of the novel is 25 years old.He is having trouble adapting to life in America. He is a paasive non initiated person in the American way of life.He hold a bureaucratic job. He paints a parody of the USA and is a satire with much humor about the nineties.  To be successful he decides he needs power, money, sex appeal and an American woman. To get these things he undertakes marginal even criminal activites. His adventures are humerous. He fails. A link to the Russian Mafia causes him to escape to a fictitious Eastern Block Country and to the City of Prava (probably Prague). There again his aggressive not though  activities put him in danger with the local mafia and eventually he returns to America. In Europe He is still after the same inner needs for success that he longs for in the USA. Over 5 years he somewhat matures and integrates more his American and Russian identities though he still feels a person living in two worlds.(The life of many first generation immigrants). His adventures are erotic aggressive, funny rediculous and sometimes criminal. The author has a very thorough knowledge of Russian culture and literature which he refers to in the text, often in a very funny way.
The prose is long and drawn out and not always easy to follow.The book is very clever.If you want a look at the modern world through the eyes of a Jeweis Russian immigrant the book is worthwhile

</review>
<review>

Vladmir Girshkin is an unlikeable schemer who spends most of the story fleeing those whom he has defrauded or angered.  He deals with a series of bizarre girlfriends and an even less likeable mother.  Eventually moving from New York to the fictional ex-Soviet satellite republic of Stolavia, Vladmir ascends to a non-violent but powerful role within Russian organized crime.  The detailed side characters range from charmingly offbeat to intensely annoying.  Shteyngart hilariously mocks the vapid trendiness and vain sophistry of overeducated, underworked American postgraduates in Europe.  He also explores issues of national and personal identity as Vladmir moves back and forth from America to Europe.  I'm definitely interested in reading more from this author.

</review>
<review>

The characterization of Vladimir Girshkin is excellent, from how he looks and dresses (which morphs through the book), to how he thinks about himself, his family, his ethniticity, to how he perceives the other Russians and Americans around him. Many humoristic moments as Vladimir, in an effort to get himself out of a dead-end life, gets in with deeper and crazier schemes to extract money and respect from different criminal elements, all the while building (or rebuilding?) the ego inside the man. The characterization, as a trip of self-discovery, is very well written.

But I did find myself forcing to finish. I did end up caring about the characters, esp. Vladimir and Morgan in the end, so I pushed on wanting to see what happened to them. But the plot bogged down, taking turns that made the humourously ludicrous ones in the beginning of the story seem normal. You have to suspend your reality checks for a novel like this, but it just got harder to do toward the end. The clever literary references and play on words at the later half of the novel didn't make me chuckle or think as much as the ones in the beginning.

I will read Mr. Shtenyngart's next novel with anticipation. Writing any novel is hard work, and I'm glad Gary pressed on with number 2

</review>
<review>

This was an excellent book that defies description.  It's unpredictable, constantly changing focus and rhythym.  It's funny, and observant, and really feels like an insightful work of fiction.

I had never heard of this book before, until I saw a New York Times article listing "famous literary places in New York" and included this book.  Since it was listed with other greats (among them: Henry James, F. Scott Fitzgerald, etc) I ordered it on Amazon.  I wasn't disappointed, but it doesn't rise to that level.

My biggest (and some of my only) problems with the book include both unnecessary fictionalization (fake European countries, cities, languages, cultures) that are thinly veiled (Czech, Russian, circle one) and some pretty implausible characters.  Other than that, very readable and very entertaining book

</review>
<review>

The title of this book is a misnomer; there's no Russian debutante in the book. Unless you count 25-year-old Vladimir Girshkin, who came to the U.S. from Leningrad as a young boy

</review>
<review>

I came across this book when advising a friend's college-age child who was researching careers and was using this book.

On the plus side, the book does contain info on basic job search skills.  I would say that most (if not all of it) is now widely available via the internet.

Very troubling was the inaccurate guidance regarding specific careers - some of it was just outdated, but some of it was inaccurate to the point of being "dangerous" for a reader with little knowledge or experience, and who would choose to spend time/effort pursuing a career based on the info in this book.  I would have to recommend against using this book as a key source for making a career choice

</review>
<review>

I am saddened by the utterly unfair and inappropriate posting here by one reader. She had not read the book, but because I am a mere moderate feminist rather than a radical one, she chooses to excoriate me here. A far more unbiased source, USA Today's review of my book said, "From finding the well-suited job to customizing it, this book is full of smart advice." In the Reader's Choice Poll, it was rated the #1 most useful career guide. Here on Amazon, you can read sample material from the book. I encourage you to do that before making your decision

</review>
<review>

Sorry, I just cannot believe that the  and quot;humorous and quot; and  and quot;honest and quot; approaches recommended in this book will work. It all seems very idealistic, flaky and undignified. I value honesty (and humor too!) but there is also something to be said for modesty and decorum. I would find someone using these strategies very off-putting -- the words  and quot;sense of entitlement and quot; come to mind. And I am not conservative. So what would a conservative employer think

</review>
<review>

Very good book but only buy it if you are looking for a book with a very strange sense of humor. In the first story he explains his job as an Elf at Santaland and describes his daily life. It is so funny, some of the things people do there are amazing and crazy at the same time.

Don't buy this book if you are looking for a nice book to read to your young kids or just sit in front of the fire reading a romantic book while it is snowing outside.

But if you are looking for something funny and odd at the same time, then by all means buy this book

</review>
<review>

If you laugh at children falling down this is the book for you.  He may push it sometimes but isn't that what a good writer should do?  Knowing he is half Greek, so am I, I was hoping for a good egg cracking story or roasting lamb in your backyard.  Unfortunately there wasn't one.  Santaland was my favorite

</review>
<review>

I generally like David Sedaris; in fact he's one of my favorites. But when his stories veer off into the death of children, almost gratuitously, I can't see the humor. This is, please note, the first book of his that I haven't enjoyed. But it's got a couple of gruesome episodes that jarred the joy out of me

</review>
<review>

...David Sedaris was only famous for talking about Christmas. Santaland Diaries, heard on NPR stations across the country, is what gave him his first fame. This collection of stories came after his first book, Barrel Fever, and before the rest. This is back when he was still writing short stories, which he isn't really known for anymore. This book has a couple of short stories and, like the short stories in Barrel Fever, they're not really accessible to a wider audience. They're dark - baby murder dark. Definitely not something everyone can appreciate. But pick it up, maybe you'll like it. If you're the sort of person who finds the idea of a theatre critic reviewing children's holiday pageants bitterly, it's worth a try

</review>
<review>

Perhaps listening to the audiotape intensified the smug, "aren't I hilarious?" tone of this book. Note: It is entirely possible that I am not clever enough to understand the humor of this book.  Or even to IDENTIFY the humor in the book.

The story of the two families competing with each other - to the point of handing over their children to be abused by a beggar, and donating various organs - was the train wreck of the Holiday tales.  (Although it may have been the story about the preacher, I can't say for sure because I gave that deadly tale five minutes to redeem itself before skipping it entirely.  So, in fact, perhaps the story is not about a preacher.  I'll never know.  Neither should you.)

I think it's fair to say that the self-satisfied, condescending narrator of these tales simply couldn't bring himself to care about his characters.  They're simply dimensionless, cliched props - the self-centered suburban woman, the socially competitive neighbors - that should immediately journey to Oz so that they can collect the hearts and brains of which Sedaris has seen fit to deprive them.

Speaking of hearts and brains, this book could use a hefty dose of those, too.

</review>
<review>

If you are looking for the literary equivalent of "It's a Wonderful Life"-this book is definitely NOT for you. However, if you appreciate slightly cynical and sardonic commentary on the holidays, you will most likely appreciate this set of short stories by David Sedaris. From Jim Timothy, the extortionist who preys upon a Pentecostal church, to Dinah, the "Christmas [...]" Sedaris packs his vignettes with unforgettable characters who will make you laugh-even though you know Clarence the Angel would disapprove. If you've had enough of family bickering and other such holiday treats, curl up with this offering and you'll find a kindred spirit in David Sedaris

</review>
<review>

I was sitting on an airlpane reading this book and the gentleman next to me asked me if I was "OK". I was uncontrollably laughing. Even after trying to put it down for a few minutes and gaining my composure, it was a fruitless attempt because within seconds I was embarrassing myself again.

</review>
<review>

David Sedaris is absolutely the funniest author alive. All of his books make me laugh out loud  and  embarrass myself in public places, when I bring his books along. This one did not disappoint either.. FUNNY holidays tales that make the season brighter, or even out of season.. give you a healthy  and  hearty laugh.
I adore this man

</review>
<review>

Truly the author's pen is mightier than the sword as he takes on Christmas, parents, children, evangelical Christians from Kentucky, television, Macy's, the result of a dalliance during the Viet Nam War, and "keeping up with the Joneses".

This short book is much funnier than his best-selling "Me Talk Pretty Some Day" as the author's humorous cynicism is at its best.  One can't put it down for fear of missing some insight into the American psyche.

Three of the stories appear to be autobiographical (with obvious changes made to "protect the innocent") wherein the author "tells" the others in the guise of another.

Regardless, Sedaris pulls no punches and will have the reader in stitches, even if there's a little guilt attached to that feeling.

</review>
<review>

The great Dallas Theological Seminary professor Dr. Hendricks shares with others his basic principles for passing on to his students the knowledge and passion for God's Word.  Basically the book can be boiled down to one primary principle - you must have passion for what you know to transfer what you know to others.  The book was originally released as The Seven Laws of the Teacher, but has since been repackaged and re-released under this new title with a new cover and design - but the truths shared by Hendricks are timeless and powerful - and should be read by EVERY teacher!

The first law of the teacher was the best, in my opinion - if you ever stop growing today, you stop teaching tomorrow.  Dr. Hendricks challenges the teacher to remain a student, to always continue learning, pursuing truth and knowledge - and to pass that thirst on to their students - far more important than any particular lesson or tidbit of information is the thirst for knowledge and truth - and that is something that is modeled for students in the lives of the teacher.  If the teacher is stale, the lessons and information can't be fresh!

The Seven Laws of the Teacher are as follows:
*	The Law of the Teacher - if you stop growing today, you stop teaching tomorrow.
*	The Law of Education - the way people learn determines how you teach.
*	The Law of Activity - maximum learning is always the result of maximum involvement.
*	The Law of Communication - to truly impart information requires the building of bridges.
*	The Law of the Heart - teaching that impacts is not head to head, but heart to heart.
*	The Law of Encouragement - teaching tends to be most effective when the learner is properly motivated.
*	The Law of Readiness - the teaching-learning process will be most effective when both student and teacher are adequately prepared.

</review>
<review>

This is the best book on teaching out there. Every teacher must read this book, and not just once, but every year. It is very practical and easy to read. Dr. Hendricks defines teaching as "causing people to learn" (87). The teacher is not somebody who covers material but enables students to change. Thus, the definition of learning is "change." This book is highly recomended

</review>
<review>

THis is an easy read and great instruction manual.  I've only read the first 2 chapters and I'm excited about reading the rest.  I hope to become a teacher who chages lives.

</review>
<review>

Communication and caring compassion is the key to teaching.  Hendricks uses the acronym, "TEACHER," to relate his concepts.  The examples of teacher-student interaction shared in his book illustrate the importance of communication and show of care that motivates students to learn.   He states, "The greatest teachers are not necessarily the people up front with high visibility.  They are the people who have great heart.  They communicate as a total person, and they communicate to the total person of their hearers (87)."  Another way to be a "person of impact," is to be "vulnerable" with one's students.  Not only are communication and compassion important, but preparation.  Hendricks relates, "Teaching involves a delicate balance between facts and form, between content and communication, between what you teach and how you teach it (77)."  If teachers want to prepare their students to "think, learn, and work," then four skills need to be taught: "reading, writing, listening, and speaking" (48).  Though this book is written for Sunday school teachers, it contains helpful suggestions for use in other teaching venues.  For instance, Hendricks suggests a "self-examination" in which teachers ask three questions: "What are my strengths; what are my weaknesses, and what do I have to change?" (35). Great teachers are the ones who continue to grow in their own personal learning. Hendricks' book is a good reminder for all teachers of the main purpose for Bible teaching.  Even if the teacher teaches in a secular institution, the basic principles of the book can be utilized.  For instance, students will be more willing to try harder and put more effort into their school work if they know the teacher truly cares for them.

</review>
<review>

This book is an excellent resource for Church Education staff. This book covers some basic principles (or laws as he calls them) regarding teaching in the church environment.  The law of readiness is my personal favorite of the bunch, as it basicially states that both student and teacher must be prepared for the teaching environment.  This is so true and often followed in higher education, but perhaps not very well followed in church education.  The sad news is that typicially the teacher is blamed for the students poor scholarship or lack orf learning.  But according to Henricks a student must study, must come to class on time, and must be interested in the material to proactively learn.

There is much more good stuff in this book.  Grab it its a great read

</review>
<review>

When it comes to impact Howard Hendricks is a master teacher.  Following these proven principles helped my college classes become full.  These principles work in formal classes, at any level, and in informal instruction.  Parents will become more effective in their parenting.  This is a small, easily read book that will produce big dividends.

</review>
<review>

Glassman's, first law of Phillip Fisher financial investing is "become a partner in a good business, for a long time": get information about the companies your are buying and ignore price trends, keep the stocks for the long run - at least 5 years, believe that assets are linked to time because time is the single most important factor in investing.

Look for companies that 1. have a consistent track record of increasing earnings of at least 7 percent for the last ten years 2. have a good prospect of surviving over the next 50 years 3. don't have huge capital demands for the profits.  Ideally, this means the company is rich; it has a service or product that produces a growth rate in earnings over a ten years because ten years suggests reasonable market dominance; and invest in companies that will offer value, in the future.   What are people looking today that will meet these criteria?  Biotech, Robotics, Fuel cells, and alternate energy.   However, most of these companies are emerging technologies which would not qualify them from investment opportunity short term.  Large companies like Genetech would qualify, whereas, small companies like iRobot would not because it does not have a ten year track record.  Glassman conservative Warren Buffet like approach demands forces the investor too follow the maximum, "Do not invest too lose money."   Furthermore, Glassmans conservative view attacks speculation and favors Graham security investment strategies of predictability.  Glassman surprisingly does not predict doom for the speculators, instead says, "history shows that the fate of the stock market is closely connected to the fate of the economy".  A speculator would own hugh about of stock or commodities in a few sectors, whereas, a security investor would diversify into a portfolio of many stocks.  Well, why not just invest into a Index or the whole market, per recommendation by John Bogle?   The Index returns about 7 percent and does not require buying and selling commissions.  It is obvious, that Glassman has some speculation visions, as a part of his core beliefs and hopes for above market average profits.  Glassman attempts to justify his risk based beliefs by saying, "when you hold a stock long enough, it becomes less risky than a bond."   The assumption is the investor will select a stock that will not have wide fluctations, large downward trends, and cause the investor too sell because of pain; and having faith the stock market will outperform bonds, he makes the prediction that stocks will be higher priced over time.  Glassman has not decided against risk stating, "prudent behavior is a key to investing", "volatility can an investors best friend because it offers good stocks at bargin prices", and "risk is a necessary evil in the stock market".  This is the language of a speculator.

Don't trade stocks.   Buy low and sell high is impossible for an investor to turn a profit.  Short term investing is a losing game reeling in the suckers by the thousands.  The only way to make money short term is to own the market and have the financial power to manipulate it.  So the best investment advice for an average investor with less than a billion dollars is too dollar cost average.  In other words, invest money consistently over a large period of time and let the average work, for ones benefit.   One good idea is too use a low cost broker, such as, sharebuilder and setup an investment plan of 10% a pay period diverting into a purchase plan which cost about $4 per transaction.

Pay no attention too the Fed.   This is illogical.  If the stock market is affected by the economy than if the Fed monetary policies cause inflation or deflation, the stock market valuations will also change.   Glassman must be assuming that investors do not borrow money to make their stock purchases.  Interest rates slow down or heat up the economy.  High interest rates slow down company earnings, if they are heavy in debt. Glassman investments do not carry heavy debt loads and operate cash rich and this justifies ignoring high interest rates.  However, it does not explain the interconnected web of commerce where companies are constantly adjusting their inventories either too cut costs or replenish depleted inventories depending on economic factors.  Glassman's faith is that the Fed will do a descent job in maintain the valuation of the dollar which means controlling inflation, adjusting interest rates, and maintain dollar hegemony against the euro and yen.  The second assumption is that the stock market will continue to climb onward and upward eventually crossing 36,000

</review>
<review>

Mr. "Dow 36,000" wants you to believe him this time.  No, really, he means it.  Right.  In 2005 he he wrote an article denying that there was a housing mania about to go bust.  I think that's a pretty good indication that there is a housing mania about to go bust.  This guy is amazing

</review>
<review>

This is the BEST book written by Stephen King!  I've read it twice and will probably read it about ten more times before I die

</review>
<review>

I'm reviewing this as an afterthought. Of its genre "The Stand" is, without question the best. And the story is, in my opinion, the greatest Stephen King has done. I've read the other reviews and I won't go into specifics, however, if you enjoy reading end of it all types of stories you will love this book. Another reviewer complained about it being lengthy. Well, you don't have to read it to realize that. But the story and characters are original and well developed. The plot progresses smoothly to an exciting climax with lots of incredible things happening throughout. And I've read it three times

</review>
<review>

Stephen King is a master of suspense, but for whatever reason he decided to leave his trademark out of this apocalyptic 'masterpiece.'

I'm not sure what all the hype is about with this novel. I found it much too long and anti-climactic. The character development is extensive and wonderful, but if I had to read about one more commitee meeting I was going to throw the book out the door. Near the book's end I was ready for them all to die just so the story would stop.

The great parts of this book were much too few and far between to justify the length. In the end I understood why his editors cut it down. I had much more fun reading Salem's Lot

</review>
<review>

well i got screamed at by my mom for reading this book.she found out it was longer than the bible and got really fired up saying i shouldve read the bible.anyhow,the plot is simple.a doomsday plague is released killing near everyone.everyone left either gave visions from this old chick or a weirdo.its like the ultimate showdown between evil and good.............well thats what you are led to belive in 1800 plus pages of agonizingly meticulous details.then the end comes and it really sucks.i personaly think he had a deadline to meet or something and cut the book short.its hard to put down but its got its faults

</review>
<review>

Before reading 'THE STAND' I'd only read a few novellas and the full length novel 'GERALD'S GAME' by Stephen King and was not all that impressed.  However, after seeing the movie 'THE STAND' a few years ago and loving it, I decided to read the book that has been proclaimed by readers to be one of his best, and now I see why Mr. King has so many devotees.

I must admit that the length of the book was a bit off putting for me in the beginning, I have never read a book quite as long as this one but I have found that most books that I've read that were on the lengthy side tended to be a bit slow and tedious.  This was not at all the case with 'THE STAND' I practically flew through the novel not wanting to put it down!  Stephen King's tale of the end of the world is an engrossing one that deals with the conflict between good and evil as well as real human issues. Also the character development in this novel is superb, one would tend to think that in a novel that deals with so many issues such as a "super-flu" that kills 99% of population, coping with the loss of loved ones, fighting for survival in a world with no rules, vivid nightmares of an ominous "Dark Man", an exhausting cross country trek, a pending fight between good and evil and trying to recreate civilization that there would be no room left for the characters to be fully developed but somehow King made it work.  I did agree with some of the reviewers who said that the ending was a bit anti-climactic but the rest of the book was so well done that I do believe it still deserves every bit of the five stars I am giving it.  I may be a little late jumping on this bandwagon, but I will now certainly be sure to pick up some of King's earlier works such as The Shining and IT in hopes that he will continue to live up to the hype!

</review>
<review>

Seriously, King's always an incredible crafstman, his characters to die for, but of all of his novels (I've read most) this STANDS out as his classic great. Later novels just feel different, even if the voice and writing is always spectacular. The Stand is less polished, but more engaging on a number of fronts. Vivid, memorable scenes. I still remember Fran biting her tongue on the beach, of all things. Characters are always real -- and that's amazing in a fantasy epic. Normally, I look to escapism and fun in fantasy, but here, the characters feel so alive and real. My one thumbs down -- and it's not enough to bring this down to four stars -- is the expanded edition was not necessary. The original was expanded enough and just right. The new opening doesn't engage me like the old one with Stu in the garage, which is a real "Holy Crap" sort of opening. I once read where King griped about his fans saying his "best" book was such an old classic. But, hey, classic is classic. This is a triumph. The only weak point, to me, was the ending. It felt rushed. Maybe not as vivid as the rest. But it was all good, anyway. I recommend this to anyone who isn't susceptible to nightmares (it's more disturbing than scary, mind you.

</review>
<review>

This is the first DS book that I have read in about 20 years  and  it made me realize why did I try again???????

Can I really find a book centered around a 70 year old male stud-muffin real?  I wonder to myself if anyone has ever portrayed a 70 year old female stud muffin? I would hope as we age we would like to be portrayed with a bit more substance.

Coop only dates 20 something's.  He has a 20 something porn star black-mailing him that she is pregnant with his child.  This doesn't bother his new girlfriend, an (early 30's) resident Pediatrician, who works in ICU with preemies at all, who tells him to "have her get an abortion".  A bit too blas? for me.  Coop is supposed to be unbelievable beautiful  and  sexy.  I had a hard time getting into this premise.

The way DS totally changes his character toward the end is unbelievable.  Everyone falls in love all of the sudden with the other characters.  Every character is, of course, extremely wealthy (even though several are hiding it). Most characters are extremely beautiful  and  look many years younger than they are.  I realize we read to escape but this was a bit too much even for DS.

</review>
<review>

This is one of Danielle Steel's best books. It is about Cooper Winslow, a fading movie actor and lady's man who is in financial trouble. She develops the character of "Coop" well so it is easy to visualize him.

Coop decides to rent out his "cottage" guest wings for $10,000 a month to two different tenants. The story centers around his new tenants, their romances, activities and children. In the end, Coop learns valuable lessons about sacrifice, giving to others and true love.

A interesting story with a good message

</review>
<review>

I had not read Danielle Steel in several years.  I found The Cottage to be shallow, implausible, and completely predictable.  I was very disappointed with this work

</review>
<review>

Danielle Steele is a master artist at slowly piecing a book together, such as one of her better novels, The Cottage.  This book consists of amazing characters that are split from the lives they once knew, and later are puzzled back together for a friendly meeting.  Each main character, Jimmy, Mark, and Coop, are so different in their personalities but yet so much alike in their experiences.  They cry, laugh, and just simply have fun when they are finally together.  These three men share many similar situations throughout the novel and in the end, they all meet and talk about those certain happenings in each of their lives.  How woman have left, cheated, and even passed away but they dealt with it and moved on.  Luckily, they all found each other in their differences and similarities to be best friends.  The capturing way Steele writes activates your emotions and slams your reality-way of thinking.  She has a  and quot;happily-ever-after and quot; touch to her writing and it takes your breathe away.  I thoroughly enjoyed reading this selection and would reccomend it to anyone!  Danielle Steele is truly a romantic genius

</review>
<review>

This book has been helpful from the first day it arrived. As a first-time mom, I've found that it answers a lot of the questions I had - and some I didn't even think to ask! Much better than calling and bugging my busy doctor every other day

</review>
<review>

I purchased this book for my daughter and daugher-in-law for their first babies born this year and they have found it so useful and regularly refer to it.  Not only is it great for new mothers but as things have changed so much since my children were born Grandma has used it a lot as well.  I first purchased What to Expect When You're Expecting by the same author and likewise it is a great book with lots of info

</review>
<review>

The new mother tells me this book is great, a real handy reference.  I gave it on the recommendation of another new Mom who said she wondered how she could have survived her first baby's first year without it.  It's a great shower gift.  Take it from the new mommies

</review>
<review>

I read this book after reading "What to Expect When You're Expecting" and was very disappointed.  I liked "Expecting," most likely because while pregnancies differ, the biology is pretty much the same for everyone, so it's hard to miswrite pregnancy.  However, after reading "First year" I have found myself overly concerned for no reason simply because a lot of what is in this book has not accurately described my child's behavior or abilities.  I know the authors put out the disclaimer that every baby is different, but I'm not talking about when kids will walk or talk.  I'm talking about their claim that babies can feel embarassment at the age of ten months or understand that I want my son to help clean up if I hand him a paper towel.  Additionally, the book does not always offer a good answer to a question...the answer usually comes in the form of "some babies will, some babies won't."  How is that helpful?!!  After noting a string of inconsistencies and claims that are simply false, I finally had to put the book down or drive myself crazy.  In long, I do not recommend this book to anyone, particularly a first time mother.

</review>
<review>

This is a "sweet" book that is very reassuring
and interesting to read if you don't have anything better to do.
But as a mom, who has time for this?
Don't we all look up things in a state of diress, hoping to find concrete useful information delivered rapidly in the least words possible?
Well, you won't find that here.
This book is full of very nonspecific, sometimes outdated information delivered in a very wordy style.
The whole book is written in long paragraphs.  There are very few tables or charts.  IT's VERY wordy.
Just to give you an example, I looked up Fluoride supplementation.
It addresses the topic using nearly a FULL page, but never tells you the actual amount your baby should have depending on his age!
More concise and concrete information is available in pediatrician Dr. Ari Brown's "Baby 411"!
I gave this book one star because aside from being too general, some of the information in it is outdated, or in the category of "old wives tales" !
Save your money and skip the "what to expect" book

</review>
<review>

This book is a MUST for any new parents!  I have given this as a gift to every one of my pregnant friends and family

</review>
<review>

An invaluable resource.  Starting with "What to Expect when Your Expecting" through the "What to Expect the Toddler Years".  Parent's should own them all.  As a first time mom, I consult this book at least once a day

</review>
<review>

Having had to wait 10 years because of infertility, I was so ready for children.  When Jordan came into our lives, I had so many questions only this book could answer.  I got to know the milestones a baby should come across, the things we as parents are to expect and the missing details that a pediatrician can't have time to dwell on because of the busy schedule he/she keeps.  Have you ever experienced that?  How many of us enjoy a visit to the pediatrician that spans 30 - 40 minutes?  Not many.  So this book helped.  When our second child arrived miraculously (we were told that we could not have anymore), this book helped us once again to determine that because of missing milestones, we had to be concerned about our baby's mental and physical health.  I highly recommend this book to new moms because if you can't remember to ask your doctor every question you had, ask the book.  Read, read, read.  It was our baby bible.  And by the way, our first book has been passed around so many times.  It has gone to another state in the USA, Hongkong, China and Singapore.  And I just bought another one for a colleague.

Enjoy the baby and the book

</review>
<review>

This book provides a lot of great information for taking care of a new baby. A great counterpart to "what to expect when you're expecting.

</review>
<review>

I was very disappointed in this book even though it was a miniature.  Some of the pages were blank, having not even been printed.  I figure the book was a total loss of money spent

</review>
<review>

Sticking to the diet in the book I lost 35 lbs in five months.  I find, interesting the fact that I can eat as much, or even more that I need as long as I keep the named proteins and carbs separate.  This is the second copy of the book I have purchased and did so for my son and his family. He needs to lose about 20 pounds. I suggested that he follow the book suggestions very strickly and he should attain his goal

</review>
<review>

I am about to get married in a year, and as usual, I am looking for any way I can to slim down for that perfect wedding dress.  Just a few days ago, I was sluggish, and depressed after going on Jenny Craig and failing at it.  I went on Jenny Craig at age 16 and was uncannily successful, almost 10 years later, I decided to try it again, but to no avail. It just didn't fit my life style anymore, and I had a REALLY hard time refraining from cheating, and incorporating resturaunt and "non-menu" meals to fit my plan.
Don't get me wrong, Jenny Craig works very well if you stick to it, but my life has totally changed since 10th grade back in 1997.   I found it hard to eat my packaged food, AND cook home cooked meals for my fianc'.

On this plan, I have the best of both worlds. My fiance', who can't stand "diet" food, can eat these (not diet, but) modified meals with me!!!
He has given me raves about every recipe I have cooked thus far from Suzanne's book!  I can't get him to keep his hands off the grilled chicken before dinner is ready!  Best of all, it has not even been a COMPLETE week, and I am already dropping pounds. I have lost atleast 5 or 6 pounds since buying this book last Friday 9-16-05.
When I first flipped through the book and saw recipes like Chicken Piccata, Pepper Steak with Herb Butter Sauce, and Vegetables Provencal, I was like "uuummm NO!", but then I noticed how easy the instructions were, and how easy it would be to shop for the basic ingredients, which can be used in most of the other meals too. Now I feel like a whiz in the kitchen, making my own salad dressings, and hummus dip!
I am utterly enamored with this way of eating because food combining is a virtually non-restrictive plan that I can follow for the rest of my life, and my family can enjoy these meals as well.
I used to watch re-runs of Three's Company everyday after school as a child, who would have thought that, in the future, that woman playing the hilarious Chrissy Snow would be the person to introduce something to me that would change my life.
This is not some pre-wedding crash diet, this is something that will extend well beyond that day. Thank you Suzanne!

</review>
<review>

When buying a book of this type, buy it for the value of the information instead of the person who wrote it.  Suzanne shares a method that worked for her, and she does it in a helpful, light-hearted, and humorous manner.  Even if you don't believe in food combining, the approach and the recipes are still quite helpful.  If you're serious about losing weight - and have tired everything else on the market - your success with this program will be 100% up to you and your determination to achieve your goals.  I think it's worth buying

</review>
<review>

I lost 20lbs in 2 weeks.  this weekend I had custard (made with heavy cream).  She is AWESOME.  In 2 more weeks I'll be under 300lbs.  I love you, Suzanne

</review>
<review>

I've been reading about weight management programs for the past 4 years.  I love reading about the human body and better ways to "fuel" it.  So, I signed up for what I thought to be the best plan on the market, Weight Watchers.  They have that new "whole foods" plan.  As someone who eats salads everyday for lunch, I thought the plan was tough!  I couldn't stick with it.  I constantly had food cravings.  I gave up after 3 weeks and never used the rest of my "meeting" tickets.  What to do next.....

At work, my co-worker looks great so I asked her what she does.  We were eating lunch at the Macaroni Grill and she ordered a huge bowl of wheat pasta with veggies.  It looked so good.  And, she grabbed a piece of the fresh bread on the table.  I asked how she could eat that and look so good.  She said she's been applying Suzanne Somer's weight management strategy.  I was like, "Really? What's that?".  She explained the basic guidelines of Food Combing.  It sounded simple enough.  So, I started reading about Food Combining on-line and the concept made sense.

The very next day I went to Barnes and Noble and bought a copy of this particular book.  She does have other books, but I thought this one gave the best explanation of the plan since I'm a new-be.  I've only been on this plan for a couple days, but I feel really good.  No more indigestion, no more feeling stuffed.  I feel great.  And the best part, I don't get hungry and there are no cravings.  Why?  Because I haven't really cut out anything, just rearrange when I eat it.

Combining foods makes sense.  Different foods (carbs vs fats) need different enzymes in the body to digest them.  If they are eaten in groups, the body can effortlessly digest them.  And, if you're thinking it's not a healthy plan because she's not a doctor, you're wrong.  Since vegetables on this plan can be eaten with both carbs and fats, I find myself eating more veggies and fruits than I ever did before.  Even more exciting, this is not Atkins, so you are not eating fat all the time.  For example, a typical dinner could be grill salmon with two fresh veggies as sides.  I had that last night for dinner and it was delicious.  You will be getting your carb fix and feel completely satisfied at the same time.  I'm a cereal eater and had a bowl with milk a couple minutes ago.

If you have any doubt, don't.  I'm serious.  The book is only $16 in the store, on Amazon probably less.  If you just follow the general guidelines you'll lose weight.  Yes, this plan may be "similar" to other plans, but she has streamlined it so you feel comfortable with your body and the idea of losing weight.  I guess it's all about presentation.  I'm actually excited about this plan.  I honestly feel like my search is over.


</review>
<review>

The problem with biographies of Marlon Brando, and celebrities in general, is that they are often written by an outsider, someone who had little or no personal acquaintance with the subject and is sometimes just out to cash in on their celebrity. It is these problems with most biographies that makes George Englund's biography of Marlon Brando such a joy to read.

Englund's friendhip with Brando started in 1956 and his biography therefore thrusts us directly into the height of his fame and spares us the date and details of his birth and upbringing. These often constitute the more tedious parts of other biographies. Another common problem with biographies is that they have a tendency to simply list off the actions and professional achievements of their subjects, sometimes giving them the appearance of a prolonged C.V. This is another area where Englund's book comes into its own. His close relationship with Brando allows him to recount many very personal and revealing tales that allow the reader to feel a closeness to Marlon that is difficult considering how private a man he was. The difficulties of Brando's life are well documented, but the accounts offered here are far more vivid and moving. The writer is not pre-occupied with sensationalism or scandal, merely the real story and the emotion felt.

'The way it's never been done before' is a fascinating read and is a must have for anyone that is passionate about the work of Marlon Brando, surely the screen's greatest ever acto

</review>
<review>

George Englund's memoir of Marlon Brando is that, a memoir and far from a full-scale biography.  It is a touching remembrance, filled with genuine affection for its subject, but not so much as to make the author blind to the shortcomings and warts of the greatest of all our film actors.  In its affection it is a welcome departure from some of the more vicious tabloid-like portrayals of Brando--Peter Manso's biography comes to mind. At its best Englund's work is distinguished by some really beautiful interludes and gripping passages--his description of visiting his own absentee father after decades is especially moving.  One senses that Englund believed he was privy to the whole of Brando, the insider of all insiders.  His graphic description of Brando's last night is almost an exercise in trying to prove to himself, and us, how close he was to Brando.  And it is a rare occurrence of Englund going perhaps too far.  But for all that he was allowed to see, it is also apparent to the reader, if not to Englund himself, that Georgie was kept at arms length from various facets and compartments of his famous subject.  There are dramatic and notable gaps in the book, and one gets the feeling that Englund's import as a macho and intellectual sidekick grew once Wally Cox died.  It is perhaps too much to ask any single book to cover the whole of Brando--the subject is simply too complex.  But this is a useful glimpse inside at least some aspects of Brando's life.



</review>
<review>

Good book, but I have one major reservation:
In an interview, George Englund said he penned this account of Marlon Brando with, "Brando's dignity in my hand". So presumptively, Englund as a best friend wouldn't think to ever reveal personal information or details that Brando would have never wanted known, right? Isn't that what best friends are for?
Um, quite the contrary here: Englund's telling of Brando's last days were too dam detailed, at times vile and completely unnecessary. Surely, this is not what people want to remember of the revered legend.
I'm unafraid to say that I wept on the day Brando died like I had lost someone I knew and loved. For fans who really loved him a good portion of this thing -in excruciating pain from his disease and lying in helpless condition on a deathbed- you will find incredibly depressing. I'd recommend skipping some parts if you wanna keep the image of Brando the Almighty One intact.
Dark clouds away this was indeed a pure delight to pore through... when is the subject ever boring afterall? I was happy Mr.Englund released this very personal tale of his friendship with Brando I only wish the actor himself were still alive to admire even more.


</review>
<review>

This is a sad and poignant memoir and a fine companion piece to Brando's autobiography. I wondered while reading it why Mr. Englund wasn't mentioned by name in the autobiography, but that is made clear toward the end of Mr. Englund's work. A few comments regarding the handful of negative reviews on this site. Brando's legacy as a great actor is not diminished in any way by some of the brutal revelations regarding his personal life. Perhaps a few sordid details could have been left out but I never got the sense that they were thrown in out of a sense of animus directed at Brando. In fact what comes through repeatedly is the author's deep affection for his subject, a mutual bond that was forged through their shared misfortune at having self-absorbed and destructive fathers. To their credit they achieved great material and artistic success in spite of the psychological burdens they both stuggled with throughout their lives.
Now, as for the book itself. There is one chapter dealing with Mr. Englund's relation to his father that is absolutely riveting. Not only did I find it so but Brando himself was absorbed in this story, seeing as it touched on the same issues at the core of his own personality. There are also numerous other anecdotes that shed light on the main question: who is Marlon Brando, what is he really like when the veil of his movie star personna is lifted. In many respects it's a sad picture. It's the classic case of the mistreated child who grows up to perpetuate the wrongs that were once unfairly inflicted on him. As for his acting, he was able to overcome all obstacles and develop his great talent, though there's no doubt that the fuel that fired him was drawn from the well of his bitter early years

</review>
<review>

Marlon Brando once said that his friends don't write books about him.  So what does that make Englund?  Marlon said about Carlo Fiore, a once questionable so-called friend, that he probably wrote his book about Marlon because that's all he had left.  The same seems to apply to Englund.  I mean, why describe the gory details of Marlon's last night on earth in such a disgusting manner that leaves such a bad taste in our mouths about the ultimate acting icon?  Seriously, would a real 'friend' have done such a thing?  Why not leave us with some glorious memory of Marlon as a true friend would.  I mean, without the help of Englund's book, Marlon left behind a legacy of fine art and entertainment that still amazes, inspires and motivates young actors and the world at large today.  Why taint that legacy with a discussion of backsides and dung as the last thing said about the Brando legend?  If Marlon could go his whole lifetime and remain an enigma (why we love him), and I believe he did it on purpose, what gives this so-called closest lifelong friend of his the right to expose him by sharing intimate details that he probably knows Marlon would never approve of and still call himself a friend?  He's a sell-out jerk to me, but that's just my opinion.  Would Alice Marchak (Marlon's assistant) or Jocelyn (Marlon's sister) ever write a book about Marlon?  I don't think so. And they knew him best and would probably have gotten paid major big bucks to write something, anything about Marlon. They didn't because people who truly love you don't do that.  Englund would have been more of a friend if he had just kept his big mouth shut and respected the greatest actor ever, but instead he proved just how much of a friend he may have been in life, but not at all in death.  That is the lowest of all the slimballs because Marlon probably died thinking this sell-out was his friend.  NOT!!!

Now that I think about it, while this guy is trying to make everybody think that once Marlon had made his peace with him he could go on and die now, Marlon, in all his glorious brilliance to the end, may have set this guy up, knowing his greed would lead him to go public with Marlon's backside and dung details and show what a jerk he is.  Now that sounds like a Marlon prank, being transparent and naked enough even in his darkest hour to expose the greed that lied in this so-called lifelong friend's heart.  Obviously Marlon knew Englund and that he wasn't a friend. Marlon knew Englund would prove his greed, along with his disloyalty, by making the stupid choice of painting for the world such a gory picture of Marlon's last night when Marlon was brilliant enough and deserved better from a "FRIEND".  The ultimate acting icon pulling the ultimate set-up. Way to go Marlon!  You were a genius to the end.  I see clearly, this bum for what he is.  Englund said that even on his death bed Marlon said "F death".  Well I say even on his death bed Marlon said "F You Georgie".

</review>
<review>

A REAL downer. I realize Marlon Brando's life had many sadnesses, but this book really seemed to dwell on them. Mr Englund told of how HE thought. I wanted to hear how Mr Brando thought.
The ending really ticked me off...I saw no need for the story of Butch, the dog.
A TOO SAD story.
I do agree with the review by Book Review Weekly.

</review>
<review>

I believe that Mr. Englund has set a new standard on how biographies should be written. He showed us a side of Marlon that should be included in every biography, and so rarely is.I also applaud Mr. Englund's passion as a true friend. In this wonderful book, he has shown what a REAL friend is, which is something that most of us can only aspire to

</review>
<review>

George Englund's book is the product of 50 years of a friendship with Marlon Brando, the lives of two men and their families intertwined, loving and suffering through the best and worst times. His book portrays the pain and grief of loss, the exultation of success, and the double-edge of fame and reality. George's book goes beyond the commonplace biography, and digs down deep. I recommend reading it

</review>
<review>

This book comes straight from the heart. As 3rd son of author George Englund, I, George Englund Jr. am closer my dad than anyone else. I grew up with Marlon and his children; Christian, Miko, and Cheyenne. I spent time with them all in Tahiti on his atoll and worked with Marlon on several projects directly and extensively.

Before giving my review on the book I must comment on the Publisher's Weakley review which misses the mark almost completely.

This book was intentionally non-chronological, is in no way an attempt to document Brando's career or establish his place in film history. That is another book which I truly hope my father writes and one for which he is eminently qualified.

GE Sr. was arguably Marlon's closest lifelong friend and this book is his truth about their relationship and his deepest most honest perception of who Marlon was. It was finished in an insanely compressed schedule after Marlon's death requiring the author to balance the bereavement of a lost best friend with the pressure of writing a serious comprehensive book with an extremely limited deadline. Contrary to the Publishers Weekly author, I found that Englund's take was consistently un-self centered and reflected the reality of their experiences. They are both spectacularly talented in different and similar ways.

The reviewer mentioned that GE Sr.s career was never fully developed....That is an ignorant statement. It was the opposite of an ego trip. The Publishers Weekly review claimed that the narration ruled out any multi-layered insight but their shared experiences illustrate a deep and complex picture of two highly unique guys sharing a rare set of experiences. Brando was accurately revealed in this book and Englund appropriately represented his role and stature.

Imagine if you had to write a book about your best friend, the greatest actor in the world, within 30 days of his death.

I'm a hard grader on my dad but I think he kicked ass on this one big time. It is honest, fair and balanced

</review>
<review>

"Ark Angel" is my first go at an Alex Rider novel.  Even without reading the five preceding books, I enjoyed this one for what it is:  a spy novel for young adults.  Horowitz jumps right into the new story and explains previous plot lines enough for the reader to keep up.  There is virtually no character development or exploration; there are constant plot twists and turns.  Whether this is a positive or negative probably depends upon the reader.  If the reader is looking for a character to identify with, to journey with, to aspire to, Alex is a bit thin.  If the reader wants rollicking excitement without bogging down, this could be a good vein to mine.

"Ark Angel" reminds me of the theatrical "Mission: Impossible" films:  action driven, violent, uncomplicated.  "Three Days of the Condor" or "Manchurian Candidate" it isn't.

While Horowitz isn't among the top tier of Young Adult Fiction writers (J.K. Rowling, Robert Cormier, Lloyd Alexander, Gary Paulsen, Laurie A. Williams come to mind, but there are many more) but he's a competent craftsman who has extended Ian Fleming's 007 to a younger, contemporary audience.  I imagine that fans of Horowitz might eventually graduate to richer material

</review>
<review>

Some of the other Alex Rider books may have been a little predictable, but Ark Angel is by far the worst book in the series.  As if someone with a cheesy tattoo of the world covering their head isn't bad enough, this book really "jumps the shark", not only does Anthony Horowitz yet AGAIN use the "corrupt rich guy" plot (this may have something to do with his childhood . . .), but at the end of the book Alex gets launched into space.  Save your $15 and buy Maximum Ride by James Patterson or a Scott Westerfeld book instead

</review>
<review>

Other than Stormbreaker, this may be the next best Alex Rider adventure yet.  In some ways the plot is predictable as all Alex Rider stories are - except for the ending surprise in Scorpia.  The action is fast paced and is perfect for a teenage boy reader. Girls who enjoy spy stories will like it too. It is hard to put the book down.

</review>
<review>

This is the same classic Alex Rider adventure. One of the better ones in the series but Scorpia is still the best

</review>
<review>

Alex Rider is by far the thriftiest boy I know! Horowitz is a great writer and can make the best descriptions! I enjoy reading his books very much.

</review>
<review>

in this thrilling addition to the Alex Rider series, Alex is in the hospital, recovering from a near shave with a sniper bullet, courtesy of Scorpia. While in the hospital, he befriends the friendless Paul Drevin, the son of a multi-millionaire. One night, as Alex was walking down the hallway, he saw the receptionist shot, and heard that the shooters were after Paul.Alex tricks the kidnappers into thinking he's Paul, and then leads them through the hotel, zapping one of them in the neck with defibullators, knocks another one out with a medicine ball, and tricks a man with a solid metal watch into walking into a room with an incredibly powerful magnet. That wasn't pretty. But he fergot about the fourth guy. He's captured and brought back to the headquarters of the kidnappers, who are actually the members of a terrorist oraganization, Force Three. And so it goes, with a brilliant escape from a burning building, a awsome go-kart race, a meeting with the CIA, a private island, a huge space hotel, rigged to come hurtliing down to our very own Washinton D.C.
The Alex Rider series gets better with every new installment, and I can't wait for another one to come out. It's hands down the best spy series around. I would recommend this book to every one who can read or be read to

</review>
<review>

I have read all the books of this series. This is really good. i mean i didnt like the ending much but besides that Anthony Horowitz is a great author

</review>
<review>

I assigned this text almost unseen as a course book because it included so many of the classic essays which one might have ended up xeroxing.  The students found the book very useful. I would have liked a more historical  focus but that's because of my own training. I will assign the book again

</review>
<review>

Through this book Charles M. Province has complied the very best there is in leadership. Read and learn....... This collection of George S. Patton's pithy one liners shows how business managers can successed by applying the  combat-tested principles of one of America's most famous battlefield  leaders. General Patton was a professional soldier who spent his life  inspiring people to accomplish the seemingly impossible. A brief bio  and amp;  photos of the General help readers visualize one of the great military  leaders of all time. The inspirational content will make this book an  indispensable companion for busy executives everywhere

</review>
<review>

This book is taken almost word for word in the intro from the movie "Patton" based on Ladislas' book.  It contains typos such as 'D Day' and also does not give any insight into the man.  Connecting Patton to  Deming seems a bit ridiculous to someone with knowledge of the two  men.

Patton did not consider war 'great', per se', and should not be  idolized.  He enjoyed it and was excellent at it, however he agonized over  the men he lost.  Perhaps that is the analogy that businessmen should make  today

</review>
<review>



There is much to enjoy here even if one does not have a special interest in architecture. As a lifelong Chicagoan, I especially liked the photo of St. Stanislaus Kostka Church (p. 79) which occurs in the formerly Polish neighborhood that I grew up in. I also enjoyed the old maps of the Chicago area from the 1600's.

</review>
<review>

In Lost Chicago, historian David Lowe explores the architectural and cultural history of America's great  and quot;heartland and quot; city. This is a community who architectural heritage was all to often squandered during the last five decades of its growth and evolution. Lowe's elegant, and informative text is wonderfully enhanced with more than 270 rare, period photos and prints (many of them published here for the first time). Lost Chicago is a celebration of the age of Gustavus Swift and Philip D. Armour and the greatest stockyards in the world; when Cyrus McCormick, Potter Palmer, George Pullman, and Marshall Field were the national barons of business and industry; when Prairie Avenue and State streets rivaled New York's Fifth Avenue; when architectural giants ranging from Louis Sullivan to Frank Lloyd Wright were designing buildings of incomparable excellence and innovation. Lost Chicago is a  and quot;must and quot; for students of Chicago history, architecture, and personalities

</review>
<review>

First issued in 1975, this book captures the magnitude and the magnificence of Chicago's architecture that has been destroyed (by nature and man).  Today Chicago is widely regarded as an architectural jewel (and it is, I live there!) but after reading this book you won't be able to stop imagining how much more amazing the city might be if the Urban Renewal movement of the 1960s and early 1970s had never happened.  If you are interested in architecture, Chicago history or urban design and planning, read this book

</review>
<review>

I had a little difficulty getting this book, but I'm glad that I did finally find it.  It is a wonderful mystery, even though the subject behind the mystery is disturbing.  I know that I knew about research done on live animals, but I never thought about with dogs somehow.  I pictured lab rats and mice.  It goes against everything that I believe in to use our domestic best friends for product testing and experiments.  But the mystery was good, and I enjoyed Holly and her friends again.  Ms. Conant knows how to write a story while she bravely uncovers some less than desirable facts about big business.  This is a wonderful series for dog lovers, or for any animal lovers if it comes to that

</review>
<review>

Holly Winter returns in the 2nd book in the Dog Lover's Mysteries. Holly writes articles for A Dog's Life, trains at the local obedience club, shows her dog in obedience, and works to find the dognappers of her dog and her father's wolf. Her Malamute, Rowdy, plays a starring role in this book that takes a strong look at testing on animals.

I was not the same after reading this book. I have to admit that after reading it, I started looking more closely at the labels on packaging that say "Not Tested on Animals". This was not a preachy book, but brought to light some shocking things done to animals at some testing facilities. I consider myself an animal lover and was haunted by this book after reading it. Not exactly a lighthearted read, but it was worth it.

The first book in this series is "A New Leash on Death". Enjoy!

</review>
<review>

Ms. Conant constantly amazes me with her ability to weave dog info into mystery.  Anyone who has ever shown a dog had had to deal with a gossipy trainer/handler/owner and few wouldn't like to take a pair of shears to one of them as well!  I adore this book and highly suggest you get a copy

</review>
<review>

To read Sir Charles is to read about life without the pompous filter you get with most other pap.  This installment is no different from anything else from Lord Chinaski.

</review>
<review>

With Bukowski there is no middle ground; you either love him or you hate him. Yes he can be filthy, jaded and downright mean. But there is the ring of truth here as well. Published posthumously this is a feast for Bukowski fans. There are a lot of dark poems here like Walking with the Dead and Return to Sender. But there is also some lighthearted stuff. In The Fool Dines Out he shows us his human side; he is the husband whose rude behavior towards a waiter brings on spousal criticism (in private of course)
He has been accused of being a misogynist; in Bone Palace Ballet
there is no evidence of that. Bukowski was a bit of a misanthrope, or did he just see the human condition a whole lot clearer than the rest of us?  A must have for any Bukowski fan!

</review>
<review>

Bukowski in his last years.  Rare to see a writer grapple with aging and death in such a matter of fact way.  There are some true gems in this one.  ....  Bone Palace is a little repetitive, but you can't be shocked to find Bukowski holding forth on booze, women, horses, hypocrites, and writing.  What else did he ever write about?  And really, what more can you ask for

</review>
<review>

This book is only a shadow of what Bukowski can do. I was very dissapointed with his wife being so hell bent on releasing his unpublished work. These poems are all ones that he would have never released had he  been alive. They have no charm and show nothing of his talent. His wife I  guess thought they were good enough to be released. I beg to differ. If you  want a good collection of his poems from the last years of his life check  out Betting on the muse which is an amazing book

</review>
<review>

All About Grilling, is a refreshing book of new ideas for outdoor cooking and entertaining.  I was very impressed with the different combinations of ingredients, the presentation of the meal, the grilled side dishes, and the rubs and sauces. I received the book as a gift and have enjoyed using it for my summer entertaining.  I am now purchasing a book for a friend

</review>
<review>

"Catch Me If You Can" follows the life of Frank W. Abignale - one of the greatest con men of all time who single handedly lived his life on fradulant checks and scams that just leave you thinking how amazing he was. This book is the autobiographical account of Abignale's teenage years from when he first created a scam on his father's Mobil credit card. There are so many times in this book that I had to step back and think about the air of confidence that Abignale displayed, yet curiously inside he was often paranoid and worried about the authorities catching up to him.

Some of the stories are absolutely outrageous. I loved them all! This book also talks about his time in prison across seas in Europe and how terrible he was treated in the French prisons.

If you liked the movie then you should definately read this book. It further explores his adventures and exploits in greater detail and includes many capers that were not in the movie. A must read

</review>
<review>

This book was very well written and so much fun to read.

Frank Abagnale tells his story with the same flare and finesse that he pulled off the cons of his criminal career.

Entertaining from start to finish

</review>
<review>

We all know of Frank Abagnale's personality; arrogant, yet kind with class. Among all the different characters that he chooses to play, whether he's a pilot, doctor, lawyer, or a college professor, i believe that Frank is somewhat confused of who he is. Frank "ran away" from home at 16; the age of teenager who is only halfway through high school. At 16, most people don't know where they are in life or what to pursue in the future. One thing was for sure; Frank wanted money and women.
I believe Frank's unique personality came from the way he was brought up. Having endured his parent's divorce at a young age was a life changing experience for him. It all started with his father; Frank Abagnale. During the process of his(Jr.'s) parent's divorce, his father still loved is mother. So Frank(Sr.) would try to get his son to say things like "Talk to her son...tell her I love her. Tell her we'd be happier if we all lived together. Tell her you'd be happier if she came home, that all you kids would be happier." His(Jr's) father led him to the first step of manipulation.
Frank stayed with his father after the finalizing of the divorce. Since his father was quite a rich man, he had a whole variety of rich friends and Frank(Jr.) would come in contact with his friends quite often. This is where Frank learned the "attitude of the rich", with confidence.
Finally when Frank did his first con with his father's money, Frank(Sr.) forgave him. "Look, son, if you'll tell us how you did this, and why, we'll forget it. There'll be no punishments and I'll pay the bills." Frank probably felt that he could get away with anything at this point and without any punishment, he didn't believe this to be a huge mistake.
With confidence, manipulation, some class and little fear of breaking the law, we come to Frank Abagnale Jr.

</review>
<review>

Frank Abagnale Jr. stands as one of the greatest con artists of all time. The story is inflated at times (in the introduction he claims to turn on the autopilot of a commercial jet liner, a task that in fact requires the actual ability to fly the plane to begin with). Still, the Catch Me If You Can is engaging, and Abignale's scams combine inventiveness and good humor. Enjoy

</review>
<review>

If you, like me, have seen the film with Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks and are playing with the idea of reading the book, you are reading the right review!  If you were in front of me, I would look at you with a grin (as if to show that I knew something you didn't) and encourage you to do so.

Frank Abagnale is less likable in the book, which is to be expected, but is still far from what we would consider a true villain.  It caught me by surprise about halfway through how I was so fascinated by a crook with little or no moral values.  I suppose this is how we live out our own bit of villainy.  Overall, a fun read that may possibly help you appreciate the film even more

</review>
<review>

I read this book after watching the movie (staring Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio). Before I started I knew I liked the story, but I didn't realize how much. I loved reading Abagnale's account of his life of crime. I enjoyed hearing of his exploits as an airline pilot, a doctor, a professor, and a lawyer. I also liked the novel's open frankness about the author's misdeeds.

However, I thought the book was not especially well written. Abagnale recounts his adventures dryly and with little emotion. I also felt somewhat deprived with the novel's ending. Frank Abagnale went on to work for law enforcement and securities firms, but that is only mentioned in a question and answer with the author after the story. I would have liked to have heard more about how he crossed from the wrong side of the law to the right.

All in all, I would recommend this book as an easy weekend read

</review>
<review>

Many people became aware of Frank Abagnale Jr's story until the movie starring Tom Hanks and Leonardo Dicapprio was released (even though an earlier movie based on this story was released).

While not as flowing as the movie, the story told in this book seems much more realistic and true too life, containing many of Abagnale's earlier mistakes  and  lessons we  don't get to see in the movie. On the other hand, many parts of it do seem to be missing - such as why Air France would take such an interest in catching Frank, even though the airlines he was cheating seemed to be mostly American based?

This is an interesting read as a background to the movie, and to those who would like to learn what had inspired many of the movie's major storylines

</review>
<review>

Not a reader of fiction, fantasy, sci-fi... therefore picked up a copy of "Catch Me If You Can" from a bookstore yesterday...
Seen the film more than 10times.. loved the film, loved the characters, loved the plot... LOVED the book even more... can't put it down... the story just flows perfectly...
Makes you wonder what Franky can do at the age of 16,17 etc.

A real inspiration... the book's plot is BY-FAR better than the movie... Would have been great to read it before watching the film.. still good to read it after watching the film..

Overall, it's a great book
finished it in a da

</review>
<review>

Ideal for anyone with an interest in evading capture

</review>
<review>

This book helped me focus my mind on my weight loss.  I lost 65 lbs. and have kept it off for a year now.  I am buying multiple copies for my friends and relatives!  The psychology of permanent weight loss is the most  important thing, and this book really helped me change my way of thinking  about food and exercise

</review>
<review>

Once upon a time Martians and Venusians met, fell in love, and had happy relationships together because they respected and accepted their differences. Then they came to Earth and amnesia set in they forgot they were from different planets. Based on years of successful counseling of couples and individuals, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus has helped millions of couples transform their relationships. Now viewed as a modern classic, this phenomenal book has helped men and women realize how different they really are and how to communicate their needs in such a way that conflict doesn't arise and intimacy is given every chance to grow. Don't be too surprised when you are reading this book and you recognize someone and some situation that is eerily like your own

</review>
<review>

If you are young, under 30, this is a good guide to help you figure out your path through the minefields of trying to understand the other sex.  If you are older, this is a good refresher course on things you may have already learned (or things that you missed) in the school of everyday life.  For both younger and older readers this is a very good tool to help you understand yourself and others.

</review>
<review>

This book has really good advice and insight that makes sense. The only downside is that the references to "martians" and "venusians" gets annoying after awhile

</review>
<review>

Very intuitive, well written, reader voice is a bit annoying but tolerable

</review>
<review>

F this self-help industry crap. Quasi-astrological poppycock at its worst. I can tell this book clamps on to the mind and squeezes it to death merely by reading the cliched title. Humans are far more complex than the hack Man-Warrior/Female-Maiden title what's-his-name gives them. And remember, this "doctor," is quietly making mucho mucho bucks off your poor purchase. Your goddamned ancestors never needed a book to run their lives, so why do you? Let's push all the life coaches off cliffs and put the self-help industry to the torch. That's a great start to a sane life

</review>
<review>

This book not only explains the differences between men and women but also gives strategies to each sex for dealing with those differences. For example men and women have different values. Men tend to value competence and accomplishments while women tend to value relationships. Women tend to express their caring by offering unsolicited advice that is often causes men to feel incompetent. Women need to express how they feel about their problems, while men interpret this as blaming them for their problems. Men often need time alone to solve their problems while women interpret this as not caring. If everyone practiced the methods in this book the sexes would get along much better. The book, however, is at times dry reading.

Wil Roese

</review>
<review>

There are varying differences between men and women and Mr. Gray takes his time in this book to explain what they are. What I got from it was a new perspective, a new way to understanding what needs to be understood--how to interact with the opposite sex. What's most important is to take the time to actually listen without formualing what you're going to say next. I can see why this book is so popular now. Along with this one, I also recommend "Man Magnet.

</review>
<review>

Once in a while a book speaks so strongly to so many people, that it does the impossible. It is popular and worthwhile.  The best part is that this book gives simple pragmatic execrcises to change communication for the better. Get the book and stay married.  Another great reading that I recommend is "In the meantime"  by Vanzan

</review>
<review>

This book has become so popular that terminology from this book has entered our popular culture (calling a woman a Venusian, for example). But my opinion is that this is well earned and hopefully a plus for helping men and women understand one another.

Some criticism leveled at this book is that it is too general, and to say "men are like this and women are like that" is a disservice to both, poppycock I say! It's refreshing to read a book that may help you understand the "general" psychological and linguistic make up of an "average" man or woman. I find this type of reading far more useful than all the cultural relativism that has bogged down our understanding of each other, where we seem afraid to look at groups as, just that, groups. Men are a group and thus have certain statistically average traits. This is supported in Gray's book by very revealing comments from his seminars.

The basic premise of this book is to help "decode" the opposite sex's langauge. E.g. when a man says "it's ok," it means "I want to figure this out on my own and I'd rather you didn't offer unsoliticed advice; that makes me feel you don't trust me." When a woman says "it's ok," it usually means "I am really upset and I need you to pull this conversation out of me. I am going to withdraw now because I feel you are not trying to understand me and I need to see you take action before I can begin to trust you and feel more loving again."

I have found some of Gray's suggestions to be very helpful. When asking my BF "will you" instead of "can you," I find I am very satisfied with how things go when I ask "will," which gives him choice to say "yes or no," rather than "can" which many men interpret as being demanding and without choice. These subtle distinctions can be quite mind blowing when you first read about them, but start putting them into practice or observing how men and women typically communicate and the words they use, and you will find Gray's observations to be very helpful.

I am very happy I read this book. It was recommended to me by a friend of mine and I have gone on to recommend it to other friends. It really does serve as a sort of "pocket reference guide" to the opposite sex, and it is empowering and liberating to realize that we are linguistically completely different. When we better know how the other communicates, it is then that we can transcend our differences and begin to communicate truly as equals. I recommend this book without reservation.

</review>
<review>

Insane. That anyone would ascribe to these ideas...let alone actually trying to apply them. I've listened to the tapes, read the books, became more incensed as I went along. Yes, there are differences between the sexes, but this guy doesn't come close to getting it right, and if you're a man following his advice, then you can write off having a long-term with an intelligent woman. This fool creates "escapes" and excuses for sheer bad behaviour of some men, claiming that it's innate to the male gender,  and would suggest that their women forgive them for it!
Sure, forgive them....but expect them to grow up at some point!
I support equal respect for men from women, and vice versa. If I catch you flirting with other women, and expecting carnal favors rather than gently soliciting them, then supporting your bad behaviour with this garbage book, I'll shove MISTER, (not Doctor)Gray's book where the sun don't shine.
For those looking for a better appraisal than mine, please google The Rebuttal From Uranus, they really capture the truth

</review>
<review>

The book chronicles tidy snapshots of the lives and careers of 4 different men whose influence in corporate regulation remains unrivaled.   I particularly enjoyed the chapter on Brandeis.  It is terribly unfortunate to contemporary American society that a man like Justice Louis Brandeis is not still alive and a sitting judge with the Supremes.  Brandeis's intellect and legacy puts the 9 slugs currently sitting on the bench to shame.

</review>
<review>

A young woman and her son are murdered and their home burned down. The man who did it gets caught in the fire and ends up in the hospital. The woman's brother, Joe Lassiter, a professional investigator, begins to probe into why his sister and nephew were killed. It all leads him to 17 other women and their young sons, all conceived at the same fertility clinic, who have been murdered in the exact same circumstances.

The man who killed Lassiter's sister, escapes from the hospital with the help from members of a strange sect of Catholocism called Umbra Domini who appear to be behind the killings. Lassiter must go to Italy and investigate the odd doctor who conceived the children and what he was trying to achieve.

The Genesis Code is a quick read. The pace is fast and non-stop. It's an interesting plot although this territory has been mined in many other novels. And after you read about the doctor and consider the title of the book you know the secret pretty much from the beginning. Despite this, if you like fast-paced thrillers, The Genesis Code is a good one

</review>
<review>

This book is a great book, don't get me wrong, but has a slow beginning, slow enough that I actually became discouraged and thought about putting the book away, but once the book really gets going it is thrilling and very fast paced. If you can make it through the initial crawl and into the heart of the book you will not, at all, be disappointed for sticking with this novel. The concept of this book is fairly simple; something in the scientific world is being done that the church strongly disproves of, enough disproval that it drives them to kill. The victims are all the same: a mother and a male child under the age of 4. The victims that are targeted all have one thing in common, they all went to a clinic that was doing top of the end research and was very successful at allowing those that were infertile or too old the possibility to have children. The clinic helps out those who want to carry children and are otherwise deemed untreatable, and also carrying out research that could alter the world forever, an extremely delicate subject that threatens to change the way our entire history, as human beings, is viewed. Through the whole debacle many lives are lost in hope of protecting something deemed sacred.

The thing that is terrifying about this book is that it COULD actually happen. The idea is fairly far fetched but, in some discreet lab I could actually see research of this kind unfolding. The fact that John Case dreamed up the idea shows that maybe others out there have thought, or even tried this idea out. The epilogue of this book is just fantastic, and could actually lead to the writing of a second in the series, something that would have the potential to be far superior to its predecessor. Overall I really did like this book, a book that opened my eyes to the writing of John Case, something I look forward to exploring in the future.

Brian Bowe

</review>
<review>

Has it been so long? 1998?? This is one of the first books that I reviewed on the internet - I was asked to write it, and made me a John Case fan - This book deals with a fertiliy clinic that has amazing donors - and the plans from the church to stop it. The last page is a catch your breath ending. A stranger in a local bookstore asked me if I'd ever read John Case - he was happy I knew the book. I was proud of that first review - and still like to dabble in writing. Of course books like Case's make it easy -

</review>
<review>

This book is one of the five best I have ever read.  It is very thourough and in our scientific world, who knows?  READ THIS BOOK

</review>
<review>

This book rests entirely on one idea, with which you are teased from the very beginning. By the middle, it can be pretty much guessed, but you still have a long way to go before the last sentence finally confirms your worst suspicions.

The fact that the main character is the head of the most powerful investigative agency on the planet is also a spoiler, because he can too easily get what he needs at every twist and turn.

A further aspect that irritated me was the fact that the authors (a couple, writing under one name) made several mistakes about things Italian (Italy is where a good deal of the book takes place), all of which could have been easily researched. I might be too demanding considering that this is meant for pure entertainment, but even when I read non-scholarly books, I expect some attention to detail.

I seriously doubt that I will ever pick out a John Case again.

</review>
<review>

I just finished reading this book and WOW!  It was great!  I really had trouble putting it down.  The plot was very convincing and I just loved the ending.  There was a surprise on every page including the last page. As a writer, the two things I was most impressed with (in addition to the wonderful plot) was how Case created such a sense of place - I really felt like I was there in every scene and I could really visualize the space.  I also thought he did such a good job of nailing the dialogue - each character sounded different, one could imagine someone speaking English as a second language, yet it was not difficult to read.  I thought the information about the relics in the Catholic church was especially interesting and also, all the technical cloning stuff made me realize that this entire plot is not so far-fetched.  It would make a great movie

</review>
<review>

I use to read Grisham and Patterson before they got irritating and Case puts them to shame.  I loved this book, the idea was amazing - cloning from... well, I can't tell you because that will spoil it.  I would highly recommend this compared to Eighth Day which was not that great.

I know it may have seemed that the characters are like countless others in these types of books, but I still liked the story and the end gave me some chills

</review>
<review>

The Genesis Code:A Thriller by John Case, is a today's thriller, it could have been written for today or tomorrow. Reads very much true to life.  People Beware!  There is someone waiting around each and every corner

</review>
<review>

This calendar features some of Alex Ross's best paintings and action figures, from January to December there is a year full of heros

</review>
<review>

The most gorgeous artwork in comic books. Contains the most extraordinary artwork of Alex Ross(Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman,  the Justice League, etc, even Hanna-Barbera!) A comics fan, I recieved this as a Christmas gift, and I read it again and again.
A must-have for comic book fans.

</review>
<review>

To call this book a chronology would be a mistake because the art work of the Genius Alex Ross is not presented in chronological order, but rather starts with the most popular characters Superman, Batman, etc., and then moves on to other work such as Justice League of America, Kingdom Come, Alan Moore, etc.
Alex Ross is arguably the greatest visual artist of our time. As far as I am concerned his work is up there with Picasso, Da Vinci and Degas. This book takes the reader in a character-and event-based journey of Alex Ross's incredible work. What Ross and this book have in common are the incredible attention to detail and color. The art presented in this book is so rich in color it is almost unreal. The pictures carry unbelievable detail, down to the pores on the faces of the Superman and Batman sculptures. I have never seen such a visual fest in any other comic or movie-related book, I guarantee you you will not be disappointed, it doesn't even matter whether you are a comic book fan or not. Ross's modern day interpretation in the recreation of the art work from 40s, 50s and 60s comic book covers is so nostalgic and professional it makes you appreciate his talent even more.
This is one book not to miss. The print quality is extremely high, and pictures carry a ridiculous amount of detail and color. Especially if you are a Superman or Batman fan, you are on for a treat as they are most prominently featured in this book.
This is one great book, I have always been a huge Alex Ross fan, but thanks to this book I now feel like I know him personally (through his art presented in this book as well as the narration in the text that accompanies the pictures).
One last note: Get the hardcover if you can, the art work on the sleeve is much better than the paperback cover, and the art work on the front and back of the hard cover book is simply incredible

</review>
<review>

DC comics fans who love comic art collections must have MYTHOLOGY: THE DC COMICS ART OF ALEX ROSS: it's a newly expanded paperwork edition of the original and displays all the comic book characters Ross' art brought to life over the decades, from Superman and Flash to Green Lantern. Included also is Ross' new comic book series Justice, new sketches, and an oversized coffee-table format which helps display and profile, in full color, Ross' entire line of DC Comics superheroes. An original Superman and Batman story written by graphic designer Chip Kidd, a re-telling of Robin's origin written by Paul Dini, plus new prototypes produced in the two years since the hardcover MYTHOLOGY appeared makes this paperwork a winner genre fans must own.

</review>
<review>

got it as a present for my boyfriend. he loved it. really nice cover that folds out

</review>
<review>

I couldn't believe, but mr.Ross did it again!Even better!The second edition of the hardcover edition is even better than the first one! The cover is already a gem! You have to see to believe it!Not to mention the extra amount of pages of new art and updated material!Go for it!AAA+++

</review>
<review>

This is the perfect gift for the comic book fan who has every comic book.  Also, looks great on a coffee table

</review>
<review>

This book was so impressive we were glad we bought it for our friend!  She loves it, and didn't put it down all day after receiving it

</review>
<review>

More an inside in Ross' work and his drawings than the mythology of the dc characters... beautiful boo

</review>
<review>

This book will astonish you even before you open it. The jacket has the images of two of the most iconic superheroes of DC, Superman and Batman, and below the jacket you'll find an unbelievable piece of art showing almost every DC superhero battling versus their respective villains.

With an introduction from M Night Shyamalan, the book presents Alex from his early beginnings as a child trying to create comic book characters and how his mother kind of influenced him (even though he affirms this didn't happen, take a look at her mom's works and try to believe him)

He then presents the DC characters one by one (the Batman session has some pages dedicated to the Joker only, no other villains are shown), the early drawings, original artwork from classics and the homage he has paid for covers, posters or special editions. Analysis on the symbols and the myths of each character are used to describe what Ross wants to project with his images. I don't think it necessary to mention which character has the larger amount of pages dedicated to himself only. You get to see in drawings the creative process he follows when creating a piece, the ideas scratched on a piece of paper, the drawings and possible posing and then the final image. There are pictures I has never seen until I got this book, when I first saw them my fisrt thought was ` I need to frame these', which came up as a bad idea as I would have had to frame the entire book.

The abandoned ideas for `Portraits of villainy' are presented here in the form of pencil sketches that look pretty well, it is hard to imagine how they would have looked if the project had been completed. His takes on Hanna-Barbera, Mad magazine, Alan Moore, the animated style and World's finest are also present.

Then there are pages and pages dedicated to 'Kingdom Come', from the early concepts and ideas, passing through sketches until the realization of the project. The possible prequel that never occurred, `The Kingdom' is also mentioned and the preliminary sketches by Ross are shown.

Uncle Sam is also analyzed  near the end of the book in the same way the other projects previously were.

Then we have this section called `The process', in which we obviously get to see how Alex works using the book's cover as example. The final part of the book is a very nice bonus, a Batman/Superman special story written by Chip Kidd and Alex Ross created exclusively for this book.

Indeed a great piece of collection, this book is a must for comic book fans. The hard cover presentation, the paper in which it is printed and the bonus stuff are worth the price to pay.

</review>
<review>

To my mind, this is the best of Michael Lewis's work.  His style and observations show the humor and zing that have become his hallmark, and his writing is at top form.  Next examines the changes wrought by the Internet from the perspective of several entrepreneurs who have exploited its potential, mainly in the form of vignettes.  There is no beginning, middle or end, so if you're looking for a story with a plot line, this is likely not going to appeal to you.  The lack of story line is, however, what I found compelling - the theme of the book is, "There's this 1800-pound bull out there that everyone is studying and avoiding, and here are a few folks who have ventured out and ridden the bull and had great rides."  This is pretty much quintessential Michael Lewis - he finds an individual, or an event, or an industry that has fomented a paradigm shift (a deliberate choice of words here, since Moneyball dealt with the emergence of SABRmetrics, whose acolytes all seem to have read "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions").

</review>
<review>

Not  a profound book. Lots of story-telling to make a few good points. A fast and fun read.

</review>
<review>

Michael Lewis has an almost unique talent for providing one with an intuitive feel for a subject while simultaneously making you laugh out loud.  I think I learned more about Wall Street from "Liar's Poker" than all the great serious tomes I've read, while at the same time enjoying it as pure farce, and yet I was left with an increased respect for the people and institutions.  How is that even possible?

After "Liar's Poker" I needed to read more of Mr. Lewis, but I avoided "Next" for a long time because the internet is my "Wall Street", a place with which I am intimately familiar.  Non-technical books on the subject thus tend to annoy me, as I keep picking out nits where I feel the dilettante has gotten something wrong or missed the point.

Boy, did I underestimate Michael Lewis.  "Next" is as brilliant as "Liar's Poker", hilarious and incredibly informative.  He intuitively captures the significance of the Internet:  the way it breaks down all the old silos of expertise and authority and distributes them into the homes of everyone.  The best part is probably the description of Jonathan Lebed, the 15-year online trader charged with securities fraud by the SEC...and the complete inability of the SEC to come to grips with the absurdity of the situation.

</review>
<review>

Next: The Future Just Happened is about how the internet is changing the world. Lewis profiles Jonathan Lebed, a teenage stock market wizard (the SEC says he was a stock market manipulator -- Lewis isn't so sure); a teenage law expert who has never studied law; a teenager in England who is using Gnutella software as a springboard to, I don't know, take over the world, I guess.

It seems obvious from the first half of the book that teenage boys are using the internet to become rich, powerful, and influential. So maybe all the internet has really done is speed things up by a few decades. But Lewis throws the over-thirties among us a small bone by interviewing an aging rock group that uses the internet to raise money for a tour, an eighty-something woman who participates in WebTV polls, and the creators of TiVo.

The second half of the book is a bit unconvincing. Set-top boxes, big deal. Those teenagers rule the book, and it would seem, the world.

Lewis, as usual, writes an engaging book, it pulls you right in and moves quickly. The Lebed story itself makes the book worth your time.


</review>
<review>

As a lecturer of e-commerce, I was looking forward to reading this book on the social implications of the Internet.  However, I am most disappointed with the boring and superficial way the subject is explored.  The author takes a couple of anecdotical examples to show the concequences in the shift of power that the Internet has brought about.  The result is a disjointed treatment of an otherwise most interesting topic.  I have nothing good to say about this book - money wasted

</review>
<review>

I've read several bestsellers on the implications of the internet, but found this one a notch above the rest. Whilst others are often totally skewed by commercial and technological aspects, this one went a lot deeper and touched on the Meta changes underlying society. But far from being a grand, generalist thesis, Lewis grounds his observations in real flesh-and-blood stories that are highly readable. His experience as a professional writer shines through on every page.

The only reason I didn't give this five stars was that I feel Lewis missed some fundamental factors in his analysis of the three teenagers whose stories constitute the bulk of the book. I agree with him that children are more likely to leverage new technology because they can adopt and create new personas quicker than adults who carry along years of baggage. But there is, perhaps, an explanation much closer to home. The reason kids can rebel against the "insiders" and push the limits with such dedication and passion is because they are not paying off mortgages and education for their own kids.

Marcus Arnold, (the teenage prodigy legal expert) claimed, with total naivety, that he was handicapped against practising lawyers because he had 6 hours of school every day. Hogwash! The lawyers were handicapped because every hour of their day had to show some revenue return to cover their costs of living.

And when the "outsiders" bemoan the former outsiders who capitulate and sellout their technological ventures to the highest bidding "insiders", it is invariably because they are no longer been funded by Dad, and need to start footing their own bills.

Notwithstanding - this is an excellent book.

</review>
<review>

Without beating about the bush, let me state that this is one of the best non-fiction books I have read on the effects of the Internet on our society.

The book starts with the account of Jonathan Lebed, a 14 year old boy from New Jersey. Jonathan last year made half a million dollars in 6 months, using nothing but his savvy and the Internet. Using accounts and AOL and E-Trade, Jonathan and had bought stock, then using multiple fictitious names posted hundreds of messages on Yahoo Finance message boards recommending the stock to others. As a result, the stock would go up and Jonathan would make a nice profit on the sale.

The book also looks into how another teenager, Marcus Arnold, registered himself as a law expert at Askme.com and soon reached the number one place in popularity.

Lewis explores TV feedback technologies like the ones developed by Tivo (stock ticker: TIVO) and Sonicblue (stock ticker: SBLU), and how these technologies could affect us all in the near future.

Lewis has a lot of information at his disposal and he disseminates it in a fascinating way. He has a lively style of writing and a great turn of phrase. For instance: "The old hotshot capitalist was so narrow-minded you could use his brain to slice salami." It cracked me up.

A great read. Highly informative, highly interesting, highly recommended.

http://ahmedakhan.journalspace.co

</review>
<review>

The author attempts to paint some trends from haphazard internet-related happenings. His intent seems to be to say --

The internet changes _everything_, becomes a social leveller. Youngsters are making big changes not just in inventing new things, but also new processes, new paradigms, and oldies feel endangered and rightfully so.

He uses stories like a kiddie making big stock gains and being investigated by SEC, another being a freelance lawyer and making it big fast, yet another writing programs to napsterize everything.

He indicates "flattening" of normally hierarchically defined relationships in society and corporations, and has this concept of "insiders" being unseated by "outsiders" due to the ease with which radical new ideas can be imagined, developed and brought to market, thanks to the internet.

There is some truth to his observations, but the few examples he quotes may not be sufficient to determine a wider trend. It is of course true that the internet gives "access" and "freedom" renewed relevance. I like to think of it as "digital democratization" of society.


</review>
<review>

It's an engaging first-hand account from an anthropologist who went to live with an Inuit family.  She gives a very candid account of her own difficulties in adapting to their culture

</review>
<review>

Spellbinding takes on new meaning as this tale twist and turns through treacherous waters.  Just when you think Grisham can't do it again, he does it anyway

</review>
<review>

I read legal thrillers to escape.  I love them -- but with a bit of guilty pleasure as one consuming junk food for the mind.  Not this one though.  This book combines the thrill of escapist reading with a wholesome and affirming message that feeds the heart and mind

</review>
<review>

Grisham delivers again with this great story about the dead billionaire's strange last will, and the redemption of the broken lawyer who sees the light.  This has a spiritual message that is subtle, sincere, and uplifting, yet not beaten over your head.  You'll walk away understanding how money can be a curse, and if you don't believe that, give this book a try

</review>
<review>

I do not read a lot of book but this was a must read as soon as I started it.  John Grisham describes places and people like very few can do.  If you are anything like me the author must capture me in the first few pages or else I find something better to do.  Loved the book and felt it was worth the time it takes me to read

</review>
<review>

With every Grisham book I read, I get more and more impressed with his ability to not only use the law to create suspense, but to insert other elements to make this human as well.

For once, we have a character that is not consumed by financial gain.  However, this person has been left most of an eleven billion dollar fortune.  However, she does not know this.  A lawyer is sent to find her, and in the process, undergoes a fundamental change of his own.

This story takes place in Washington, Maryland, West Virginia, and the rain forests along the Brazilian-Bolivian border.  In typical Grisham fashion, he inserts considerable detail in all of the venues of this book, enabling the reader to create a mental picture everywhere this story goes.  You can picture the six heirs that are clawing to get their share of the millions.  You can picture the judge itching to have a high profile fight.  You can envision the rainforest, and you can picture in your mind the massive changes occurring in the life of Nate O'Riley.

This is yet another Grisham work that will simply stick to your fingers like glue.  The pages literally turn themselves.  Do not start this novel before going to bed, or you may have a sleepless night simply for the fact you simply will not be able to put this one down.

</review>
<review>

The filthy rich are interesting.  Missionaries are interesting.  The jungles of Brazil are interesting.  Lawyers are interesting.  OK, lawyers aren't interesting but Grisham sure makes them seem interesting and his book does a great job of tying together a wealthy, spoiled family to a single woman living in Brazil working as a missionary.

The Testament is more than just a story; I believe the story shows the great difference between living for personal pleasure and living for something greater than one's self.  In the end, which life really ends in the most satisfaction and pleasure?  Does chasing money and pleasure really result in happiness?  No.  I believe Grisham excellently illustrates this principle through the story of the Phelan family and Rachel Lane.  The book is very easy to read and the story is told cleverly.  Grisham's accounts of Brazil, missionaries and lawyers are all based on his own personal hands-on experiential research which enhances the book.

</review>
<review>

John Grisham has done it again. I had read this book originally a year after release. And I just finished my second read. And though it all started to come back to me as I read it...It was still an exciting page-turner as it was the first time. That says a lot about this book.

A self-made billionaire, the tenth richest man in America, has all his heirs come in to prove he is sane and competent before signing his last Will and Testament. Which he does, right before he commits suicide in front of those still present. And of course as he leaves out each and every known heir from his will. And as you learn how greedy and selfish they are, you are pleased he did.

He does pay off all his children's debt and leaves the remainder of his holdings to his illegitimate daughter no one knew he had. Nor does anyone know where she is. His law firm sends a drug/alcohol addict just out of rehab for the fourth time to find her. He finds her an M.D. who has dedicated her life to God and is working deep in the jungles of Brazil.

I found the book a very fast read that has some plot twist and is well written. Well worth the read.

</review>
<review>

Once again it is another good read by Grisham. It is hard to think what my will would be like if I get over a million dollars. I cannot see leaving it to a woman in some remote southn american jungle

</review>
<review>

Troy Phelan is an old man who is dying fast. He is the 10th richest man on the Earth with a net worth of over $11 billion. For the past several months he has been writing and rewriting his will and testament to split his money as he sees fit. His three ex-wives and seven children all anxiously await his death and their chance to claim a piece of the $11 billion pie. The first of many surprises happens early on with Mr. Phelan's death and more importantly what is in the contents of the will. In his last will before his death there was not a single word about any of his ex-wives or children. The only name given any money to was an illegitimate child of Phelan named Rachel Lane, a missionary living deep in the swaps of the Pantanal in Brazil. This kicks of a vicious legal battle. Nate O'Riley becomes the one man who can change the outcome of the matter, given the job of finding the woman in the jungle, where every decision can mean life of death.
The quest of Nate is an adventure full of suspense, action, discovery, and surprises. Meanwhile, the legal battle in the states becomes bigger and bigger, while the magnitude of the stakes and the personality of the characters begins to really come out. John Grisham took two intertwining settings and plots to create the best of his books that I have read. I thought that all the plot twists made for a very quick read. At many points in the book I felt that I wasn't going to be able to stop reading because of all the action, suspense, and the writing style

</review>
<review>

This is the story of Paul Vincent Galvin, who at the time of his death in 1959 was Chairman of the Board of Motorola, Inc. and one of the most dynamic leaders on the American business scene. The Founders Touch is also the exciting account af a vast business buit from scratch, and the story of a man whose life reflected the changing world of the twentieth century.
--- excerpt from book's back cove

</review>
<review>

It's been a while since I've read one of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum novels, but a sudden need for light reading found Ten Big Ones at the book store.  Plum's biggest worries tend to be about whether she is lusting after Joe Morelli or Ranger, how to get the latest bond jumper down to the police station, and how she is going to replace whatever vehicle just got destroyed.  Definitely light fare, even if her current problem is how to avoid death identifying the thief in a grocery store heist and then turning the local gang leader into a careening pinball in traffic. He not only wants Stephanie dead, but he also wants her end to be spectacular.

Stephanie's response is to break up with her steady boyfriend, Joe Morelli, again, gorge on jelly donuts, and go into hiding at one of Ranger's lairs.  Of course, this doesn't work as well as it should because even Ranger's soap is too sexy for words.  And Stephanie, glutton for punishment that she is, she has to go out and make sure everyone knows that she is trying to keep a low profile.  So, you see, this is standard Stephanie Plum fare - lighthearted mayhem and a heroine who is half macho and half wuss, usually with bad timing.

My issue with Evanovich's books isn't with any particular one, but with what happens if you read too many at one time.  Stephanie's biggest problem is herself - a decided lack of common sense.  Which is what you would expect from someone who works as a bounty hunter, but leaves her gun in the cookie jar.  In four hundred pages this is funny, but if you've been reading a lot in a row, the steady diet of vaudeville sight gags is d?j? vu all over again.  After a break of a year or so this goes away and I found Ten Big Ones a pleasure to read.  It introduces a whole ne order of plot complication and one of the more remarkable bus drivers in literary history.  By all means, if you need a break from the weight of the world, take the time to read this.

</review>
<review>

I picked up the first Stephanie Plum novel out of curiousity and wasn't disappointed.  I've gone on to read every book in the series and have enjoyed every one.  Rarely does a book have me laughing out loud, but I do with each one of these.

The characters are wonderful.  Grandma Mazur is great.  She may be old, but she doesn't let that stop her.  She'll try anything, anytime.  I love Ranger and Joe.  If I had two guys like that in my life, I'd have a hard time deciding between them too.  I love the family dinners.  The conversations are hilarious.  You can picture Stephanie's dad trying so hard to tune everyone out and not quite succeeding.  And Lula!  She gets better with every book.

Sure the situations and the characters can be a little out there at times, but isn't that what makes a great book?  I love to get lost in a good book and tune out everything around me.  I'm starting the 11th book next, I already have #12 and can't wait for the 13th to come out.

I recommend this series to everyone.  Give it a chance and read it for what it's supposed to be, escapism.  There's too little of that these days and I think we all need it to some point in our lives

</review>
<review>

When I first discovered the Stephanie Plum series (I started with Four to Score, then backtracked), I was delighted with the character of Stephanie Plum.  Although she was down on her luck, she was plucky, endearing, and canny enough to make the best of any situation she encountered.  In earlier books, Stephanie was kind to her family and friends even though they drove her crazy, held her own in her on again/off again relationship with boyfriend cop Joe Morelli, and walked a fine line during her curious encounters with Ranger.  She even showed some attitude with her smarmy cousin Vinnie, her ex-husband, and her nemesis Joyce Barnhardt.  But now, Stephanie Plum has morphed into someone who is selfish, stubborn and just plain stupid.  She has develped a childish mean streak and displays little regard for anyone but herself.

In Ten Big Ones, Stephanie is stalked by a gang hit man and, being the intrepid bounty hunter that she is, Stephanie walks right into the eye of the storm.  Deciding that Joe's concern for her safety is too oppressive, she moves out of his house and into Ranger's unoccupied apartment.  In one of her silliest schemes yet, she wrangles Lula and Connie into helping her kidnap a gang member, putting them all in jeopardy.  And as her sister's nuptuals approach, Stephanie becomes more and more obnoxious.  All this is played for laughs, but it misses the mark.  The plot is deja vu, the characters predictable.

Sadly, the loveable characters created long ago by Evanovich are now stuck in a time warp where they never grow up, never change and they go through similar events again and again.  Come on, bring back the old Stephanie and give Morelli something to do other than walk his dog Bob and answer his cell phone.  I'm taking a vacation from this series.  Bring on James Patterson, Laurie King, Lisa Gardner...

</review>
<review>

Like many of the readers, I agree that Ms. Evanovich seems to have run out of ideas.  The series could be written by a twelve year old.  Just give them a checklist- blow up car, eat donuts, feed Rex a donut/grape/piece of pizza, eat donuts, vascilate between Ranger and Joe, eat six tastykakes.  You get the idea.  Ms. Evanovich did expand the plot a little with this book, though.  She added in Ranger's shower gel to the list.  It was only mentioned every other paragraph.  Might I add that I have never smelled a shower gel that lingers quite like his supposedly does.  Seriously, the books went downhill after the sixth installment.  If Ms. Evanovich cannot expand the plots and allow more character growth rather than rehashing the same events over and over, perhaps she should consider ending the series.

</review>
<review>

Bounty hunter Stephanie Plum and her co-worker Lula are off to buy nachos, but in the meantime witness a robbery from the "Red Devil".  No one was hurt, but yet another one of Stephanie's cars gets destroyed.

Stephanie finds out the hard way that she is now being targeted by a gang.  Now she's on a hit list for the famous "Junkman", and Stephanie has to stay in hiding to protect herself.  Morelli and Stephanie are having a rocky relationship, and with fear that she might be endangering anyone she lives with, she sets off to find a good location.  However, Stephanie manages to find her way to Ranger's apartment while he is away.

Ranger has returned just in time to get a lead on Junkman, but has also hired several bodygaurds to keep Stephanie safe.  All the while, Valerie is planning a wedding, but Junkman has confronted and threatened Stephanie.

---

I want to tell you the end so badly, but you'll just have to read it for yourself!  I must say I was somewhat disappointed with "Seven Up" and "Hard Eight", but this one exceeded my hopes.  I didn't beat the last novel, but it still is a classic.

Janet Evanovich has done yet another great job adding an unusual twist to the life of Stephanie Plum, and I never would have expected it to even begin the way it did!

I know I can always count on these novels to be packed with plenty of thrills, and I still laughed.  The best part was that we finally got more information on what Ranger is about.  We didn't exactly see his "Bat Cave", but I was happy to hear Stephanie had finally managed to scope out his apartment, and so cleverly too

</review>
<review>

If you've been following the Stephanie Plum series, you'll probably be pleased to know that the principal characters haven't changed a bit.

What has changed is the level of danger involved and this time Stephanie has managed to get herself on the hit list of a killer linked to a violent gang.  Both Morelli and Ranger want to keep her under lock and key, but neither handcuffs nor stun guns can keep a good hard headed girl down.

Add in a cross-dressing foul-mouthed bus driver, the usual exploding car, and her sister's upcoming wedding, and you get a delightful mix of madness that only Janet Evanovich can deliver.

Fast paced and wickedly funny.


Amanda Richards, August 20, 200

</review>
<review>

This is my routine for beginning a Stephanie Plum novel:  I grab a few peanut butter Oreos and a glass of milk and curl up on the couch in my comfy pants.  I open the book and read the first paragraph:  "The way I see it, life is a jelly doughnut.  You don't really know what it's about until you bite into it.  And then, just when you decide it's good, you drop a big glob of jelly on your best T-shirt." And that's when I burrow just a little deeper into the couch cushions, confident that Janet Evanovich has written another laugh-out-loud winner I won't be able to put down.

Moments of hilarity abound in TEN BIG ONES, Evanovich's tenth foray into the world of Stephanie Plum. In this outing, Stephanie (out of that sheer bad luck she can't seem to escape) witnesses one of a chain of robberies by the "Red Devil," a gang member who's been terrorizing Trenton's convenience stores and delis for months. Not only does she see the robbery (and, inevitably, get her car blown up), but she also sees the Red Devil's face--which, unfortunately, makes her a target for two of Trenton's most prominent, scariest gangs.

Since she doesn't want to put on-again love Joe Morelli or her family in danger, Steph retreats into hiding in the only place she knows no one will ever find her, a place she only stumbled upon by sheer luck (good this time):  Ranger's apartment (be still my heart).  More bad news is awaiting her outside the walls of Ranger's plush digs, however:  The Red Devil's gang has hired a contract killer called "The Junkman" to ferret her out--and to show no mercy when he finds her.  But Stephanie still has a job to do, and reading about her attempts to bring in her FTAs while at the same time being on the lookout for her assassin is pure entertainment.

All our favorite characters are back--including Sally Sweet, rock-star drag-queen extraordinaire. He hasn't been around since FOUR TO SCORE, and he makes a triumphant return in TEN BIG ONES by adding school bus driver (think Otto, from The Simpsons) and wedding planner for Steph's sister Valerie to his r?sum?. There's Lula, of course, whose closet has no end of hot-pink and animal-print spandex clothing (if you could call it clothing); and Granda Mazur, who's 70 but looks 100; and Joe Morelli, who loves Steph almost as much as he is exasperated by her; and, of course, there's Ranger--enigmatic, good-smelling, sexy man of mystery who Stephanie (and me, too) finds completely irresistible.  Steph's FTAs are great characters, too, as usual; among them is a woman who robbed a Frito Lay truck and has since developed an addiction to Doritos.

Whether you like this installment or not will come down to your individual preference.  People who prefer the more action-packed Plum plots (say THAT five times fast!) may not be in love with this one; the plot of TEN BIG ONES tends to meander--Stephanie takes lots of showers, eats lots of doughnuts, and feeds Rex quite a few morsels in this one.  But those who read the Stephanie Plum books for the characters, who feel like Evanovich's Trenton gang is a second family--you will LOVE this one.  All our favorites are there, in all their glory, being just as goofy as we remember.

I'm a member of the second group of readers; I really enjoyed TEN BIG ONES.  Aside from a rather abrupt ending, Janet Evanovich has offered up another winner.

On to Number 11...I can already hear the Oreos calling my name

</review>
<review>

Some writers are trashing this 10th offering and accusing the author of having someone else write for her.  So What!  I laughed and smiled a lot as this book kept me company on my long daily commute.  Have fun, buy it.. enjoy

</review>
<review>

After reading this series in order, and just finishing TEN BIG ONES, I still haven't figured out what the titles have to do with the books.  Other than that confusion, I continue to be delighted with the characters and the plots.

Stephanie Plum continues to be featured in this series.  In the first installation, she had to become a bounty hunter in order to pay her bills.  Stephanie has absolutely no skill as a bounty hunter and relies more on blind luck than anything else which is exactly what we see in TEN BIG ONES.  As Stephanie is trying to decide on nachos or a sandwich for lunch, she witnesses a robbery.  When the theft goes bad, partly due to her sidekick Lula destroying the get-away vehicle, the notorious Red Devil removes his mask for a split second giving Stephanie a chance to see his face.  Seeing a criminal in action is bad enough, but when he belongs to a local gang, The Slayers, things go from bad to worse.

We're given the usual group of support characters in TEN BIG ONES.  I have to say that the plot is secondary to catching up with the happenings in each of the support casts' lives.  I adore Grandma Mazur and just the mention of her name brings a smile to my face.  She's feisty and refuses to be the sedate grandmotherly type - she relishes in Stephanie's escapades and joins her any chance she's given.  Lula is becoming more of a partner to Stephanie as the series progresses and she's still the same street smart, smart mouthed ex-ho that we've all come to know and love.  But TEN BIG ONES gives us a bit more detail about the ever elusive Ranger, bounty hunter extraordinaire.

Stephanie is on a hit list from the Slayers and has to hide to stay alive.  She discovers Ranger's apartment and moves in while he's out of town.  I never would have guessed that the apartment is luxurious and full of amenities not thought to be associated with Ranger - like ironed sheets and towels so thick you get lost in them.

Other sub cast members are delved into a bit more in this book ... like the return of Sally Sweet, the foul-mouthed drag queen rocker (Does Evanovich ever have "normal" characters?  No, thank God!  These are much more fun!).  Seems Sally has become a school bus driver during the day and drag queen rocker only at night.  He's loveable even though he's confusing.  Lula is still around and enjoyable, but we don't see much of Vinnie, the owner of Vincent Plum Bail Bonds.  I'm waiting for the book in which we get more info on him, now that should be interesting!

The plot is a bit confusing.  Stephanie sees the Red Devil, he's part of a gang, so she's placed on a hit list.  Huh?  Why is she on a hit list - he's not one of the head guys, he's just a member of the gang.  She retreats to Ranger's apartment and when he returns, we're not given the romance we'd expect, instead they dance around each other yet again.  And Joe Morelli (Stephanie's on-again off again boyfriend) doesn't even have a coronary when he finds out she's hidden out with Ranger.  Things that make ya go hmmm... but not for long, because the plot doesn't have to be solid for this series to be enjoyable.  The characters alone make the price of admission worth it!

If you're looking for a solid mystery plot with fast action and a mind boggling journey, this is definitely not the book or series for you.  If you want to enjoy a few hours and feel like you're at home with friends, and if you want to be entertained, then pick up this series and enjoy.  You'll soon feel like part of the group and not be able to wait for more stories from them.

</review>
<review>

A very thorough analysis of the contemporary trends in Western Europe from an American writer who lives there. Bawer starts with an indepth  description of the European social structure and the state of mind of the Europeans since WW2, that exposed them to the risk of being taken over by an intolerant but dedicated idealogy. He concludes that Western Europe, as we know and cherish, is moving towards its own destruction through a takeover by the wave of Muslim immigration. He points the main reasons in: the tolerance for the intolerant, by the multiculturalism that is dominating the dogmatic thinking of the European elites and by the pasivity of the Europeans who lost their respect for their own values and culture. Bawer backs his thesis by both statistical facts, quotes from local articles, lectures and report, as well as testimonies from private conversations he had with native Europeans.
A must read book, well written, that would bring tears to your eyes, if you have a sentiment to the Old World and an appreciation to its vanishing moral values

</review>
<review>

This is an excellent and insightful book that should be required reading in high schools.  I have never been to Europe and must say that after reading While Europe Slept I have zero desire to go.  For years I have ranted about the scourge of "political correctness" to my friends and family and refuse to partake in it.  This book is a great illustration of how destruction PC is.  I wonder if Europe will wake up before it's too late?

</review>
<review>

In his book Bruce Bawer outlines the negative impact of immigration policies in Western Europe. Essentially Bawer points out that instead of encouraging integration, Western Europe focuses on multiculturalism. Multiculturalism is the idea that new cultures maintain a separate identity, even though immigrants have taken up residence in a new nation (ideally multiculturalism is acceptance of all cultures; but that is rarely seen in reality).

Multiculturalism in Western Europe has created a culture of fear. A culture so fearful of offending Muslims, that Westerners are sacrificing their freedoms and liberties to appease a growing Muslim minority. The combination of Islam's intolerance for the West and the West's fear of being perceived as racist has led to a society where Dutch women wear hijabs (traditional Muslim head covers) in public for fear of being raped. The murder rate in Sweden has increased to nearly double that of the United States.

The only hope for Europe, Bawer claims, is for Europeans to take a tough stance on extremism. Europe must punish, deport and deny entry to people who preach hate. Europe must be willing to force immigrant children to go to secular schools and force immigrants themselves to learn the national language. Europeans must be willing to defend their freedoms; otherwise we'll see a Europe ruled by sharia law (strict literal implementation of the Koran's law).

</review>
<review>

This poor hodgepodge of a book should have been structured to explicate the immigration policies of each European country, then describe the experiences of each country with its Islamic radicals (and their families).  Instead, there is just a spouting forth of this and that information in a way that does not help readers see which immigration measures are useful and which are negative.  The poor linkage of measures to experience deprives readers of any handle on how the European countries can improve the situation in the future.

The author seems to feel that the United States has a much better handle on immigration than the European countries; he fails to note that the U.S. also has inconsistencies and problems in how it handles immigration.

This book is an example of a first draft that should have received far better treatment during the editorial process.  It should have been improved beyond simply an emotional screed into a book that enables readers to see what policies seem most effective in integrating immigrants into the body politic and which leave immigrants as separate, poor, and disillusioned groupings vulnerable to exploitation by organizations trying to undermine the European countries

</review>
<review>

This book REALLY serves to answer some questions I had about the current state of the world in general. Europe vs. Islam, US vs. Eurpoe, Islam vs. The World... Amazing. Some good details, but the first-hand accounts of the problems in Europe are more propelling, IMHO. Couldn't put it down

</review>
<review>

I finished this book very quickly and found it to be both very illuminating on the Muslim-immigrant experience and the foibles of the native-born Europeans who, raised on socialism and convinced of their sophistication, have lost the ability to comprehend much less deal with a violent ideology that wants to destroy their 'utopia'.

The author alternates between describing personal incidents (the assault on his partner in downtown Olso in the middle of the day, defending his country's history to brainwashed socialists) and local/regional events and discourse(growing crime rates, segregation at schools, growing anti-semitism, threats on free speech and expression, murder/assasination of specific artists and politicos). My highlights:

*norwegian imams (religious leaders) claim state welfare should be considered jizah(sp?): protection money non-muslims must pay to muslims in muslim-occupied lands.

*Forced-marriages: women are betrothed against their will at an early age. Their husbands typically come from the family homeland and after marriage they are legally entitled to join their spouse in Europe. This keeps muslim women 'under the yoke' of traditionalism (via physical abuse).

*Political capitulation: actual politicians defend violent imams and their rhetoric and chastise the native born for any implied criticism towards the religion of Islam, or any individual muslim.

* Political CAPITULATION: Norwegian lawmakers suggest that Norwegian women alter their dress to become more sensitive to muslim attitudes (the attitude that a woman is responsible for her own rape). Also, attempts to undermine freedom of speech go largely unchallenged.

* Native born muslims (2nd gen immigrants) are incubated from the democratic values by their parents and raised to believe that infidels are pigs, their women are whores, and that they must eventually take over the country.

CONS:

* A bit short. Also, one standing question: why did W.Europeans import cheap laborers from Turkey,Iran, Iraq, Morocco, and not E. Europeans?

* While several offical studies regarding crime, changing demographics, and opinion polls are referred to, i was hoping for more substantial coverage of the raw data. A bibliography would have been nice too, so we can check the data for ourselves.

*This isn't really a con but a misfortune, this book was probably hitting the bookstores around the same time as the controversy erutpted surrounding the Prophet Muhammad cartoons. The author's insights on this incidence would have made a brilliant finale.


What i found most compelling was the author's assessment of the European mentality: the internationalist and appeasment way of thought germinated in an, until recently, sheltered cocoon of intellectual hubris.


</review>
<review>

While Europe Slept is one of those books that is a must read for every American today. The author is so knowledgable about the Europeans and their view of America that he dispels the notion that "Americans are the bad guys" Sure we have our faults but not in comparison to western Europe thinking. Bawer points out that the elite run Europe without any concern for the common man.
It was interesting to note that the elite do not want the Muslims to integrate and they allow great amounts of funds to provide welfare to the Muslims. Therefore, they are jobless but receive welfare that allows them to attend mosques which preach against democracy, jews and the country in which they reside.
Muslim law and practices are paramount to them, however, breaking the law
(they often do)or laws of their country of residence and citizenship appears to be common. Muslim enclaves want to be left alone and ignore all other laws, courts and police.
The current path of European thinking and governing will, according to the author lead to muslim domination of that country.
This is such an excellent book and that all Americans should read it to put Europe in the proper prospective and to realize the continuing threat of extreme terrorism  perpetrated by extremist muslims will not just go away.

</review>
<review>

I can understand why the secular left does not the Christians here in the USA, but what I don't understand is how they seem completely oblivious to what their fate would be if Osama and those like him win this war we are in.  The radical left needs to read this book.  Someone get a copy to Rosie ODonnell and Michael Moore

</review>
<review>

Bruce Bawer's book is informative and covers quite a lot of ground in its description of the insidious nature of radical Islam in Europe and how the political elite are more enamoured with political power over a propagandised electorate instead of applying themselves to the defence of freedom. But that is what European style government is all about despite the contemporary terrorism of radical Islam, and is--like democracy--the antithesis of freedom.

Whilst radical Islam is a major threat in itself because of its inclination to subvert and murder to achieve its goals, the biggest problem that Europeans must address is the entire nature of the socialist-gangster political systems that all European nations are governed by in association with the additional layer of super-beaureaucy that is the EU. Before Europeans can banish the evils of radical Islam, they must swiftly move to a higher ethics devoid of philosophies-of-faith so that they have moral certitude about what must be done with the radical Islamists, even if that demands that the radical Islamists are expelled from western Europe by whatever force is necessary.

I was somewhat perplexed by Bruce Bawer's relentless eulogising of America's virtues--even though they are many and laudable in comparison to those of Europe--since it it is well understood that the American administration is in the throes of implementing a draconian diminution of freedom under the pretext of the-war-on-terror allied to demands form far-right Christian fundamentalist groups who have vastly too much influence over Politicians and the judiciary. It can often come across like a propaganda piece for Washington :-)

Readers of this book should also read Celsius 7/7 by Michael Gove for a more focused analysis of the problem of radical Islam

</review>
<review>

Best of its ilk, The Rainmaker surpasses most legal thrillers without a doubt. A quick read; start to finish a great novel. This book as defiantly started me on Grisham saga, that won't end until I've read all his books. I highly recommend this to any one who has any remote interest in the law, or just reading in general. A

</review>
<review>

I was a little reluctant to read this one, mainly because I was so bored by Grisham's "The Client" and because I heard this was a "funny" book. Usually funny means excessively silly and cute.

However, just a few pages into this novel I knew it was different. Maybe becuase I could relate to the Rudy character, having graduated grad school not too long ago and having concerns about what Id be able to do with my degree, it kept me reading non-stop.

THe writing is personable, like it's really written by a young man just out of law school. The humor in it is just right, not over the top silly, but enough to make me laugh every so often. It's also fascinating material for anyone who has considered going into law ot just like watching law-based shows on TV.

A few reviewers have pointed out that there are a couple inconsistencies with the story, particularly the ending, though by that time I was more than willing to cut Grisham a little slack and overlook it. THe previous 500 pages of enjoyment I got gave him some leeway in putting together an ending that was, maybe, a little clumsy.

Whenever I read one of Grisham's novels I think that the main characters, in some way, reflect on his own experiences and opinions from when he was an attorney. All I can say is that I am very glad that the legal profession turned out not to be his true love and that he decided to become an author. I highly recommend this book

</review>
<review>

This book is a good read... fun story and the characters are very likeable

</review>
<review>


The Rainmaker is an intriguing story that will keep readers wanting to turn the page.  Written by John Grisham, this story has inspired readers everywhere.  It's a story of compassion, devotion, and love- This is the story of a lawyers struggle through the beginning of his career.
The Rainmaker is about a rooky lawyer named Rudy Baylor who just graduated from law school.  He has passed his bar exam and has taken on his first cases as a lawyer.  Since Rudy has no money and no place to live, he's just looking for some easy money makers.  At least that's what he thinks these cases are, but Rudy gets in over his head.  These so called easy cases turn into a fight for justice in this small town.
With the help of his new found partner, a friend who knows the ropes of law, and some ways around it, Rudy finds the real lawyer inside of him, vs. the lawyer that breezed through college.  He fights for what's right against a dishonest insurance company that won't cover a young man with leukemia and a young woman with an abusive husband.
This story follows his struggles, hardships and breakthroughs.  This is an extraordinary story.  It's a story for all readers and one that everyone will enjoy.  This novel is written so well you feel like you're not just reading it, but your there, in the courtroom, or in the office, or wherever the story may take you.  The details, it's not superficial or unrealistic, and how the characters are written make the story even more real.  It almost feels like a biography, like Rudy's thoughts were written down on paper as he thought them.  Reading this story will inspire young lawyers, and young readers everywhere.  I can truly say that this novel is one that I can read over and over and still be taken aback by this story of affection, love, and allegiance.

</review>
<review>

It was true to the movie, which was wonderful.  I highly reccommend the book and Amazon offered it at a much lower price than Barnes and Noble

</review>
<review>

I love this storyline. Baylor is a lovable character and has a true sense of what justice should be, and he makes certain that his clients do not go unheard

</review>
<review>

This novel is an underdog story of a young lawyer, Rudy Baylor, barely out of law school who goes against the big guns--that of a very corrupt insurance company defended by lawyers from a big, prestigious law firm.  You cannot help but root for Rudy, who put himself through college and law school and who is so desperate for a job in law that his job-hunting leads to a very low point: He finds work from a corrupt lawyer. However, through circumstances beyond his control, Rudy soon finds himself with his own struggling practice with a paralawyer (Grisham invention) named Deck.  Deck is an unattractive, unethical guy who does what it takes to get the job done.  He is an amusing character and rings true-to-life.  I think that most people know someone like him, or know of someone like him.  Nonetheless, in the end, I feel sorry for how things turned out for him.

Rudy's biggest case is the Blacks vs. Great Benefit, an oh-so-evil insurance company.  The Blacks are a senior couple with a dying son who needs a bone marrow operation that GB will not pay for.  GB preys on the poorly-educated with medical policies that don't cover much at all in reality.

(*Spoiler alert*: Don't read the following stuff within the parentheses, else it may ruin one of the best moments in the book. GB's employee manuals for claims handlers and underwriters instruct the GB employee to deny every claim initially! They only pay for claims that don't cost much and/or when threatened with litigation.)

I really hope that insurance companies like GB don't exist; it is merely a Pollyanna hope, I suppose.  However, if we didn't have evil companies (or evil organizations, agencies, etc.), we wouldn't have great courtroom dramas (or just plain drama).   Things are more interesting when you have conflicts involving good versus evil, or some forms of those opposing realities.

After reading this book, I know why Grisham is a bestselling author.  He delivers the goods in an exceptional way.  I find myself just flowing along with his words-it's so readable.  There are parts in this particular story that aren't that believable (most of the breaks that Rudy gets in the case against GB), but somehow it doesn't diminish the excitement of the story

</review>
<review>

Rudy Baylor is a law student in his last year of law school. As one of his projects, he is required to offer free legal advice to senior citizens at the local nursing home. Little did he realize that he would meet Dot and Buddy Black who would present to him the lawsuit of all times, one that would make him a "Rainmaker". Rudy jumped right in and fought for the Black's son Donny Ray who was diagnosed with Leukemia and then later denied medical treatment by a large insurance company for no apparent reason. Rudy is thorough and compassionate in his work and never gives up the case. He fights for his client even though he has little courtroom experience.
An exciting novel

</review>
<review>

This book really is an insult.  It's "lesson" and "assignments" are HORRIBLE.  They ask you to research in magazines different lighting effects that you think were used in his book.  In a field where doing is truly the best learning experience this book is not worth the paper it was printed on.  Check it out from a library if you must but you will shortly find it is an insulting read

</review>
<review>

I had to purchase this book for a university studio photography course...unfortunately, the instructor never even flipped through it.  It is by far the WORST photography book, really the worst book I have ever purchased!  There are typo's, the "example photos" and instruction sometime are not the same.  The projects are lame and really teach nothing.  I would not recommend this book under any circumstances...AVOID AT ALL COST!!! [...

</review>
<review>

Edmund Burke (1729-1797)wrote REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE in 1789 which was four years before the rise of the fanatical Jacobins and the execution (murder)of Louis XVI.  This book was not only well written but very prophetic on the tragic events that were part of the French Revolution.  Burke showed historical insight and warned both the British and the French what was going to happen.

Burke cited conditions in France prior to the French Revolution. He certainly did not give a false representation of the economic and social conditions in France, but he was clear that, while not perfect, the French had advanced culture and tolerable living standards.  He also warned the French that abrupt changes without recourse to tradition and legal norms were dangerous and would end in tyranny. Readers should be aware that Burke's assessment of the French political system was that the French had reasonble politcal freedom and prosperity. To destroy this political system would end in political disruption, social and political violence, lack of law-and-order, and the rise of tyrannical military leaders.

One should note Burke's assessment of the members of the French National Assembly which was vacilating and subject to the whims of any "political interest group" was serious.  He suggested that military officers would be among those "pleaders" would be military officers who would be difficult to control.  He also warned that when someone who understood the art of command got control of the military officers, the days of the French Republic and the National Assembly were over.  The military commander would be in total control, and this is exactly what happened when Napolean I (1769-1821)started to exhibit military genius, he quickly got power by a coup d' etat in 1799 and became the French Emperor by 1804.

Burke's warnings of disaster and tragedy were fullfilled.  From at least 1792 until 1815, the French were almost constantly at war with most Europeans.  While the French Empire expanded beyond anything prior French monarchs ever dreamed of, the collapse of the French Empire came quickly, and the French empire was ended by 1815 at terrible cost in both blood treasure.  Burke warned of these dangers, and his predictions were accurate.

Burke lived just long enough to see the rise and fall of the maniacal Jacobins which included the Reigh of Terror (1792-1794)and the execution of King Louis XVI and his wife, Marie antionette.  Had Burke lived a few more years, he could have resorted to remarking, "I told you so."

Edmund Burke has been defined as a conservative which is true.  However, Burke was not a reactionary.  Burke realized that progress, whatever that may mean, is often slow and within the confines of historical tradition, legal norms, and established law.  Burke warned his readers, to use modern parlance, against "wipe the slate clean."  Burke clearly understood that to "wipe the slate clean, meant mass dislocation of men and ultimately mass executions (mass murder).  Subsequent modern political revolutions vindicate this view.

Readers may wonder why Burke expressed support for the American Revolution but strongly opposed the French Revolution.  A careful examination of these revolutions provides the answer.  The American "revolutionaries" were arguing for their "Rights of Englishmen" which had a long tradition in Great Britain.  Henry II (1154-1189) started the use grand juries.  The English had the right of trial by jury by the time of Edward I (1272-1307). The fact is the American colonists wanted to rules of common law and long established legal traditions to apply to them.  The British wanted to rule the American colonists with administrative law using clever bureaucrats, as Burke would probably have called them, rather than use British Constitutional Law and the Common Law which many American colonists demanded.  The French, on the other hand, wanted to replace a weak monarch with "clever bureaucrats" which Burke knew very well could not work in France.

Readers should note that Thomas Paine (1737-1809)wrote a response to Burke's REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION titled THE RIGHTS OF MAN.  While Paine's views were different than those of Burke's Paine's book was just as brilliant as Burke's.  Readers should read both works if they want exposure to profound political thought and excellent writing.  This is much preferred to the current political nonsense that is pushed by media talking heads and journalists who cannot think or write.  Burke and Paine were well read men and offered readers history lessons as well as politcal lessons.

Edmund Burke's REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE is highly recommended regardless of one's political persuasion.  This book is not a light read and takes time.  However, one will be better informed and wiser for doing so.  Again, this reviewer suggests the reader should read Thomas Paine's THE RIGHTS OF MAN to draw comparisons and contrasts

</review>
<review>

In 1789, the year of the French Revolution, Burke received a request from a good friend living in France to provide his thoughts on the Revoution. The result- one of the finest pieces of political discourse ever written. For those encountering Burke for the first time, his adament defense of the crown, and of hereditary succcesion, seem to make a hypocrite of this self-proclaimed liberal. Burke, however, was not defending an absolute monarch who ruled under the charter of divine right, but rather, pointing out the danger of a perfect democracy, whose sovereign (the national assembly) was compelled not to a moral authority such as a Church, nor to a fixed consitution. In short, liberty was safer restricted in civil socity, than left unchecked.

Whether you find Burke's analysis, consistent with your political leanings, or more likely, you find his writing very offensive, you can appreciate both the efffect of this work on American and European political though, as well as the reason and intelligence with which it was written.

</review>
<review>

This small title is actually a letter that the author wrote to a friend in France.  When Edmund Burke wrote this letter about the French Revolution (where the king was overthrown and beheaded by the masses aka Jacobins), English scholars agree that the result was the finest piece of prose in the English language; only a few poets have succeeded in writing something finer.  Whether you agree with Burke's interpretation or not is not the point; he penned the finest piece of literature ever in the English language.

As a historian and social commentator, Burke is a "structural functionalist" decades before that term was dreamed up.  He recognizes that the French are not only creatures of their culture, but prisoners.  And to compare them to the English colonists and other insurgents in the American colonies who revolted against the British government is to compare apples and oranges.  Whereas the Yankee revolution of 1776 was Biblically-inspired and the propaganda for rebellion preached from the pulpits, the French were railing AGAINST the Catholic Church for keeping people ignorant and in their Dark Age.

Burke says the French Revolution is a revolution without its moorings, without the necessary principles to guide individual behavior, and without the maintenance of institutions that long provided stability and security.  What the French philosophes were writing was mere balderdash, says Burke.  Without their traditions, customs, and institutitions that had slowly brought the French out of barbarity and into a civilized manner of living, Burke saw in revolution a rapid decline and fall of the French people into a visciousness of dog-eat-dog.

In short, Burke saw the French Revolution as lacking virtue and descending into terrorism; whereas the Yankee Revolution was virtuous and grew into a democracy.

Whether you agree with Burke or not, and I do not, his writing in this letter to a friend is the finest example of English writing to be found and should be read by everyone simply for that reason alone

</review>
<review>

This is an indispensible essay for anyone who has ever been interested in politics. It is composed of beautiful prose, crisp logic, and perennially relevant material.

You must read Burke to understand the why it is worth being critical of the French Revolution and to understand some major reasons for the counter-revolutionary movement in France.



</review>
<review>

Very good in the sequel line, but I figured out "who dun it" before I finished.  The characters are still developing well, waiting for the next one.  I have the whole series.

</review>
<review>

Boulder, Colorado author, Margaret Coel calls the wolf a wonderful animal.  "It's always two looks ahead," of everybody else, she says.  Using the wolf as metaphor, she gets the villain in her mystery novel THE EYE OF THE WOLF  at least two looks ahead of both readers and main characters.
The 11th in her series featuring the Boston Irish priest Father John O'Malley and Arapaho lawyer, Vicky Holden as the crime solvers, THE EYE OF THE WOLF takes the reader to the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming.  There, traditional enemies, the Arapaho and Shoshone, share the land.  Father John serves an Arapaho parish.  Vicky works with an Arapaho law firm.  The two are close friends.
As EYE OF THE WOLF opens, someone has killed three Shoshone college students on the Bates Battlefield, where in 1874, Shoshone scouts led the United States Cavalry to an Arapaho village. The soldiers slaughtered everyone living there.
Animosity between the Shoshone and Arapaho, two very different peoples with diverse cultures, has smoldered since. Father John fears the worst when he sees the latest bodies at Bates, all posed like dead warriors in old photographs.  Someone wants to encourage the hatred. Why?  And Who?
He, his parishioners, and the police suspect Frankie Montana.  This Arapaho trouble has often fought with Shoshones in bars,.  Because he drifts around the reservation drinking and crashing at drug houses, most decent people of both groups despise Frankie.
His mother, Lucille, begs Vicky to become Frankie's lawyer. Lucille believes he's innocent.  Because Lucille is a friend, Vicky agrees to take the case.  However, she, too, believes Frankie is guilty. He concern is to get him a fair trial.
Frankie asserts he did not commit the crime, but will not talk to Vicky or the police.  As he eludes them out of sheer terror of jail, Father John finds a fourth Shoshone victim at Bates.
Looking at the evidence against Frankie, Vicky begins think he may not be the killer.  So does Father John, after talking to people in the parish.  But, then who is?  Can Father John  and Vicky find the person, and prove his or her identify to the police?
Or--is the murderer like the wolf--two looks ahead ?  Will that give him or her time to kill again?  Worse, have Father John and Vicky made a mistake to believe Frankie?   Is he really the killer?  Will he prove it by shooting one of them?
Their gamble on Frankie brings EYE OF THE WOLF to an end that one one could possibly expect.  But the conclusion makes perfect sense, because Margaret Coel writes with understanding of Arapaho and Shoshone history.  Through that history, she reveals the killer.
Also through that history, she also makes EYE OF THE WOLF more than just another mystery with an explosive ending.   As the story unfolds, she presents two Native American groups that get little attention from novelists.  Working closely with people who live on Wind River Reservation, she makes sure her depiction is accurate.
So EYE OF THE WOLF is  not something like, or just like a wolf, it IS a wolf--two looks ahead of everybody.  Readers will not only enjoy a gripping mystery, but they'll also learn something about other people and their lives.
They'll receive the lesson through rich, well-developed and belleville characters, quirky little subplots, lively dialogue, and solid description of locale

</review>
<review>

Margaret Coel has created an excellent series in which she brings alive the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming and describes the Arapahoe customs in wonderful detail.  In this installment, Father O'Malley receives a mysterious phone call which implies that an old grudge between the Arapahoe and Shoshone Indians has been re-ignited, and that dead Indians can be found on an ancient battle ground.  When Father O'Malley goes to investigate, he discovers three dead Shoshones whose bodies have been posed to resemble positions reminiscent of old battles. Things heat up when the young Shoshone men vow to gain revenge for the murder of their friends.  Vicky Holden, the other main character in the series, has entered into a law partnership with Adam Lone Eagle, and they disagree as to the kinds of cases they should be handling.  Vicky wants to defend Frankie Montana, who is a suspect in the murders, and Adam tries to persuade her not to take Frankie as a client.  As always, author Coel creates a wonderful setting and characters, and in this book she writes another strong entry in the series.

</review>
<review>

It is hard to believe that Margaret Coel began her Wind River Reservation series some ten years ago with THE EAGLE CATCHER, which introduced readers to Father John O'Malley and defense attorney Vicky Holden. Each subsequent novel has featured an intriguing mystery as well as a shift in the emotional but platonic relationship between O'Malley and Holden. The latest installment in this series is no exception.

EYE OF THE WOLF begins with a cryptic telephone message that is left for O'Malley on an answering machine. This leads him to the site of a historic battlefield, one that resulted in the slaughter of an Arapaho Indian village by U.S. forces, aided by Shoshone scouts. In modern times Arapahos and Shoshones are somewhat uneasy neighbors on the Wind River Reservation, with their antagonistic history providing a shadowy backdrop, gone but not entirely forgotten.

But past differences are brought to the forefront when O'Malley discovers the bodies of three Shoshones on the old battlefield, positioned to mimic those of the dead killed in the historic battle. Frankie Montana, a chronic client of Holden's, is the primary suspect. Despite Montana's recidivistic tendencies, Holden does not believe he is capable of murder. It eventually becomes clear to Holden and O'Malley that someone is attempting to revive the long-dormant conflict between the Arapahos and Shoshones --- and that Holden has placed herself in terrible danger on behalf of her client.

While Coel has created an extensive backstory contributing to the Wind River Reservation mythos, it is not necessary to read what has transpired before EYE OF THE WOLF. The tension between O'Malley and Holden builds from page to page, as they struggle to protect the innocent --- and each other --- from an unknown malefactor. At the same time, both are protective of O'Malley's priestly vows, even as their emotions practically --- but subtly --- beg for violation.

EYE OF THE WOLF is an excellent introduction to the Wind River Reservation series, while providing a welcome return to the area and its people for longtime followers of the series. Given the longevity of these novels, it is clear that Coel can continue to explore this beautiful, dangerous landscape for as long as she wishes. Recommended.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlau

</review>
<review>

The poetic macabre message shakes up Father John O'Malley, the Jesuit Pastor at St. Francis on the Wind River Plantation.  The caller stated that revenge has been taken with deaths.  Not long afterward, at the sight of an 1874 massacre in which the Shoshone betrayed the Arapaho to the cavalry, three Shoshone are found murdered with their bodies ritually left to look just like the historical slaughter here.

Frankie Montana, who was seen recently arguing with the Shoshone and has quite a rap sheet is charged with the triple homicides.  His lawyer Vicky Holden believes Frankie who insists he is innocent because she knows this low life would do just about anything but not murder.  As she mounts a defense, she wonders if the culprit is cunningly trying to cause an Indian war between the two tribes for some unknown reason or a psychopath is avenging the century plus slaughter.

The latest Wind River Reservation Mystery, EYE OF THE WOLF, is a fabulous legal thriller that uses brutal late nineteenth century carnage as the apparent motive to twenty-first century murders.  The story line moves out rather quickly when Father O'Malley listens to the high pitched poetry of the killer on his voice machine and never takes a breather as Vicky tries to prove her client did not commit the crime though circumstantially he appears heading for the fall.  Margaret Coel is at her best with this tale that affirms why so many readers feel she is the heir apparent to the Hillerman mantle.

Harriet Klausner

</review>
<review>

Eye of the Wolf by Margaret Coel ISBN: 0425205460  - Due out today (6 September 2005) - I was sent an ARC of this great book to read for review which I do gladly.  I had read a few of this series before and especially enjoyed them, especially Spirit Woman and Story Teller, so was expecting good things.  I was not disappointed - the series follows the adventures of Father John O'Malley, pastor of St. Francis Mission on the Wind River Reservation and tribal attorney, Vicki Holden and apart from a ripping good mystery, the author weaves the history of the Arapho and the Soshone tribes who share the reservation into the fabric of the story she is telling so well, bringing her characters and the culture to sympathetic life.  It is not hard to care about the "Indian priest" as they call Father John or Vicky Holden.  I think what I enjoyed most was the character studies of not only the main characters in the story but the peripheral ones as well - they were brought vividly alive by the author's words.  From the first mystery message "This is for  the Indian priest",  everything seems to hark back to a famous battle in the 19th century and the treachery that took place on the battlefield  - but does it??  This is a very worthy entry in this well written series and will keep you guessing right up to the finishing twist as everything becomes clear in a highly suspenseful finish.

</review>
<review>

At a lunch with a studio executive,screenwriter John Dunne was insisting on a story point in the script that he had written with his wife,Joan Didion, the excutive mimed reaching under the table and bringing out,"The Monster",their money, to win the argument. Seven or eight years they toiled on the script that became ,"Up Close and Personal",this is the chronicle of their experiences. Fascinating and sobering, when you realize how things can dissolve and then reappear in a completly different form. It is very well told and forshadows his health problems that cost him his life in 2003, that his wife wrote so exquisitly about in "The Year of Magical Thinking". If how movies get made is of any interest to you this and his other film making tale, "The Studio" will fascinate you.

</review>
<review>

It took eight years to make Up Close and Personal, a movie about a television reporter and her mentor, starring Robert Redford and Michelle Pfeiffer. This book, by one of the screenplay writers, is a must for anyone who wants an example of just how absurd movie making can be. From the original story of Jessica Savitch, an ambitious and ultimately self-destructive young woman, Dunne's screenplay transforms over many years and many rewrites into a story that would get Disney's stamp of approval, which translates into "a feel good movie with an uplifting storyline". Often hilarious and at times moving, Monster gives you a real feeling for the time, skill, and patience it takes to create a screenplay. Just remember this is not an instructional guide to screenplay writing, see it rather as a cautionary tale. After reading this, you may wonder how movies get made at all

</review>
<review>

Even though L.M. Montgomery did not intend Anne of Green Gables to be a series, she still captivates with her eager readers in Anne of Avonlea.
There are still quite a few differences, Anne has grown from a "queer", fiery, young girl to a wiser, calmer, auburn-headed schoolteacher. Yes, a schoolteacher. Also, as we follow Anne in this Bildungsroman literature, the romance between her and Gilbert Blythe peeks through shyness and past misadventures in this novel.
Some people consider it a book not as interesting as the first, and perhaps this is because Anne is no longer a child and could not grow into a young woman with the same inexperienced attitude.
Altogether, my opinion of the book is that it was a good follow-up and I sympathize that it would be hard to make up such great a book as Anne of Green Gables.

</review>
<review>

How could anyone sit and read this boring work of fiction.  I am actually listening to the audio version and I am almost falling asleep and cannot remember a word the reader has said.
I am going to stick to the movie versions of Anne of Green Gables instead of reading the rest of the books.  At least the movies keep your interest

</review>
<review>

Being a L.M. Montgomery fan helps of course, but this second book in her series is a great sequel to the Anne of Green Gables which started it all.  The writing hold true to the author's form and the character development is as good as the first work in the series.  My wife and I have been reading these books for years and never tire of them.  Again, as with her first work, you have to remember the time these were written and the style and syntax used at that time.  This particlar story starts where the last left off, Anne is sixteen and her adventure continues.  I, for some reason, find these books rather comforting to read and recommend them highly.

</review>
<review>

Red haired with a flaming temper, the phenomenal Anne Shirley is back in her 2nd book! Marilla, a kindly old maid who had set heart on bringing Anne up (when she was an orphan) has decided to also adopt two adorable little twins, Davy and Dora Keith. Anne is absolutely thrilled but adopting these twins causes big trouble. Davy is really a good boy at heart but always finds himself into scrapes: like making his sister Dora walk the pig fence! Davy??s idea of fun includes violence and humor ?V but only for himself. The girls have to teach Davy manners, which is a difficult task for such a cheeky little boy. Anne??s problems grow even more as she takes up responsibility of being a schoolteacher and suddenly feels very timid again, but she has to pull up her socks and jerk herself back into the adult world. At school, she regains her impertinence temper and broad imaginations as she shares happy times with her students, especially Paul Irving, this sweet little kid with brown hair and the most delightful face she has ever seen. He brings her flowers and calls her ??Sweet Teacher??. Her friendship with striking Gilbert Blythe (ex-enemy for calling her hair ??carrots??) has grown, but what is Gilberts real reason of being so sweet and pleasant? Has Diana (her bosom friend) finally grown up? I really enjoyed this book because it talks about Anne growing up and finding her place in the adult world leaving her wonderful childhood behind forever. I simply couldn??t put it down because after every page, Anne has another adventure so it is like a cliffhanger. My mom keeps telling me to go and do work but I cannot stop because this is the most wonderful book ever written. I like the others in this series also.Thank you L.M. Montgomery for bringing a bright light into my life!~~ Referring to the special collectors editio

</review>
<review>

I love this story. Echo lodge was great. It was about the last book where Anne is in Avonlea and a little girl. Very excellent book

</review>
<review>

This is just a wonderful sequel to Anne of Green Gables.  It deals with Anne's life after returning to Avonlea to teach and before she goes off to college.  Seeing Anne begin to come into adulthood is exciting and yet a little sad.  It is exciting to see her deal with the new challenges from being a school teacher and inspiring her students to starting the Avonlea Village Improvement Society (to which there is some resistance from the Avonlea elders at first).  Anne is still of course a kindred spirit, but it seems that she is mellowing as she matures (which was is just a touch sad, but as Mr. Henderson says, all things must change).  For anyone who liked the first book, this is sure to not disappoint

</review>
<review>

It never ends, luckily!!! I will never tire of Anne's wonderful, lively imagination. In this story, Anne is sixteen, with lovely dark red hair, gray twinkling eyes, and only seven freckles! Anyways, more happens in this story than a change in appearance: Anne becomes the Avonlea schoolma'am, and loves her students like crazy, especially little Paul Irving, who happens to have the same imagination and qeer ways as his teacher. Anne and Marilla even adopt little twins, who also win their love. But when Diana Barry and Anne are wandering down the lane one evening, they stumble upon the lovely Miss Lavender. She has the same imagination too! Well, everything in this story is just as perfect as it's prequel. It's not one of those great first books with dumb sequels...in this case they're both GREAT

</review>
<review>

Anne of Avonlea was almost as good as the first Anne book. It is about Anne's life as a school teacher in Avonlea. Marilla adopts two mischievous twins and Mrs. Rachel Lynde moves in. So life is never dull for Anne at the school house or at Green Gables. You could read it on its own, but I recommend you read Anne of Green Gables first

</review>
<review>

I read this book when I was 12 and loved it. Now I'm 21 and recendly read it again, and I liked it even more. The plot is great. The characters are alive, and the writing is superb.A must for anyone that wants to laugh, love and cry with the town from Avonlea

</review>
<review>

The book encourages students to explore their own strengths and weaknesses, and prompts them to recognize aspects of themselves in ways they probably hadn't thought before.  Most of us are quite curious about what our strengths might be, and with this book, the student's self-examination isn't a painful process.  Rather than offering a step by step list of Do's and Don'ts, the approach taken here is to help the student develop a highly individualized action plan to help them take control managing their coursework.  It's a relatively hefty book, at least compared to others I've seen in this genre, but this doesn't detract.

</review>
<review>

This book is really helpful for those who have had difficulty with studying and time management.  It also helps highlight some of those "everything I need to know, I really did learn in Kindergarten" moments.  Often I don't keep textbooks, because I know I'll never use most of them again.  This book is exactly the opposite, in that I know I will use it again, be it with relationship conflicts, time management, a reminder to detach from my identities, or anything else.  There is such a wealth of helpful information, that I fail to understand the ranting low reviews.  Apparently some people have nothing better to do with their time than bitch.  Pity, really

</review>
<review>

I found this book to be full of endless tips on how to study and make the best use of my time and energy.

</review>
<review>

The item was how it was described, and shipping was speedy. It came in way before my classes even started. Awesom

</review>
<review>

It's one of the BEST book I've ever read or seen.. Pages are all colorful and nice design very attracting the eye so we read more, and interesting story inside and motivational.  I totally recommend this book if you are trying to pursue a better learning skills wether you are in school or you just want to learn to LEARNING about everything.. it's useful book for you

</review>
<review>

This book was required reading for my  and quot;Introduction to the Freshman Experience and quot; class and it is a must read for everyone. Ideas and concepts found in  and quot;Becoming a Master Student and quot; can be applied to every aspect of life.  The techniques found in this book were very helpful to me as a student,an employee and as a person. I highly recommend this book

</review>
<review>

Whether it's the war between Bucky Katt and Fungo the ferret, Rob's ongoing battle to maintain control of the household, Bucky's never-ending quest to consume a monkey, or Satchel's innocent view of the world, there's something everyone can enjoy and relate to in this little gem of a comic strip. It is one of the most witty, refreshing, and downright funny stips to come along in a long time.

Best of all, this daily calendar provides me with a laugh almost every day. If there's any downside to it, it's that I don't throw away the previous strips. There are just too many good Get Fuzzy strips to justify getting rid of them.

If you're limited on space at home, or spend your day at the office in a veal cube like I do, this would be the perfect addition to bring a little laughter to an otherwise mundane day.

I'm just about through my 2006 calendar and have an order in for the 2007 version. I need my daily quota of "Get Fuzzy"!

</review>
<review>

 and quot;Impact and quot; is a book my school has used for nearly a decade as an introduction to the short story, literary issues, and writing projects.  An excellent selection of 50 short-short stories,  and quot;Impact and quot; follows  up each story with a discussion of some appropriate literary term, a  selection of questions that are actually worth answering (as a teacher, I  know how bad these usually are), and some really innovative writing topics.   The stories are all first-rate, from Shirley Jackson's  and quot;Charles and quot;  to Hemingway's  and quot;The Old Man at the Bridge and quot; to Arthur C. Clarke's   and quot;Who's There? and quot;  Most of the stories also hinge on some ironic  twist, allowing that most difficult and valuable of literary concepts to be  taught thoroughly.  Although a bit pricey for purchase just to read,   and quot;Impact and quot; is also an excellent collection for anybody aspiring to  write short stories.  They simply don't get much better than these

</review>
<review>

During a very difficult stage in my life the Lord led me to this book. It is without a doubt one of my favourites. I HIGHLY recommend it to everyone. Why? Well it teaches on lust and the reason we are sometimes tied to others in relationships that may sometimes not even be God's will for our lives.
This is the first review I have ever written for any book I have read - and I do read a lot - and I am doing so because I truly feel that this book holds such vital information.

</review>
<review>

I had originally purchased the 1st printing of this book and gave many of them away.  The cover was different and oh how I wish I had it now!  This book is great!  I cant really add anymore than what others have added here, but I can say please read this book, everyone should have this information under their belts.  I would however recommend reading The Beautiful side of evil.  Like many they are unable to see the reality of satan's plans to get us off into something that can be so destructive and even move us out of God's truth.  See how this women was fooled into thinking something she was doing was from God and then how God reveals the truth to her.  Much the same about Garry's book, who by the way I have personally met.  The only difference between the 2 books is the story it tells

</review>
<review>

This book is great for people "with a past."  It gives many examples of problems that have resulted from easily made mistakes.  It tells you how to avoid these mistakes yourself and how to build a foundation so these mistakes won't even come into play.  Through the use of personal and second-hand experience as well as scripture, Dr. Greenwald teaches how to build a relationship with God and avoid and diminish relations with the Devil.  Absolutely amazing

</review>
<review>

This book offers invaluable insight to understanding soul ties and why it is imperative that they be broken.  It is a must read for people who are in relationships and still struggle with their attraction to their previous mates.  This book definitely sheds light on why the struggle exists and how to break the soul tie.  It is a personal favorite for me.  I recommend it to any single or married person

</review>
<review>

Anyone at all interested in Mexico should read this book. This book is written in a style ala James Mitchner.  It deals with a huge period of time, starting before the time of the Aztecs and moves through to modern times. The author keeps it exciting and accurate.  He covers the highlights of Mexico City and because of it's governmental centralization, the Country of Mexico itself, without becoming overly bogged down in detail.  If you are a fan of historical novels, this is a book you won't be able to put down

</review>
<review>

La Capital tells an absorbing story by following the twists and turns of the history of Mexico City. The writing style is clear yet the author also gives a comprehensive history of the Mexican capital. Of special note are  the many anecdotes which provide much of the human interest for the reader.  My favourite was the story of Irma Serrena  and quot;La Tigresa and quot;, a  presidential mistress

</review>
<review>

Un libro que se lee sin mayor dificultad gracias al lenguaje sencillo pero preciso, y en esto radica la magia del autor que de ese modo nos motiva a continuar. Libre de tecnicismos antropolgicos o histricos esta obra es  recomendable para todo aquel que desee enterarse sobre Mxico con una  visin clara, veraz y hasta divertida

</review>
<review>

This is the definitive work on history of Mexico City.  For the student of Mexican history this is a well documented work.  For the casual reader it reads like a novel.  It should not be out of print

</review>
<review>

As a resident of Mexico City, who has studied its history, La Capital by Jonathan Kandell is the finest example of what a history  book can be. It reads like a page-turner mystery and the publisher should hang their head in shame that the book has not been reprinted. I'll run out today and buy whatever copies are left in Mexico, to give as gifts in the future

</review>
<review>

I read this book I don't remember how many years back. I think about 15 years ago. And just remembering makes me nauseous, for the amount of time and effort it took me read it just to get to no point. I was younger, naiver and I got engaged, I confess that. Clever Author no doubt, to make a huge pile of unrelated ideas and make believe you would get somewhere following his lead. Just wandering around and playing with analogies. I had the time back then, I guess. Today I only have the time to write a review stating how surprised I am today I could finish this kind of book. I can't speak for anyone else, suffice to say I was a nerd with a lot of time in my hands

</review>
<review>

Hofstadter tickles every curious and philosophical bone in your body.  This one is a long read with a lot of dense material. If you take the time to get through it, while understanding all of it (this ain't no dime novel!), you will find yourself sitting on such a mental high as you cannot yet imagine. Plus, you get to boast to all of your nerdy friends that you have read "GEB", but thats just a perk

</review>
<review>

This is Professor Hofstadter's Thesis.  Those thinking about reading this book should do some research before doing so since it is over 25 years old...

Perhaps that will level set expectations, so that you might objectively evaluate it's merit, and make an informed decision on whether or not it is a good investment for you individually...  But then that would be exercising exactly what this book is about...  Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

If you are intrigued and fascinated by what it means to be human and have a Mind...  If you are the type who wonders... Why, or more importantly, how do I wonder?  Then you owe it to yourself to read this book...  Even if like me, you struggle to comprehend it and read it many, many times until the light grows from a flicker to a full on fire, you will appreciate your self-discipline in the end.

This book absolutely stands on it's own as an illuminating discourse on how the animate springs forth from the inanimate.  If you don't like it, put it down and read something you do enjoy, but don't take it personal and attack the author.  Good, bad, or indifferent this book represents a monumental achievement for a brilliant human mind, and that is irrefutable.

Whether or not this is your "cup-of-tea" is inconsequential, we should all be thankful for people like Professor Hofstadter, who dare to live without self-imposed limits, and take on the monumental effort of expanding the human collective consciousness

</review>
<review>

Whenever I read a book in translation I often wonder if it's the translator I love or hate, or the author themselves.  Literature in translation is essentially a complete re-writing of the book itself.  Consider Lewis Carroll:  How does one go about translating seemingly endless word play and words that are often made up?  Now consider the fact that Alice in Wonderland had been translated into over 50 languages.  If you could read all 50 languages, some would approximate your understanding of "Alice", and some would appear tangenital, or worse, dishonest to the original.

Machine Translation (MT) is considered AI's hardest problem, and Hofstadter goes to painstaking length to show just why this is so.  Despite marketing rhetoric he points out why such a solution is years in the making if it ever occurs at all (to a satisfactory degree - meaning literature, not technical documents).  Though many who have read "G?del, Escher, Bach" or "Metamagical Themas" are sometimes disappointed in this book, to me it is part of the evolution.  And being a word geek, a polyglot, and in the constant companion of one who makes translation a living, I have to say this book rates above those other tombs on my list.  But be forewarned, you are leaving the world of complex algorithms and entering a world where just such analysis is not forthcoming.

</review>
<review>

I read this book in 1980, and each chapter of it still stands out in my mind in glittering bas-relief against all I read before or have read since. What stands out the most, however, is that my thinking changed after reading this book. Everything since reading it has been inevitably processed through its filter, which has quite simply changed my life. Perhaps a first-reading today would not have an equal effect; in 1980 it was timely. Things we take for granted now were difficult to conceptualize then--the internet, for instance. But I'll leave it for contemporary readers to decide whether G?del, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid is as eternal as the title claims. For me, the answer is a resounding yes. I can say without doubt that my life would have been different if I had not read it at that time.

Ok, if it's so great, then what is it that makes it so? Trying to describe what is great about this book is like trying to say what is great about a particular Bach Fugue, or an Escher print. A fugue doesn't typically have a great melody. The rhythm can be monotonous and predictable. You know where it begins and where it will end up, and the subjects will enter on cue and not deviate from their lines. Escher's prints, similarly, are composed of mediocre representations of their subjects. Shading is not sublime, some of the features may be grotesque. What is it, then, that makes that fugue or that print great? Ahhh... that's the subject of this book, and in beautifully crafted recursion, its own principles apply equally to itself.

You will come away with an understanding of the underlying principles of intelligence, beauty, craft, logic, and universal principles of creation. A deeper appreciation for those things does not necessarily mean a simpler or easier means of describing same. In fact, it may be the opposite, sort of "the more you know, the more you know you don't know." This confrontation with, and participation in, the infinite seems to be the root of our longing--a sense that Bach, Escher, and G?del weaved intuitively into their own work without feeling compelled to explain.

So, rather than expect to come away from this book with the answers to the big quiz of life, I would say what one is more likely to find is a deepening of "mu," a rendering of knowledge into its proper place where "answers" in the Western sense dissolve into the questions in a deepening spiral of association and metaphor to the point at which one sees so many possibilities that the original question loses its significance. So is it nirvana? Not this book. But one may get caught up in the craft of the author and his inspirations to the point that one might feel lifted up and deposited at the trailhead of a new path, and the best that one can expect in this life is a new, sublime path. I think Hofstadter would agree that nirvana, should it exist, is the path, not the destination, and this book may well prove the author to be a willing bodhisattva.

Shooshi

</review>
<review>

This book is a great way to expose yourself to new ideas, but, in the words of a previous reviewer, it was written by a passionate dilettante.

Its treatment of Godel's proof is occasionally great, but it is sometimes excessively obfuscatory, and sometimes even just plain wrong.

I think this book is extremely clever, and I encourage almost anyone to read it, but take everything it says with a grain of salt.  It's a great way to start yourself thinking about some fascinating things, but don't take the book too seriously.

IF YOU WANT A REAL UNDERSTANDING OF GODEL'S PROOF: read "Godel's Proof" by Nagel and Newman, and then read a good translation of Godel's paper itself.

GEB is clever and inspired, but it should not be taken too seriously

</review>
<review>

Plainly put, this book was a ride. Standing back from a distance and looking at what the author has done really can put you in awe - the sheer scope of this work is breathtaking. He digs into many different scientific, mathematical, and artistic disciplines, and somehow manages to work them all together into a sometimes confusing, but ultimately satisfying whole.

The short dialogues that fit in between each chapter are clever and always thought-provoking, but the bulk of this book's worth comes in the chapters. From the beginning to the end, I constantly found myself having to stop and rethink my perspective on many subjects. As the end of the book nears, he wraps it up by theorizing profoundly on the then-blooming subject of artificial intelligence. While parts of this are dated by this point, much of it isn't, and that is a testament to Hofstadter's powerful intellect and foresight.

As you may have guessed from my review's title, this is not a summer beach read. Admittedly I am not the world's fastest reader, but this one took me a few months to complete (I would often put it down for a stretch and pick it up again some time later). So take your time with this one - enjoy it, reread passages you didn't understand the first time, and maybe pick up a different, easier book when you feel bogged down. But for anyone with any interest in mathematics, computer science, or the philosophy of the human mind, this is a must-have and well worth all the time you can give it

</review>
<review>

I spent a good part of the day yesterday beggining a reading of GEB and was fascinated at the way Hofstadter looked at language and Bach's canons and fugues.  And there is much to come, I can tell.  Although I consider myself an intellectual, I am not qualified enough in mathematics to really understand what is being said on the subject, but hope that Hofstedter is going to open that up for me, too

</review>
<review>

It's the gifted individual who can make math fun: it takes a complete master to do the same with Godel's Theorem.

Godel, Escher, Bach was first recommended to me by my piano accompanist three years ago.  I flipped through it--it looked too bizarre and eclectic to bother with.  Three years later, when I finally did start reading it, I couldn't put it down.

Hofstadter is entertaining, fascinating, earnest, and--above all--unbelievably clever.  The puns littered throughout, the triple-decker meanings, the symphonic weaving of the work is enchanting from start to finish.  I can't imagine anyone not gaining something from this book, not seeing the world differently after it was finished.  Logic seems different to me, music different, truth and math and reality different.

And there are moments of just the purest wonder within, moments when I felt almost hyponotized, ready to find out that I was a character within somebody else's book, maybe a Djinn or a God Over one.

I admit that even in this easily digestible presentation, I couldn't fully understand the Godelian proof--though I grokked the gist of it.  It's no matter though--there's so much within here that I won't spell it out or explicate it, only point out that it is what is claims to be: a synthesis of the three titular men, a work of gold

</review>
<review>

This book is a masterpiece for me. It accompanied me throughout a long journey that I took in Europe in the past. It is written in a poetic way that makes you think, reflect and enter into the fantastic world of the invisible cities of Kublai Khan's empire, created by Calvino. Marco Polo works for the Khan. He has to visit many towns of the Mongolian empire so that later he can share his impressions with the great Khan. This is mainly because the empire is so big that Kublai Khan would never be able to visit all towns of his empire.

Each chapter has the name of a town, which is described by Marco Polo. In addition, there are many dialogs between Kublai Khan and Marco Polo that are, in my point of view, the most exciting part of the book. The dialogs are so intelligent and stimulating that I read some of them many times. They can trigger our natural curiosity about the way we see things around us, the future, the past, the present, etc. It is a book to be read in a slow pace so we can reflect upon each part. It helped me to slow down my frequently rushed rhythm of life. How conscious are we while we write the pages of our lives?

</review>
<review>

Consisting entirely of descriptions of fantastical cities supposedly reported by Marco Polo to Kublai Khan, Calvino's fiction is sui generis, a completely original mixture of fable and philosophy that is even more imaginative than his more critical theory-oriented "If On A Winter's Night A Traveler." This is the kind of novel Borges might have written. A celebration of the unbridled imagination, "Invisible Cities" is also, I am convinced, a secret love letter to a single city: the imaginary dream-city of Venice, a place that exists partly as its own reflection in the sea

</review>
<review>

Generally I like my books fast and plot-driven, with minimal description and at least quasi-linear plots lines. While Invisible Cities is none of those things, I would rate it among my favorite books. The prose is incredible, rich, almost erotic. At times I felt my heart beating faster as I read it. This is a book to linger inside of, to re-read often, to keep by your bedside to read snatches of before you go to sleep.

</review>
<review>

This book has become my favorite, equal to a few others, but unsurpassed in its brilliance to me through its poignant insights, fantastic imagery, Calvino's exploration of his willingness to write in abstract terms, and, for lack of a better way of describing it, the sunlight that beams from nearly every page of this book.

As others have written, to describe, or to try to describe the contents of this book quickly becomes irrelevant, for Calvino has opened doors through which, city by city, the reader not only visits but constructs cities of his own.

This book, while short, is, nonetheless, the only one I have read twice in a row.

Could be it's just my type of thing... I don't know. If you're a fan of science fiction, fantasy, or simply looking for a beautifully mysterious distraction, put it in your cart, check out, and wait by your door

</review>
<review>

I read this decades ago, when I was barely more than a child.
It is a brief volume. I recall that I burned through the first 50 pages before I even realized what was going on. Then I had to start over from the beginning so that I could really begin to appreciate it.
This is a novel that fulfills all the usual requirements of a novel. But just not in any of the usual ways of a novel. There is poetry in it. And ideas. Ideas that shed light on ideas. And ideas that shed light on ideas, and maybe on people, but definitely on ideas.
If you want something different, but not painful, then this might be it. But it wants to make you think, as Calvino usually does, so it might seem a little bit boring or tedious until you make the effort to try to understand.
There's trying, and there's succeeding. All you have to do with this one is to try. Whether or not you succeed doesn't matter. If you just try, you'll have fun.
Or at least that's what I recall from decades ago when I still expected greatness in this world.
YMMV,
 and B^

</review>
<review>

Immediately I can detect the luminous presence of magic in this slim volume. Although thin in pages, it is deep in meaning. Without much in the way of characters or plot, it sustains and enlightens.  Laconic descriptions of fantastic cities woven together in a tapestry of voluminous nuance. Topics of memory, perception, vision, time, loss, longing, desire, death, signs, symbols and ultimately meaning are all carefully chosen and arrayed. Upon finishing this book, one has the feeling of have eaten a delicious meal too quickly. That upon reflection, it should have been savoured slowly

</review>
<review>

The writing is pure seduction, whimsical, enchanting, all those words which mean totally freaking dreamy.  The problem is, for me at least, that it's the sort of book that I can't read straight through.  It might take me a few weeks or a year.  Probably because there isn't a plot to speak of.  Anyway, expect poetry, get poetry.  And don't let go of your copy because it'll never come back.  Mine didn't

</review>
<review>

I was recommended this book from my friend shortly after finishing graduate school when in need of a good detox-read.  To me the book was far from the brainless entertainment I was hoping for.  In fact, Invisible Cities was full of thought provoking and poetic images of imaginary cities expressed through dialogues between Marco Polo and Kublia Khan.  At first I was struck by the unusual premise for the story and then later struck by the highly symbolic descriptions of the cities.  Through Calvino's use of symbolism I began to have a different appreciation for the forms and structures of cities and civilizations.  This could have been the first time I really thought about cities as a living architecture and the container for our memories and dreams.

With all of the above said, one problem I had when reading Invisible Cities was my mind seemed to easily drift off the page.  The book reads more like poetry then a novella and I felt that halfway through the book the form of the chapters became almost too redundant.  I think that if I were to re-read the book and spend some time with it I could have gained greater insight into Italo Calinvo's perspective and creative mind.  Although I am not rushing to re-read it anytime soon, I would possibly read it again in the future

</review>
<review>

Readers and fans of Calvino's Invisible Cities may be interested to know that an entire hotel has been hand-crafted on the theme of the book. It is located on the Balearic Island of Menorca, in Spain. Each room is based on a different 'invisible city'. I've seen it, it's amazing, no, it's overwhelming, astonishing. Pictures are at: www.tressants.com

</review>
<review>

My brother picked this book up in an airport on the way to Mexico with my family. He was literally laughing out loud for days and relayed sotries to me and my dad. I decided when he finished it, I'd give it a go, though I was unsure about some of the author's views on women. But let me say in short that I, as a 22 year old female, LOVED THE HECK outta this book.

I picked up it one night and didn't put it down until I finished it in the wee hours of the morning. I had never read a book all the way through in one sitting before and doubt I ever will again (unless I pick this one up again). I laughed so hard at times I almost peed my pants. I was jealous of all the adventures Tucker Max had (on top of his moderate success) and kind of ticked that there was no way a woman could have such adventures, let alone write an incredible book about it.

As many others pointed out, it's not a book that offers a grand awakening at the end, giving you the warm and fuzzies. But it will make you laugh, and your friends WILL thank you for passing it on

</review>
<review>

For starters this book is a good read, I rarely read and I knocked it out in a day and a half. Once you start reading it you won't be able to put it down. You will talk about it with your friends and they will be clueless about what you are saying but you will not be able to stop. So eventually they will want to read it and think you are the coolest guy ever for passing this book onto them. If you like to party, drink, sleep with girls, treat others with complete disrespect, and basically live life to its fullest you will kill for this book. Have a good day and next time I see you, you better be Tucker Max drunk (yeah read it and find out what that is punk!

</review>
<review>

Tucker Max is going to hell....and I gladly followed.  Reading his book brought non-stop laughs...and the occasional brimstone scorch.  I have been lucky enought to have a friend like this...and realize...life is better than it could have ever been because of it

</review>
<review>

If you just want to be entertained and dont mind if not a single deep thought will pass through your read while you read then this book is perfect.  I thoroughly enjoyed...everyone wishes they had a Tucker Max in their life, cuz we've gotta live vicariously through someone...now we do and we can.

</review>
<review>

Yes... I'm an actual girl who purchased this book, read it, and laughed until I cried.  If you aren't easily offended and enjoy a good drunken story, please -- buy the book

</review>
<review>

Those of us who have been to college usually know at least one crazy guy who was always the life of the party and constantly entertained the campus with his antics. Tucker Max is not one of these people.

Tucker is nothing more than a standard belligerent, mean drunk. The type of guy who always ends up trying to start fights with people for no reason and then runs away if it actually comes to blows. The type of guy who is constantly bragging about how much [...] he gets, when no one has ever seen him so much as kiss a girl. I kept expecting Tucker to blurt out "My dad totally owns a Dealership!"

Nothing truly insane happens in this book, it's mainly just Tucker and his buddies getting drunk and being jerks towards everyone they encounter.  Generally, the typical behavior you might expect from someone who refers to himself in the third person.

In most of these stories, Tucker makes himself out to be some sort of supermack that can screw any girl in a matter of seconds. This just seems a bit off for a guy whose original claim to fame involved trying to land a girlfriend online.

I almost forgot to mention.  Tucker Max has been outed as a fraud by Opie and Anthony and by the Miami Herald.  None of these stories are true.  He is just another James Frey.

</review>
<review>

As a great fan of stand up and great comedy, I felt it was needed of me to buy this book. It was never any regrets about it. This book had me lying on the floor laughing several times, and is most lightly the best written piece of humor I have ever read. I think this is a great book which everyone with a sence of humor should experience

</review>
<review>

great stories, crazy and simple, great lessons. first book to have me laughing.

</review>
<review>

This is a seriously funny book, as long as you are the sorta person who laughs when a mate farts.

I laughed so hard that at one stage I had to stop reading the book because I had tears in my eyes

</review>
<review>

"Journey to the Land of No" is a first-person memoir of a Jewish girl growing up in Iran during the Revolution.  The book describes what her life and the life of her family was like before and after this cataclysmic event.

Having developed an unaccountable interest in the Iranian Revolution during the past year, I have read perhaps a dozen books about this subject.

Hakakian's book, while not bad, would have to be toward the bottom of the list of books you should read about this subject.  It just didn't grab me.

And certainly there has been no shortage of books written by women who lived in Iran during the Revolution and have since escaped.  But if you're only going to read one or two, there is much better fare out there.  "Reading Lolita in Tehran" is searing and unforgettable, and the graphic novel "Persepolis" is simply excoriating.  This latter would be at the top of said list.

Yeah, the competition is pretty stiff these days.  The bar for writing an "I'm an Iranian exile and here's why"-type book has been set incredibly high by so much good stuff out there now, and Hakakian's effort doesn't quite measure up.

Anyhow.  Compared to harrowing books like those, Hakakian's story is -- dare I say it? -- ho-hum.  Occasionally it is tenderly written, but I left the book feeling that she had little to say, and because, at least compared to other authors writing about the same subject, little remarkable happened to her.

What is most regrettable about the book, I suppose, is that Hakakian's Jewishness is almost incidental to her tale.  This is sad.  She certainly mentions that she was Jewish, and this does form the cornerstone for a few events in the story, but basically what happens to her and her family could have happened to pretty much any Iranian during that time.

And this is regrettable because the Jewish angle was the one really original thing this book had going for it.  And the author, I must aver, failed to really explore it or make it come alive.

In fact, so forgettable is the whole outing that, a few weeks after having read this book, I am unable to recall a single incident from it

</review>
<review>

Amazing story, beautifully written.  It has all the elements of an exciting novel, and it is true, which makes it even more awesome

</review>
<review>

A Persian friend gave me this book. I couldn't put it down, so poetic and real. As we live in times of war and devastation, this book reminds us of the power of ideologies and politics.

It is about the turmoil of war and the price that innocent people pay so others can prosper and prove a point!!

You feel the love of a country and the sadness losing that land, the uprooting of your beliefs in the voice of Roya. Her description is so vivid and sentimental. I am not sure if her suffering pertains to one sect or race, I think she meant to portray the universal downfall of humanity and the blindness of extreme

</review>
<review>

Reading Roya's accounting of her ordeal gives one a profound feeling of the reality of the time.  It is amazing that Roya's experience had such an effect on her that the details still remain intact for her reproduce such an amazing book

</review>
<review>

Laugh, cry, remember and connect to home! Roya makes you do all that, especially if you grew up in Iran @ the beginning of the revolution. enjoy and pass it along to all the women in your family

</review>
<review>

Roya Hakakian comes from a secular Jewish family who identifies with Iran. The family is integrated into Iranian life and Roya looks forward to the wonderful changes that will come with the Revolution. This is the story about the changes that came to the ordinary people of Iran. The dying of hope, the hopelessness of change. The story covers the lives of the Hakakian family, singled out for being Jewish, and the lives of the Moslem and Jewish families they know and who are their friends. This is not a happy story. It brings down to the indiviual level the failure of the Islamic Revolution in Iran.

</review>
<review>

The somber cover, the title, and the reference to prison abuses at the opening of this book are a little misleading. This memoir is not especially dark or grim, and the journey it recounts is an internal one, more from the land of "yes" than "no." It captures that particular youthful optimism that buoys up children and adolescents in the worst of times. And the Islamic revolution in Iran becomes the worst of times for the community of 100,000 Jews living in Tehran in the late 1970s, as the monarchy is toppled and the Ayatollah Khomeini returns from exile to assume power.

Hakakian's book is a vividly and wonderfully remembered account of her coming of age in these tumultuous years. The equally gifted younger sister of three precocious brothers, an admitted "class clown," she happily plays her own growing self-confidence and self-awareness against the reader's knowledge of coming events. Through her, we experience the almost universal public euphoria that followed the fall of the Shah, and while she chooses to discount its significance, we see mounting evidence of the approaching political and social forces that will finally drive her family to join the Jewish exodus from Iran.

This is a fine, well-written book, often entertaining and sometimes starkly moving. The parallels Hakakian draws to Orwell's "1984" illustrate the gradual erosion of self that occurs when the state attempts to control individuals' thoughts and desires. In this and other ways, it's an excellent companion to Nafisi's "Reading Lolita in Tehran.

</review>
<review>

I used this memoir as one of three core texts for an intensive summer course and my students loved it. It is beautifully written, poetic and very honest. I lived in Iran from 1983 to 1993 and I believe this is the most accurate memoir of life in Iran that I have read

</review>
<review>

This beautifully written book explores the Iranian Revolution from the perspective of a young Jewish girl.  Hakakian is a delicious writer and her description of pre and post-revolutionary Iran is vivid and stimulating. As a frequent reader of this genre, I found this book to be far and away the best in its category and highly recommend it to anyone interested in Iran and the country's current imbroglio, women's studies or Judaism.


</review>
<review>

This is a beautifully written book that makes you feel like you are in Iran at the time of the revolution. Ms. Hakakian's prose brings to life the sounds, smells and feel of life in revolutionary Iran, through the eyes of a young girl.
Not only is it an enjoyable book to read, but educational as well, especially for Americans whose view of these times was tinted by the media, offering us a singular view of Iran. Ms. Hakakian offers a beautiful mosaic of her life in Iran and the emotions of becoming a stranger in  your own land. Read it and enjoy

</review>
<review>

A nice, simple good night book with no bells and whistles to get the kids active again at bedtime.  Recommend Highly

</review>
<review>

This was a favorite of my daughter's, and she's 42 now!  While she loved all the Margaret Wise Brown books, as they came out, this always remained the favorite. It must be in the genes, because the two oldest grandchildren, now out of college, loved it the best, too.  And now, the third grandchild, a 5-year-old, is reading it to herself at night! Oddly, while one can find "Good Night Moon" in any book store, "A Child's Goodnight Book" is never there.  Until Amazon, I always had to order it from the publisher.  We include it in the new-baby presents we give to all the youngsters we know, and always get rave reviews from the new parents. I think I've ordered at least two dozen copies from Amazon, since you all came along.  Thanks

</review>
<review>

Three generations of our family have used this book at bedtime and our current copy is taped together!  A soothing, rhythmic book that talks about pussycats, kangeroos, wild things in the forest, sailboats and engines all  getting quiet and sleepy.  My grandson saves it as the last book to read  and he falls asleep by the time we finish the little prayer at the end.  A  very special book indeed

</review>
<review>

I used this book 10 years ago when I first began my career, and I still refer to it today.  It demonstrates the ability to direct kids in the correct manner while they develop their self-esteem, and their independence.  It gives you ways to deal with negative situtations that allows the child to walk away feeling like they can be a better person and they will be!
Kari Koffma

</review>
<review>

The book povides suggestions and solutions for today's classrooms.  It is also a good book to use as a quick reference for those disciplinary topics you may need.  Very good

</review>
<review>

I recently re-read AS YOU LIKE IT prior to attending The Colorado Shakespeare Festival's performance of this play under the summer stars here in Boulder. Shakespeare (1552-1616) produced this romantic comedy in 1599 and published it in the First Folio in 1623.

Summarizing the play is rather challenging.  It basically tells the story of Duke Frederick, who has banished his brother, Duke Senior, into the Forest of Arden, thereby usurping the kingdom.  In his exile, Duke Senior has found a humble life of merriment with his court.  Following a wrestling match, Duke Frederick also banishes Orlando (son of the late Sir Roland de Boys) and Rosalind (daughter of Duke Senior) into the forest.  At the match, the two have fallen into love at first sight.  Out of friendhip, Duke Frederick's only child, Celia, and the court jester, Touchstone, follow Rosalind (now disguised as a boy, "Ganymede") into the forest.  Soon, Orlando, Rosalind, Celia, and Touchstone are all welcomed into the merry life of banished Duke Senior.  Orlando, however, is lovesick for Rosalind, and Rosalind (still disguised as a boy) decides to cure Orlando of his lovesickness.  While counseling him in the ways of true love, Rosalind (disguised as Ganymede) finds herself falling deeper in love with Orlando.  Meanwhile, Celia has fallen in love with Orlando's brother, Oliver.  The two decide to get married the next day.  Even witty Touchstone has fallen in love with a dull-witted goatherd girl, Audrey.  In the final scene, and after many hilarious mixups, all romantic entanglements are resolved by marriage; and after a sudden religious conversion, Duke Frederick returns the throne to his brother--thereby righting all wrongs and uniting all couples by love and happiness.

G. Merritt


</review>
<review>

As far as Shakesepare's comedies go, "The Comedy of Errors" will always be my favorite. And while this "As You Like It" never quite obtained the popularity of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" or "The Taming of the Shrew," one probably could argue that "As You Like It" is the best of Shakespeare's comedies. This play contains several plots that Shakespeare cleverly intertwines and it offers a happy ending with love triumphant. But more important than the triumph of love, the theme of reconciliation carries through to virtually everyone in the story. The story begins with the sibling rivalry of Orlando and his older brother Oliver who has hoarded the family inheritence. After a brief fight, Oliver hopes that Orlando may accidentally die in a wrestling match against Charles. This is where a 2nd plot comes in. The Duke Frederick (who has a daughter Celia) has banished his older brother (the true Duke who has a daughter Rosalind). But for now, Rosalind is allowed to stay and she has made good friends with Celia. Orlando meets these 2 girls and falls into favor with Rosalind. After the wrestling match, things start to go bad. Orlando learns that his brother Oliver is planning to kill him, and Rosalind is banished. But all is not lost. Orlando takes his loyal servant Adam and flees while Rosalind (in the male disguise of Ganymede), along with Celia, and the comical Touchstone will flee to look for Rosalind's father. And here is where the play becomes mostly comical. (Good comedies can often have a sad start. "The Comedy of Errors" shows this well.) Moving on, we meet Rosalind's father and his crew who have made exile into a paradise. From Duke Sr's party, we meet the melancholy Jaques. But he is arguably the most interesting character in the story. (In fact, the most famous passage from this play belongs to Jaques. The 7 stages of man which end in nothing. Perhaps Macbeth took lessons from Jaques: 'Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.') Duke Sr welcomes Orlando and Adam, and it isn't long before Orlando and Rosalind run into each other. Shakespeare maintains the comedy when Rosalinde keeps her male disguise on and tells Orlando he must practice wooing on him/her. Touchstone has some comical romantic moments with Audrey. And there is an interesting triangle where the shepherd Silvius loves Phebe, but Phebe loves Rosalinde (seeing only  Ganymede)! We may recall this from "the 12th Night" when Olivia loved Viola in her male disguise. But after this comical moment, all begins to resolve. Oliver comes on the scene and he and Celia fall in love. (So much so that Oliver is willing to reconcile with Orlando and grant him all.) The play ends with not only the reunion of Rosalind and her father, but the joyous weddings of Rosalind / Orlando, Celia /Oliver, Audrey /Touchstone, and Phebe / Silvius, but more good news comes. Celia's father mends his ways and returns all to Rosalind's father. Jaques offers the crowning touch. Despite his cynical nature, he is NOT a villain. Ironically, this hermit type man converses with more characters than anyone in the story, and while he can not take part in the play's final happiness, he DOES wish everyone well. As I said, my favorite comedy will always be "The Comedy of Errors." But don't make the mistake of overlooking this comedy

</review>
<review>

As with all of Shakespeare, the concept of love at first sight is given far too much credit, but other than that, this is a delightful romp filled with much amusement. The language is as beautiful as one expects in Shakespeare, but is somewhat less difficult for the modern reader to follow than in some of his plays; I found myself being more distracted than helped by most of the footnotes. As with most Shakespearean comedies, it was easy to see that this play was intended for the amusement of the common people; the similarities in style between the plot here and in much modern pop culture were striking (the sexual innuendo to be had when a woman passes for a man and finds another woman falling in love with her, for instance). If it had a flaw, it was that the ending was just a little TOO pat and contrived, even for a comedy, but that's just a minor quibble

</review>
<review>

Whew...this story has an even faster plot turn about than Austen's Pride and Prejudice. If one is not careful, you--like me, may suffer "plausibility whiplash." That said, As You Like It is a delightful example of Shakespearean comedy. Jaques is one of my favorites from Shakespeare's stable of characters. Things get renewed, folks get married, fortunes are restored. Good Stuff. I must also mention how much I like these Signet Classic Shakespeare texts. They are darn fine (good intros, critical pieces, and source info) and dirt cheap

</review>
<review>

This book was one of my best loved Shakespeare's plays. It really gave me comfort and laugh whenever I read it. I hope in real lifre I can find a forest like the one in the play so I can hide my self there and live  and quot;as I like it and quot;. Rosaind is the best female character in the literature for her sense of humour and intelligence, and passion. Orlando reminds all those who ever loved of their first love, the bittersweet and compelling passion that one is not capable of getting rid of. If you had spare time, you really should read this play, I guarantee the language in this play is not that hard and you will find yourself so into this fantastic tale once you started reading it

</review>
<review>

 and quot;As You Like It and quot; is bar none, one of Shakespeare's VERY best works.  It is probably the most poetic of the comedies and contains perhaps as many famous quotations as any other of his plays.  Rosalind is perhaps his greatest female character and this work, along with the equally (or even more) brilliant  and quot;Midsummer Night's Dream, and quot; is the best example of Shakespeare's theme of the  and quot;dream world and quot; vs. the  and quot;real and quot; world.  This play, especially the scenes in the forest, is a celebration of language and the power of the freedom of the imagination.  It consequently can be read as a criticism of the  and quot;real world, and quot; here represented by Duke Ferdinand's court.  Like many of the other comedies, Shakespeare is mocking the  and quot;ideal and quot; which many in his society would have praised.  Though this play deals with some pretty dark themes (which of his plays doesn't?) it is a light-hearted and fully enjoyable read

</review>
<review>

Adrei Makine's book, Dreams of My Russian Summer's, is a very special book.  Even though the author wrote the book in French, and I read it in translation (English), the writing is fantastic.  It takes a little getting used to it, it's very "flowery", just to give you fair warning, but once you get used to it, you'll appreciate it.  And despite all the attention given to the language, quite a bit actually happens, the dialogue doesn't stand still.  It's a moving and interesting story.

The story is told in retrospect in the first person.  It's a memory.  We are told that he has a grandmother who has both French and Russian backgrounds, born and raised in France and married a Russian and lived out the rest of her life there, making her way through world wars and quirky Russian society.  What we're not told immediately is why the narrator is fixated on his grandmother's dual nationality, which is what the novel is about.

Take time to enjoy the language and to fully appreciate the details of the story.  I immediately reread the first 20 pages upon finishing, just to make sure I didn't miss anything important. This 1995 book will definitely be read and reread for a long time.

</review>
<review>

A work of art, Makine's use of language is stunning.  Not a quick read, I frequently had to stop and ponder many profound passages.  Literature as an art form is not dead

</review>
<review>

I read that book in French (Le Testament Franais) so it may be possible that the English translation isn't as good as the French one.  I found that book so wonderful and the progression of the boy from childhood to adulthood is so well described.  The images that Makine creates are beautiful and you can clearly see them.  It's an excellent book for the ones who like to think and to dream

</review>
<review>

I read that book in French (Le Testament Franais) so it may be possible that the English translation isn't as good as the French one.  I found that book so wonderful and the progression of the boy from childhood to adulthood is so well described.  The images that Makine creates are beautiful and you can clearly see them.  It's an excellent book for the ones who like to think and to dream

</review>
<review>

Time alters all things.  The resultant changes can be decay, or tedium/passe, or at the opposite end of the spectrum the changes can be enhancing as a patina on fine wood.  Andrei Makine's DREAMS OF MY RUSSIAN SUMMERS has happily acquired a literary patina that makes this brief but crystalline memoir of childhood even more of a joy to read after a few years on the shelf.  Makine has the rare ability to weave wholly credible stories with unforgetable characters while at the same time measuring his prose like poetry.  We are to suppose this is an autobiography, but it is far more than the journey of a nascent writer becoming a man.  This is the essence of the Russian mind embellished by the great fortune of having early exposure to the beauty of France by means of recalling summers with Charlotte, a French born grandmother who nourishes the imagination and history of the writer to the point of delirium.  All that has happened to and in Russia from the time of the Tsars to the present is presented in such a way that the grisly realities are always balanced by the homage to love of fatherland.  Makine is a stunning writer and is still adding to our contemporary literature in ways that secure him a place among the geniuses of the word.  Read and indulge your mind and your senses

</review>
<review>

I've loved this book since a Business English class where it was a requirement.  It makes it SO easy to find your topic.  I no longer work in an office, but whenever I have personal correspondence that needs to be "perfect", I find myself still reaching for this little gem

</review>
<review>

If you are looking for a great informative handbook to keep available at your desk in the office, I recommend How 9 Handbook.  This is by far an excellent handbook to have.  How 9 handbook gives you information on grammar usage, memos, reports, and business documents. The numbers listed on the front of the book, helps in finding the material you need easily.  Clark  and amp; Clark hit a home run with this book.  Also, if you need a little refresher course to enhance your skills, I recommend the How 9 Workbook.  Try them both for yourself!!   Every office worker should have one

</review>
<review>

This book was required reading for a college course; however, had I found the book on my own I would have felt I struck gold! How 9 is the tool to keep right on your desk...allowing you to either learn or refresh skills from grammer and punctuation to proper format of an email correspondence or business letter

</review>
<review>

Tons of statistical data supporting the concept of low cost index funds.  I am invested in the Vanguard S and P 500 Index as well as other index funds, but this is a bit too much.  If you understand the concept of indexing, save some cash and skip this book

</review>
<review>

This book has the fundamental of indexing and why we should consider it as part of building our financial portfolio. Bogle is at his best preaching the value of indexing and how it relates to lower cost investing. This eventually translates to higher return for the investors and less profit to the brokerage firms that make money on trading.
The book is a valuable resource for beginners who have not build their investment portfolio using actively managed funds. I found it helpful in thinking about how to think about reducing the number of funds in my portfolio.
One point that I thought Bogle went too far when he displayed little enthusiasm about investing in international funds. I believe that this is a must, giving the fact that our politicians are not taking care of our macro economy by taking big gambles around the world.
The motto of staying the course no matter what happens is very true. I saw that real time during the economic downturn after the year 2000. Staying the course paid off really well now that we are out of that trough!

</review>
<review>

Mr. Bogle, the founder of The Vanguard Group, does an excellent job explaining the value of indexing and shows historical and relative information that bases his knowledge on facts. A great book for any investor, both new and experienced, that will help make your investment strategy more intelligent and educated - especially if you believe that it's almost impossible to beat the market on your own. The book can be difficult to read at times, so make sure your energy level is high before you indulge

</review>
<review>

Bogle, Bob Brinker, and Jane Bryant Quinn sold me on the idea of index funds. There are some who believe you need to stick to actively managed funds to, as one money manager told me, "be there to steer the plane away from the mountain at the last minute." Hogwash, especially when you consider a lot of blend funds have 95 percent the same allocations as comparable index funds, only you pay the higher expense ratios.

I've done very well with index funds covering the S and P 500, as well as the European and Pacific markets. I'm just now breaking into the index fund's conceptual spawn, the ETF.

One complaint: the book is indeed repetitive. The major selling points (e.g., expense ratios, tax efficiency, market allocations, etc.) could have been stated as well with half the text. It's also a somewhat tedious read, but still worthwhile. (I'm a CFP in training.

</review>
<review>

Although a good resource book about the benefits of mutual fund investing,I found the title to be a bit misleading. Being the self proclaimed creator of index funds, Bogle cites many years of comparative returns from mutual funds while making the case that,over the long run, investing in index funds will produce the highest returns. I think a more apt title might be  "Why Index Funds Beat All"

</review>
<review>

We believe that this classic work by one of the twentieth century's great investment authorities belongs on every investor's bookshelf. Published in 1999, at the height of a notorious stock market bubble, it was a rare, sage, clear-eyed appraisal of investment reality. It remains relevant. Author John C. Bogle argues so strenuously for a low-cost, passive investment approach based on index funds that you could almost accuse him of marketing hype. After all, he did start Vanguard, an investment company best known for its low-cost index funds. However, the evidence he presents to back up everything he says exonerates him fully. Today's investors are not quite as eager as investors were in the 1990s to believe in the impossible dream of infinite wealth from the stock market. Still, many people waste their time and money trying to beat a market that the best financial research unequivocally shows is, for most people and over the long run, unbeatable. Bogle explains why, while recommending much-needed reform of the mutual fund industry.

</review>
<review>

Everybody knows that asset allocation is the only significant factor in portfolio performance. Right?

Well, no. Bogle starts with the Jahnke research article "The Hoax Of Asset Allocation" and piles on mountains of his own research to demonstrate beyond doubt that cost is what really matters in every asset class imaginable.

That being the case, indexing is the only rational investment strategy because index funds (and, these days, index ETFs) have by far the lowest costs.

This edition was written before the dot-com crash; the revised edition will make for fascinating reading: which views have changed, which have been reinforced?

It's a little hard to know who Bogle's intended audience is.

The analysis is too deep for casual reader/investors (I might even say that you need to share his enthusiastic obsession to get through it all).

Plus, he is so intent on proving how important cost is that he gives such matters as diversification virtually no attention except to say that it's a good thing. Unless you agree with the implication that you should simply buy Vanguard's Balanced Index Fund (VBINX) and be done with it, you will need to look elsewhere for advice on matters other than cost.

Bogle devotes the last third of the book to a discussion of how the fund industry should restructure itself to better serve the investor. Since it obviously won't ever happen that sheep will not get shorn, it's rather sad and quixotic.

In fact, considering the sad state of affairs at TIAA/CREF, once a bastion of customer service now gone to hell for the sake of corporate profits, it's worrisome to consider whether Vanguard will go down that same road once the old man is safely out of the picture.

The end of the book is a brief autobiography of his creation, Vanguard, and the index fund that rocked the world.

I think Bogle is the best. An inspiring example for the ages who single-handedly created the opportunity for individual investors to succeed. I come to his book with that bias and I slogged through it all because of my admiration. Not everyone will be sufficiently motivated to put in the effort, however, even though they would be rewarded for it if they did

</review>
<review>

An eye opener for all mutual fund investors. Mr. Bogle's logical arguments are backed by historical data and thorough analysis. A must read

</review>
<review>

I saw the review by Warren Buffett (and some other investing stars) on the cover and that was good enough for me to check it out. I wasn't disappointed.

The concepts are simple but they take some mental work and patience to digest. But you will be rewarded. If you don't have the time or inclination to invest the hundreds of hours required to successfully invest long term in individual stocks then funds are an alternative (IF you know what you're doing).

First, invest in increasing your value in a field for which you have a passion. When enough excess cash starts flowing (above what you need for a comfortable--not extravagant--lifestyle) invest time in understanding Bogle's concepts for relatively safely compounding money over time.

</review>
<review>

It could also be titled:

"How Professors of Finance Invest...and how Warren Buffet thinks everyone should invest"

That is unless, you actually are as good as Warren Buffet...then a different strategy may be more appropriate for you

</review>
<review>

Quick read that's interesting and informative about the damage disfunctional families can do to their children, and how that impacts the adult lives of those children.

Iles has quickly become a favorite author of mine, with Turning Angel being the first book I read, and this being the second.  I look forward to reading his other works

</review>
<review>

Would you stand in line at an Applebee's for three hours in order to eat a hamburger when you could get a hamburger just as good---maybe better---at a dozen other nearby places where the wait was only fifteen minutes?  Of course not!  Why, then, would you spend countless hours plowing through this 760 page monstrosity when you could spend the same amount of time reading two James Patterson books, or a Patterson and a Connelly, or two Thomas Harris books...my apologies, Greg Iles, but for a simple, formulaic serial killer book, Blood Memory was just WAY too long.  The book has two co-plots; one involves a serial killer who murders older men, the second involves the mysterious childhood abuse suffered by the female lead.  The serial killer plot is actually the more interesting, but at least two-thirds of the novel dwells on the abuse instead and unfortunately the "secret" is painfully obvious to any seasoned reader from the first few pages of the book.  All in all this would have been a halfway decent novel if Iles---or his editor---had chopped out about 300 pages of unneccesary text.  Iles just LOVES to have two characters sit and talk for 3o, 40 or even 50 pages, but since most of his dialogue is what I call "soap opera" speak, meaning you know what the characters will say before the words are even out of their mouths, these chapters dragged on and on and on.  Iles also wastes pages by writing lengthy descriptions of people eating ice cream, taking showers, and doing other mundane things that should have been glossed over or chopped out entirely.  Come on, Greg; why describe a character savoring the taste of vanilla ice cream as if it's some strange, exotic treat that no one's ever heard of before?  Just as some people love to hear themselves talk, I think Iles loves to see himself write...and although some of his books have been quite good, Blood Memory misses the mark by a long shot

</review>
<review>

If you're interested in forensics, chances are you'll like this book.  The book also manages to tie in sexual abuse, repressed memories, Miss., Vietnam, PTSD, and a little romance.  It even broaches the topic of multiple personality disorder but does not linger there long.  I was impressed by the breadth of knowledge that made this book's plot and discussions as intricate as they are

</review>
<review>

Based on the recomendation of a reader friend who believes Iles is a better writer than Grisham, I picked up this book.  I don't know if Iles can outwrite Grisham, but he is definitely a contender.  I found Blood Memory to be a page turner with a lot of unexpected plot twists. But, it is on the grim side.  The main character pursues solving two mysteries, one a serial killer on the loose, and the other a personal mystery related to childhood sex abuse that is a doozie.  In the end the two mysteries are related, though I think the author had to stretch things a bit to make it happen.

As an aside, I remain amazed and impressed that Iles can so effectively write a  novel in the first person in which the character speaking is a female sufferring from the effects of  sexual abuse.


Not a five star, but a solid four.



</review>
<review>

Turning Angel was a page turner for me so I bought BLood Memory. WOW! It did not disappoint me

</review>
<review>

This was a very good book.  I just kept turning the pages.  This is the first I have read by this author and I was very impressed. After about the first 100 pages it really takes off.  I am glad a friend loaned it to me.  To bad it tok me over a year before I opened it.

</review>
<review>

I guess it's high praise for Mr. Iles that he managed to get me screaming at our heroine at all her dumb exploits that had the potential to harm or kill her unborn child:  free-diving, drinking, Valium, baths in scalding water.

This was a thoroughly gripping book that at 764 pages long, I was sad to see come to an end.  Greg Iles doesn't shy from the sensitive subject of pedophilia and tackles it with unflinching honesty.

There is no way to guess the NOMURS "bad guy" in this book til the very end (I don't care what the Australian said who apparently solved the mystery in the first chapter) but I'm disappointed that the author did not interweave the Natchez and New Orleans crimes better.

It does get repetitive like some said, but I still highly recommend this book if you're looking for a taut, atmospheric suspense mystery.  Very well-written and fresh

</review>
<review>

one of the boldest of the bold.  kudos to mr. iles for having the guts to take on the sexual apologists.  nambla has been put on notice.  this is work of pure satisfaction, from the death of every pedophile to the resurrection of our hero, cat.  another worthy pile of words from mr. iles, despite his ignorance regarding black people.  the dialog is downright embarrassing, but keep trying mr. iles.  if you hang out with african-americans rather than watch them on tv, perhaps you'll get 5 stars next time

</review>
<review>

This is the first book I've read by Greg Iles. However, it will not be the last! This book handled some very complicated issues along with all the tangents that come with those issues.
After reading this book I better understand my mother, who was sexually abused, and her response to my sexual abuse. She was able to sheild me from parental sexual abuse, but not from my (then) boyfriend.
I found it very helpful that Mr. Iles gave contact numbers and information at the end of the book regarding sexual abuse. This book will help you to see the tell-tale signs of abuse if you, like Cat Ferry, are willing and able to open your mind to the truth of what you witness

</review>
<review>

As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse I found this book to be very accurate in its description of the affects which it has on a person.  This book will stick with me a long time and I hope even though it is long, readers will give it the chance it deserves. I thought this work by Mr. Iles to be very insightful.

</review>
<review>

This is romance in the classical tradition --- intelligent, witty, mysterious, and haunting. I first read the book five years ago and have re-read it several times since. It is a pure pleasure to read for the beauty of the prose alone. Add to that the delights of some very interesting characters and descriptive passages that remain haunting long after the book is finished and you have a novel worthy of being called a "romance".

I have been discouraged in recent years by the romenace-genre which seems pithy and silly when compared to the great romantic traditions. Byatt includes a quote from Nathaniel Hawthorne in the beginning of her book about the nature of the romance and novel. I personally am grateful to writers of Ms. Byatt's talents who want to reclaim the romance novel to a work of such quality! Hawthorne (and Melville and Cooper) would be thrilled

</review>
<review>

Fabulous, sumptuous, and superb. This is one complex, twisted, literary-type book that is also fascinating and intensely readable. I often start reading books of this genre with a sense of trepidation, because however good they are, they're also so often dense and maze-like with the vividness of the characters and plot bogged down in the author's strivings for intellectual/pyschological depth, with the result that the reader is always kept at a distance, struggling like a drowning man to feel empathy for the characters and to actually WANT to continue reading. This book is different-it flows along with an unselfconscious and almost effortless ease, establishing the characters as empathetic human people in our minds and moving the plot along without unnecessary jargon, while at the same time layering it with a rich tapestry of words, details, and emotions, so that the past and the present pictured in the novel weave together and reflect on each other. I was stunned and carried along by the ease with which one sentence flows into the next, and riveted by the characters and the passion of the world I found myself in. Once in a long while I find a book in which I can actually feel my brain expanding at the depth and stunning simplicity of the author's vision. This is one of them-read it. It's passionate and lyrical, rich and wonderful

</review>
<review>

not the type of books I usually read (poetry and all) and it took me quite a while to "get into it" but it was worth it. the story is multi-layered and interesting and the whole book is wonderfully written. Highly recommended.


</review>
<review>

I was very pleased with the quality of this Dvd, and the relatively quick delivery.  Nice job

</review>
<review>

Before there was the DaVinci Code, there was a story of two intrepid researchers fighting against time and exposure to find the truth.  That comparision out of the way, Possession is a highly literary novel that deals with the reality of the "cults" surrounding famous literary figures and the idea of what would happen if one day some researcher stumbled on a scandalous past that was not in all of the major studies of their "patron" author.

I loved this book.  I agree with the other reviewers in that this book is hard to get into, at first.  After putting it down several years ago, I came back to it, read the first 150 pages, and then promptly took a two-week vacation from it, and then finished it in several consecutive sittings.  I say hard to get into with all seriousness, but it is the hard to get into that one finds when reading classic literature, like Jane Eyre, or Daisy Miller.  Believe me, I have advanced degrees in English and English studies, but even for me, it was hard to get used to the book.  However, the payoff is very high and the characters are very engaging.

This is a work that one can easily write many papers and do much analysis with - it is multi-faceted and involves many levels.  But, is this not what literature asks us to do anyway

</review>
<review>

This book is one-of-kind: fiercely intelligent, playfully readable, uncompromisingly intellectual, technically dazzling and more. Byatt succedes in being able to so deftly straddle that razor-sharp boundary between writing a good book and making great literature that it almost makes me feel sorry for most other writers. The language snaps, the story strides confidently along, the characters develop in such a way that they seem to bloom organically rather than to be creations of a singule/ar mind and the plot has just enough twists, turns and surprises to make it an unlikely page-turner. Extra praise should be lain for Byatt's ability to perfectly summon Victorian poetic and epistolic forms and make them unite seamlessly with the book's wider, Postmodernist tone and philosophy. Of course, no book is without its faults, and this one probably has more than I would like to admit, but generally I found this to be an amazing book that I would recommend without hesitation.

</review>
<review>

Despite coming up with possibly one of the greatest ideas of the 20th century, Byatt, in all her annoyingly feminist glory, has failed completely to construct anything which might in any way interest even the most inanely boring person on the face of the planet. Each and every character is lacking in charisma, humour and, in fact, any other attractive facet about their personality, offering the reader no interest or reason for empathy, thus leaving no hero, so necessary to such a story.
Then there's the sub-plot literature which was all, unfortunately, written by the woman herself. To interlink the text with poetry and letters is, admittedly a good idea, but the quality is dire. Could it be more pretentious to fill a book with sections that the author herself admits will not be read by most? And chapter 10...just too long. So unneccessary.
This is, without a doubt, the single worst book I have ever had the misfortune to read, and would recommend it to no-body other than those who consider suicide by boredom a good idea

</review>
<review>

I read this book when it first came out, and read it again, last month.

The passion between the lines, in this wonderfully conceived and crafted book of both prose and poetry, had me totally possessed and engrossed in the multiple and simultaneous stories.

I like the aspect of the novel-within-a-novel, and how the stories of the past intertwine within the story of the present...in a magical and surreal fashion, at times.  This is the stuff that passion is made of, and Byatt has outdone herself in this masterpiece.

Possession was a book I became wrapped up in, within the literary creativity, the historical factors, and the beautiful fairy-tale poetry and prose.  The novel took me back to a time period I could visualize, and had my senses alert and eager to continue.

Possession, passion, poetry and prose, all combined in one artful and magnificent novel

</review>
<review>

What is it about this book that transforms one into a hauntingly romantic magical place like no other.  Some pages were rather tedious that I had to skip them, but still a very unique and unforgettable read. I was thinking of giving 5 stars but felt that the writer was stilted and failed to be convincing as to the depths of feeling in the two main   relationships, hence the 4 stars

</review>
<review>

POSSESSION is quite simply one of the finest, most engrossing books I have ever read

</review>
<review>

This is a wonderful story that Everyman's Library has place in great binding

</review>
<review>

Great Expectations was a mediocre book.  I was not impressed.  I had to read this book for my 9th grade honors English class.  It was too long and boring.  I see were Dickens was trying to go with the suspense, but it just made the book monotonous and boring. The uncanny coincidences just did not seem real.  It's ok to use a coincidence as a tool of suspense, but this was just overkill.  Every chapter was boring.  I got tired pretty quickly of pip wishing he were with Estella for the whole book.  Also, the book seemed to stray away from the main point for chapters at a time. Who cares about Wemmick's stupid plays?  This could all be summed up in a couple of page short story.  In conclusion, this is another swing and a miss for Dickens.  STAY FAR AWAY FROM THIS BOOK!  If you want to read a good Dickens story, read "A Christmas Carol" and nothing else written by Charles Dickens

</review>
<review>

Reading isn't usually something I choose to do in my spare time.  My daughter was reading this for school, so I decided to read it too because of her reaction to it.  This is not your every day novel!  The more I read it, the madder I got.  I couldn't read it for an extended amount of time, because I would become too angry to continue. But then I had to pick it up again to find out what happened.  This book is a pure emotional ride. I love it

</review>
<review>

Great expectation was a wonderful classic written by the author Charles dickens. The main character, Pip, grow up in the home of a blacksmith. With both of his parents dead, He lives with his older sister and her husband named Joe. Pip soon meets Miss Havisham and the beautiful Estella that live wish her Pip hoped that Miss Havisham intentions were to make his fortune, make him a gentleman and have Estella to wed. He was wrong, because the social class division leaves Pip a worker, and Estella was a lady. After disappointment, Pip hears news that a secrete benefactor want to make Pip a gentleman and give him a fortune and informs him that he is a man of great expectation. Pip has no idea of who is benefactor is, but heads to London to start his eventful life as a gentleman. Even if Pip work hard for his life but he is getting on well finally.

It is a very powerful book that connects with people s live all over. Great expectation is an amazing book in many ways such as the themes, the Character and the writing Themes in this book are very important. They can easily relate to us today. The main point of the book is affection, loyalty and gratitude and friendship are more important than social class, wealth. The Character of Pip made me feel quit e sad. He had a very difficult life but he can improve him self and become a gentleman finally. There are many character of this book. That also made this book very interesting follow

</review>
<review>

This was an interesting book.  It is the first book by Charles Dickens that I had ever read.  The language was weird but that was because it was a British novel written in a different era.  I enjoyed it though because it was a escape to a different era and time.  I plan on reading several other works by this author.  It was slow to start but only because I was not used to the writing style or language.  I would recommend

</review>
<review>

this book sucks very badly! as soon as i was on the second page i threw it in the fire place!!

</review>
<review>

Charles Dickens' novel Great Expectations explores the side of human nature that many do not like to read in novels. In the United States, in the 21st Century, people would rather read about romantic-style plots where all turns out well for the protagonists. Dickens, however, chooses to illuminate what man can really be capable of: betrayal, duplicity, unfaithfulness, and a handful of other negative characteristics.

Definitely an interesting novel, Great Expectations will undoubtedly have its audience intrigued and constantly pondering.

I would highly recommend this masterpiece

</review>
<review>

I love to read great books like BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley or FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD by Thomas Hardy. I love THE AENEID by Virgil, THE ODYSSEY by Homer. I read both long versions of LES MISERABLES and THE HUNCHBACK OF NORTE DAME by Victor Hugo. I read THE RISE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE by Gibbons and gained much knowledge from doing so. I LOVE TO READ.

But GREAT EXPECTATIONS was a GREAT DISAPPOINTMENT! I was somewhat amused until chapter ten where I felt the book became psycho-babble. I was also disappointed in TALE OF TWO CITIES. I could not endure the first two chapters! Dickens did a fine job on THE CHRISTMAS CAROL. But I will NEVER read another of his books

</review>
<review>

I hate this book. It is extremely boring and it is way too long.  There are too many characters to keep track of and many of them are extremely similar. Do not read this unless forced to. I like to read, but this nearly put me to sleep.  avoid at all cost

</review>
<review>

This book was very boring. Details in a book make it interesting but the extended details in this book made it nausiating.  This book had a very interesting plot and many good ideas but the way it was writen didnt appeal to most of the students in my school that read it. A poll was taken and about 73% of the students in the school liked this book. What does that show about the book?

</review>
<review>

This is an adorable love movie for anyone. It's witty humor and charming story combine into making it the perfect romantic-comedy! It's great for watching any time, or even when you're feeling blue!  It's sure to lift the spirits!!!

</review>
<review>

I have been a fan of this movie for years and have seen it well over 500 times. Although I found three minor erros in the transcript while I read the book, It was still great

</review>
<review>

I have seen this movie several times, and I still like it. Each time I  review this movie, I can gain different thinking. You'll love it if you  have it

</review>
<review>

Oh, this was a really cute book. I don't really understand the
"disappointing" reviews that other people are leaving. It was light, fun, and cute. It also gave great insight into the parties that we read about in the magazines. Don't listen to the nay-sayers. It was cute and fun to read

</review>
<review>

I never read TDWP, or any romance novel for that matter, but thought I might get a glimpse into the romantic expectations of women as revealed in a modern chick lit book.  This is a lighthearted, happy-ending tale not meant to rival the collective works of Dickens and any attempt to critique it as otherwise is really silly.

I do think Lauren Weisberger is a genius in reflecting the desires of young women looking for romance, lifestyle, and good friends.  I live in NYC and I am surprised when meeting girls in other parts of the country who ask me about how glamorous the clubs are and what celebrities I encounter.  The author knows this and chooses that the main character, Bette, works for a PR firm ensuring easy access to the beautiful and popular, including Philip Weston whose princely background and looks elevate Bette's social standing yet don't compensate for his arrogance, drunkeness, and something else you can read the novel to find out about.  The strong, silent bouncer she falls for cannot only protect her physically but has a sensitive side too being a chef and turns out to be none other than the boy next door.  Her true friends, whom she blows off while on the party circuit, forgive her and throw her an intimate, warm (not extravagant A-list) party in the end.  All the while Bette's angelic uncle faithfully pulls strings and supports her at every turn.  There's even a nasty girl jealous of Bette for readers to hate.

I can see how many girls would love the mentioning of fashion brands, celebrity names, hip places, and cool new technology.  But, I can't yet figure out if Lauren is poking fun at people who own BlackBerries or if she's helping to market them: "Therefore, you--whoever you are and wherever you're reading about this fabulous event--must own one [a BlackBerry] so that you, too, may be young, hip, urban, and cool." (p. 217)

Sure, Bette is self-absorbed.  But, most of us at least occasionally wallow in misery when our expectations fall short of our real lives then escape that with picturing ourselves as the center of attention.  Lauren Weisberger capitalizes on this very real sentiment.


</review>
<review>

Ok, yes, this isn't the next great American novel.  However this book is a great chick-lit to read when you're missing your best friend or if you just want to live the virtual life of someone on the NYC social scene.  Similar, yes, to The Devils Wears Prada but different enough to not have you guessing every beat of the book.

A worthy read for all fans of chick lit but if Hawthorne is your favorite writer you may want to pass

</review>
<review>

I have not read The Devil Wears Prada, but I have seen the movie.  I found this second book to be basically the same as The Devil Wears Prada, with just a slightly different scenario.  I would like to see something a little more original from this author because I truly enjoy her writing style

</review>
<review>

This book is so lame... I regret every minute I spent reading it.

</review>
<review>

I really enjoyed this book so much that I lent it to my mom, an avid romance reader.  I love the book club idea, I would totally do that.  I enjoyed this book much more than the first one.  The whole thing with the boss wasn't all negative, just there was the problem of having a boss near your age and should you be friends or not.  And the idea of having your "dream job" that is more of a nightmare, was really great too.  In all, it was what I needed, a fun read for a long airplane flight

</review>
<review>

Twenty-something Bette lives in Manhattan, has a close knit group of friends, enjoys romance novels, and apparently possesses little fashion sense or celebrity IQ. Everyone Worth Knowing is the story of how she becomes an accidental success in the surreal world of celebrity public relations, and finds romance--real and fictional--along the way.

Maybe it's just me, but Bette seems to have problems many people would love to "suffer" through. Although told a lot of things about her, I never got the feeling I could really picture Bette or understand what she wanted, even in the end. Her story feels underdeveloped and many of the events predictable or random. Still, if you liked The Devil Wears Prada and enjoy modern formulaic romances, you will probably enjoy Everyone Worth Knowing

</review>
<review>

I simply adore this book and it's what made me go out to buy every other Nora Roberts novel.  It just amazes me the chemistry between Luke and Roxanne.  Everytime I read it I can't get over the excitement and the smile it brings to me as they barb back and forth.  It's just an amazing story over the course of growing up together and how it all develops.  Roxanne is smart and sassy and Luke is just too cool.  This romantic duo shines and no one else compares to them yet for me.  My very favorite romance

</review>
<review>

Magic, mystery, romance and burglary are all part of this extremely captivating adventure.  I fell in love with the characters immediately even knowing they were "good" thieves - hence "Honest Illusions."  The book begins with Luke Callahan coming back into Roxanne Nouvelle's life after a 5 year absence and then immediately flashes back to the time approximately 10 years previous when Roxy was 8 and Luke 12 when Luke joined the carnival w/Max Nouvelle, his daughter, Roxy, Lily, Mouse and their right hand caretaker back in New Orleans, LeClerc.  The flashback continues throughout more than half of the book, setting up the reader for the background information needed to tell the full story.  I felt it was necessary and definitely kept the reader interested to go back to the beginning, unlike some of the reviewers who felt the flashback was too long.  The book then picks up to the current time, but to me, the continuity of the story completely hinged on the background information.  Since I don't want to give any of the plot away, I will end my review right here.  This is a story that I would definitely re-read and hated to see end; a sure fire plot for an excellent movie

</review>
<review>

I read the review and got the book and fell in love with it. I think Nora is a great writer i have read other of noras book but i like this one the most i would definatly recomend it!

</review>
<review>

It is difficult to find books in this genre that have a new flare to them. Usually the story lines are similiar as well as the characters. This had some of that, but the magical part of it, made for a new twist to the average story line.
It takes a little bit of reading to really get into the book though. The beginning catches your attention, but then it quickly jumps back in the past and you have to learn about how the characters grew up together and fought until they reached adulthood. That part of it is a bit slow. By the time they do grow up, it gets much more interesting and even touches the heart strings a bit. Not my favorite by Nora Roberts, but it was alright as a contemporary romance

</review>
<review>

This is one of my favorite Nora Roberts book. I have read it several times. Luke is a great hero (even if he is a thief) and I just fell in love with him

</review>
<review>

This book has everything....Love, Greed, Murder.  What more can you ask for?  This book was one of the first romance novels I ever read, and I still have my original copy, that belonged to my mother.  I love to read it over and over again.  Luke and Roxy are two of my favorite characters.  Usually, the background characters tend to fade, but those in this book, Max, Mouse, Lily, and even Mike the dog are all memorable.


</review>
<review>

When I began to read Nora Roberts, I really didn't expect to be drawn into her novels the way every one said I would be.  Boy, was I wrong!  This is an original story, I've never read a romance that was this intricate and well written.

Spanning years, from childhood to adulthood, Max and Roxanne fight their love for each other.  Max because of the slight age difference, Roxanne because she is too proud to tell him.  The setting is a lot of locales, but New Orleans is the main place that the story is set in.  Any story that is set in New Orleans is sure to be full of superstition, passion, and culture.  Nora doesn't dissapoint with this novel.  Definately one of a kind.

</review>
<review>

The addresses and phone numbers in this book are handy, but this is not the way to find an agent or publisher. Instead, visit the largest bookstore in your area and take a look at the books they sell that are in your genre. Look in the "Acknowledgments" section of each book and you are almost certain to find the names of the author's agent and the book's editor. Those are the agents and editors who are most likely to know about your subject and its chances of being published. Find those people using an online white pages or yellow pages site (anywho.com, dogpile.com, etc.) and give them a call. If they are receptive to your idea, send them a formal proposal.
I have to agree with those who have suggested that publication of a book like this by someone in the business smacks of exploitation. As one other reviewer noted, the author is an agent - call him up and see how receptive he is to you. You might as well try looking for Elvis in the supermarket.

</review>
<review>

This book really sucked! Save your money!  The I have tried to contact Mr. Herman about some of the problems I have encountered with the contact addresses he provided.  He has yet to respond, meanwhile, I have wasted valuable postage for addresses that are incorrect or not in existance.  One other note, many of the persons contacted were not accepting new talent, and hadn't been for quite sometime

</review>
<review>

Sure, the information in this book is current if your potential agent is doing a life term in Sing Sing. But of the five queries I sent out based on the information in this book, two were just unanswered and three came back addressee unknown. Maybe I picked the only five bad addresses in the book, or maybe current it isn't

</review>
<review>

The contempt the author has for writers and the contempt so many of the agents have for writers is the real theme of this book. If you want names and addresses, use the internet. If you want a book that can actually help you get published, read The Square Guide to Publishing Your Non-fiction Book by Rudy Shur

</review>
<review>

and when didn't buy a new edition and I got out from behind my computer and started making cold calls, I got published. I know the pain of writing for so very long with no recognition. All I can say is that maybe this book can make you feel better temporarily, thinking you have some kind of inside track that nobody else has (LOL), but the only way to get published is to make your own inside track. This book won't help you do it

</review>
<review>

What can I say about a book like this that hasn't already been said? It's a tremendous piece of work and a great help. It's 5 stars worth of information

</review>
<review>

This is the indispensible book when seeking a literary agent

</review>
<review>

If you have what it takes to publish (you write well and are writing something saleable), then this book will help you learn the steps you should take to get an agent and publisher. Read and take the advice his book offers as the information is as valauable as gold for those wanting to make money getting published. As a first time writer, I have found success by reading and acting on this information. It happened more quickly than I would have expected. Don't let other reviews dampen your spirits to write and publish. I you want to get published, you need this book

</review>
<review>

I think Mr. Kiyosaki became indeed rich with his "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" series and rightly so. However this particular book is just repeating of the same ideas I have seen in his other books with not much new information related to investing as the title suggested. In any case I  do recommend reading the original title "Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money--That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!"

</review>
<review>

Motivational and inspiring, this book is a Rich Dad classic, offering investment advice specifically on taking advantage of current assets. Problem? Doesn't tell you how to gain assets.  Other suggested titles to supplement this: 097883460

</review>
<review>

This is a great overview that has helped me personally and when explaining real estate investments to my clients. Information is absolutely power in this case.

</review>
<review>

This is a repeat of the first 2 books for the most part. I do understand that the "Rich Dad Classics" aren't meant for tips and specific methods of making money, but rather a rich mindset.

Mineset, but ANY specifics? No. They are his best kept secrets. You would have to attend his money making seminars (i.e. spend more money) It's understandable to emphasize the importance of mindset in a book or two, and I did really enjoy the original "Rich dad, Poor dad," but it seems like ALL of his books are just about the mindset. What good is a mindset if there is no real direction in executing it. Don't waste your time reading this book, it's also the thickest of the three. If you haven't already done so however, read the original "Rich dad, Poor dad.

</review>
<review>

Kiyosaki's third book in his Rich Dad, Poor Dad series delivers again.  This book is a logical progression of RDPD and CFQ building on his principals of building wealth for the first half of the book.  Afterwards, Kiyosaki unveals what the reader has been waiting for . . . just how the rich invest.  He disclaims the book plainly for the reader looking for the next hot stock tip or get rich quick scheme.  The book delivers on it's title from a principal information standpoint, which should suit readers that realize that wealth is built up over time and based upon timeless principals and a strong foundation.  The last two phases of the book are extremely well-written.  Kiyosaki covers financial ratios, IPO offerings, taking companies public, and of course real estate principals.  He presents his information to get you thinking not to give you answers for he knows the answers will come if the action is initiated.  Another aspect of Kiyosaki that I particularly like is that he discusses his failures, which should let the masses know that riches are often found after many failures (more often it is the norm).  So if you want easy answers - don't buy this book.  If you want principals, ingredients for success in building wealth, and systematic structure on what you should be thinking in acquiring and KEEPING your wealth - this is your book!

</review>
<review>

Excellent book, truly a must rea

</review>
<review>

Some have reviewed this book as a "more of the same" from Kiyosaki, more of what you can find in RDPD, but for me it's, first of all, the best of all Kiyosaki's books, always remembering that is best to read the first two before, though not estrictly necessary, but the main issue here (the nice thing about Kiyosaki) is that more than simple concepts, is that he helps you change your MIND, where all poverty or richness reside after all, so the more you read, no matter if it may seem repetitive, the more insights you get. Kiyosaki is full of lessons, lessons that are easy to read and understand, but maybe hard to appropiate into one's personal life everyday. I personally have started reading the bokk fir the second time and I discovered that many of the concepts I read the first time hadn't got me or taken me as they have now. For me, not only a must read, a book to study

</review>
<review>

This book is for changing your mind set on investing, it does not give specific advice in what stocks to by or where to buy real estate, etc.

It is like Kiyosaki's other books in changing the readers mind set on how money works. He trys to teach in this book how it is not neccesary to have money to make money. Ideas are more powerful than money.The best investment is fulfilling a need that people have through a business. You have to be willing to pay the price to make your plan successful.I actually think this book is better than your run of the mill investment books because he goes into great detail on every kind of investment you can imagine.

At 43 chapters it is a lot of information to take in. I do not think it is as good as his other books but is a good investment of time on your journey of financial independance

</review>
<review>

I am not a fan of Robert Kiyosaki.  I find his books superficial and much of what he says common sense.  While he introduces some worthwhile ideas, I don't think he develops them enough to be useful.

I also don't like the tone or context out of which this writer expresses himself.  I find that it comes across as unfeeling, manipulative and selfish.

I don't have anything against seeking out wealth; however, I think the means to that end is important.  In my opinion, this author ignores that important fact and at the same time does not supply the detail that people are looking for or need to achieve their financial goals.

In short, I think this book is a waste of money.  There are many other books that can give you more useful information in less space which is delivered from a more humane emotional space.

</review>
<review>

I just read a small excerpt of this book which I read in its entirety many years ago. I found the writing especially lively and interesting.
I also visited in Italy some months ago and have my impressions of that time to compare with what Barzini says. I also might add that I grew up in a neighborhood in Troy New York where we had many Siciliano neighbors who were our enemies at time but mostly our friends.
I also have a deep and sympathetic relation to the vast creative capacity of the Italian people throughout the generations, both in visual arts and in music. And I am aware too of the historical role, sunny Italy played for those lost in the cold north who dreamed of  new life Goethelike in the land of the south. I too know that one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world is the community of Rome which as I recently saw is sadly depleted and has not recovered from the terrible deportations in the time of the Nazis.
All this as prelude to saying that Barzini does not give a comprehensive description of Italian character, but rather a series of essays which show to the reader aspects of Italian life.
The Italians lively, energetic, clinging to their own homes and ways so closely, so richly musical, so passionate in their enjoyment in life , seemed at one time to set a standard for how human beings should live.
I do not know how much of this book is dated, and how much Italy today is simply a depleted, demographically dying, aging and tired society.
In our recent visit to Italy though I felt a strong sense of the beauty of the place and the beauty of people.

</review>
<review>

I heard of this book 40 years ago when a TV version won an Emmy award. I was inspired to read it after my most recent trip to Italy. Growing up as an Italian-American, I wondered why my people acted the way they do, and this book provides valuable insight. Barzini graduated from Columbia U., and it shows in his command of the English language. This book is a classic, but like most classics, it's old, so while much of it is timeless, other parts are out of date, both culturally and politically. However, if one wants to gain a grounding in the Italian culture, this book is a very good place to start

</review>
<review>

It`s a classic book - and you can hardly add anything to it. Though it`s a little dated, it`s still worth reading

</review>
<review>

First, I would compliment Jim Paris' intelligent review.  Mr. Paris leaves  me little to add.  What Mr. Barzini did not foresee was the radical changes  the last forty years would have on Italian culture.  Divorce would never be  acceptable to the Italian people, writes Barzini confidentally.  Yet only a  few years after this book came out, divorce was legalized in Italy.  Mr.  Barzini must have really be perplexed when the next level of cultural  degeneration was achieved- abortion rights.  Writing in the Italy of  circa-1960, Mr. Barzini must not have thought the concept of abortion would  ever be a part of Italian life.  Yet abortion became commonplace in Italy  within Mr. Barzini's lifetime.  He must of felt a foreigner in his own land  that he so much loved

</review>
<review>

I'll put my opinion first, so there won't be any doubt in your mind.  I don't believe that you can write useful books about national character.  Is there really such a thing as  and quot;national character and quot;? People are  just too different, too unpredictable. How well can you predict the  behavior of the people closest to you ?  How well can you predict what  people in your own country will do ?  Would every Italian, if they could  write well, have written the same book as Mr. Barzini ?  I seriously doubt  it.  So what we have in THE ITALIANS is one man's views on the conglomerate  nature of 50 million Italians.  After reading it, I felt even more strongly  that such books, though possibly entertaining, are a waste of time.  An  informative book about unicorns--but do they exist ?   Anthropologists have  been concerned, for many years, in getting the  and quot;inside view and quot;--the  view of a culture as seen by the person within it.  While Barzini is  indisputable Italian, he tries to visualize Italians as seen by foreign  visitors, then explain to those of us not lucky enough to travel there, why  they are as visitors see them, or why they are not as foreigners may think.   This is not a successful gambit.  Cultures are based on many general  factors--like history, socio-economic patterns, religion, family,  etc.---but the specific results are just that, specific.  Barzini covers  many topics--the importance of spectacle and giving an illusion of  something rather than actually having that quality; the family vs. the  state; Italian modes of achieving success; the north-south split; Sicily  and the Mafia; and last, the tragedy of Italy's long domination by  foreigners.  But nothing really connects.  There are only superficial,  scattered impressions, nothing very concrete to grasp.  The reader is left  with a handful of stereotypes.  Barzini is at his best when describing the  lives and modus operandi of particular characters in Italian history.   These sections were well-written and interesting.  But his portrayal of  Italian  and quot;character and quot; is fuzzy, contradictory, and ultimately,  unconvincing.  Finally, if you are a lover of lists, you will thrill to  this book, because there is a list on nearly every single page.  Myself, I  got pretty tired of those lists.  If you want to know something useful  about Italy, read another book.  If you just want entertainment, which  might support any stereotypes you have about Italians, then this book could  be for you

</review>
<review>

Wherever Jack Reacher goes trouble seems to follow.  He can't even have a quiet cup of coffee without a crime taking place in front of him. This is the 10th book in the Reacher series and they seem to be getting better and better.  Can't wait for the next one to come out

</review>
<review>

This is must reading for thriller "addincts." Mr. Child at this best.

</review>
<review>

The "Hard Way" was a wonderful adventure to listen to. The audio version was beautifully produced and the reading was the best I have listened to. Karl Arnd

</review>
<review>

i'm not sure why this character is so engaging.  but he is.  there are only a few authors whose books i buy in hardback rather than waiting for the soft cover but lee childs is one.  i wouldn't call this his very best reacher novel, but as always it's interesting, intense and a great way to pass an evening or two

</review>
<review>

Traveling do gooder Jack Reacher is minding his own business, drinking a cup of coffee in an outdoor cafe in New York when he happens to notice a man get in a car and drive away. The next Edward Lane want to know just what he observed, as it seems the ransom for the Kate and Jade Lane, his wife and stepdaughter went away with that car.

Lane, it turns out, is the head honcho of a group of mercenaries and it seems five years ago his first wife had also been kidnapped, murdered too. So things aren't exactly looking good for Kate and Jade. Back then Lane went to the cops and lost his wife. He wants no police involved this time, so he hires Reacher.

And thus begins another Jack Reacher adventure, each one better than the last. One wouldn't think that were possible, but it seems Mr. Childs is a writting magician, pulling thrilling rabbits out his hat one right after another. This is Jack Reacher's tenth time out and though it's possible to read it as a stand alone, I'd definitely want to read the first nine, if for no other reason then they are just about as good as mystery and thriller writing gets.

Reviewed by Vesta Iren

</review>
<review>

My Reacher books (I'm in Australia) all come with the blurb on the back cover heralded by: "Jack Reacher./Men want to be him./Women want to be with him.".  Personally I think this is cheddar city and actually detracts from the books appeal to the uninitiated.  If they hadn't been recommended to me I'd have probably picked one up, seen those 3 lines and gone 'gag,no way'.  I think I'll tell Lee Child myself via his website.  I'm a woman and I'm NOT reading the Reacher books to go gooey over Jack's attributes!  I will say this, they are cracking good reads and I hope he doesn't make the mistake of writing more in the third person.  Message to Lee: above blurb NOT A SELLING POINT!  Cheers

</review>
<review>

This is an excellent addition to the Reacher series.  Reacher is relying more on guile than violence these days, and this outing requires his inflicting only some broken bones and I believe four fatalities.  The plot is nicely convoluted, although a clever reader will early on suspect that all is not as it seems.  The characters are well developed, and the major locales -- New York and rural England -- are evoked more than adequately.  Lee Child's work is definitely a cut or two above the field in all respects, with the writing quality more than high enough not to present distractions from the story.

</review>
<review>

Some of the Reacher novels--such as The Killing Floor--have been incredibly good, but I was genuinely disappointed in this one.  The author describes Reacher as heroic, a loner, etc., but instead he should write in such a way that we reach these insights without being told.  Phrases, such as "back in the day," get repeated much too often.  Reacher has become a caricature of himself

</review>
<review>

With several hundred Amazon rave reviews, it seems overkill to add another, but what the heck:  "The Lincoln Lawyer" is an outstanding piece of work by one of the best.  Connelly's ability to weave a compelling story in among the hills and bars (the drinking bars as well as the  ones before which you conduct trials) borders on magic.  The plot here is amazingly diabolical -- just when you think you know where it's going, Connelly pulls the rug away.  Haller is a wonderful character, delightfully shady and opportunistic but with a (somewhat tarnished) heart of gold. I hope Connelly keeps bringing him back.  But I hope he doesn't retire Bosch, either.  I think Connelly should turn out two books a year -- one of each guy.   I know it won't happen, but I can dream.  Thanks again, Mr. Connelly, for keeping me delightfully awake these past few nights.

</review>
<review>

How do you begin to describe the best legal thriller you've ever read?  This was a well-paced, highly entertaining story, but the book's real success is its longevity.  You continue to be captivated by it weeks after reading it.  Hands down, this is Connelly's best novel.  Few books leave you so completely fulfilled at the end.  Mick Haller is a defense attorney with a unique perspective on how the justice system works.  To him, it's a machine, and he's the "greasy angel" who keeps it well oiled.  Even though Haller's cynicism is a constant source of amusement, his real fear is that he will be unable to recognize real innocence.  Then an enticing case comes along with a franchise client, who can pay top dollar.  Accused of attempted murder for the battery of a woman, Louis Roulet hires his services.  What first seems to be a straight forward case, will ultimately test Haller to his limits: his family will be threatened, he will be accused of a crime, and someone very close to him will die.  Not only is this an insightful and fresh look at our legal system, the writing is first-rate.

</review>
<review>

I got this book unabridged on CD.  I would often listen to it while doing chores around the house or other mundane projects. My wife and I usually have our own books that we'll read together, but it was interesting how the story kind of pulled her in too, even though she wasn't listening to it to begin with. Upon discovering I had listened to some without her, my wife was like, "what? You listened to it without me?!" My response was, "I didn't even think you were listening to it." That's how hooked you can get on this story.

The Lincoln Lawyer follows the story of Mickey Haller, a criminal defense attorney whose personal life is teetering.  He finally gets a break at work when the perfect case falls into lap.  The client is called "the franchise" due to the fact that he's a high-roller who pays well, and more importantly on-time.  As the case continues, Mickey starts to detect red flags as his client doesn't seem all that trustworthy.  It reaches a crescendo when a good friend of his murdered while working on the case.

This book isn't good because of plot. In fact I found the plot to be pretty cut-and-dry: Man gets mysterious client, client turns out crooked, story turns into a big whodunit, blah, blah, blah. This book is good because of the writing. It's both intelligent and believable.  You really start to gravitate towards the characters because each has their own distinct personality. If there's any problem I have with the writing, it would have to the liberal use of the F-word. Do people actually use it that much in law? It made things feel more like a construction site. It may be there for shock value, but you'll get numb to it before you're even a third of the way through. All in all, an interesting read that will keep you up late saying, "just one more chapter."

</review>
<review>

Michael Haller's life revolves around criminal defense, his an attorney operating out the back of his Lincoln town car. His appearance sharply dressed and charmed mannerism makes him a very approachable guy, people either called him Mick or Mickey. Tall, dark and Intelligent with his good looks and Irish blood lines made him a catch. In the court room he was very together with great timing, in his personal life it was a mess, at last count he had two ex wives and one daughter. His father long deceased was also a famous defense attorney; another pressure of expectation in life he felt he had to live up to, his father wrote books and practised law that didn't have room for innocent clients, so far Mickey had spent most of his life worrying that he just wouldn't recognize innocence if it came along. Being an Independent operator he ran his business with his own private detective on his bankroll, he was also chauffeured around by an ex client who couldn't afford to pay his fees. In total he kept four Lincolns for another enterprise on the horizon encase things turned sour, what he was really looking for was a franchise player, a case to keep the cash rolling, point blank a meal ticket.

Louis Ross Roulet dealt in LA property he was a rich playboy, currently booked on charges of ag-assault, GBI, and attempted rape, and although his arrest charges looked bad these could always be dropped to something less by the time he made court. Mickey couldn't believe his luck not only a rich client but looking at the evidence it was stacked in favour to get him off the hook. This was all too easy, in fact with sharp tactics of negotiation and manipulation it was an open and shut case. Just as he was on a roll Mickey's close friend is murdered he begins to have second thoughts about his case something just didn't sit right, in his search for innocence had he instead stumbled upon something more sinister or maybe something just plain evil.

This is the first time in a long time that I have picked up a book based on a court room drama; but this book is much more than just that. Michael Connelly has done a wonderful job; his close collaboration with real life defense attorneys has paid off with their knowledge shining through; well written and easy to follow so you don't get lost in the jargon of law, especially for someone like me who is not familiar with the US law system. I'm hoping very much that Mr. Connelly will be able to entwine the exciting lawyer Mickey Haller in other books going forward, Congratulations to Michael Connelly for a rollercoaster read.

A.Bowhil

</review>
<review>

Very interesting cast of characters, would make an enjoyable TV show, more original than what is on today

</review>
<review>

Connelly really brings the characters to life.  The farther into you get, the faster you want to turn the pages

</review>
<review>

The Lincoln Lawyer is hilariously and profoundly true.  If you ever wanted to know what it is like to be a high-powered criminal attorney, this book will show you.  I am a civil attorney, myself, and this novel opened the door into the grimy other world of criminal law.  (Not that civil trial law is without its warts either.)

Put simply, this novel is about "The Client From Hell."  Every lawyer has had one at one time or another, but not like this.  Connelly's depiction of the protagonist's slow descent into you-know-where is engrossing, hilarious, and true-to-life.  The only bad thing about this novel is that it might discourage some readers from a career in law.  Or maybe it will encourage others.  Hard to say.  What I can say is that this is a well-written and engrossing novel that I could not put down until the final moment.  That is high praise indeed.

This is a remarkably well-written novel that keeps the reader guessing until the very last minute.  You will come to know and care about the characters in this novel.  Not only is the plot in this novel interesting and even engrossing, but (unlike a John Grisham novel) the characters are true-to-life as well.  This novel rings with authenticity.

This is my first Michael Connelly novel, but it will not be the last; not by any means.  This one is highly recommended

</review>
<review>

Michael Connelly is the best, and this new direction will hopefully going to continue. Good Read

</review>
<review>

I loved this book.  The pacing was perfect, the characters well-drawn, and the writing style engaging.  Mickey Haller, the Lincoln lawyer of the title, and protagonist, is a hustler who works out of the back seat of one of his Lincolns.  He gets embroiled in a case that should be a real money maker.  The author uses this background to set up a very believable ethical dilemma that makes this novel a very compelling read.  This is the first Michael Connelly book I've read, but based on this one, I'm going back to read his others

</review>
<review>

Criminal defense attorney, Mickey Haller, is thrilled to find himself in the position of defending Louis Ross Roulet against a charge of attempted rape and aggravated sexual assault with grievous bodily injury for his alleged attack of Reggie Campeau, a hooker with a past. Roulet is what experienced attorneys call a "franchise" client - he's willing to be billed full schedule A top dollar legal fare, he's got the money to pay and he wants to go the distance in his own defense. But Roulet's compelling intensity and the story he tells disturbs and frightens Haller because, despite his rock solid prohibition against asking his client whether he did it or not, Haller becomes convinced of his client's innocence. He recalls his deceased father's advice to other lawyers, "The scariest client a lawyer will ever have is an innocent client." Haller knows that mistakes could result in a lethal injection and the execution of an innocent man.

It's only when Haller recognizes the startling similarities in appearance between the victim, Campeau, and Martha Rentoria, the victim of Jesus Menendez, one of Haller's former clients (who is now cooling his heels for life in San Quentin for that particular murder) that Haller begins to scratch his head and investigate Roulet's case more deeply. All is not as it seems as Haller not only wrestles with legal ethical dilemmas but even finds himself in the disturbing position of being investigated as a suspect for the very assault for which he is defending Roulet. Even his family has been threatened and Haller must take action to protect his daughter and ex-wife, to resolve his ethical legal dilemmas, to clear his own name as a suspect, to free Menendez from what he now knows is an unjust conviction and, in the bargain, to snag the mastermind behind the whole twisted mess! A tall order indeed but Connelly has proven that he is up to the task. He's also tossed in a beautiful plot twist at the very point where a reader would be convinced all was in hand.

It's difficult to expect much more out of any crackerjack suspense novel.

Characters are marvelously developed - the baddie in the piece is portrayed as truly evil and abhorrent (in fact, you can almost feel the shivers going up and down your back when Haller recoils from his simple touch); Fernando Valenzuela, the bail bondsman, and Raul Levin, Haller's crack investigator, are wonderfully down to earth and realistic; Maggie McPherson, Haller's ex-wife, is portrayed as a skilled competent prosecutor but also frequently lapses into a man's stereotypical bitchy ex-wife. Even Teddy Vogel, a top lieutenant in the Road Saints motorcycle gang is colourfully portrayed and jumps completely alive off the page! Dialogue is realistic and credible. Connelly's expertise in the legal field is obvious as he gives us an extraordinary insider's look at the procedural machinations of both the defense and prosecution sides of the law system as well as the official police and unofficial defense investigation of a crime.

Grisham, Baldacci, Tannenbaum - look to your laurels! There is a new star in the firmament of legal thrillers and his name is Michael Connelly. It will be a sad day indeed if Connelly doesn't reach the decision to bring Haller and his team back again for our enjoyment.

Paul Weiss

</review>
<review>


This is a complex and detailed history chiefly of Cuban exiles in South Florida and the influence they have been able to wield regionally and internationally with and without the help of various U.S. administrations. In that sense, it is the story of two cities - Miami and Washington - and two peoples - Americans and Cubans.

I have an objection, though, with the stone-hard style in which this volume is so meticulously, even gorgeously at times, written. Didion strives to be so achingly academic that there is little real heart to this book and, worse, the result is a cold, humorless, colorless story that is at times an unappealing example of ideological abstractions and alphabet soup.

The author, in her conspicuously clean and parenthetical prose, apparently is so charged by the subject of her research that she has forgotten there are people on the other end - readers. It is, in that sense, a boring little disaster of a book.

</review>
<review>

Exiled Cubans in Miami up to 1987. This is real old stuff. I wonder why this book is still being published. Felt like a collection of shorter magazine--newspaper articles compiled to look like a real book. Many long, disjointed sentences. Could use an updating. There must be better books out there about this topic

</review>
<review>

Didion produces a masterful detailing of Miami history through Cuban immigration and their rise to power in the city.  Highly recommended

</review>
<review>

The story of the Cuban exiles in Miami deserves to be told with drama and passion because that is what it has been.  In this page-turner, Joan Didion captures the rejection and racism that the Cuban exiles first encountered in Miami when they emigrated from Cuba after Castro assumed power.  She shows how some of the Cubans became successful businesspersons, political powerbrokers, shapers of local culture, renowned humanitarians and philanthropists, expert propagandists, able diplomats, drug runners, muggers, and internationally renowned terrorists.

We see the close relationship the Cuban exiles formed with the USA government, especially its clandestine agencies.  We learn that in the 1960s Miami essentially became a CIA recruiting and operational-staging center.  Didion tells us that the CIA had as much as 120,000 "regular agents" (full and part-time) stationed in south Florida.  It had a flotilla of small boats (often used for terrorist raids on Cuba), making it the third largest navy in the western hemisphere at the time. It owned airline companies in the Miami area and holding companies that lent itself loans for covert operations.  "There were [also] hundreds of pieces of Miami real estate, residential bungalows maintained as safe houses, waterfront properties maintained as safe harbors" as well as "fifty five other front businesses" and "CIA boat shops," "guns shops," real-estate, travel and detective agencies (pp. 90-91).

Yet the relationship between the Cuban Americans and the USA has been a troubled one.  Although the Cuban Americans find themselves dependent on the USA for maintaining their struggle against Castro, they also don't trust the government, blaming it for their loss at the Bay of Pigs and for adopting policies soft on Castro.  Likewise, the USA finds some Cuban Americans helpful in its secret foreign adventures (Chile, Nicaragua, Angola, etc.) as well as a nuisance when these terrorist elements assassinate foreign diplomats, blow up airplanes and banks, and murder USA citizens.

Particularly poignant is Didion's description of the Cuban Americans' personal and often internecine struggle over understanding themselves as immigrants or exiles.  These struggles have resulted in broken friendships, shunning, public ridicule, financial loss, bodily harm and death.

The book only covers Miami until 1987.  I wish Didion would update the book, although it might be dangerous for her to do so.

This is a great read and well worth the purchase.

</review>
<review>

I read this book so many years ago, but I just now realized I had never shared my opnions about it.  I had lived in Miami for about eight years, and I think I was in my 5th year or so when I finally heard about  and quot;Miami and quot; by Joan Didion.  It was only after I had finally moved to the Beach that I happened upon it, at Kafka's.  At any rate, it is an excellent book.  I think about it every time I hear on the news about the bumbling CIA or news of Castro makes the NYTimes.  Incidentally, 1987 also saw the publication of  and quot;The Corpse Had a Familiar Face, and quot; by Edna Buchanan, another equally excellent non-fiction book about this city.  I also highly recommend  and quot;A Book of Common Prayer and quot; by Ms. Didion

</review>
<review>

D IS FOR DEADBEAT is an odd story - Kinsey is hired to give $ 25,000 to a fifteen-year-old. Should be simple, right? Not with Sue Grafton writing the book!!  When Kinsey's retainer check bounces things really start to get interesting!! Next Kinsey finds the deadbeat who wrote the check, he was dead. Now she has to find out who killed him in order to get paid!

This is the first Sue Grafton book that I read and I was hooked after reading it. It's exciting and keeps a fast pace so you're never in danger of becoming bored. The plot is well developed, as are the characters. We see more into the personalities that make up not only Kinsey, but Henry the landlord as well. If Kinsey were older or Henry younger, you might see some romantic sparks fly - but that's not in the future, only a deep friendship.

Grafton also starts expanding the supporting cast of characters with a glimpse at Rosie, the Hungarian diner owner down the street. The people Grafton writes about are all flamboyant in their own ways.

Definitely a great book to spend some time with, but make sure you have the next book (E IS FOR EVIDENCE) ready to pick up as soon as you read the last page of this one - you won't want to stop reading!

</review>
<review>

The client came to Kinsey Millhone with an easy job she thought-deliver $25,000 to a fifteen-year-old kid. A little odd, and Kinsey wasn't sure what to make of this thing. So she takes Alvin Limardo's retainer check anyhow. It turns out that his real name is not Alvin Limardo, but John Daggett. And the check of course, is as phony as he is. John Daggett has a record as long as your arm and a reputation for sleazy deals. But he wasn't just a deadbeat. By the time Kinsey caught up with him, he was a dead body-with a whole host of people who were delighted to see him dead. There was four in particular that REALLY wanted him dead. Kinsey knew his death was no suicide-it was a plan to kill John. But which one of the four did it? Kinsey must put her detective skills to work and find out someone's secret

</review>
<review>

I found this to be one of the best of Sue Grafton's books so far.  I found it extremely suspenseful and was guessing all the way up to the end as to who was the murderer.  The ending surprised me and saddened me.  I have found myself engrossed in the series and can't wait to get on to the letter "E"

</review>
<review>

Private Investigator Kinsey Millhone is back again in this fourth installment of Sue Grafton's alphabet series.  This time she is offered a fee to give a $25,000 cashier's check to a young man named Tony Gahan.  The check for the fee bounces and Kinsey is now looking for the man who gave it to her, plus the young man she is to give the cashier's check to.  Everything she finds out about her client is bad.  He is a drunk, who has killed several people in a car wreck, and appears to be a bigamist.  When he is found dead, Kinsey has plenty of suspects including survivors of the dead motorists and two angry wives.  This book is written in Grafton's usual breezy style, and Kinsey becomes more independent and more likeable with each book.  I would recommend the whole series to mystery-lovers

</review>
<review>

Sue Grafton does a great job keeping this series fresh and interesting. Four books in and I still can't wait to read more! And she gets better with each book. In this book (and to a smaller degree in 'C') there were many times where I couldn't fathom how Kinsey would keep on the trail and solve the case. But she always manages to plausibley get back on the trail without causing the reader to lose interest. Kinsey's development as a character is also very well done. She is a very real, likeable person with amazing depth

</review>
<review>

Irving Penn: A Career in Photography is a book that examines the work and life of photographer Irving Penn. Several different writers and people associated with Penn have included text to describe their view of Penn and his life in photography. Colin Westerbeck, Issey Miyake, Martin Harrison, Edmund Carpenter, Rosamond Bernier, Colin Eisler, and Jennifer Jankauskas all contribute to the book. Writer and editor Colin Westerbeck invites the reader into the history of Irving Penn through a summary of Penn's life in his photo career. He begins with Penn's early fashion feature called "Flying Down to Lima" where after a case of airsickness, developed a new vision that changed his view of photography. Westerbeck also mentions Penn's different styles and renowned photo shoots including his many photos of various celebrities wedged into a narrow-angle corner he created out of theater flats, and also Penn's move to platinum prints. The remainder of the 200-page book comprises Penn's more famous photos. In total, there are 193 in the book, some which correspond to the text.
Irving Penn: A Career in Photography is an excellent book for anyone interested in photography, or even a professional looking for inspiration. Though it is a large book (approximately 10" by 12") its size is fitting for a photo book so that all the images can be easily seen and appreciated. The selection of photos is also suitable in that they are some of Penn's best and most known to the photo savvy, and are also mixed in genre. The text contributed by the aforementioned people help describe and reflect Penn's photos, and also show his many styles, techniques, and views on photography. Though these stories are informative to the reader, they can also get confusing and tough to read, as some of the writers tend to overuse unnecessary wording and phrasing. However, the excellent use of text/photo relationship in design and content work well in presentation, and contributes to an overall superb book

</review>
<review>

One of the most significant photographers of the twentyith century, Irving Penn's captivating photographs throughout his career are wonderfully showcased in this book. from his humble beginnings as a graphic dsigner in the 1940's to his portraits of the native peoples from the far reaches of the world-Penn's work has had a major impact on not only the world of photography but aslo the art world as a whole. This retrospective of Penn's body of work is much more thorough than expected.
The graphic quality of his work really speaks to me as a graphic desiner; weather it be his rich photographs of nude women or his famous portraits of politicans, actors and fashion models. The numerous illustrations of Penn's well-known corner shot were a nice surprise in the book; many of these images are very difficult to find on the internet, it was great being able to study the nuances of the portraits up close. A beautiful and informative book that any Penn fan would love

</review>
<review>

Free trade is great when you're rich and powerful enough to ram it down the throat of other nations.  The multinationals, who benefit from massive subsidies (aeronautics, computers, metallurgy, you name it) are more than happy to have members of the bought priesthood of academia distill  fantasies about the joys of the alleged  and quot;free market. and quot;  Not a  word in this book about the public subsidies that become private profits,  with a huge military and growing prison-industrial-complex for the millions  of people who are superfluous to the plans being made (undemocratically, of  course) in Geneva and Bonn.  Corporate tyranny and its servants are  destroying the environment, labor protections, the public sphere, and  cultural diversity.  Goebbels would be impressed

</review>
<review>

I like this book because it is very interesting and informative. I began  reading it for pleasure, but by the time I was half way finished, I was  sure of its serious nature and had decided to adopt it as a required  reading in the seminar that I teach on the economic impact of  globalization.  The author succeeds in presenting the right mix of theory  and history with sufficient analysis. It is well researched and very well  organized. It should prove as interesting to the general reader as it is  informative for the academics. However, its treatment of classical  economists is far superior to the section dealing with contemporary  writeres on free trade. Hopefully, in the second edition the author will  remedy this shortcomeing

</review>
<review>

Preeminent economist and NPR poster-boy Paul Krugman's review of this book is online:
http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/irwin.htm

</review>
<review>

As a graduate student, I have gradually acknowledged the hidden rules of practicing sciences that, unfortunately, has never disclosed themselves during the regular programs. This book demistifies science and its practioners in the field using scientific methodology. This book becomes my favorite text at the expanse of T. Kuhn

</review>
<review>

I bought and downloaded the eBook of this famous book for my research.
It is NOT usable. Most of the text is missing. I have never seen such a bad scanning result. Unbelievable.

</review>
<review>

Latour's book  and quot;Science in Action and quot; is more trendy... but I suggest you read this earlier book instead.  It's clear and makes its points in a compelling fashion

</review>
<review>

I give this book a high rating because of its influence in the field.  It is the first case study of laboratory science ever published, and is often quoted in anthropology, sociology, and philosophy of science.  The book's conclusion is social constructivist in nature, to a very extreme degree.  Scientific facts are not discovered, they are constructed through social processes.  The actual study was done by Latour, a French philosopher, and the method was to assume strangeness.  That is, Latour pretended he didn't know anything about what the scientists were doing and tried to make up (construct) an account.  The usual problems with relativism plague Latour and Woolgar's brand of social constructivism, most notably issues with reflexivity.  If scientific accounts are constructed and do not have to do with the phenomena, why should we think that Laboratory Life tells us anything about the phenomena of laboratory science?  Their answer is that we shouldn't.  The only question in evaluating texts is,  and quot;are you convinced? and quot;  If not, fine.  Come up with a better (more persuasive) account.  People who think that science, philosophy, and academe in general should have something to do with the real world will be horribly frustrated by this conclusion.  But everyone should be frustrated by the fact that the conclusion just doesn't follow from the data Latour gathered.  It seems to come entirely from prior convictions of the authors.  I recommend reading the book, however, because of its popularity and because it is a fantastic exemplar of a bad relativist and constructivist argument.  Get the revised edition, which has a postscript and extra references.  For a chuckle, look up some of the reviews (cited in the 2nd ed. references) from scientific journals.  They are mostly cheerful recognitions of the book's subject matter (laboratory science) without any reference to--or argument with--the strong anti-realist claims.  It makes you wonder if these people acctually read the book

</review>
<review>

H.G. Wells wrote War of the Worlds as a warning to the complacent, world-dominating British citizens of his era to not take the status quo for granted. The arrogance of some British politicians in particular rubbed Wells entirely the wrong way, particularly their sentiment that the British had an 'obligation' to 'civilize' the world (read: colonize) for its own good. Well's book was a rock thrown at that attitude-on-a-pedestal, and although he didn't knock it down, he made his point- and in spectacular fashion. In one way, the Martians *were* the conquering British, with their superior weapons and baffling ways that must have seemed incomprehensible to the natives of Africa and other areas colonized by force.  Wells' dark tale was also a warning that even the British- despite their firm belief in their world destiny- could be squashed like so many bugs by an indifferent cosmos that didn't give one whit about the British (or anyone else's) false boast of superiority. In the end, though, it's a hopeful book- just as the Martians died off because they weren't biologically suited to live in this world, Wells also foretells the end of the British Empire because the British (alien) way was not the native way of life in the colonies, suggesting that the British wouldn't survive there long; the natives would eventually prevail. And they did. On top of all that, it's rousing entertainment that can be read just for its drama and suspense.

And that's why it's still in print a hundred years later.

-Mark Wakely, author of An Audience for Einstei

</review>
<review>

War of the Worlds has come and gone in many different incarnations but I kinda just knew that none of them were really being faithful to HG Wells' original story, especially the mis-judged Spielberg/Cruise flick. So I decided to give the book a shot since it was cheap and this particular printing by The Modern Library looked rather sleek and sexy. I know it's sad, but I like my books to look good.

Wells was actually the first writer to do the 'alien invasion' story and tells it from an everyman's perspective (like in that awful movie Signs, only much, much better). Our unnamed narrator is some sort of writer/journalist who lives in rural England. He is pals with a man named Ogilvy, who works in an observatory and is one of the first people on Earth to notice a series of explosions on Mars and projectiles launched towards our blue planet. When the projectiles (cylinders) arrive, no one is really freaked out but approach them with interest and curiosity.

Our narrator feels the same way but slowly realizes that he should keep his distance. It's interesting to note how people either react with indifference or ignorance in these first few chapters. Before the advent of tabloid media and long, long before those dreadful cell phones were invented, it would be totally believable that major news such as alien landings would spread through the country pretty slowly.

As you know the Martians turn sour and decide to start zapping everyone off the face of the planet with their mysterious heat-rays and tripods. Our narrator reacts with smarter logic than the rest and keeps a cool head while everyone else is a panicking idiot.

I did get a little bit bored in the middle when our nameless narrator tells the story of his unnmamed brother in London (a thin attempt at fleshing out the chaos elsewhere) but it picked up the pace again rather quickly after that. It is a rather short book also and I feel like a total moron at the fact that it took me a month to read it. I did get pretty ill in the middle, which made the boring bit even worse and I put it down for a couple of weeks. I planned to read it in a few days, but I guess fate was against me.

You know the ending already and how the Martians are defeated by germs, which might seem a bit of a cop-out to any young readers but to me, reading it like it was 100 years ago (a world I particularly like, the old english countryside filled with inns, cottages, paperboys, pubs and post offices) , it's rather ingenius. HG Wells must have been a really smart guy to come up with ground-breaking stuff like this.

War of the Worlds IS an undeniable classic and is still far superior to any knock-offs and every-single-one of the movies. Give it a go for sure

</review>
<review>

Beware: The War of the Worlds is nothing like the movie with Tom Cruise; it's better. It's interesting to look back at at life 100 years ago and see how they used the little technology they had to fight off the enemy. This book is entertaining if you can put yourself in the era that it was written. It's not easy to understand, however. There is a lot of old English

</review>
<review>

I consider "The War of the Worlds" to be one of the top five science fiction stories of all time. It has been the model for two excellent movies and the driving force behind one of the greatest unintentional hoaxes of all time. The original story is set in England at around 1900 and that has not been altered in this story.
Evans does an excellent job in altering the language to fit current usage while maintaining the integrity of the original story. The abridgment retains all of the excitement of the story and the presentation is suitable for the target level of reader. The illustrations capture the action; I was particularly struck with the detail of the facial expressions.

</review>
<review>

"The Martians have arrived. Let the war begin." A catchphrase that could easily be employed for Herbert George Wells's most acclaimed science fiction "The War of the Worlds". This is a novel revolving around the highly improbable but simultaneously stunningly imaginative idea that the earth is invaded by organisms residing on Mars. Composed in a first person narrative,"The War of the Worlds" is a gripping saga of the millions of people's agony and loss of ease in the face of a confrontation that would change the world for good.

The story begins directly with the theme. In the last years of the 19th.century,in the most unassuming and delicate of all propositions,England witnesses the most surreal threat:ten bizzare cylinders all containing Martians fall near London. A wave of bitter agony,nameless fear and hopeless apprehension rocks the peole and as the Martians gradually come to terms with the Earth's gravitational strength,the police and the military of surrounding regions stolidly enarm themselves for an imminent war. The greatest of all human fallacies is perhaps the absurd universal acknowledgement that humans are the most accomplished creatures anywhere. This myth is firmly exploited in the book a the narrator---an ardent follower of astronomy and scholar of philosophy---perceives a plethora of harrowing incidents that compel him to shudder to his boots.

The narrator's town of Maybury is completely demolished and so are the nearby towns of Woking,Weybridge,Shepperton and others. The narrator manages to traffic his wife to his cousin's place in Leatherhead in asumed safety but himself gets entangled hopelessly and helplessly in the boughs of life and death. In his maddening and desperate escape from the clutches of the more intelligent and powerful Martians,the narrator pairs up first with an artillerman and then with a curate. The latter is a lost soul whose faith in God and religion has broken in the wake of humanity's greatest ever calamity and the former is confident and visonery whose preferred modes of survival in a Martian dominated Earth is not that improbable,if at all naive. H.G.Wells's artistry lies in speedily building up to a great climax and in a plot so utterly novel and unique and symmetrical,this is a marvellous diusplay of wit,intelligence and clearness of structure.

"The War of the Worlds" on one level may appear to be a mere science fiction with vivid illustration of beings from outer space and the havoc they cause on our planet but the essence of the book transcends much beyond this demarcation. The weahness of mankind in the face of unknown,unheard and unthought catatrophes is firmly delineated in this landmark novel and Wells applies a very,very subtle satire on humans' grotesque complacency on teir own abilities. When the artilleryman admits,"we're down;we're beat" with "absolute conviction",the reader fathoms the author's surrender of "the greatest power in the world" to Fate. On a much higher level,"The War of the Worlds" is a massive comment on man's petty as well as magnanimous follies garbed in a dress of science fiction.

Composed in a sense of retrospection,the book does lose some of its charm from the very beginning that the narrator is alive and kicking. and the confinement of the sequence of events within a relatively small England territory narrows the scope of the novel and also trims down its volume. But even so,"The War of the Worlds" is a brilliant science fictin that leads the rteader on a journey on the back of an unfaithful wave that conpires to lead the world to the ultimate diasaster. H.G.Wells was a great visonery in the late 19th.century and it's no less remarkable achievement that this Englishman's great book is still being studied today and would be read for several decades to come. "The War of the Worlds" is a captivating and telling tale that would dazzle the reader by the shine of the writer's craftmanship.




</review>
<review>

H.G. Wells' WAR OF THE WORLDS is a wonderfully imagined science fiction novel. But it is also a biting commentary on its era and on the evils of British imperialism in the late Victorian era.

Supposedly inspired by the British decimation of the South African Hottentot tribes, WAR OF THE WORLDS concerns intelligent, pitiless, technologically advanced Martians invading Great Britain and laying waste to humanity. Little more than giant bloodsucking brains, the Martians care not a whit for the natural world they have discovered, and they care even less for its denizens, except as a source of sustenance. Earthly culture is likewise eminently disposable. Wells rather intentionally puts one in mind of Jonathan Swift's earlier A MODEST PROPOSAL, which postulated that the young children of Ireland could make a fine food source for the British, and for the same satiric reasons.

The narrator (essentially Wells himself) is a philosophical writer living in the comfortable West End village of Woking. He is intimately connected with the Martian invasion from day one and becomes a chronicler of it's inauspicious beginning, it's destructive high-water mark, and it's ignominious end. Although written in 1896, WAR OF THE WORLDS has a bizarrely twenty-first century feel to it. The pastoral and complacent environs of Woking become a perfect counterpoint to the chaotic fog of war, death, and indiscrimate destruction wreaked by the Martians, a prescient envisioning of The Great War, glimpsed in the middle distance of the future, and World War Two, dimly lying beyond.

Wells imagines his Martians and their almost sapient war machines in exquisite detail, including the Martians' great flying machine. Martian technology literally suffocates humanity (the Black Smoke) and is so advanced that it renders humanity's technology obsolescent ("Bows and arrows against the lightning").

Wells' commentators include his intellectual narrator who becomes a kind of British upper-middle-class Everyman, a rough-hewn artilleryman who envisions a pragmatic future under the Martian heel even while plotting the invaders' overthrow (yet significantly, he lacks the energy to do more than dream), the half-mad and unthinking Curate, who calls blindly upon God even while it is evident his faith has been shattered beyond restoration, and the narrator's brother, who fights manfully against the blind panic that has gripped humanity in its talons. Taken together, these four characters represent all the aspects of man.

The downfall of the Martians, as most people know, is caused by insignificant microbes, "the humblest things on God's green earth" to which the Martians have no resistance. Substitute "natives" for "microbes," and the ending presages the setting of the sun on the British Empire. The meek do inherit the Earth.

WAR OF THE WORLDS moves along at a good clip. The writing is crisp though prolix in the fashion of the ninteenth century. There are a few disconnected sentences missed by the editor's blue pen, essentially nicks in the fine surface of this very fine story. While not as well written as THE TIME MACHINE, WAR OF THE WORLDS grips the imagination more powerfully. This slim book has been the direct inspiration for a number of films and TV shows and several recorded versions, including Orson Welles' famous 1938 Mercury Theatre production, which caused widespread panic in the northeastern United States. Archetypal, WAR OF THE WORLDS has also indirectly influenced virtually every alien invasion movie and show ever created, from ALIEN to ZARDOZ. WAR OF THE WORLDS all but singlehandedly created its genre.

</review>
<review>

I've been reading novels for a long time, I like sci-fi, but sometimes I'm very selective when buying a sci-fi. With War of the Worlds, well, this was different. I've seen the different films, etc. I decided to read the novel. To my surprise it was more interesting than any of the movies or any other thing I've read.

It's interesting how a novel that was written so long ago has so many details regarding things of the future or technology, and it's interesting because, the author didn't put the enemy with weapons like bombs that could destroy an entire galaxy or something like that. It was just a simple laser and a few robots.

It keeps the novel in a small place; he didn't try to cover the whole world with this, just this city and villages, but the most important, LIFE, the survival of the human race and how a man could maintain his sanity or not in such chaos.

Keep in mind that this novel was written a long time ago, don't make like some idiots that tells you or write critics, saying, what's the fun in it, what happened with the armies, the new weapons, etc. It's a very futuristic novel, but don't compare it with the things we have now. Just step back in time (their time) and enjoy.

The movies were good, specially the last one (Tom Cruise), well adapted, great special effects, but, read the novel, put your self in the shoes of those people who suffer that terrible extermination.

</review>
<review>

Transgressions  provides  readers with the opportunity to sample ten different offerings from ten different authors.  There is a gritty 87th Precinct novella from Ed Mcbain and a lyrical offering on a child abduction from Joyce Carol Oates.  Steven King is well represented with a short but strangely moving tale of a 911 survivor haunted by his souveniers from his unlucky co-workers.

I enjoyed Transgressions for both its quality and variety. While no story in particular was a stand out, each provided a sample of the particular author's style.  Like a buffet, a taste is really all you need to determine where (and whether) you will return for second and third helpings

</review>
<review>

After the success of his novel BLACKBOARD JUNGLE, Evan Hunter (Ed McBain) turned to what were then referred to as "novelettes," his subject being the 87th Precinct detectives of Isola (think New York). As time passed, the 87th Precinct novelettes grew to full-length novels. Fifty years later, McBain persuaded nine other mystery, thriller, and horror writers to submit what are now called "novellas" of around a hundred pages each.

The result was one of my most enjoyable reads of 2006. I don't know why I don't read more anthologies. It was in an anthology that I first experienced Stuart Kaminsky, Sharyn McCrumb, and Lawrence Block.

Coincidentally, one of the best novellas in this anthology is one by Block. Block returns with his enigmatic hit man Keller in KELLER'S ADJUSTMENT. Block manages to make us feel empathy for the man. Although he has sex with a Phoenix real estate saleslady, Keller is essentially a lonely man. He needs somebody to talk to. He once had a dog, but a former girlfriend took it with him when she left; he went to a therapist, but the therapist turned into a snoop, and he had to dust him. Unwilling to take a chance on a living breathing entity, Keller buys a stuffed animal to talk to.

Jeffrey Deaver also responded to the call with FOREVER. In it he introduces Tal Simms, a mathematician/statistician working for Westbrook County Sheriff's Department. Simms is considered a "computer geek" by the rest of the detective squad, especially homicide detective Greg "Bear" LaTour. Simms and his eventual partner LaTour are confronted with several suspicious suicides. Older rich couples are killing themselves under dubious circumstances. In most respects, the underdog character Simms is every bit as likable as Lincoln Rhymes. I would definitely buy a full length novel featuring Simms.

A new discovery for me was John Farris.  Farris's THE RANSOME WOMEN concerns a beautiful art appraiser named Echo Halloran who agrees to pose for the great artist John Leland Ransome. She's not only flattered, but as a budding artist herself, she wants to learn from him. Her boyfriend, police detective Peter O'Neil, is suspicious, and with good reason. I enjoyed this novella so much I ran right out and bought FURY, THE TERROR Farris's masterwork.

I have to admit that Ed McBain's own contribution, MERELY HATE, was my principal motivation for purchasing the anthology. I needed my 87th Precinct fix, and it's great as usual. It is post 9/11 in Isola, and the detectives are called to investigate the murder of a Muslim cab driver. Through these cab driver murders, McBain capsulizes the reason for the problems in the Mid East.

Other writers who contributed novellas were Donald Westlake, Anne Perry, Joyce Carol Oates, Walter Mosley, Sharyn McCrumb, and Stephen King. All of them were excellent.

</review>
<review>

Hopefully Ed McBain's effort in convincing a stellar cast of fellow writers to contribute the novellas that comprise "Transgressions" will induce publishers to encourage more of the same.
Don't get me wrong, I love long novels. But, in these days when we all seem to have less time than we'd like, the novella is the perfect form to consume in a short period. And, the novella is a deserving and time-honored part of literature. Nabokov and Simenon, to name two among many, excelled in the form.
McBain, who contributed an interesting tale of his own, deserves kudos for the roster of superstars who joined him in this venture. The 10 stories provide a good introduction for those not familiar with the work of some of these writers.
Naturally, some stories are better than others. That, of course, being defined by personal taste.
My own favorite would have to be Anne Perry's "Hostages," a moving look at the continuing plight of families in Northern Ireland. Sharyn McCrumb contributes an excellent Southern gothic tale, "The Resurrection Man," and the awesome Walter Mosley is represented with "Archibald Lawless, Anarchist at Large." There are also tales by Joyce Carol Oates, Stephen King, Jeffrey Deaver, John Farris, Donald Westlake and Lawrence Block.
I can truthfully say I enjoyed all 10 stories and a few writers who were less familiar to me will now receive more attention.


</review>
<review>

From what I've read, it seems like a lot of readers bought this just for the King novella.  While King's short novella excellent, I highly recommend you read all the others, too.  There's a lot of good material in this big book

</review>
<review>

As the editor of this compilation (Ed McBain, aka Evan Hunter) says, novellas are rather unusual these days, although in the old pulp fiction days they were fairly thick on the ground. A novella is, as defined in the publishing world, a story that is longer than a short story (which usually runs up to 5,000 words) and shorter than a novel (usually more than 60,000 words), somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 to 40,000 words. And apparently a novella (sometimes called a novelette) is hard to write because it tends either to compress to a short story or expand to a novel. Yet, the ten writers here, none of the neophytes, met their charge from McBain to come up with a genuine novella with aplomb (except perhaps for Stephen King, whose novella really reads like a short story - but then he's a big enough name that it's no surprise that his story made the book without any criticism). As in any collection there are some hits and some misses, but in fact I was engaged by every single entry. Some, though, were a cut above the rest -- Walter Mosley's 'Archibald  Lawless, Anarchist at Large: Walking the Line' and Lawrence Block's 'Keller's Adjustment.' (I will admit that I tend to read everything these two writers produce and they are particular favorites of mine. Mosley, in fact, I consider to be one of our best writers, regardless of genre.)

As is usual for me, I could not get as involved in the story by Joyce Carol Oates, but I suspect that is some peculiar allergy of mine; I've rarely thoroughly enjoyed anything of hers, even though I can admire her skills and obviously plenty of others admire her more than I. Ed McBain's contribution takes place in his familiar Eighty-Seventh Precinct.

One theme that recurs in the stories is the changes in the post-9/11 world. Indeed, in stories like 'Merely Hate' by McBain and 'The Things They Left Behind' by King that is central to the plot. (By the way, the King story causes his usual and still spookily enjoyable frisson with its eerie atmosphere.)

I would definitely recommend this collection to anyone who likes shorter fiction but wants something more substantial than the usual mystery/suspense short story.

Scott Morrison

</review>
<review>

Novellas are an odd duck, significantly longer than short stories and much shorter than full length novels.  I suspect that it takes considerable self discipline to maintain one's focus for from between 10,000 and 40,000 words (which may explain why novellas are infrequent).  Whatever it takes, Ed McBain inveigled a terrific coterie of writers to create a series of wonderful stories which can keep you going from the beach to the mountains.

From the humor of Donald Westlake to Anne Perry's haunting depiction of northern Ireland's "troubles" to Stephen King's eerie recollection of the tangible memories of the victims of 9/11 to Walter Mosley's tour de force creation of Archibald Lawless, anarchist, McBain has forged a memorable collection of just good fiction.  Indeed, I hope that this volume becomes a real tribute to Ed McBain's skill as a story selector!

This is a can't miss read

</review>
<review>


Suspense, mystery, crime readers rejoice and then send a hearty thank-you note to ace thriller writer Ed McBain - it's his idea and he made it happen.  His thought was to tap ten of today's best writers in the suspense/mystery field and ask them to pen an original novella.  As defined by Webster, novella is "a short novel or a long short story."  Not too helpful, eh?  McBain made it clearer: 10,000 - 40,000 words.  And then added that it wasn't easy to do.

The novellas may not have been easy for the top ten chosen by McBain to write, but they sure are easy listening - compelling, frightening and sometimes, as in the case of Joyce Carol Oates, macabre.  Voice performers Michael Boatman and Anne Twomey deliver outstanding readings without overly dramatizing but allowing pause and nuance to add to the tales.

The two writers on this audio edition need no introduction - Walter Mosley stands tall among those in his field and Joyce Carol Oates continually amazes.  There'll be no plot stealers here because the entertainment in a suspense story is found in not knowing what's going to happen.

Suffice it to say that Mosley's "Archibald Lawless, Anarchist At Large: Walking the Line" is the terrifying tale of a young journalist's descent into a nether world.  And, Oates's "The Corn Maiden," the story of the kidnaping of a mentally challenged young girl, is a haunting narrative that will elicit shivers from even the most jaded suspense fans.

A rare opportunity to enjoy the words of these award winning authors.

- Gail Cook

</review>
<review>

Reviewing an anthology like this is rather difficult; the best way is probably to divide them into three groups.

The OK:
* "Walking Around Money" (Donald Westlake) is the story of hapless thief John Dortmunder; it's amusing, but didn't excite me.
* "Merely Hate" (Ed McBain, the editor of the anthology), is a compelling story, one of dozens set in the 87th Precinct. It's lucky that his knowledge of Islam isn't pivotal to the story, because there are numerous errors (though not quite as glaring as, say, those in Matthew Reilly's "Scarecrow" or Tom Clancy's "The Teeth of the Tiger").
* "Keller's Adjustment" (Lawrence Block) is a character study about an unusual assassin. I haven't read anything else by Block, so I can't really say much more.

The not-so-great:
* "The Corn Maiden" (Joyce Carol Oates) didn't live up to its billing ("a spiral of destruction and despair"); its language shifts on a dime from educated to stilted, and it's badly edited, too (one character's surname is spelled *four* different ways).
* "The Resurrection Man" is a fictional biography of a man doing a necessary, but despicable, job in the 19th century. It's fascinating, but rather thin on plot.

The great:
* "Hostages" (Anne Perry) is the most "literary" of the works here, but it's still a compelling read about the tragedies of human nature.
* "Archibald Lawless, Anarchist at Large" (Walter Mosley) would make a great novel.
* "The Things They Left Behind" (Stephen King) is an elegy about life, loss, and ultimately hope, in the wake of 9/11. [It's also the shortest novella in the anthology by far.]
* "The Ransome Women" (John Farris) is an unusual love story, and a perfect entertainment for a rainy night.
* "Forever" (Jeffery Deaver) introduces Talbot Simms, cop/statistician. He's an intriguing character, and I'd love to see him get a full-length novel of his own.

All in all, a great read; even the not-so-great novellas are still worth the time

</review>
<review>

Oh. My. God. I passed up buying the complete short stories of Raymond Chandler for this one. McBain, Mosley, King, Westlake, Deaver, and Block sharing the same book? And, mind you, not with any skinny little throwaway, wrote-in-a-weekend, virgin Bloody Mary shorts, but with big phhhhhat novellas. The novella is one of the greatest lost forms of detective fiction -- a dense, polished gem waiting for future generations to find in a dusty magazine pile or anchoring an obese anthology.

Fitting that Ed McBain -- whose nearly-half century-aged 87th Precinct is still going strong and fresh -- would revive the novella. His own contribution is a new 87th Precinct novel-in-miniature, "Merely Hate," which just simply rocks. The post-9/11 theme of religious and cultural intolerance rockets along with serial murder, terrorism, media satire, and those great McBain cops and characters. The whole squad chimes in in the course of this unexpected marvel, and it all wraps up in the kind of twist McBain's become famous for.

I moved on to Lawrence Block's new Keller novelette -- another score for my favorite hitman -- and on to Donald Westlake's latest raucous caper for hapless Dortmunder and felonious friends. I'm saving the Stephen King as a sort of creme brulee capper, but so far, my fictional world has been rocked to its foundations.

I'll buy Chandler next paycheck.

</review>
<review>

Ralph Ketcham certainly some respect I had for him when he, in the middle of Patrick Henry's speech, inserted, "Here Mr. Henry strongly and pathetically expatiated on the probability of the president's enslaving America..."

If it were not for the fact that I've already highlighted and marked up this edition, I would buy a different version and use that as my primary source. Mr. Ketcham's remarks were not in good taste, nor was it proper historical method to simply leave out an argument from Patrick Henry, thereby disallowing a following historian to examine and evaluate its merits.

****Note****: About four weeks after I wrote the post above, I discovered that the insert mentioned above was not Ketcham's doing. But rather, the side note of a journalist present at the time of Henry's speach at the Virginia Convention. My apologies to Ketcham. Although, he should have inserted a footnote to make the readers aware of what appears to be an awful bias. Unfortunately, Amazon doesn't allow users to edit their ratings and so this version of the Anti-federalist papers will remain at 1 star from me, although it should be a 4 or 5.


Regards,
Brandon K. Harnis

</review>
<review>

Remember what happened to Tom Paine ?  Crucial to the Revolution. Discovered corruption in Congress.  Was hounded out of the country.  They were wise to be worried.  And so was the South. There is a stronger case for States Rights today than ever before.  The European Union offers a model of a federation of sovereign states whose central government only controls common interests and doesn't interfere in direct taxation or local law, but by importing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (itself based on Paine's Rights of Man) into law it gives certain guarantees which have hardly been mentioned in the US (prisoners' rights for instance).  Equally the Canadian constitution is a good model for a modern constitution (it includes the rights of women!).  These guys could see the problems.  How do we get our 'representatives' to see the problem ?  By turning the US Constitution into a kind of holy document, we actually work against the ideas of the people who first conceived it.  This book is an excellent one to give those 'constitutionalists' who would rather not think for themselves

</review>
<review>

These often intense and firey speeches made by the Anti-Federalists or the detractors of the Constitution (as it was being written and then debated) are powerful, passionate and sharp enough to make one feel these words were  meant to be weapons, i.e., the front line defense of the freedom and  liberty we so easily take for granted today. I feel that much of what is  wrong in our political system today was predicted here, and what would  constitute the only real solution, i.e., active, democratic citizenship, is  also demonstrated here in their willingness to fight against tyranny with  reason and passion.  How much greater our public debates would be today if  this were required reading for all citizens!   and quot;Politics and quot; would be  thought well of again and refer to what citizens do in noble service to  communities, close to home and far away.  Do yourself a favor, get inspired  again as to the original principles and purpose of democracy, read this  book, and believe again!  And do something

</review>
<review>

I have yet to read a Dean Koontz tale that I dislike. He has such a flair for bringing me into the tale as though I am experiencing it myself. Once I start a Koontz novel I find it difficult to go to sleep until I am done. I enjoy them so much it seems like a guilty pleasure, but it's just a pleasure, no guilt involved

</review>
<review>

I enjoyed this book, detailed plot and different than most of his other books

</review>
<review>

Dean Koontz's latest novel is a great thriller that I found myself not wanting to put down.  Like Stephen King, I feel some of Dean's best writing is when he is not involving the supernatural playing card in the deck.  The characters seem a little deeper, the story very plausible, and the tasks, tragedies and triumphs a bit more heartfelt, making you, the reader, care that much more about the outcome.

The journey to that outcome centers on a man named Mitch Rafferty.  Mitch lives a simple life with his wife in Southern California (if that is even possible, but bear with me here).  He owns a small landscaping company, while his wife is a secretary at a Real Estate firm.  Mitch and Holly enjoy the simple things in life, and dream of raising a family of their own soon.  One day while on a job site, a call on his cell phone changes his life forever.  On the other end, he realizes his wife is in danger, and she is not alone.  A man tells him that they want 2 million dollars raised in ransom for her release, or she will be killed.  He is given only 3 days to accomplish this seemingly impossible task.  The confusion and terror start here; Mitch doesn't even have $100,000 in the bank let alone 2 million.  They seem to know how much he does have in the bank, right down to the penny.  They also seem to have an eye on him at all times, audibly telling him in real-time to watch a man across the street right before he is killed by a long range rifle.  They do this to tell him they mean business, and that if he goes to the police, they will slowly cut his wife up into pieces.

Mitch loves Holly more than anything in the world, but don't think for a second that Koontz saturates us in the meaning of family, love and life.  We get that description in good doses, but the theme here is all about surprises, shock value and the continual tests and tasks Mitch must face in order to bring Holly home safe.  The novel is a thriller to say the least.  From the first page to nearly the last, Mitch Rafferty suddenly has to become something different in order to do anything for love.  More of his family becomes involved, though at first indirectly, and this is when we are introduced to his brother Anson, who ultimately plays a bigger part in the whole thing than we can imagine.  Koontz does an excellent job of developing the characters of Mitch and his older brother, who are different in more ways than one.  Last but not least is Holly, the loving wife of Mitch who has found herself in a dark place and has to spiritually and cunningly try to outwit one very psychologically profound abductor.

Detective Taggart is another character that adds a whirlwind of suspense to the overall setting.  Taggart is good at his job, so good in fact, that he quickly finds holes in Mitch's story regarding the day the pedestrian was gunned down near his job site.  As Taggert begins to pursue Mitch with guarded skepticism, Mitch realizes that his bloody and harrowing journey to save his wife's life is only going to get more complicated as time goes on.  The only knock on this novel was the ending.  Koontz wraps it up in a way that you are not really expecting, necessarily, but at the same time it leaves you perhaps a tad disappointed with the simplicity of it.  A lot of loose ends are left open for speculation as we do not get to see what all happens with the clean up of the aftermath left in Mitch's wake as the final few hours tick away in a sprawling web of gunman, kidnappers, police, and pedestrians.  We do learn the fate of Mitch, his wife, one of the kidnappers, Anson, Taggert, and Julian Campbell (a business associate of Anson's) but other characters that came into play are I guess, just hauled off to the morgue in obvious fashion.

The scene in the desert with Mitch facing off against two gunmen at night was superb.  Koontz did a good job of describing the landscape it takes place in as well an envisioning the fright and caged animal scenario that our main character is facing.  Despite some nitpickings a reader may find, I myself loved the story.  You'll find all the suspense, mystery, and psychological string pulling you could ever want in these 416 pages.

</review>
<review>

A real page turner.  I let one coworker borrow this book and then the next, I wonder if it will make it back to my bookshelf.  Buy it, you will not regret

</review>
<review>

This story hooks you immediately and keeps up a fast pace throughout. If you like Koontz's style, you won't be disappointed with this entry

</review>
<review>

Again and again Dean Koontz surprises and delivers with phenomenal books. This is an excellent read, and I highly suggest it for fans and first time Koontz readers alike

</review>
<review>

I had rated this book a "two" in relation to other Koontz books I have read. The book is entertaining enough, but is not very unique in relation to other books that Koontz has written. Koontz appears to have somewhat of a formula when creating main charachters. Often there is a primary charachter who appears to be rather basic at the beginning, but through later description becomes more complex due to an unusual background. Koontz books often have the aforementioned charachter utilize their unusual background to overcome difficult obstacles usually in order to save a loved one.

I believe Koontz tries to express certain generalties, some of which have moral and religious undertones:

In the end, good overcomes evil and often evil by its destructive nature, destroys itself.

Love is worth fighting and dieing for.

Love is stronger than evil.

What does not kill you, makes you stronger.

Evil knows no socioeconomic boundaries.

The key to happiness is love, not material gain.

Evil lurks where you least expect it

</review>
<review>

The Husband was a good read; nothing over the top, just a straight forward suspense novel. Dean Koontz is always an enjoyable read.

</review>
<review>

I listened to this while driving cross country.  It definitely helped the time pass by and was entertaining, but it did get a little slow at times

</review>
<review>

Farmer In The Sky is one of 14 "juvenile" science fiction novels written by Robert A. Heinlein (Stranger In A Strange Land, The Puppet Masters, etc.) between 1947 (Rocket Ship Galileo) and 1962 (Podkayne Of Mars).  It is not one of the author's best works, but probably the most typical - that is, the best single example of his work, fitting, in more ways than one, right in the middle.  Heinlein's juvenile novels are all exceptionally well-written, as entertaining and enlightening for adults as for teenagers, but appropriate for kids to read.  Each novel (with a couple exceptions) deals with space exploration in settings that expand on the previous novels - first, the moon, and later on, the stars.

Farmer In The Sky, written in 1950 (and first published as "Satellite Scout" in Boys' Life magazine), was one of Heinlein's last limited to our Solar System, after his characters had explored the Moon, Mars, and Venus, but before moving on to the stars, a step barely hinted at in this novel and the next (Between Planets).  It's the story of young Bill Lermer and his widowed father, George, who decides to emigrate to Ganymede, one of the four larger moons of Jupiter.  Bill feels abandoned when George remarries apparently because it's a requirement of emigration, but he's determined to stick with the newly restructured family and fly to Ganymede with them.  There's plenty of suspense and adventure on the space journey and on the new world.

The author's writing style and depth of characterization is superior to typical juvenile novels like Tom Swift or The Hardy Boys.  Heinlein works in appropriate ideas and lessons for young readers, like a character perceived as an irresponsible, inconsiderate jerk at the beginning, who turns out to be a reliable friend by the end, and a few examples of dealing with death and catastrophe, as well as his usual tidbits of philosophy, such as a discussion of population pressure inevitably leading to war (an event realized in the next novel in the series, Between Planets).

I believe this is the first novel ever to seriously explore the concept of terraforming a desolate alien world for human colonization.  It is also unique in the skillful marrying of two diverse genres (or at least, settings), the futuristic space adventure and the pioneer farm family (Heinlein was raised on a farm), without changing pace or belying characters.  Heinlein revisited that concept in later books like Tunnel In The Sky, but with less contrast.

If you've never read Heinlein, Farmer In The Sky would be a good one to start with, even if not the best.   Overall, it's good enough to get 5 stars, for readers of all ages.

</review>
<review>

There's some good information about York on the web, but the best source is the biography In Search of York. This fascinating and well-illustrated book brings together all that is known of York. It is not only a great book about York, but one of the best books in the L and C literature.

</review>
<review>

This was the only book I could find about the slave who went to the Pacific with Lewis  and amp; Clark. It was published by Colorado Associated University Press in 1985. Exellent foundation for further research on York.  very readable with good illustrations  and amp; footnotes

</review>
<review>

This is the book that *should* have shipped with every copy of SharePoint Portal Server 2003.

I haven't looked at the paper copy in quite some time; the searchable PDF copy of the book that comes as part of the Resource Kit CD is actually much more useful for me, because it's searchable.  I refer to it constantly

</review>
<review>

This book is like the 'Da Vinci Code' for SharePoint.  It has a lot of information.  A LOT OF INFORMATION.  The problem is, the layout and order of presentation in the book make it almost impossible to read and find information.  Loading the included disk is a requirement.  Use the PDF and search electronically for the information because the printed index is incredibly lacking.

Because it is so hard to find stuff, one thinks that MS is trying to hide information or that critical information was left out.

Good resource, but be prepared for a continent spanning search for information that will takes days, leave you bedraggled, and make you think you've solved centuries old mysteries once you finally find what you are looking for.  Pack lightly, carry currency, and perhaps a firearm (for the book, share point machine, self, your choice)

</review>
<review>

This is an excellent resource for SharePoint Portal Server 2003.  I especially like the fact that it comes with a searchable electronic version of the book on CD along with some other useful tools and examples.

Bill provides in-depth information about the various aspects of planning and deploying a SharePoint portal that will help you avoid the common pitfalls of the process.  The only way to undo some design choices is to start over.  It's better to get it right the first time.

In addition to planning and deployment, Bill covers the common administrative tasks in an easy to follow step-by-step mannner.  Click here, enter this, do that, click there.  Concise, point-form instructions that let you get things done when you need to without plodding through a bunch verbiage.

I have even handed this weighty tome to an end user that took an empty site and had it themed and full of content within a couple of days.  This is part of a project converting an ASP based Intranet resource site over to SharePoint.  They have all of the documents that they want to share and I just turned them loose.  Hours of time saved for me because with the easy instructions provided in the book, they were able to just do it themselves.

One caveat to the potential purchaser is in order.  This is not a book for developers.  While it does provide some insight into web part development, it is fairly sparse.  This is a book that is directed solidly at the Planning, Deployment, Operation, and Maintenance of a SharePoint Portal Server 2003 installation.  And in that, it succeeds marvelously.

Dave - Application Architect - Stryker Canada L

</review>
<review>

As a new Sharepoint Administrator, this book has been a valuable tool during the implementation process of my site. Bill does a great job of explaining some of the more difficult to understand features in language that is easy for even beginners such as myself to follow. If your task is to implement a new Sharepoint site, this book will be your best friend

</review>
<review>

This book is very thorough. There's some great chapters on customization and server management; information that has been non-existent until Microsoft released this book. I have bought every book available for my team and this is the only one that covers SharePoint as deep on the topics of administration, search, configuration and architecture. The Book-CD has a lot more as well. My team references this book frequently. To me, it's the first true SharePoint administrator's book available.

</review>
<review>

It's hard to find a good resource soup-to-nuts on things like search and many configuration items.  This book does a great job of explaining quite a few items.  It's also very helpful in developing user documentation as many steps are clearly spelled out.  The CD it comes with contains quite a few very helpful web parts and utilities.  This is a must on any SharePoint admin's bookshelf

</review>
<review>

I have been using the Microsoft Resource Kits on many products over the past 10 years and the SharePoint 2003 kits is one of the most comprehensive produced to date for a Microsoft application. The book is designed as a resource Kit to pull together all relevant information in one location.

Our company placed an order on Amazon.ca as soon the SharePoint Resource Kit was listed as the early SharePoint 2003 printed documentation was sparse and the book was a welcome addition. We found it better to have a paper book with all the information in one location rather than just links to websites, whitepapers, and webcasts to rely upon alone. We now have 3 copies for our project teams to used for their SharePoint work as well as the Internet resources.

I found the structure of the book confusing at first as we used it to help learn the product but now it is a great daily resource. The Adobe PDF manual and several tools are included on the CD-ROM and are great for finding support materials in a jiffy.

Yes, its a buy..

</review>
<review>

SharePoint as a technology is a tremendous product.  This book, however, does not come close to doing it justice.  I found the verbiage to be incoherent in various places, and occasionally terms were simply never defined.  Further, at one point the author says "At the time we had to go to press with this chapter, the information on how to use Microsoft SharePoint Server 2003 extranets was in the beta stages of being written"...  When I purchased this book about SharePoint products and technologies, I assumed the author would be able to write about SharePoint portal server 2003 without requiring other authors to pave the way.  In short, this book seems to be a repurposing of information from other sources in a pell-mell fashion.  Consequently I cannot recommend it

</review>
<review>

Tom Wolfe pursues the idea that many Americans and Brits since World War II have been checking out of mainstream status competition in favor of pursuing status within distinct subcultures. This plays out in some interesting ways--most notably Wolfe watches Natalie Wood pursue status in a more traditional way by acquiring knowledge of art and even some Old Masters, while others play their own status game around photographing celebrities, in this case Wood herself. Essays on Hugh Hefner, California surf culture, and London mods are also worthwhile, as is a comic piece on Wolfe's misadventures with an  and quot;automated hotel and quot;. Wolfe does bog down at times, however, in the minute stylistic details of the groups he covers; if you are not that interested in style in and of itself, your eyes may glaze over those passages. Still, this is a good read for anyone interested in subcultures (especially of the 1960s) and status-seeking

</review>
<review>

I have read this book two times, once as a teenager and now 40+ years later.  It is a great book and easy to read.  I was amazed as a teen ager, and now, how such a famous author would do such an ordinary thing as travel around America in a camper and write about it.  He can do more than write well about things, he shows how to really observe and absorb experiences around him

</review>
<review>

I wasn't too into this one. I'm a big fan of Steinbeck's fiction, but this memoir is rather dull. I was looking to hear what he had to say about the zeitgeist of America at the time he wrote it. But as an older man (as he even admits) he isn't as inspired to talk to or rub shoulders with people whom he crosses paths. The ones that he does write  about come across as a bit uninspired. Nothing much happens on his journey and it almost seems like he doesn't have too much to say.

The one highlight was the last couple of chapters, when he goes to the South (New Orleans) and witnesses all the slimy, seperatists as they scream and holler, with pure craven hatred at the first little black children to be integrated into public schools. He is disillusioned and angry and when he tells the tale of what he saw it is absolutely heartbreaking.

As much as a mediocre work as it was, I did take an interest in it because I am a fan of Steinbeck. It was cool to hear him write a memoir. Other Steinbeck fans make get something out of it as well and for them I recommend it, just on that basis. As long as you take into account the stuff I said above. If you haven't read Steinbeck, please...start with "The Grapes of Wrath" or "Tortilla Flat." Those are much better works and will give you something to go on if you try to read this

</review>
<review>

Favorite memories of this book come from years ago when I could not put the book down as I read of Steinbecks travels with his poodle.  For those whose minds wander and wonder about the roads, towns and people of the U.S., I highly recommend this book.  I am purchasing it to read again

</review>
<review>

This book is vital and interesting, even across the gulf of the 40-odd years since it was written. Steinbeck writes to us from the far side of the 60's "generation gap" and even the far side of post-World War II industrialization and urbanization.

Steinbeck dislikes superhighways and cities, and is most comfortable on country roads and in rural areas. Steinbeck and his dog Charley fight bureaucracy, park rules, bad moods, and mistrust of strangers with free liquor, good old American hospitality, and wit. Along the way he encounters uncooperative Canadian border guards, quaint European migrant farm workers, his own politically polarized family, rich Texans, and other exemplars of the melting pot.

The book's climax is Steinbeck's description of racial tension in the south over the integration of public schools. He describes a performance by the New Orleans "cheerleaders," a group of racist women who yelled obscenities at white children and their parents who escorted them as the children dared to attend grade school with the first black children allowed in.

Steinbeck pulls this off through his remarkably pleasant narrative voice. Reading this book is like spending time with your well-liked great uncle. You know he is basically nostalgic and prefers things the way they were rather than the way they are, but he stops short of being tiresome about it, and doesn't seem to blame you.

In writing about America, Steinbeck directly demonstrates some of the best things about the american character. He honestly reports the good and the bad, believes that people are basically good and striving to improve, and shows that honest, respectful relations between individuals can cure, or at least make tolerable, most of society's ills

</review>
<review>

First I must admit to a certain bias here.  I travel a lot, I travel with a dog as a companion and I enjoy reading this particular author. I was doing all of this long before this book was published and continue to do so to this date. I can relate to this work!  That being said, this is one of those books that I have reread several times over the years, and year after year, I find that Steinbeck's observations contunue to be relevant.  This is a very easy reading book.  I do need to point out to a number of other reviewers though, that this is NOT a novel(despite what his son said)!  It is a travel book and it takes a look at parts of our country seen through the author's eyes.  It is interpreted through the author's past expierences and how he preceives the world.  I am sure that any ten (or one hundred) people could take the same trip and we would come up with ten (or one hundred) different stories and interpretations of those stories. I shared some of his opinions and agree with some of his observations...others I did not.  That is what makes life so wonderful and why it is always good to read, or better yet, talk to others, and agree or disagree, enjoy their views.  I certainly cannot fault the author's usage of language, syntax and organization.  It is all good solid Steinbeck. This is one of those books that can be read on several levels.  You can read it as a social commentary of that particular time in America, or, as I do, you can relax and enjoy the ride with the author.  As a side note:  I do note that many of the younger readers appear to feel this work is boring.  I can see where this might be the case when you consider the movies, T.V. etc. of this day and age.  I might suggest though, that you give it another read in a few years.  Perhaps you will look at it differently.  I know I have expierence that with other works by different authors.  All in all, recommend this one highly.

</review>
<review>

I first read this book at about age 12.  That period of my life was the height of my unrequited wanderlust and fixation with man's best friend, so I was delighted at finding this journal written by a guy who put a camper top on his pickup, took his dog, and drove around the United States. It didn't even bother me that the narrator of this adventure was an "old guy".  He shared my feeling about what it is like to get goosebumps when the wild geese fly overhead in the fall and the air is chill.  You want to grab a sleeping bag, some grub, and hit the road.  At that time, I was just like the young boy in the book who wanted to stow away in Steinbeck's camper.  It would be a few years before I saw the movies "Of Mice and Men" and "The Grapes of Wrath", which led me to reading his novels and really finding out who John Steinbeck was and what he was about.  In "Travels With Charley" the reader doesn't feel that gut wrenching sympathy for his fellow man which is such a big part of Steinbeck's fiction.  In this book Steinbeck is kind of a grumpy old man, like Andy Rooney.  Now that I'm getting kind of old myself, I find myself experiencing the changes in the world Steinbeck was discovering when he wrote this book.  When he writes about meeting a shiney young submarine officer, you get the willies along with Steinbeck about the nuclear sharks deep under the sea, manned by the very young, protecting us, yet at the same time menacing.  The first time I read his description of the waitress in the diner in Maine, so full of negativity that she would only think a big tipper was crazy, I had never met that kind of person before.  Since then I have worked with many just like her.  My favorite part was when Steinbeck camped out with the potato harvesters in Maine.  Also of note are his comentary about ubiquitous "top 40" songs on the radio, last generation's castoffs as today's antiques, and sadness as charmless but comfy mobile homes replace the old family place.  Steinbeck got road-weary halfway through the book, his dog got sick, and everything seemed wrong.  He witnessed the terrible discrimination and trouble of integration of the early '60s.  The badlands and the South creeped him out, and he couldn't wait to get back home.  Isn't that just the way a real trip works?

</review>
<review>

I love Steinbeck, so I try to read what ever he has written. This book was a total surprise, it is so diferent from his other books. I think this would appeal to people who are not Steinbeck fans. For the loyal reader it is a surprise to see his veiw of a country on the bring of the Interstate revolution. He observation of trailor park life is great, and I hear you can see the truck that he drove at the Steinbeck Museum in California.
This is one of my 3 favorite travel books. The other two being On the Road and Henry Rollins's "get in the van". If your going on a raod trip you should bring along one of these books so that you can enjoy the down time

</review>
<review>

Steinbeck's novels are some of the most powerful statements about American culture available on the planet.  But who knows the writer?  Travels with Charley lets readers get to know John Steinbeck, how he thinks, what he believes in, all with great wit and intimacy.  Steinbeck is a very funny man.  I even learned a new respect for poodles.  What else could you want in a book

</review>
<review>

This is one of the best, most enjoyable books ever written, in my opinion.  It is a combination history (of a now by-gone America), essay (on what it means to be American, on the coming modern world, on racism, on travel, even on what the mind of a dog may be thinking), memoir, history, travelogue and poem.  Steinbeck sets off with his dog Charley in a glorified pickup truck to see America in 1960.  He explores as many themes along the way as he does landscapes and states.  He meets people, he offers opinions, he converses with his pal Charley, and he offers a comment on America - past, present, and future.  I find this a fascinating, thoroughly enjoyable (and I'd even say "classic") read.  And I would highly recommend it for anyone who wants to reflect on America and travel with Charley and the great author who drove him around.  For those familiar with John Steinbeck only as a writer of fiction, this book reveals a new side, and one I think you will enjoy

</review>
<review>

Wish I had bought this book first!  Bobbi Brinker tells it like it really is and doesn't sugar coat anything.  This book was most instrumental in helping me decide to have an African Grey Congo in my life

</review>
<review>

This is truly an outstanding book.  The author is a bird-whisperer, having great insight into dealing with parrots, as the special intelligent and talented beings they are.  So many interesting suggestions on all aspects of a parrot's life.  I'm very grateful to Bobbi Brinker

</review>
<review>

This book is a must for new owners of greys

</review>
<review>

I have learned so much with this book. I recomend it highly to any who gets a gray

</review>
<review>

This book has good information for feeding and care of African Grey Parrots.  I wish there had been more on training, however the breeding sections are excellent.

</review>
<review>

The title for my review says it all.  Brinker's years of experience in raising and living with these wonderful creatures comes through in this gently and lovingly written book.  Her approach to handling African greys is very well known in the avian community.  She has taken great pains to study their nutritional and medical needs, along with how to raise babies to give them the best start in life.  Whether you are new to African Grey parrots or are a seasoned owner, this book is an excellent species-specific reference for anyone who is captivated by these magnificent birds.  I even bought a copy for my avian vet, who appreciated it very much.

</review>
<review>

Most people who have an African Grey Parrot and are on the internet have heard about Bobbi Brinker. Her birds are commonly called Bobbi Babies by those fortunate enough to have one of her babies.

She first wrote this book and self published it as a paperback, spiral bound book in 1999. The new book has a wonderful colour cover, some additions and corrections and is now published by Lucky Press. This should ensure that more people will have the opportunity to purchase it and read the advice offered by Bobbi.

She dispels many of the popular myths about these birds - such as African Greys being clumsy or pluckers or one-person birds or needing more calcium. She explains how these myths became popular and how to prevent these problems from happening to your African Grey Parrot.

She includes several pages devoted to the diet of an African Grey Parrot going into detail about the vitamin requirements and which foods provide these vitamins and also provides easy to follow recipes.

The information she includes on breeding and handfeeding will help the average pet bird owner know what to look for when checking out a breeder. If you are interested in breeding these birds, these chapters will be invaluable.

Bobbi also includes a chapter on the egg - giving day by day examples of some eggs as they developed from the day they were laid.

The final chapter in this book - Living With Greys: All Things Considered answers a lot of questions people have about the behaviour of their bird. Many behaviours that are normal, cause concern for people who wonder if there is a problem when they see their bird doing them. If you see your bird twitching, trembling, nail biting or digging (or more), you might want to read what Bobbi Brinker has to say about it.

</review>
<review>

This book is great for a first time owner looking to learn about parrots in general and specifically about african grey parrots. It devotes a nice introduction and touches on most toopics that are important in a manner that is easy to digest for the common human. However, I feel that the book falls short on several aspects, and I found myself wanting to know more after the last sentence in each section. I thought I would leave it as just a reference manual but the book in itself is poorly cross referenced and does not even have an index! As such, the book is merely a pamphlet or guide about african grey parrots. For the ~$20 that it costs you can find the same information in much less expensive books that actually have an index. Having some experience with other parrots and with other books, I find the book lacking and plain.

I guess the book will appeal to the non-science types and those who just want to have a generic guide of how parrots behave. For those of us that want to be our parrots best friend the book falls way short of its goal.

</review>
<review>

This book has alot of information if you are purchasing or thinking of purchasing a baby grey!!  I have been looking up alot of information daily with my new baby even though I have owned another grey for 5 years.

</review>
<review>

Although I have been a Registered Nurse for over 20 Years, I am new to the field of Hospice Nursing.  "Final Gifts", written by experienced Hospice Nurses, provided me with an insight into their world that only first-hand knowlege can give.  This is a "must read" for anyone who deals with death on a regular basis.  There IS a need for a "special awareness" in order to receive the "final gift" that a dying person wants to share

</review>
<review>

This book was recommended to me by the cancer support group I was going to. Unfortunately, my father died the next day. I wish everyone in my family, especially my parents, had read it before my father died. Much of what was going on with him would have been more understandable.
That said, this book is a very helpful tool for anyone who has a loved one who has a terminal illness. The stories and the explanations of certain behaviors really provide a lot of solace and assistance to the caregivers. Hospice workers and nurses with extensive experience with the dying have seen it all and have a unique perspective on the phases one goes through in dying. Being able to understand sometimes incomprehensible statements or actions would make the passage easier for the caregivers. The possible conflict of after-life views could be addressed, or at least broached. I highly recommend this book

</review>
<review>

I think I've now bought 6 copies of this book, for my own library, to lend to people who are interested and might benefit, and to give as empathy gifts to friends and relatives entering Hospice, or their grieving families after a loved one's death.

I have Stage IV - advanced, terminal or incurable (take your pick) breast cancer.  I've been in treatment, continually adjusting as best as I can to new treatments, new worries and new symptoms, trying to preserve as good a quality of life as possible along the way.  Meanwhile, Final Gifts has helped me accept and move towards the idea of quality of death being an important event for me and those I love.  Once I give up treatment, or treatment fails me (whichever comes first), I've arranged for a local Hospice organization to help my husband and I cope, at home.  Having read Final Gifts, it was easier for me to go ahead with planning my graveside funeral according to my culture and preferences, to hire a local stone cutter to design my headstone together - he has since completed it, other than the date of death, so it will be ready to mark my gravesite a week after I'm buried, and even to write my own obituary (to the extent that I know the information).  All this is done, a relief - even a pleasure, to have had a say beforehand, and Final Gifts, which I and then my husband read over a year ago, provided the impetus, and the hope for a death with dignity and beauty

</review>
<review>

This book was reoommended by a friend who read it when her husband was dying.  He had read it also and found it very helpful to understand the process he was going through and he highly recommended it and THAT SAYS SOMETHING!   When my Mom was passing I read it and although I was scared to read it, it actually was nothing to fear....it was comforting and enlightening and made the process much easier for me as the caretaker and daughter.  I recognized and understood the things she was saying much better and knew how to respond in some unusual circumstances.  I recommend this book to ANYONE dealing with the process of dying.  I bought extra copies to give to others who are losing someone close to them

</review>
<review>

I wanted to do some hospice volunteering but was so worried during the training that I was not "made" for this kind of work as I am a pretty emotional sort but during my training it was suggested that I read Final Gifts to help ease some of my fears. It was the best thing I could have done, though it is never easy to lose a patient it sure opened my eyes to near death awareness and the needs of those leaving this world. I HIGHLY recommend this book for anyone - one who is losing a loved one - one who would like to work with those dying - or just one with questions of the end of life process. I thank both authors from the bottom of my heart for this book

</review>
<review>

This book was recommended to my family after my mother received a terminal diagnosis.  We all read it and I cannot begin to tell you what a help this book was during my mothers final journey.  Not only did it help us, it allowed us to help her.   If you or someone you know is dealing with the terminal diagnosis of a family member or friend please read or give them this book

</review>
<review>

I highly recommend this book for anyone who is going through the painful experience of a loved one's dying process.  There are many stories and guidelines for making their transition from life to death a more comfortable and valuable experience, and will also help you to cope better.

I first encountered "Final Gifts" when a friend loaned it to me after the death of my father--while it was too late for him, it helped me understand what had happened, and I was better prepared to handle the death of my mother, less than two years later.  Because of this book, my brother, sister, and I felt we had done everything we could for our mother, and it allowed us to feel a definite sense of peace both during that time, as well as after she died.

Please don't allow the occasional repetitiveness of the book stop you from reading it all the way through--the authors are well aware of the shock and confusion that you may be experiencing, and the redundancies are there to make sure that the message penetrates your grief.

Many blessings on the authors for writing such a priceless book!

</review>
<review>

In short, this was an incredible insight on the process of dying and was very helpful in understanding some of the mood changes and actions of my dying mother.

If someone you know and love is dying, this is a key read to help get through it

</review>
<review>

Final Gifts is a VERY SPECIAL BOOK.  It is a guide for those who have never witnessed the death of a loved one or someone who is approaching death.  The authors are exquisitely sensitive to the needs of the dying.  The book is a vehicle for enabling the grieving living and dying to come to terms with fate and appreciate the wonders of life's final journey.  Although not esposing religion, the experiences expressed have considerable spiritual content.  It is a book one can read quickly, or as I preferred, to read in sections, contemplate, and read on

</review>
<review>

Great help for me as I teach End of Live Car

</review>
<review>

READ THIS BOOK!  You don't have to be a transsexual, homosexual, male, or female to get a lot out of this book.  I'm a married heterosexual female and read this book with an open mind, and am so glad I did so.  Kholsa's transition from a female body to a male one that matched his male brain offers insights on the societal and biological constructs of gender and how our bodies are hard-wired to think and behave in certain ways by our hormones, our sociology, and so many other things.  The fact that Kholsa has experienced both sides can help you learn more about yourself and the opposite sex than you ever thought possible.

Written in gorgeous, dramatic prose that will keep you turning pages well into the wee hours.  Fantastic!  A great choice for your book club, too---sure to inspire hours of lively discussion

</review>
<review>

This is much more than a story about a man born in a woman's body who then went through life threatening surgery and alot of sole searching to become the person he is today. It is also a study in determination and perserverance.  I saw Dhillon Khosla on the View and immediately bought his book.  I could not believe that he was born a woman.  When I received his book I read it through in one night (something new for me) because I had to know the whole story.  While this book will interest those who feel they too are trapped in the wrong body,it is also the story of an incredible journey full of sandtraps and brick walls.  The intimate story is told with intellectual honesty and is an excellent read

</review>
<review>

"Both Sides Now: One Man's Journey Through Womanhood" by Dhillon Khosla takes you along with him on a journey no mere mortal could
imagine. But this is not some science fiction fantasy novel, no, this is in fact a very personal memoir. Thanks to a simple twist of fate, Mr. Khosla was assigned at birth a body by Kafka. His clarity and his intelligence and his perseverance helped him survive and overcome difficult odds.For his relatively rare birth defect, (about one in ten thousand children are born this way) there are no telethons and the cure is expensive. Mr. Khosla had to jump through many hoops to get where he is today- a successful lawyer and talented musician- and the obstacles he faced and conquered in this epic journey were often fore-shadowed in his dreamlife.
The book is smartly laid out- it includes seventeen black and white photographs and twenty-eight of the twenty-nine chapters cover a specific month in his life with the last chapter a jump cut to the present. Each chapter begins with a short but telling entry from his dream journal, and throughout the book the high caliber of his writing keeps you right there beside him.
I rushed home from work each day until I finished this book and thought of little else in the interim. A fantastic story, all the more remarkable for having been lived, one can only hope he tries his hand at novel writing next. He is a relatively young man so one hopes he will write another memoir someday having lived through more adventures, but he has already lived what one could call a crowded hour so his autobiography is by no means premature.
One hopes if there is another installment that the next one will turn out to be a love story

</review>
<review>

It's an intellectual book with alot of funny anecdotes. It provides   insight as to a person's emotional and spiritual evolvement...the books speaks about many dreams during this transition. It seems to me that Dhillon was so determined to become his real person that the lines between the physical world and the dream world began to blend. It also demonstrates how this person grew spiritually....I mostly appreciated how he kept a kind heart during some very difficult times.

</review>
<review>

This is the first book that has profoundly moved me in so many ways. It has inspired me beyond what I thought a book ever could.

</review>
<review>

I have recently finished this disaster of a novel for a college honors course "Disability through Autobiography."  While attempting to read this book, my frustration took over and in a couple of instances, resulted in the book being thrown across the room.  Much of the book seems a criticism of those that are not blind as well as the depictions of the blind by those who are not blind, namely authors and Hollywood directors.  I can think of a much better topic for a book than nit-picking at random quotes in movies, books, and social groups.  Kleege seems to only show the ability for a blind person to criticize those who are not blind and may not completely understand what blindness is.  Although I have taken many courses that focus intensely on accepting those with disablilities in society, I find it very difficult to accept severe cynicism no matter what disability the author may have.

</review>
<review>

Like many people who have read this book, I am legally blind. It was recommended to me by a friend who has very good vision. Comparing notes with her was particularly educational. The perspectives of a sighted person and a blind person on the text turn out to be not all that different.

This book has incredible ups and downs. First- the ups.
Kleege's description of what a blind person sees is incredible, perhaps the best I have ever read. People who haven't had to worry about it are under such misconceptions. A lot of people think that if you can see- kind of- that what you see is a blur. Even the cover of this book appears to tell us the same thing, but that's far from true for everyone.

The author makes the point that the designation of what constitutes legal blindness really was a pretty random decision. Who says 20/20 is normal? How many people do you know who use some kind of correction? Given that, how normal can it possibly be? Also, just because someone is legally blind, they may use their vision so efficiently that you don't know until they tell you that there's anything different about them. Ms. Kleege reports this experience in her own life. Conversely, someone who is legally blind may not use their vision at all. Also, her descriptions of the process of making sense of visual information is well done and should help to explain to people who don't know exactly how sight works, how different it can be for various people.

My favorite of the points made by this book, however, has got to be that the fact that you can see something, doesn't mean you're not blind; doesn't make it not a good idea to learn Braille. Many of us with some useable sight were refused this tool as children. Frankly, if you can't read print at all without pain, this encourages illiteracy. Kleege is spreading the word that Braille is NOT a foreign language- it's just another way to percieve the alphabet that we already know. She raises the question of whether audio books constitute reading in the same way that reading print or Braille do. (given that it stimulates different parts of your brain, I'd argue no, although like Kleege, I think it's a useful tool at times.)

Now for the downs.
Kleege can be really disparaging of sighted people. There are subtle and less subtle digs and jabs all over the book. She puts words into the mouths of passing strangers, extending a real encounter into a possible outcome, making assumptions about what the sighted person would have said if she'd said something different, herself. Honestly not every sighted person is a complete jerk, or ignorant about how sight works. She asserts that a mother will stop a child from staring at a blind person because if you don't look at something unpleasant, it will go away. No, mothers do that because it's very rude to stare! My sighted friend was really offended by the middle of the book and actually exclaimed "well, so sorry I can SEE!"

Her take on Oedipus' blindness, I thought, was overly dramatic. Kleege regards it as symbolic castration, setting the stage for the way people percieve blindness to this day. Frankly, Oedipus wasn't Freudian until Freud. If Oedipus had meant to castrate himself, given that this is a classical story and they didn't mince words- he would have.

I also thought some of her arguments with modern cinema were perhaps a bit harsh. Not that really bad stereotypes don't exist. Movies like "Jennifer 8", portraying blind people as needful of institutionalisation and completely helpless when confronted by a sighted crazy, are a real problem. The blind aren't the only people stereotyped in Hollywood, though. One could argue that the heroine was helpless as much because she was a woman in a horror movie as that she was blind. Also, wasn't the protagonist in "Scent of a Woman" more stereotypically bachelorish than blind? True, a lot of movies were clearly directed by people who have never met a blind person. however, the unmoving stare empolyed by many film directors to typify the blind, which Kleege finds so offensive- exists. If one has been blind since birth, one sometimes lacks body language, never having observed it. If one lacks eyes, why blink to moisten them? Sometimes one forgets.

All in all, I really enjoyed this book, even though I periodically wanted to yell "OH, come ON! Get over it!" I'd reccommend it to the blind who have not found anyone with whom to relate, lately, or the sighted who want to understand.

And one more thing- anyone who gets embarrassed because they just said "Hey, look at this!" to a blind person. . .  It's ok. We do it too

</review>
<review>

Dr. Howard G. Hendricks is a master teacher, and this book is a summary of what might be his most life-changing class ... a class on how to study the Bible on your own! I had the privilege of taking that class. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants the joy of personal discovery. If you want to be able to open the Bible and discover what it means and what it means to you, then this book is one that can get you to that point!
I highly recommend this book!
Harlan D. Betz, author of "Setting the Stage for Eternity

</review>
<review>

Everything I have seen from Dr Hendricks is good, but this was especially good!  He does a great job or explaining why to study the Bible, then a number of strategies to get much more from your own study

</review>
<review>

This book is an excellent tool for learning to study the bible on your own.  Author, Howard Hendricks, is a professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, but his writing is understandable and easy to read.  Each chapter helps you to dig deep into the meanings of the Bible passages and apply them to your own life

</review>
<review>

Howard Hendricks is one of the best Bible teacher I have come acrossed. He is a motivational teacher, his teaching is fruitful and productive, and mostly importantly - changed life. He is a gift from God

</review>
<review>

This is an excellent resource on personal Bible Study.  It's format is easy for the novice and useful for those who are a little more experienced.
You won't find much theology or five-dollar words.  It is easy to understand, and has exercises with each chapter that make the tools come to life.
Dr. Hendricks teaches this course at Dallas Theological Seminary.  I know a few DTS grads who have indicated this is basically the class in one book.  I went through it by myself and have benefitted tremendousl

</review>
<review>

This book is not only chalk full of wonderful knowledge on how to read your bible, it is also gives you some great basic biblical advice. If you are often overcome with the thought of reading a book older than dirt, than this is a book to finger through to help you get a better handle on it.  A book well worth the read.

</review>
<review>

Great book - easy to read, step by step applications. I have a new outlook on the Bible as a treasure to dig into.

</review>
<review>

This is an easy reading book, in 45 fun little chapters, to help people gain the basic Biblical interpretation skills they need to transform their lives.  The Hendricks' show us how proper interpretation of scripture is used to fuel our minds for improved prayer/meditation based on God's principles.  These principles are to be applied in our daily lives to change us and consequently change our corner of the world.  The overall approach is the same used by most Bible study methods; that is, "inductive" Bible study - observe, interpret, apply.

The authors stress honest observation of the Biblical text without the influence of a pretense or agenda to affect the interpretation.  An extremely detailed and systematic observation of the text being studied is stressed as the most crucial aspect of interpretation. Proper interpretation is unlikely without the foundation of an extremely thorough observation of the text itself.  About half the book is used to fully explore the questions and forms of textual observation.

The book is loaded with practical ways to assist in interpretation during your Bible study. For example, transporting your senses into the story to help relate to David in a cave or Paul in prison.  Clever tools like the fingers of your hand can be used to remember 5 things to look for when interpreting a passage. Another easy-to-remember idea is to ask the 6 w's - who, what, where, when, why and wherefore (wherefore is the "so what?" part of life application).

The authors encourage the application of Biblical principles in our lives. The final section of the book presents a set of questions and motivations for applying the Bible in everyday life. There are many lists to derive life application points: is there a command to obey, an example to follow, a doctrine to be believed, etc.?  A recurring theme is the Biblical understanding of Godly knowledge that is summarized as `knowing without doing isn't knowing at all.'

I like this book overall but there are a few things I don't care for.  I think it is too long and redundant on some points.  150 pages on every conceivable aspect/permutation of observing a text is excessive.  Chapter 7, for example, talks about general reading skills. This is good information to mention but I don't think it deserved a chapter.  You can get value from the book by selectively reading most of the chapters and omitting some like 7,13,14,20 (about 7% of the book). This is definitely not the author's intent, but it is how I recommend the book to people who don't have much reading time.

Another way to improve this book would be more coverage about literary genre (parable, poetry, history, letter, etc.).  Chapter 29 covers this somewhat, but with a book this size, I would expect more on this important area for interpreting a text. How To Read the Bible for All its Worth, (Fee) and Effective Bible Teaching (Wilhoit) cover genre very well and are better choices if you don't need something as basic as "Living by the Book".

Living by the Book is a good choice for adult beginners, including high school students, to get started into productive Bible study.


</review>
<review>

This is probably the most important book to get Christians to read.  More important than the Bible? Yes -- because reading this will 1) get people excited about getting into the Bible and 2) give them the tools to get the most out of their time in the Bible.

It is a good introduction to Bible study that covers observing the text (the most important step and the one given the least space in most introductory books), interpreting the text, and applying the text (another often neglected step).  Through explanation and example the author will show the reader how to make the Bible text his own, and then at the end of most chapters there is a passage (or a few) that is recommended as especially well suited to practicing the new skill.

(Also available is a workbook that complements this book with more exercises for each skill.)

This is an introduction aimed at the average layman, not clergy, and one can certainly go deeper into the topic, but this is a great book to help the average believer to understand and apply the truths that the Biblical authors (and Author) left us

</review>
<review>

Think and Grow Rich is a classic. After reading and listening to hundreds of audio books in this subject, Napoleon Hill set the foundation for a philosophy that empowers people towards their greatness.

This book has helped me in various ways and it is my favorite book to come back to and read over and over again!

I highly recommend it,

F

</review>
<review>

I carry this book with me too work all the time to remind me and give me inspiration to strive for more and never quit in reaching my financial goals

</review>
<review>

This is a great book, but you have to read it with the idea in mind that it was something like a million years ago when it was written. (ok maybe not that long ago) I have this in my library because it is an essential piece for any person who - like me - want to venture out in the unknown waters of (gasp)AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH - self employment. Gotta think everyday and while your at it - read this too. Use your common sense of course but READ IT

</review>
<review>

The single most helpful book in changing the way I thought about myself and my goals.  Buy it

</review>
<review>

Napoleon Hill's gift to each of us who reads and rereads this astounding life recipe is priceless. I remain in awe of his rigour, insight and persistence. If you haven't read this book, buy it now, read it and read it again. Then do Hill's exercises exactly as he advises and the world will shift beneath your feet.

</review>
<review>

The title of this book is actually quite deceiving, because even though the author focuses on the link between thought and financial success, his principals can be utilized in all areas of life. I have studied the ancient texts of the Vedas and Upanishads and have found a strong link between the work of Napoleon Hill and this ancient philosophy on the power of thought.

Anyone interested in gaining more control over their destiny and success should read this book, and not just once, but over and over again. With every reading, more truths are unearthed, more clarity is gained and with it a larger perspective of life.

Money is the result of success, and sucess is the result of a major definite purpose, and a major definite purpose is a thought process. So think, grow rich and succeed

</review>
<review>

Quantum physicians have started to realise a simple truth: we are in charge of our lives and it is us who totally create our reality. Anything is possible only as long as we can imagine it and if we have the will to do anything required to get what we want, we will get it. This is a very powerful message and it made Andrew Carnegie one of the richest men on the planet (who later inspired Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge). Nobody says that getting rich is easy, or that any other undertaking that you may have is. However, you have the key to your own success in your own hand, whatever it is that you may wish for.

Some of the advice that Napoleon Hill gives may be a little outdated and you may disagree with it, however the key message of this book is one that you cannot miss. And indeed the very easy, straight-forward style of this work does help a lot. For the author does not express the key message directly, he rather points to it, and lets you discover it on your own. Why? Because the message is so simply and so powerful that if someone just told you, you would not see the importance as much, as in this case, where you have to figure it out on your own.

Five stars are awarded to this book, as it is one that you should definitely have on your shelf. It has the power to truly change your life around if only you want it. And indeed, it is very different to most self-improvement books, as it doesn't tell you what to do, but invites you to fulfil your dreams whatever they may be. Read it - you won't be disappointed

</review>
<review>

Napoleon Hill, author of this 1920s classic, will remind you of an older, wiser, slightly wacky uncle who advises you about careers, life and love. This book is a wonderful collection of tips - many based on the ideas of Hill's mentor Andrew Carnegie - that range from the practical (how to prepare a resume) to surprisingly New Age-like mystical talk about the infinite powers of the universe. Of course, like an old uncle, Hill can get long-winded and repetitive at times, but since he packs so much wisdom into his slender book, you will want to reread it over and over again, repetitions and all. We recommend his classic compendium to everyone who is dangling from the career ladder and wondering how to prosper.

</review>
<review>


It never ceases to amaze me how when you read a classic more than once you still get as much out of it as you did the first time.

Hill became famous for his research, arguably the first and at the time, the most comprehensive on what it takes to create wealth.

There is a reason why you will have been recommended this book on several occasions by several people.

It is not 'A' source on what thinking rich is all about, it's 'THE' source.

Through-out the book Hill keeps referring to the 'one thing' and when you finally catch on, it will be a revellation and a turning point for you in your path to wealth.

Enjoy the Read ...

Brad Sugars - Author, The Business Coac

</review>
<review>

A Bend in the Road is by far my favorite Spark's novel. It balances mystery, romance, and suspense perfectly to keep the reader interested at all times. I adored the main characters, and could relate to them easily. You will laugh, cry, and your heart will be warmed. I read through A Bend in the Road in one sitting. I suggest you do the same

</review>
<review>

This was an excellent book.  This is the book that got me hooked on Nicholas Sparks

</review>
<review>

I love Nicholas Sparks' books. Like all his books they are an easy read. Just cuddle up on the sofa and begin. As always he mixes tragic and love. This one is especially sweet with a child who lost his mom, and his dad finding new love. There are twist and turns in the book and some are sad. You won't be dissappointed.

</review>
<review>

I read the back cover of this book and immediately knew most of what would happen.  As soon as I met the character who would turn out to be the driver, I knew the rest of the story.  It was extremely easy to figure out and quite disappointing.  The story's decent.  The text flows nicely, and the suspension of disbelief is strong, but where did Nick's originality go?  Where's the sweet and innocent charm of The Notebook, A Walk to Remember, and Nights in Rodanthe?  It seems like he's run out of steam, or didn't care too much about this one.

A decent book to read, but don't expect anything spectacular as you would with his earlier work

</review>
<review>

The concept of this book could've worked, but Sparks didn't develop any other characters to throw the reader off track. It's painfully obvious who is driving the car. The dialogue between Miles and Sarah when they are first getting to know each other is extremely annoying, as is their relationship. Interesting how she breezes into their family and is accepted by Jonah with open arms. And the ending to the story is laughable. I won't give it away, but I'm sure you can figure it out within the first 10 pages. I doubt I can read another Sparks novel again.

</review>
<review>

I absolutely Love all of Nicholas Sparks' books. I have read them all and if want a great read with a touching story then he is the author for you. Get your kleenex's ready. You can't go wrong here.

And I always preorder his new ones..... I'm addicted

</review>
<review>

I read the review from the reviewer who had "figured out who did it" halfway through the book.  Yes, I suspected who did it also.  But, there was still the element of surprise as to how everything would turn out, etc.  It seemed like a hopeless situation when I realized the perpetrator.  I listened to the audio version of this book.  I usually only listen to audio books as I walk.  However, when I got to the point of finding our who the hit and run driver was, I couldn't stop listening.  I listened to the last two cassettes non-stop all morning long.  If I had been reading it, it would have been a true page turner until I reached the end.  I recommend this story highly.  It is different than The Notebook and The Wedding, and I applaud Nicholas Sparks as a writer

</review>
<review>

A bend in the road is another one of my favorite books of Nicholas Sparks. Miles was not very forgiving to Sarah's brother when he told him the truth. He could have kept the relationship going. Sarah was a good person and I good teacher. I would like to read that book again

</review>
<review>

A bend in the road takes the reader on a journey that encounters heartbreak and sorrow, and ends with a chilling twist that is guaranteed to leave the reader smiling and teary-eyed.

</review>
<review>

I have a hard time understanding what it is that I dislike about the novel. I dislike it almost as much as the movie.
I have been a loyal follower of Smiley and some more after that. Once the Cold War was over, JlC had to look for a new realm. I tried to follow him, but gave up with the Kaukasian troubles, forgot the name of the book.
Maybe it is this: JlC's trade mark, his USP, is the evilness of the other side. With the KGB  and  Co., that worked perfectly. His readers were willing to stay with him and believe him.
Now he is transferring the KGB style to all sorts of other badies. I think it does not work any more.
It is not that I trust the pharmaceutical companies enough to not be like here insinuated. I do not.
What I do not like, I guess, is the artificial mood of intellectual suffering from the evilness of all kind of conspiracies. Tess in this story seems to be the normal do-gooder who falls foul with the baddies. That is more ok in the book than in the movie. (There, for my eyes, Rachel Weisz does herself discredit.)
What is absolutely not ok is the surrender of command by the narrator mid way. JlC gives up on trying to keep a believable storyline and declines into darkest conspiracy allegations

</review>
<review>

John Le Carr� has written a touching spy thriller that traces the transformation of a man who loses his wife to a diabolical intrigue, and sets out to discover who is responsible.   The suspects are multinational pharmaceutical companies--as Le Carr� puts it in his epilogue--"It is about individual conscience in conflict with corporate greed".

This story is prescient in its timeliness.  In 2006 more articles are appearing in the press about the undue influence of pharmaceutical companies upon the medical profession.  Some believe this is a conflict of interest for doctors.   Le Carr�'s story posits the use of third world nations as testing grounds for drugs that have not passed sufficient clinical trials, and the mega-billions that rest on such exploitation.

The writing in this novel is superb.  Le Carr�'s writing is spare and poignant.  He lucidly describes the inner life of his lively and vivid characters.  The tone of the novel is deeply sad and disappointed; it clearly points out where humanity is still failing to rise to its full moral potential.  Despite its mordant critique of the greed of corporations, The Constant Gardener provides high quality entertainment and suspense.  Well done--highly recommended

</review>
<review>

I am a long time fan of le Carre - have read and loved all his books - until this one. I just could not summon the interest to finish it. Yes, I'm sort of curious about why this guy's wife was killed, but not curious enough to wade through all the documents and emails et cetera ad nauseum along with him to get there. I was on vacation and had nothing else to do, yet still, I could not wade through this mind-numbing book. I got about half way through - did I quit reading too soon? Did it suddenly pick up after that?

If you're new to John le Carre, start with an earlier book - seriously. Because he's a wonderful writer, really

</review>
<review>

Deserving of all accolades it's gotten, and deserving of more than one Oscar nomination. Heartbreaking in the same way that Hotel Rwanda was

</review>
<review>

Justin Quayle is a diplomat with the British High Commission in Nairobi.  A mild man who loves gardening, Quayle is devastated when he hears that his beloved, much younger wife Tessa has been brutally murdered while attending a conference with her companion, African Dr. Arnold Bluhm.  Rumors are rampant and deal with everything from the relationship between Tessa and Bluhm to the the reason for her murder.  Justin emerges from the paralysis of mourning and decides that his goal is to throw himself into the task of tracking Tessa's quest for human rights in Nairobi and thus finding out the motive for murder.  As he tries to duplicate Tessa's movements during her final days, Justin discovers that her efforts had been directed at a large drug company which is unethically testing drugs on poor Africans who have contracted tuberculosis.  Le Carre takes the reader through a seemingly unending series of interviews and manipulations between Justin, the pharmaceutical company and the diplomatic corps.  The same effect could have been achieved in many fewer pages, but the story remains a haunting and interesting one

</review>
<review>

I am a sucker for a story in a foreign country.  LeCarre is an great writer, and made the African scene very realistic.  He paints a very clear political picture of Kenya that is probably not far from the real political situation in many African nations.  As a missionary in a third world country, I can understand how paternalism and racism sneaks into foreigner's minds.  The Western characters in Constant Gardener exhibit extreme paternalistic attitudes toward Africa and though ugly and obviously wrong, many foreigners use these attitudes to deal with their own culture shock.  The hero of the story had no problem bonding with the people, which is probably the reason for her healthy attitude.  When foreigners spend time and build relationships with the people of the country, they will bond with these people and begin seeing them for what they are- equals.  But the majority of the characters in this book spend their time in their Western homes, only seeing nationals who are servants.  Are these Westerners bad people?  Probably not.  But they have succumbed to paternalism and racism because of their lack of contact and relationships with the people.

As much as the above paragraph may appear to be a review for a non-fiction book, this book is in fact fiction.  The story is good, especially in the beginning.  But as the story goes on, the end becomes more and more inevitable.  When a fiction book has an inevitable ending, I begin to lose interest.  This was my first LeCarre book, and I look forward to reading others of his novels.

</review>
<review>

No one has captured in evocative, mesmerizing prose the secret world of spies and diplomacy as brilliantly and as well as British author - and former spy himself - John Le Carre. In recent years he has turned his attention away from classic Cold War plots of espionage skullduggery for which he is best known in his "George Smiley" series of novels, to take on other, equally important, issues such as food and medical aid to developing countries. In "The Constant Gardener" Le Carre offers one of his most exciting novels to date, while posing some intriguing ethical questions for which there are no easy answers. These include whether the West has a moral obligation to give corrupt Third World governments substantial financial, medical and food assistance knowing that most of this aid will never reach those for which it is intended. He also raises the issue whether the Third World should serve the West as inexpensive sites for clinical trials of potential drugs which are harmful to patients who are unwilling participants in these trials, in the expectation that these drugs, once perfected, will be quite successful in curing the illnesses for which they are designed.

In Justin Quayle, John Le Carre has created one of his most intriguing, sympathetic characters since George Smiley, depicting Quayle's transformation from a rather nondescript, mediocre British Foreign Service diplomat stationed in Nairobi, Kenya to a driven, risk-taking amateur detective in search of the truth behind the mysterious murder of his young wife Tessa Quayle. Le Carre demonstrates repeatedly his splendid gifts for dialogue and description as Quayle's quest takes him from Kenya to Europe and then, North America, and finally, back to Kenya in search of his wife's murderers. Not only is "The Constant Gardener" a fast-paced, nail-biting, exciting page-turner, it is truly an intriguing fictional evocation of the dark side of business transactions between poweful multinational corporations and impoverished Third World countries, and the rampant deceit which may occur amongst diplomats. Without question, "The Constant Gardener" is among Le Carre's best novels, ranking alongside "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy"; it is well worth the effort of reading this massive, sprawling novel, even if you haven't seen its critically acclaimed film adaptation - which I haven't yet - starring Ralph Fiennes as Justin Quayle and Rachel Weisz as his wife Tessa

</review>
<review>

I am a huge fan of John le Carre.  He could write anything and I'd be hooked.  There is no one better at describing the nuances of a character's persona.  And I especially like how he has had the flexibility and talent to evolve from a fifties and sixties cold warrior to a modern day master, with relevant subjects such as with this one, big drug companies screwing poor Africa.  But I found this book to run long, and some of the middle passages, which are a paper trail investigation, not to be compelling.  There's a lot of faux newspaper reports that Justin Quayle (the Ralph Fienes character)wades through, and an endless interrogation by two one-dimensional police officers who just about disappear later on.  At the end of a story, le Carre likes to rid us of his main character.  If you're the protagonist in one of his books chances are you're bound to wind up dead.  No sequels for you.  It was true with The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, it was true for Absolute Friends, it was true in The Looking Glass War, and it's true here.  No happy endings for them.  If you want a better read, with the same infused characterizations of the title, try The Tailor of Panama, funny, crazy and a book that could still have a sequel.

</review>
<review>

John Le Carre has been writing suspense, espionage, and mystery novels for more than 40 years now. I read the first few of them when I was in high school (say 30 years ago) and enjoyed them, mostly for the odd characters that the author peopled his books with. Over the years, he's written everything from straight spy novels ("Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy", "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" and "Smiley's People") around to more romantic spy novels ("The Russia House"), comic versions of the spy novel ("The Tailor of Panama") and even attempted serious straight fiction (the largely unsuccessful "The Naive and Sentimental Lover"). Many of the previous books are more cheerful, or eccentric stories, so it's important for the purposes of this review to remember what first got Le Carre attention. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, which was published basically at the same time as the James Bond movies, and which featured a rather drab, mundane spy who actually failed to fulfill his mission, and (I'm going to give away the plot here) actually gets killed at the end of the book failing to save the girl. If you keep that in mind, when I tell you that the current book is about a pharmaceutical multinational corporation and one man's challenge to it, you'll have an idea what the book is like.

Le Carre hasn't, much of the time anyway, been about plot in the first place. His characters and atmosphere, and especially his sense of English dialog and personality, are very precise and honest, at times unflinching. His characters, especially, are very entertaining with their particularly British eccentricities, which Le Carre recreates for you with a steady and sure hand. The prose here is sometimes tough for an American to follow--witness the other review here--but the whole thing has a very English feel to it.

All in all, Le Carre's characters carry this, as most of his other novels. It's a good book. Just don't expect any solutions to the world's problems here

</review>
<review>

I won't delve into the plot of this novel, as I'm sure other reviewers have covered it; and I won't comment upon the corruption of the pharmaceutical industry or the African plight, though they are certainly comment-worthy and beautifully shown.  Instead, I'll tell you why I found this novel unique:  it emotionally devastated me.

This novel was made into a movie, and it was marketed as a love story.  Well, the love story is not what kicked me in the gut.  Should it have?  Perhaps.  It was beautiful, touching and spiritually uplifting, but it's not what floored me.  What intrigued me was some characters' remarkable selflessness.  What horrified me were some of the characters' over-riding selfish acts that cost others to the extreme.  *****What devastated me was how these characters justified their actions.*****  If these justifications were over-the-top, then I could have dismissed them (and the novel) and been left untouched.  But these justifications weren't over-the-top; they were all too real, human and, worst of all, understandable.

Without going into the specifics of my own personal work history, I will say that I have seen first-hand how people justify their illegal and immoral actions and decisions, and how people gradually grow numb to their situations, actions, and the magnitude of their actions' consequences.  The justifications of the characters in this book were all too true-to-life.

Another thing that greatly upset me was the main character's last, and ultimate, action.  While this action appears over-the-top at first glance, it's not, and that's what makes it devastating.  It shows our strengths and frailties, the temporariness of ourselves, and how insignificant we are.

This book is not for the feint of heart, and I doubt I will pick it up for a skim for many years to come.  However, its depiction of human nature is beautiful, if only for the truth of it.  If you're a fan of human nature, I couldn't recommend this book more

</review>
<review>

I really enjoyed this one as I do most of Patterson's work

</review>
<review>

I greatly enjoyed this book -- it is not the best one written by James Patterson but it was very good.  I would recommend it

</review>
<review>

It was an easy read and went quick.  I liked the big font and short chapters.

</review>
<review>

I enjoy reading James Patterson's books, and this one was no different. I highly recommend it

</review>
<review>

James comes through again. A real page turner. Andrew Gross picked a winner to collab with

</review>
<review>

I wont go over plot or characters because you can get that in other reviews, what I will say is this book is a great read. I finished this one in about 5hrs,I did not want to put it down.Patterson has a great knack for characters and real dialogue between the characters.Nothing is too overtop or unreal in this story.

If you are loooking for a great book and a one that is a real page turner than pick this one up. I guarntee that you wont be disappointed

</review>
<review>

Palm Beach lifeguard Ned Kelly has the perfect life. Then he meets seductive and very beautiful Tess McAuliffe. They go out and she's the one as far as he's concerned, however she's tres classy and lives way above his lifestyle. So he decides to throw in with four childhood friends, Mickey, Bobby, Dee and Barney, who have come up with a nice little score that will set them up for life.

For five million dollars they're going to heist three paintings. That's a cool million each and all Ned has to do for his share is to create a diversion by setting off the alarms at some of the other wealthy homes in the area. However when his pals break into the house where the paintings are, they discover them gone. Has somebody beat them to that art? Are they being set up?

While his friends are puzzling this out, Ned hears sirens and panics. He hotfoots it to where Tess was staying, only to see her body being taken out on a stretcher. He goes back to where his friends are staying, only to find cops and four body bags being taken out. Ned doesn't have to be a genius to realize he's in a spot of trouble.

And there you have the beginning of a non-stop thriller that will have reading like you've never read before. If you're not a speed reader, you will be by the time you're finished with this. Ned is in trouble deep. They FBI is after him. He has to find out what's going on before they catch him, lock him up and throw away the key. I just loved this book and I know you will too. Oh yes, I should point out, you'll never ever, not in a million years, figure out the surprise ending

</review>
<review>

I listen to books on tape constantly and when you get a reader and a story that can take you away, it is a find!  Nothing annoys me more than a poor or monotoned reader or one who places inflections in inappropriate places, like news readers.  I loved the sound effects coupled with an excellent reader and the two added to the experience of listening to this book.  I also liked that the story was partly done in first person.  The main character initially doesn't seem to have much to offer the world.....

Anyway, there are others who have diagramed the story, I just wanted to say, I enjoyed it and the way it was presented in audio version.

</review>
<review>

I really liked this book, it was a great fast read.  The only thing was the main character was very emotional, a little more than I'm used to in a male character, he seemed to cried a lot.  Other than that I thoroughly enjoyed it

</review>
<review>

"Life Guard" satisfied my desire to be entertained as well as to stimulate my intellect.  This novel really does cover the gamut:  exhilarating action, stunning twists, genuine love, beautiful settings, ethical dilemmas, desire for riches, mysterious murders, detective investigations, false accusations, and self vindication.  Yet somehow, it emerges as neither contrived nor unbelievable.

This would make an excellent movie; however, a movie would lack the unique perspectives used in the narration, which help make the hero endearing.

</review>
<review>

I was very interested in this product when I read the description.  However, after recieving the product was disappointed to find that way in which you catch a liar is to become a bigger and more manipulative liar.  If you have any sense of intergrity ignore this product.  The author must me one of the biggest decievers out there to put such effort in this product

</review>
<review>

This man obviously knows nothing about human behavior. Most people know that just because someone can't hold your eye contact does not mean that they are being dishonest. In more cases than not, they simply have low self-esteem are very self-conscious, and are thinking about themselves constantly in social interactions just like you or I might do when asked to do improv. This man himself is a manipulator, and a liar. He's manipulating you to get this book,  taking advantage of those who refuse to learn how to read people from experience. Lying and "hypnotizing" people in order to get the truth out of them, is far less effective than being honest yourself. If you are honest you will recognize honesty and you will recognize liars. You will start to have an understanding of people's energies if you just pay attention

</review>
<review>

Okay, the title is misleading in that reading this book doesn't mean you won't be lied to, it simple means that you will be able to notice when you have been lied to, and the book gives some great tools in learning how to redirect the conversation in order to get at the truth.

While I wouldn't use some of these techniques for just every day conversations with friends, loved ones and family memebers, if I worked in a position where investigations were a part of my job, such as police or detective work, internal affairs, human resources and employee disputes, etc, this information would be invaluable as a tool. Also, when faced with those tough family situations, this book does provide some insight into how to tell whether or not a person is being honest with you.

On that note, I used several of the techniques in this book on my almost teen aged son, who has recently been having a problem with lying, and it's quite interesting the results I've achieved with it. While he doesn't always 'fess up' in the end, I now have a pretty good handle on detecting when he's being honest and when he's really just pulling the wool over my eyes.

In business negotiations, contract negotiations, this book can really help with determining whether or not you have the upper hand or the competitor is just pulling a 'poker face' on you during the negotiations.

If there were a down side to the book, the one thing that I could state would be that it does seem to take a negative tone, in that it seems the author is stating that people in general cannot be trusted and that one should EXPECT others to lie. I don't necessarily believe this to be true, and often times, we create our own reality, and if we expect people to lie, we just might create that.

My advice, read the book - it has great information, however, do not automatically assume that just because someone exhibits some of these behavoirs listed in the book that the person is lying. This book, like any other how-to or self help book, is nothing more than a tool to assist you, and is not the do all and end all of how to live your life. Some people can be trusted. Not everyone will lie to you, but when someone does, this book helps you to determine how to get to the truth of the situation and be aware of the lies when they do happen. If the book is used as nothing more than a tool for its intended purpose, it's well worth the read

</review>
<review>

I bought the book thinking that it would be accurate and helpful in everyday conversation.   I feel that most of what I read is simply not factual.  As a person, I feel strongly that I would not want to tell anyone that I knew the author or was his friend.  maybe it is just that we come from different backgrounds and experience.

</review>
<review>

I like this book as it offers you advice on what to look for.
If used wisely this book will help you from being ripped off by deceitful people.I mean the real crooks.This book shows you techniques to help you get to the truth of matters.Each chapter has a summary for quick reference.

I would suggest that anyone buying this book you dont use it against people in your life that you know are genuine and honest.There's an example in the book about friends wanting to see a movie.If your friend doesnt like a movie you want to see you,get over it.We all tell little white lies.Dont put your friends under interrogation for it.Save it for the real crooks

</review>
<review>

Find out what it means when someone turns their back to you while you are talking to them. Find out what it means when someone walks near the door when you are talking to them. Find out what it means when someone picks something up and puts it between you and them while you are talking to them. Find out the hidden meanings. Highly recommended.  Full of lots of useful information that each and everyone can benefit from

</review>
<review>

This book was a great help to me in being able to detect when people are lying. It shows you how to look at eye contact, pauses in speech, and unneccesary details people put into lies that they do not put into regular conversation.I have used these techniques for years

</review>
<review>

This book is an utterly corrupt, crackpot method of lying to others in order to manipulate them, to live under a constant cloud of suspicion, and to essentially ruin your personal relationships.  Shall I give you an example?  From page 122:  "You and a friend are deciding on what movie to see.  You suggest 'Lost In Paradise', but your friend, who doesn't want to see this, offers as evidence a coworker who has already seen it and didn't like it.  you then say 'Oh, well, if no one in your office liked it, I guess it's probably no good.'  If she lets it go at that - not correcting you - then you know she LIED INITIALLY" (emphasis mine).  Excuse me?  What kind of special social retard do you have to be to 'know' your friend is a LIAR because she doesn't want to see a movie?  A little earlier, a technique called "Insert a False Fact" shows up.  INSERT A FALSE FACT?  Isn't that known as LYING?  And this in the context of a party, no less... hoo boy... start lying to everyone at a party because you suspect people of being liars - you're gonna wind up friendless pretty quick.  If you just tell the truth, you'll be amazed at the nice people you meet - who needs a book which rationalizes lying and manipulation?  Trust me, if you have a moral compass, you don't need this rag

</review>
<review>

very in-depth review of Kinesics and verbal wrangeling. I have been studying this for years and learned some new things with this book. I would highly recommend it to folks involved in interview and interrogation fields

</review>
<review>

Having just finished this book, and having identified with many of the situations that Russel, the main character faces, I feel very moved.  The book is a page-turner.  I'm so glad that books like this exist for teenagers, especially gay teenagers.  And for 40-somethings like myself, who still struggle with "what do people think" issues.  I certainly learned something from this book, and enjoyed the process as well

</review>
<review>

I am a 17 year gay guy from ohio and let me say, this is one of the best books I've read in a long time. I felt and feel like I AM the character of Russell in the book, I've gone through so many of the things he has. I even cried after reading the sequel after this one because it made me look at my own situation and how hard it is to be gay and love someone who might never talk to you again if they knew. I feel like this book deserves several awards, it certainly had a touch to me

</review>
<review>

Boring and irritating. Not one character is likable, and not one character is 3D

</review>
<review>

Geography Club by Brent Hartinger is the story of Russell Middlebrook, a gay 16 year old, who is negotiating the dog-eat-dog world of high school popularity.  He is also firmly and solidly in the closet at the beginning of this book and over the course of the novel the reader explores the pitfalls, dangers, and excitements of being a high schooler and being gay.  Hartinger locates Russell's' story in the social borderlands; he is not super popular nor is he reviled, and he is smart and snarky, but very insecure.  When rumors of a gay kid and a gay club start to swirl at Goodkind High, Russell is finally starting to feel good about himself and rise up the popularity ranks thanks to the influence of his closeted jock boyfriend.  This leaves Russell to make difficult decisions that will resonate with any reader who feels or felt like an outsider in high school.

The story is told in two parts, the first focusing on Russell's alienation as he thinks that he is the only gay kid at his high school, and the second on the choices he has to make to preserve his charade of straightness.   He joins in the jocks in making fun of the schools most unpopular kid, and the weight of doing so demonstrates the burden of popularity, and motivates Russell to stop hiding and come out publicly to make it right.

The Geography Club itself is a brilliant red herring on Hartinger's part, a club designed by its members to purposely be too boring for any one to actually want to join, so the few gay kids at Goodkind can discuss their lives openly and honestly.  Once Russell starts coming out, he learns that he is no longer alone, providing the character with some much-needed reassurance, and also his own place in the high school social web, even if that place is a secret.  The entire concept highlights the importance of Gay Straight Alliances for high school students.

Some readers may find themselves overwhelmed by the fast pace, numerous side characters and short side plots.  On the other hand, this almost frenzied quality is what gives Geography Club such cultural authenticity.  These characters are trying to negotiate the treacheries of high school, with its rampant gossip, various teenage tribes and strict social norms. The Geography Club finds itself in a web of secrets, lies, relationships, and sexual identities that seems real for those who have attended a public school.    In the end, Geography Club is a compelling story that highlights the emotional difficulties of being gay, but achieves it in a way that even straight kids will relate to.

Personally, I wish that I had this book when I was 15.  There was nothing out there for gay folks at ALL, and I over identify with Min (except for the Asian part).  Thanks Brent.

</review>
<review>

Russel Middlebrook is pretty sure that he's gay.  After all, he's not attracted to girls, and he spends every day after gym class studiously avoiding the other half-naked guys in the locker room.  He's never had an actual experience with another guy, though, so maybe the attraction he feels toward them is something he'll outgrow--or maybe not.

While surfing the Internet one night, he finds chat rooms for different towns and cities, where you can talk to other people who are also gay.  And amazingly enough, there's a boy he meets with the name GayTeen-- who not only lives in his town, but also attends his high school.  Another gay boy, in his very own school?  There's no way that could be true-- especially when he finds out that the kid with the handle GayTeen is none other than Kevin Land, star of the baseball team, one of the most popular guys in school.

As Kevin and Russel get to know one another, outside of school and hidden away from prying eyes, they realize that there's no way for them to be together inside school walls.  The same is true for Russel's friends Min and Terese, who although they claim to just be really close friends, are actually in love.  So along with a few others, including Gunnar, who is straight, and Brian Bund, the loser of Goodkind High School, the boys form The Geography Club.  After all, no one else is going to want to join such a boring club--especially if they knew it was just a front for a gay/ lesbian school group.

As events at school heat up, with Brian eventually being outed as gay even though he's not, Russel, Kevin, and their friends will have to learn what's most important in life.  And that sometimes, no matter how much you might wish for things to be out in the open, you're just not ready.

GEOGRAPHY CLUB is a great, quick read from author Brent Hartinger, about the ups and downs of daily high school life, and the struggle to find ones identity

</review>
<review>

Brent Hartinger (the author of GEOGRAPHY CLUB) here. I wanted to respond to the previous reviewer. I really am sorry you found my book boring. I admit that's not a criticism I've heard before (and I thought I'd heard it ALL about this book--that it's inappropriate for teenagers, that it's too realistic, that it's not realistic enough, that it's too mainstream, that it's not mainstream enough, etc., etc.). If anything, people usually say there's almost too MUCH going on, or that the book moved so quickly, they wanted it to be longer.

But hey, we're all entitled to our opinion.

Anyway, yes, it's true, I do offer a "money-back" guarantee to people who attend my book events (though no one's ever collected), and I'd be happy to refund the money any dissatisfied readers spent on my book too. I honestly don't want ANYONE associating "Brent Hartinger" with "miserable experience"! And I really, really "get" that not every book is for every person (the list of books that others liked, but that I hated is virtually endless).

So just send your receipt (and a note with your address) to:

Brent Hartinger
PO Box 720
Tacoma WA 98401

But hey, I am FAR from rich (the book did well, but not THAT well!), so I'll only offer this deal for, say, thirty days from the date of this posting

</review>
<review>

Brent offers a money-back guarantee at his events, where he would give a reader a dollar if they came up with his book and told them it was boring.

After reading the book, I am ready for my dollar

</review>
<review>

Well written with good plot and likeable characters. Author has an excellent understanding of teenage angst

</review>
<review>

Seriously. I love this guy Russel Middlebrook, in these two books. I'm actually kinda bummed that he's a character in a book, so he doesn't really exist. Cause he sure works for me

</review>
<review>

NFT - Chicago is the one book to carry around in your backpack as you cruise the city - but pay attention to the title. It really is not for tourists.

The first thing to do with this book when you get it is to spend the time to walk through it, particularly through the chapters beyond the maps, and most particularly through the "Arts and Entertainment" sections. Once you've done that, then get acquainted with how the maps work by looking at a map of a neighborhood you know well. Never mind that it might not include your favorite corner bar or hot dog stand. Just get to understand how it works with an area you know.

Once you've made friends with the book, then start using it as you walk, ride the "L", or drive in the city. The street maps are very good and each map identifies key places in the neighborhood.

Each neighborhood map has a listing next to the map tells you about neighborhood Banks, Car Washes, Gas Sations, Hospitals, Landmarks, Libraries, Parking, Pharmacies, Pizza places, Post Offices, Schools, Supermarkets, Coffee Shops, Gyms, Hardware Stores, Liquor Stores, Nightlife Spots, Pet Shops, Restaurants, Shopping Locations and Video Rental Stores - but, of course, only if the neighborhood has, say, a bank in it.

I have two minor complaints about this volume. The first is that I wish the North/South/East/West location markers ("3200W," "4000N") were more bolded and more frequent. Second, I would love to have an overall index of places so that, for example, if I could not remember which neighborhood Hopleaf is in, I could go to the general index and locate its map reference.

But I'm just whining. It's a very well organized, well informed, and surprisingly complete piece of work for a list price of $16.95.

By the way - be sure you're buying the most recent version, since it's published each year. If you buy one of the older ones, places like Millennium Park won't be in it. And, as the book itself points out, "The Chicago restaurant scene has exploded in recent years. . . .Lately it seems that trendy new hotspots are popping up by the minute." This, of course, cuts both ways, and the book is careful to point out some of what's closed and gone as well as what's new and hot; but the moral here is that last year's book might be very much out of date.

Finally, while this book on its own will get you where you need to go, I would recommend, if you need something to supplement it, that you get the latest Zagat for Chicago.

</review>
<review>

uptown, oldtown, gold coast, north side.....sometimes it seems like Chicagoland has another name for every area.  This book is great.  Just what I needed to explore the areas of Chicago.  It's organised by areas and lists all of the different things from restaurants to  theatres to laundry mats in the area.  The maps are very clear and easy to read.  Excellent book for people who've just moved to Chicago (and aren't after the touristy things).  I think it's equally useful for people who live in the 'burbs and downtown dwellers.  Highly recommended

</review>
<review>

Explain this to me: why is the actual size of the Chicago NFT larger than the NYC one? The one I have for NYC is small enough to fit in my pocket; but the Chicago version is just larger...too big to easily carry in a pocket (but it fits in a bag just fine).

If for no other reason that the map of the downtown Pedway, this book is a must-purchase

</review>
<review>

This was my bible when I moved to Chicago 2 years ago.  It has both practical information (such as video stores, post offices, bus and train routes) on detailed neighborhood maps, as well as shopping and cuisine listings.  I used it, and recommend it, constantly.  It was far more helpful than any other city guide I tried, and over time, I knew the city well enough to put it away!  And THAT's when you're REALLY not a tourist anymore

</review>
<review>

Outside of a few typos, I found the 2005 edition of NFT Chicago to be more useful than past ones (which were also useful). The main thing is, there's a lot more maps. Instead of just having central Chicago covered, it goes all the way to the city's borders, so it's great when I have to go way south or way west, or other areas I don't venture in very much. Also, it seems like thier arts listings are more comprehensive, and there's a huge new section about what to do with kids (although it seems to be targeted to the nanny-set). Still, it's an invaluable refernce to have in your car, or to hand off to guests if you have to leave them to thier own devices

</review>
<review>

My boyfriend and I recently moved the the city.  Both of us had visited Chicago multiple times and knew the very basics but realized we needed more guidance in navigating the streets and making our way through the maze of information we were finding online regarding apartments and neighborhoods.  The Not for Tourists Guide was the best investment we have made since deciding to move (excluding the fantastic Bucktown loft we ended up choosing).  Although the simple, and usually cheesy, neighborhood descriptions leave something to be desired, this guide was extremely helpful in figuring out the basics of each area of the city.  When searching for places to live, it was great to be able to pinpoint the location on the clear and detailed maps and know exactly how far each prospective home was from grocery stores, banks, shops, restaurants and L stops.  (Of course nothing was more valuable than actually seeing the neighborhoods...for which the NFT Guide was extrememly helpful while plotting our route.)  We still keep the guide within reach while exploring new parts of the city...and it has saved us multiple times while trying to find alternate routes around crazy traffic flow.

If you are a native Chicagoian, you will certainly find that this guide is missing some of your favorite spots...but isn't that being a local is all about? This guide my not predict the places you will love the most, but for those who are still trying to discover their very own Chicago, it will at certainly help you find your way

</review>
<review>

This guide is honestly, pretty useless.  Any Tom, Dick or Harry knows about Wrigleyville, Boystown, and well, the rest of Lakeview.  Anyone can tell you that the heart of Lincoln Park is, well, Lincoln Avenue.  But, why, for the life of me, can't I find much on Bridgeport?  Mayor Daley liked it well enough, but, hey, The NFT guys can't be bothered with the facts.  Where's anything west of Western?  I guess Humboldt Park and Albany Park aren't worth the time.  Which is too bad, because it completely leaves out mention of some of the best bars and music clubs in the city, not to mention, some of the easiest to navigate streets.  If you're a tourist looking for lowest common denominator style travel books, then yes, I guess the NFT is a little better than average.  But when I saw how useless this thing was when a freshly moved in friend bought one, I knew that this is for tourists...and tourists only.  You're better off with the Irreverent Guide.  Heck, they might actually list an address for The Empty Bottle..

</review>
<review>

This helpful guide includes lots and lots of maps for tons of neighborhoods, as well as other useful information. Recommended for people relocating to Chicago, suburbanites who have reasons to come into the city every once in a while, or locals who just want to get to know other parts of the city better.
Tells you where to find local gas stations, parking, ATM's, a cuppa joe, a bottle of booze or something to eat. Also, info on post offices, restaurants bars  and  clubs, public transportation, and much more

</review>
<review>

I really, really enjoyed this book. It is fascinating -- illuminating a period often brushed past by other histories giving people and events their due. It also does a wonderful job of updating (and/or refuting) earlier theories of why the Western half of the roman empire fell. Heather's writing style makes for a good read -- he knows his stuff and presents his evidence in an authoratative way that doesn't come across as stuffy. The writing flows in a way that make this work a real page turner. I think readers interested in this period or Rome in general would enjoy this book -- and while it certainly feels like a work that would hold its own with a serious student of history, a more general reader would hopefully enjoy it as much as I have

</review>
<review>

This is history as history should be written.  By turns witty, incisive, and far reaching, Heather draws on his broad reservoirs of knowledge of not only of the Barbarians and Rome, but also of modern one-party states and economics--surprisingly relevant topics.  I very much appreciated how Heather gave context to the motivations of the sources he quoted, taking nothing at face value and wittily translating the sense of old quotes so that the modern reader could understand them.

The book's main thesis is that growing numbers of Huns armed with devilishly engineered bows caused Goths to scuttle for safety onto Roman territory, and ultimately wreak havoc.  Even further havoc was wrought when the Huns themselves showed up at the boundaries of the Roman Empire.  Ultimately, the Goths and the Huns proved too much for the Empire to handle, and it fell into disarray.  Heather's sweeping thesis is told so plainly and well that it seems, in retrospect, to be obvious.  For Heather to have come to such dramatically different, but well-grounded conclusions on such a well-explored topic is really a stunning achievement.

I have only one quibble with the book, which certainly won't change my five star rating.

Heather spends nearly the entire 459 pages of the book making the case for his thesis involving the domino effect of Huns and Goths that toppled the empire.  However, he ends the book with a left hook you don't even see coming.  The final line reads: "By virtue of its unbounded aggression, Roman imperialism was ultimately responsible for its own destruction."  Why spend some 449 pages--the other 98% of the book--expounding the Barbarian domino thesis, then?  In fact, earlier, Heather describes how Germania was specifically and purposefully not taken into the Roman Empire because of the logistics and economics involved (this is all described in a section beginning on page 55).  Does this sound like Rome had complete and unbounded aggression?  Moreover, it was precisely because Rome did not take these areas under its wing that the groups would arise that would eventually bring Rome down.

Heather speaks with rightful wonder of the great technical and social advances of the Roman Empire, including everything from aqueducts to heating to roofing tiles.  But, although Heather does discuss the technical innovation of the Hunnish bow that allowed the Huns to be so successful in their predations, he doesn't make the ultimate conclusion "The Fall of the Roman Empire" might quite correctly have made.  That conclusion would be--it doesn't matter how many bells and whistles a society has or doesn't have.  The only thing that really matters is whether a society has a war machine that provides a distinct edge.  Of course, that's not a very politically correct conclusion, but it's a thesis that is nicely explored in Victor Hanson's "Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise to Western Power."

All in all, however, I believe Heather's "The Fall of the Roman Empire" to be a stunning achievement, and highly recommend it.

</review>
<review>

Notice the title of Peter Heather's fascinating study of the final centuries of the Roman Empire.  It is a clear tribute to Gibbons, yet the "Decline" is intentionally missing.  Because according to Dr. Heather the Roman Empire never declined; its fall was due to external, rather then internal, forces, and the perpetrators were two:  the Huns and the Goths.

Heather rejects the theories that see the cause of the fall of the Roman Empire in internal maladies.  Contra popular opinion, he argues that the division of the Empire to Western and Eastern parts was rational given the increased size of the Roman population.  As the Roman way of life spread, and more and more conquered people became Roman citizens, the patronage that had to be distributed became too enormous for any single Imperial Court - hence, the need for two Courts.

Nor is the fault in the Christianization of the Empire; although he acknowledges that the rise of Christianity brought a Cultural Revolution (separation of the Living from the Dead; Equality of all before the Lord; diminished importance for the educated Romans in comparison with the simple true-believers, pp. 121-122), Heather doubts it effected the functioning of the empire much.  The Roman Empire was still perceived as divinely blessed "only the nomenclature was different" (p. 123), Christian theology fitted neatly into Roman Chauvinism, and it was only as consequences of defeat that St. Augustine started to develop his anti-Nationalist theology (pp. 230-232).

The best evidence against the "internal decline" thesis is that the Roman Empire did not actually collapse - only it's western half did.  In the East, the Roman Empire soldiered on, until another powerful foreign threat - Islam.

Therefore, Heather suggests, the answer is external:  As a consequence of the exposure to the Roman world, the Germanic tribes confronted by the Romans have changed.  An agricultural revolution took over the German world, increasing its population and changing its organization: along with surplus, there developed inequality, with powerful leaders and kings solidifying larger and larger groups of so-called "Barbarians" (pp. 87-94).

But the grows of the German population was not in itself, enough to shake and eventually to topple the Western Empire;  the fuse for that was a new menace, coming from the East - the Huns.

Heather remains officially agnostic as to the origin of the horse riding people from the Great Eurasian Steppe, although he seems to support the theory that their origin related to the Hsiung-Nu - a Nomadic threat to the Chinese Empire several centuries before (pp. 147-149).

The Huns made their ways into the neighborhood of the Roman Empire in two stages - in the late 4th century, they have arrived at the Caucasus, and in the second quarter of the 5th century to East and Central Europe, culminating in the raids on the Western Empire, by their sole unifier and greatest leader, Attila.

But it was not ultimately the Huns who destroyed the Empire.  What the Huns did was trigger a chain reaction of migrating "Barbarians" the greater, richer and more unified Germanic people who fled into the Roman Empire.  "As Germanic groups moved on to Roman territory to escape Hunnic aggression, this long standing process acquired new momentum.  One of the most important ... phenomena of the fifth century narrative is that all of the major successor states to the west Roman Empire were created around the military power of new barbarian supergroups, generated on the march"(p. 451).

As the Roman Empire faced these threats, it suffered from a vicious circle of damages; the more the Goths invaded the worse the empire's capacity to raise taxes became, thus turning the Empire weaker and more tempting target.  The Loss of Africa to the Vandals was a particularly hard stroke in that regard.  And every time the empire seemed to be able to overcome one crises, the continued advanced of the Huns pressed new waves of invaders into its boarders, undoing the Roman effort.  "[T]he various crises faced by the western Empire ... represented no more than the slow working-out of the political consequence of the earlier invasions" (p. 434)

This short synopsis does not come close to doing justice to Heather's sophisticated and fascinating account.  Yet in blaming the fall on an "Exogenous Shock" (p. 450), I think Heather may be ignoring one major change in the Roman Empire - its relative lack of belligerency.

As Heather tells it "Roman expansion was driven by the internal power struggles of republican oligarchs... and by the early Emperor's desire for Glory."  But eventually, the provinces that the empire started to conquer were just too poor to be worth conquering "The Roman advance ground to a halt... around a major fault line of European socio-economic organization"... it was not the military prowess of the Germani that kept them outside the Empire, but their poverty" (pp. 56-58).

But as the agriculture revolution took over the Germanic world, did not that arithmetic change?  If the Roman Empire's border was initially determined on economic cost/benefit grounds, it seems to have been perpetuated by tradition.  New threats lurked in the dark forests of Germania, but new opportunities were there, as well.  Why didn't the late Empire move to take advantage of the opportunities?  To me, it seems that an answer to that is essential for the discovery of the causes for the Fall of the Roman Empire.

</review>
<review>

This book discusses the last hundred years of the Western Roman empire to its fall. Having read many of the reviewers here, I don't think its worth while repeating the writer arguements so I will report my thoughts.

Like many historians of that era, the writer has a theory as to why Rome fell. Although he makes some good arguments, I don't agree with two of his conclusions. The first that the dramatic fall of the Huns destroyed the balance of Rome to the barbarians. This is a real maybe as for the Huns to keep the balance up would require that the Huns military strength be much less then in Attila's days where they came close to bring Rome down and that the Huns agreed to act with Rome. What if they joined the barbarians in taking chunks of Rome? Rome fall would have been accelerated.

The second is that Roman imperialism was partly responsible for the growth of bigger groups of German barbarian tribes. It may have had some affect but conversely Roman policy was to try to keep these tribes apart. Although the writer did not go into much detail the German regions grew in power and wealth during this period so the relative difference between the Rome and them, was less. Larger groups tended to grow as the area got more populated and richer. Plus Roman culture, language and economy was providing a bridge bring these different peoples together. Just as Rome was uniting the peoples inside the empire so she was uniting the peoples outside of the empire. A similar effect is seen in other empires fringes.

Anyway this caused all the demands on the military in the empire to go up. Soon Rome could not afford it and fell.

Several questions I would have liked to have been addressed was could Rome have improved her economy and did Rome make a mistake in not producing more mobile force as she had plenty of static forces that could be not used where required.

Having said all of this, from my own point of view although I have read many books on this subject, I never realized just how much an affect the Sasanians and the Huns affected the empire. Also the effect of large land owners on the structure of the empire. This book is extremely interesting and well worth reading

</review>
<review>


Heather tells the complex story of the Fall of the Roman Empire in a writing style so accessible that you feel like he is talking to you.

He clearly presents his thesis (oversimplification: there was no "decline". There was a loss in revenue when North Africa was lost.  Barbarians eroded the western empire and a disasterous armada ... to get Africa back... nailed the coffin) so that lay people can understand it.  When he presents evidence he also notes what is missing from the evidence, or how reliable/unreliable it might be. This way, we know how he came to his conclusion, leaving the door open for future discoveries.

Heather, the editor and publisher (Oxford University Press) have done their team work.  The maps are excellent and they are placed with the text they illustrate.  There are referals to a previous pages, something you rarely see since books are routinely published in such haste that this is not possible. The biographies (of people and peoples) in the back help you keep the players straight.

Heather says a full study of what happened in the provinces is worth another book.  I hope Heather writes it

</review>
<review>

This magnificent book is accessible to the history buff or general reader and provides an extensive, logical and easy to read account of all that went wrong in the last hundred years of the Western Roman Empire. Mr. Heather's extensive research combined with attention to detail has produced a brilliant, well argued revisionist account of why the Empire eventually fell to the barbarians.

Essentially the volume of the various incursions of barbarians from the late 4th century AD was too much for the Western Empire to sustain and gradually wore it down. Heather is able to clarify the external and internal reasons why the Empire was worn down by the barbarians. The Empire was still prosperous with an army but it was not enough to withstand the series of invasions. Heather provides a good explanation of why the Western Roman Empire army was much less formidable after the defeat at Hadrianople.

From reading Gibbon l thought that Stilicho was the last great General of the Western Roman Empire, not so, l enjoyed the account of the life of the general and consul Flavius Aetius. Heather is able to transport the reader back in time and bring ancient persons back to life so l was able to imagine the political and social environment they lived in. Mr. Heather also explains why the end of the Western Roman Empire was not a certain event and how it could have remained viable. The final nail in the coffin was the failed attempt to invade North Africa in 468 AD to regain land lost to the Vandals.

The author's last paragraph in the book is brilliant and challenging but l will not reveal it to spoil the effect for anybody else.

</review>
<review>

Peter Heather's THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE is an exciting book because it peels away the pasted-on theories of the fall of the Roman Empire and replaces them with a logical, coherent theory of what happened. For some reason, known only to my shrink, I am a fan of the Roman Empire. And so, while reading THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, I kept rooting for the Romans to win, hoping that the conclusion might turn out differently and the Empire would survive. But, alas, it did not. Still, it's that kind of book: it reads like a novel, with clear, easy-to-read prose. The next time you travel to Hungary think of Attila the Hun whose fierce, stretched-skull Huns, wielding deadly bows that could pierce armor from horseback a hundred-plus yards distant, smacked into the Germanic tribes to the west and sent them carooming like billiard balls across the Roman frontier. I won't spoil any more of the plot for you because this well-researched and entertaining book deserves your full ruminations. (There are 16 maps and the many footnotes are tucked away in the end papers, out of sight.) THE FALL is a no-brainer, five-star, read-it-now narrative that makes the  political, economic, military and social aspects of the fourth and fifth centuries seem like they happened yesterday, and that the Romans of these times, whose orderly world was slowly unraveling into a kind of chaotic darkness, were people much like you and I, struggling to save their way of life in vexing, dangerous times.

</review>
<review>

It's quite difficult to write a comprehensive and understandable narrative of the years leading up to the end of the Roman Empire in the West because of the paucity of contemporary sources, and the potential inaccuracy of those sources from folowing centuries. This author has taken what he feels are the accurate parts of the sources available, and combined them with the best of historical Roman scholarship, and written a book that covers the years involved, and covers them quite well. Often histories of the distant past tend to be difficult to comprehend to the  average reader, but this book keeps the knowledge level just about perfect. You will learn more about the last years of the Western Empire than you probably knew before, and you will learn in an easy to understand manner. The author makes the past come alive, and that's what good histporical writing is all about

</review>
<review>

The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, by Peter Heather

This new book by a professor at Worcester College, University of Oxford is a true gem among books covering historical subject matter. The past when covered by most books attempting to educate the reader on historical subject matter covering several hundred years often results in text book like reading without the inspirational individual efforts of the everyday citizen being included or explained.
In this case I am happy to report that not only are many individual citizens brought to life through recovered letters and such, but many connecting aspects of interpersonal rivalries and ambitions supported by empirical evidence are interspaced with the big picture events surrounding those people and their lives. This book makes the reader more aware of the issues and subject matter from the view of the small group or individual than any other book on Rome which I am familiar with. The writing is also easy to follow for the average reader who is not a scholar.
If you are interested in finding out just how similar our world events today are to ancient Rome and the issues they faced, read this book! Rome faced many of the same issue as we see today. Examples of these issues include inflation of coinage by deflating the value of the raw metal content in the coins, gorilla warfare on its boarders, political intrigue through spies by rival super powers, citizens who were forced to deal with changing events rapidly if they wanted to start a business or venture into government work, among many other examples.
Heather argues, in my opinion very successfully that it was the barbarians who brought down the Empire rather than any social or moral collapse. However the real value of this book is for the average reader to dive into something, which reads like a fiction narrative trying to persuade the reader to a point of view. In my opinion it succeeds. However, the average reader can learn so much on this subject matter without subjecting themselves to the many long and boring textbooks, which are so abundant for any topic related to Rome and its downfall.
At 459 pages just for the story and persuasive argument for his theme Heather adds a timeline and other sources as well, making the total page count 572. In my experience this book reads like a page turner and should engage any history buff as well as those who shun history for its boring nature or lack of inspired stories to engage in and root for. The characters that Heather has pass in and out of Rome's history in this detailed book seem real and alive.
Books on Rome are abundant, but few engage the average reader in a way that compels and engages the imagination while failing to debase the story in the usual folly of solely telling everything from the view of the top person looking down on the minions. Rome had entrepreneurs and businessmen between the gladiators and slaves and emperors. Who knew that so many parallels to our modern western civilization would be seen through one book? Read this book for the entertainment as well as the educational value relating to a civilization, which still reaches forward in time to spread its influence on today's world events.
Whether you are interested in the development of the Germanic peoples influencing Rome and how they continue to influence us up to today or your interests lie with an early cult of Judaism as it emerged from a leadership dominated by martyrs to become the dominant religion of the empire despite its founder being publicly executed by the same empire, this book will put into perspective all of the issues of that time period in a way that is engaging and relevant to digest for the modern westerner.
This book was fun, entertaining and engaging. I highly recommend it.







</review>
<review>

There is no getting away from the noun 'mind'. It is perfectly intelligible and sensible to say that Newton, Hume and Richard Bentley had fine minds. However we soon get into a muddle when we misunderstand what kind of noun 'mind' is. People possess certain capacities that we call 'mental' by way of distinguishing them from capacities of the senses such as eyesight, or from capacities of the physique like weight-lifting, and anything that is `mental' is of the mind. And immediately we have to watch our step if we want to think clearly. Bentley, Bentley's eyes and Bentley's eyesight can each be said to have had the capacity to read the text of Manilius. Bentley and Bentley's eyes (but not Bentley's eyesight) can each be said to have read Manilius. However what enabled Bentley to correct and edit the text of Manilius was his mind, but Bentley's mind didn't edit Manilius, Bentley did.

There is no such thing as a mind, Ryle argues if I don't misrepresent him, as distinct from things that are of the mind. There is an intelligible entity called a body that we recognise as distinct from any and all of its attributes. The mind is nothing except certain capacities, and the noun 'mind' is the convenient way of referring to these. It is not the same sort of thing as eyesight or hearing, but belongs in the same category of noun as `character' or `personality'. Epistemology like this is often described as the study of knowledge, but it would be better described as the study of understanding. Its aim is to clarify what we think and how we think, and it takes as its basis the way we use language in ordinary day-to-day utterance. Ryle's book was highly influential in its day, and it seems to have retained the status of a kind of classic over the 40-odd years since I last read it. If so, it thoroughly deserves this status. Linguistic philosophy, of the kind predominantly associated with Oxford, can and does sometimes degenerate into what Denis Healey unkindly called `semantic nose-picking'. However in my own opinion it rescued theoretical philosophy from some strange aberrations that had been treated with a respect they did not deserve, and which had confused earnest seekers after truth in a way they did not deserve either. Speech is the main medium of human communication, and we need to think carefully about how we use it if we want to advance to higher levels of theoretical understanding. Examining the use of words on their own is part of the trick, but even more important is sensitivity to how they are used in varying contexts, and surprisingly often the most important thing of all is to consider what the implied alternative may be. Russell illustrated this point wittily when deciding on the title of a book of essays that he thought too heavyweight to be described as `popular'. `If not "popular", then "unpopular"', he reasoned speciously, so `Unpopular Essays' they became.

The book is laid out in a very schematic way, with chapters and sub-chapters dedicated to individual topics. This makes it very convenient for students with an essay to write on this or that topic that the book addresses (experto credite), and similarly will make it easy for the modern reader to consult almost as a reference-book. I should say that the best way to read it is to work through the entire first half or thereabouts, and select as desired from there on. By half-way through an attentive reader will have got the hang of the type of thinking it enshrines if he or she is going to get it at all. For me the most interesting topic other than the mind itself was free will. Ryle is even a trifle summary in his treatment of this, but finds the age-old argument about free will to be a non-question, and so do I. What might non-free will be, do you suppose? There can be enforced actions, but not enforced wishes. My own guess is that `free will' is often confused in practice with free choice. There can be enforced choices in one sense, the performative sense of selecting. More commonly it's a matter of one's choice being thwarted, as when my preferred brand of breakfast-cereal is not in the shop when I go for it; or of my own deliberate act of choosing a second-best if I think the price being charged for my first choice is too high. The other confusion is with some supposed inevitability or pre-programming, by which it is supposed that nothing, our will and our choices included, could have happened otherwise. This seems to me to be true only in the trivial sense that nothing that has happened can be other than what it was. The answers to the question `Why?' I choose a certain kind of breakfast-cereal are usually several and straightforward - I like the flavour, it contains vitamins, etc. The answer to the question `How?' one chooses anything is more obscure, so obscure that I don't even know what it's asking.

The book is maybe a little too long, but I think if so that that's because it is partly a great manifesto of a certain type of thinking, partly (in its later stages) something that degenerates slightly into a bit of a reference-manual. A lot of topics get covered, and some semi-giants e.g. Descartes are slain, while some real giants e.g. Hume are put in their place too. I have no real difficulty with Ryle's view that `the self' will be better understood from the uses of `I' than the way Hume went about it. I also probably agree that whatever the deficiencies of `phenomenalism' it had the benefit of showing up the greater deficiencies of arguments resting on `essence'. I just hope he doesn't sweep aside with the latter Plato's doctrine of the Forms, which I, like Russell, take as quite literally true. Whatever - this book is all about how to think, not what to think

</review>
<review>

Gilbert Ryle shows a great skill in condensing his whole argument in a succinct metaphor. On page 16, he writes: "A foreign stranger visiting the Oxford campus is shown libraries, department buildings, and museums. Then he asks "But where is the University?". This is the "category mistake". Cartesian question "Where is the mind?" has a same confusion, he asserts.

A famous epigram "Ghost in the Machine" is sometimes misinterpreted. His point is that there is NO "ghost". What we think ghost (spirit) does not exist (therefore ghost!).

Although the philosophy of ordinary language and the logical behaviorism, the British school represented by Wittgenstein and Ryle, had an its apogee in 50's, its crux of reasoning still has an important element. I still feel the current dominant school in cognitive science such as functionalism has a long way to go, before it can make it acceptable for broader spectrum of scientists whose prime mode of thinking is purely materialistic or physicalistic.

</review>
<review>

Gilbert Ryle wrote this classic exposition on the mind-body problem in philosophy with a view to dissipate a myth fundamental to religion and philosophy.   His cogent exposition leads us to see mind in persons as other than a  and quot;Ghost in a Machine. and quot;   More than this, though, his comprehensive scrutiny of the many elements of the life of the mind constitutes an incisive study of the synergy of mind and body in an integrated life.   Ryle exercises consummate skill in avoiding technical jargon to present a refreshing style for treatment of a difficult and elusive subject.   One of his favorite analogies is to compare a study of thinking as  and quot;like trying to catch a jellyfish with a fine hook. and quot;   A thoughtful and careful reader will revel in Ryle's success with his daunting task

</review>
<review>

In a sense, this book is a mirror to the problems covered in Wittgenstein's  and quot;Philosophical Investigations and quot;--albeit with tighter arguments and far less meandering than Wittgenstein's groundbreaking work (this was published three years before Wittgenstein's posthumous PI). Both men were dedicated to freeing philosophy from what Ryle terms  and quot;category errors and quot;--misapplications of the ordinary referential scope of a given term ( and quot;mind and quot; as a  concept which must necessarily oppose  and quot;substance and quot; for instance--this duality forces us to ascribe and essentialize qualities to the incorporeal along the same lines as that of substance, by giving it attributes on the linguistic model of physical objects) These misapplications have led philosophers into vast problems which, by their very nature as linguistic misuses, are unsolvable (but not dis-solvable). Parts of it will provoke cries of  and quot;behaviorism! and quot;, but Ryle included a chapter near the end distancing his stance from Skinner et al. (how well he manages in this is debatable!) Brilliant, straightforward, and elegant, this is one the best works of 20th-century philosophy

</review>
<review>

The Concept of Mind is a great book for several reasons. The main reason to me is that Ryle clarifies the concept of being human, while he uses language in a natural way. In stead of constructing concepts based on (for  example scientific) assumptions, he shows what we already see as obvious,  just by pointing out what we mean with our ordinary language. He is far  from reductionistic; mark the subtle irony: 'Man need not be degraded to a  machine by being denied to be a ghost in a machine. He might, after all, be  a sort of animal, namely, a higher mammal. There has yet to be ventured the  hazardous leap to the hypothesis that perhaps he is a man.

</review>
<review>

This book was very well written. Its gives another look into the life of being HIV Positive and makes you understand the emotional side of a person dealing with sickness and still have enought strength to love others.

</review>
<review>

I read this book in about 6 hours.  It is an easy, if predictable, read.  Doesn't delve into the whole AIDS topic too deeply, but it is always a thread throughout.  Ava is a likeable character, as is her sister.  The romance sub-plot is VERY predictable, but enjoyable nonetheless.

A good book to bring on vacation - happy ending and all

</review>
<review>

I stayed home from work yesterday because I wanted to read this book undisturbed and I knew that if I would have went to work, I would have done nothing but shut my door and read the book all day. So I took the day off (paid of course) to read this book and it was well worth it!! I was getting my hair done and asked her to keep me under the dryer as long as possible because I wanted to sit there and read and read...
The summary on the back of the book does not give the book justice... Please read; you will def. not regret.

</review>
<review>

I thoroughly enjoyed this book from beginning to end.  Very "relatable" drama.  The characters felt real and I didn't want the book to end.  Not one wasted page on pointless details.  Loved IT

</review>
<review>

What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day.   By Pearl Cleage.

As an avid reader there are times I am desperate for a book to read and yet cannot seem to find one I have not read. It was suggested by a friend that I read this book. Having never heard of the author I hesitated for a moment and then bought it. At first realizing this was a story about a woman who had Aids I wondered if I would be able to read it.

To my surprise  once I opened it and read the first chapter I was unable to put this book down. This is a first novel for this writer and I must say a literary gem. From start to finish the writing is exceptional, the characters vivid and so close you can touch them. Though there is so much sadness, death, drugs, and cruelty the author never allowed you to dwell on these facts alone.  She had you feel only the love, and hope, the goodness of some in spite of the meanness of others. The ending is uplifting, for you also close the book knowing that you have finished a novel well worth reading.

I have bought three more of Pearl Cleage's books and cannot wait to read them.

</review>
<review>

I was given this book by a friend as a going away gift.  The day I decided to read it, I was ill and lay on the couch reading it in one sitting.  I was a bit drowsy, but I could not but it down...It made me nervous, excited, sad, and happy...all the emotions that a good book or movie can offer.  Get this if you are a serious reader looking for a fictional escape

</review>
<review>

It has been awhile since I read this book, but I remember it being an enjoyable read.

</review>
<review>

Had to stop about 1/4 of the way through it and give it away

</review>
<review>

As a white man, this book offended me several times during the first five minutes of reading it.  If an author wrote in the same way about black people the book would not even be published! I am tired of the double standard! Thank god I didn't pay for this book and only checked it out at the library

</review>
<review>

Polk's useful analysis of Iraq history brims with insights into what is happening in Iraq today.  This book is a "must read" for the informed layperson who wants to better understand this critical theater of American interests.  This is also one of the books that civilian and military policy makers should have read before invading Iraq

</review>
<review>

Finally, after reading this book, I feel informed. I've been reading lots of bits and pieces (articles) about the history of the Middle East and the Iraq war and often found it to be somewhat overwhelming. Understanding Iraq really did bring it all together for me. I especially appreciated that it was contained in a readable 213 pages. Now when I see or hear a name associated with the region, I can readily identify that place or person's role. I recognize that a region's history and politics can't be fully described in such a short book. But Understanding Iraq inspires one to explore further and the subject doesn't seem so overwhelming anymore. It's an excellent place to start. I highly recommend it to average Americans who want to be informed

</review>
<review>

For one who does not know the details of the history of Iraq, this book provides an excellent overview. Dr. Polk does a good job of explaining rather briefly the panorama of the people who evolved into today's Iraq. Everyone should read this book along with others about Iraq history. I look forward to reading the _How to Get Out of Iraq_ co-authored by Dr. Polk

</review>
<review>

I saw Dr. Polk on C-SPAN a month or two ago.  He was addressing a gathering of concerned and apparently well-heeled citizens in the New York Museum of Art--as I recall.  He had the crowd and the moderator in the palm of his hands.  I found him to be a compelling speaker who obviously was very versed in the subject matter of Iraq.  He seemed to genuinely care about the Iraqi people--and the Amercian people.  His speech and this book was about correcting our "present march of folly"--to steal from Barbara Tuchman's fine book title.

This book is a primer on Iraq from Dr. Polk's point of view.  It does offer a "broad sweep" of Iraqi history in a mere 200+ pages.  It's purpose is obviously as an introductory historical primer for literate, reasonably educated Americans so that they can understand the basic historical circumstances leading up to the present conflict.  I think he wrote the book to try to change more American minds and effect a change in our present policy.  That change seems to be coming about as I hit these keys.  Both the Iraqi public and American public seem to be losing patience with the present intolerable set of affairs in Iraq.

It's quite unfortunate that some of the Amazon reviewers have so much trouble accepting some very basic facts.  They, like the occupant of the White House and the rather motley crew that surrounds him seem to live in their own separate reality.  We need, as a people, to give up our collective fairy tales about our country, its leaders, and its forever "good intentions."

This is a very approachable book.  Highly recommended for those who have little background in the history of Iraq.  Another very good book that another reviewer recommended is:  "The Future of Iraq" by Liam Anderson and Gareth Stansfield.  Their analysis results in the conclusion that Iraq will break into 3 pieces.  Hopefully, in some sort of federated pattern rather than as warring nations.  I remember Seymour Hirsch saying that the three part outcome was virtually inevitable given the circumstances on the ground in Iraq.  He based this on his sources in Iraq.  He made this statement in the spring on C-SPAN.  Seems quite prescient.

</review>
<review>

Many of the Amazon reviewers of Polk's book are guilty of being "political", a charge that they attempt to tar Polk with.  So when you read the reviews keep in mind that Bush apologists can be found everywhere and people of that sort  know only too well that should Polk's reasonable and insightful book become popular their cause will be hurt.  Polk's main contribution is that he has synthesised a highly complex story and made it concise and accessible for the average American.  For those of us who have worked with US policy abroad, the simple points Polk makes about Iraq are painful, but true.  Bush and his Iraq team would fail Economic Development 101 as taught by any university in America.  As Polk recounts, there can be no political or economic improvement without good communication (an occupation army and administration with virtually no Arabic language skills is absolutely unthinkable, yet that is the situation we have); in the long-run, top down development absolutely never works (how could Bremer not understand this?); local support is a prerequisite for all successful development (democratic, capitalist development models are unreal ideas to the average Iraqi); and without stable and secure populations and institutions, development plans, capitalist or otherwise, will not be worth the paper they are printed on.  Polk focuses on these basic ideas and presents his case on how and why the United States has ended up in a pickle of Bush and Chaney's choosing.  So unlike the others to be found here, if you must read a book on Iraq, pick "Understanding Iraq".  It is history written from a point of view that strives for simple, telling, damning truth; the one thing that political types of all stripes abhor.

</review>
<review>

I was very excited about this book before I started to read it.  Polk appeared to have flawless credentials...surely someone with so much relevent experience would produce an outstanding book on Iraq.  Unfortunately it became clear very early on in this book that my expectations were not to be met.

Let's start witht the obvious.  The subtitle of this book begins as "the whole sweep of Iraqi history..."  The book is 213 pages and even that can be deceiving...physically, the book is very small and the typesetting appears larger than average.  To be sure, no single book could adequately present the whole sweep of Iraqi history, but of all the Iraqi history books I have read or referenced, this book does the poorest job of all in terms of presenting an overview of the country.  I would recommend Anderson and Stansfield's book as an example of one of the best books in this area.

The way Polk has the book organized, it would be reasonable to have high hopes.  There are six chapters: Ancient Iraq, Islamic Iraq, British Iraq, Revolutionary Iraq, American Iraq, and Whose Iraq?  He appears to have the important bases covered, but within these chapters lies a remarkably weak and half-hearted presentation of Iraq's history, at least at the governmental level.

Another somewhat related criticism would be that there are next to no cited sources in the entire book.  From an academic standpoint, this is baffling.  His experience in the field notwithstanding, it is unacceptable to produce what is to be a serious history book and then provide no sources or bibliography.  The key here is to recognize that at its heart, this book is not an attepmt to provide a history of Iraq, but merely an outlet for criticizing the way the U.S. (particularly Bush) has handled Iraq.

Onto that criticism:  Polk is one of those authors that rightly and (mostly) accurately points out all of the bad things the U.S. has done when it comes to Iraq.  From a moral or humanitarian perspective, of course it's wrong to give support to someone like Hussein.  I think most people would agree with that.  What baffles me is that someone could so passionately point out all these bad things and then be so opposed to a war that ultimately removed a regime who surived up to that point because of what the U.S. had done.  Even though it was not the reason given, the U.S. had accumulated quite a large moral debt to Iraq.  In short, we owed it to Iraqis to get rid of Saddam.  Further explanations of this type of thinking can be found in Feldman's "What we owe Iraq," and Cushman's "A Matter of Principle."

My last main complaint about this book is that for all the criticizing and lamenting about U.S. intentions and mistakes (and believe me, these are all warranted), Polk offers no real ideas for what to do to help Iraqis build a better future, and more importantly, he never even touches on the topic of what kind of life these people would have endured if Hussein was still in power today.  I think it's important and necessary to call the U.S. on its mistakes, but at the end of the day, the U.S. actually helped get rid of a dictator this time.  And even though we owe this to a lot of other countries, I can only be glad that humanitarian and security interests were aligned in this case, and that for all the other problems, there is at least a chance for democracy and a better life in Iraq.  That chance certainly did not exist under Hussein.

The biggest let down here is that it is important for people to understand Iraq, but this book I believe, is doing more harm than good.  If you've done a fair amount of reading on Iraq, this will be clear so that's not the danger here.  What would be an absolute tragedy here would be for someone with no prior experience to pick up this book and then think they have a real understanding of Iraq after reading it.  These are the types of books that make my job as a professor harder than it should be because I have to spend so much time in order to defuse all numbers of students who read material like this and base their opinions and judgements from it.  While not nearly as damaging to the process of education and understanding as Michael Moore or Sean Hannity, it is much more disappointing because Polk has the education and experience needed to produce stellar work.  Framed in those terms, this book is largely a failure

</review>
<review>

Not only has this professor studied the country of Iraq, he has studied its language and its history.  Unlike many authors writing about Iraq, he has lived there.  He was also a policy advisor during the Kennedy administration.  Given this, he has a better perspective than most who have written about it.

In highlighting linguistics, Polk points out that not understanding the language will inevitably lead to misunderstanding, which will in turn lead to bad decisions.  Further, by highlighting the history of the country, he underlines the good times and the bad, and in doing so, he points out what is likely to happen.

The last part of the book discusses the current situation in Iraq and the United States' involvement.  Here, the author applies the history and language to show what can be expected.  However, part of this also goes into critique.

Regardless on your take of the United States' presence in Iraq, this book is a good primer for understanding Iraq

</review>
<review>

I honestly do not know why there aren't more reviews on this book or why it's not one of the top ten best-selling books. This is definitely one of the most touching and wonderful books I have read this year or ever. It is written so beautifully that it makes you feel the characters' pain, love, dreams and hopes. Evangeline, better known as Eva, is a character that will stay with you long after the last page has been turned.

This is historical fiction and it is written so beautifully of a time that is still a sore touch in our nation's history ~~ the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression. Eva grows up in Oklahoma on a dusty little farm. It's not an easy living but Eva was content. She has her parents and her best friend, Ruby and romance is too much to hope for, so she didn't dream of it. She pours her imagination and love into the most exquiste quilts ever. Then something magical happens to her and her life is forever changed.

Woven in with little tidbits and historical facts ~~ this makes for a great read anytime of the year. It's beautifully written and lyrical. Bostwick writes with a flair that draws the reader into the story and doesn't let go even after the last page is turned. You keep turning the book over to see if there is any more to be said about Eva, Ruby, Morgan and Paul. And you hope that there will be a sequel. This book will haunt you because for a short time, the characters and their stories are real to the reader ~~ at least it was for me.

And reading about Oklahoma, the Dust Bowl, the Aviation beginnings and small-town life, the Depression ~~ all became real to me for a short time as if I lived them. The stories are real even if the characters are fiction. It sheds light on a period of history that I've never really shown much interest in before. Now I am interested.

If you're looking for something to read that will take you somewhere else for a time and draws you into the lives of the characters, this book is definitely it. It is delightful and wonderful ~~ not depressing and it does tug at the heartstrings. It's a book about life.

6-15-0

</review>
<review>

impossible to put down! a book that both inspires and teaches about the human spirit

</review>
<review>

As a native Oklahoman, I found this to be a great book.  It portrayed small town life very well.    It was obvious Mrs. Bostwick did her research.   Her portrayal of the hot summers was particularly accurate. The characters were real, with flaws and strengths that made them easy to relate to. The book was so engaging, I finished it in two days; because I wanted to see how it turned out.   I'd recommend this book to anyone who likes Dorthy Garlock, Jan Karon or Philip Gulley.   As a matter of fact,  I liked it so well, that I'm buying a copy for a friend's birthday.

Sincerely,

Shannon Comb

</review>
<review>

Luxury for me is reading in bed at night after a long hard day at work. This book was so good I had a hard time putting it down, to the point of staying up until the wee hours reading! Just kept thinking "one more page" and before I knew it, it was 3:00 AM! It was captivating and I loved it. Never wanted it to end

</review>
<review>

Hope Marie Bostwick is working on a new book, I am a big fan! Fields of Gold is such a multi-leveled story with history, drama, romance and the personal triumph of its lead character that it was enjoyable and engrossing in lots of ways

</review>
<review>

I enjoyed every minute of this book.  This story of a woman's path to fulfillment, blended with just the right amount of history, kept me wondering what was factual and what was fiction.  The perfect book to take on a long car ride or plane trip

</review>
<review>

From page one to the last, I was drawn into not only the story, but each character.  This is a sensory exploration into the life of young, innocent woman and her will to overcome adversity.  The descriptive writing permits one to enter into each scene and become emotionally and physically enveloped.  By combining a fictional character with one of historical significance, Marie Bostwick provides readers with the desire to pursue the question 'what if?'.  This book is difficult to put down, inspirational and left me wanting more.

</review>
<review>

I love this story, and every character has specific impact on the life of one strong woman. This was definatly a page turner and I never wanted to put it down. I can't wait for another novel from Marie Bostwick

</review>
<review>

I really enjoyed this book.  It was an easy read and all the characters made their place in this story.  It was a warm and relaxing book. All members of my book club enjoyed it too

</review>
<review>

I found this to be a fascinating, compelling story. I'm a big fan of historical novels and the author did an excellent job of melding the history with the fiction.  I was very pleased that I noticed no anachronisms because such inaccuracies really jar me out of the suspension of disbelief into which a book has delivered me

</review>
<review>

After working for a software company for more than 7 years , this book is actually of no surprise to me at all. However, those of you who want to know how software projects work in reality, this book is a very good and true reflection of that. We probably all studied Project Management Essentials, but all the projects I have been involved in so far, run more like the one described in this book and not like in the school manual. Enjoy the reality

</review>
<review>

The setting of the novel are in the fictitious republic of Morovia where our lead character ends up somehow.

The target of the govt of Morovia to have the best software export facility in the world by some time ,  has indeed parallels in the real world , most notably India and those who want to follow the Indian model like China , Pakistan , etc etc .

Mr.Demarco's acute powers of observations in the real world is more than apparent in his incisive analysis of the personalities that have had varoius roles in the past , as depicted in the setting of the novel. Whether it be that of General Markov and his remarkable administrative capabilities owing to a career span of experience in military origanisations or Binda who is reportedly the world's best project manager or researchers like Abdul Jamid who have studied and developed various models for modelign the hunches of good managers , in all of this Demarco has sort of amalgamated - in my opinion - his deep observations of different people in these roles from the real world based on his experiences and his own opinions on these roles formed  through the author's rather distingushed career . This gives us a wonderful insight into the dynamics of these roles , and that too in the setting of a novel which maintains all the while to be an interesting read.

His insistence through the mouthpiece of the lead character of this novel that good management  , more than anything else is about people  - while overly simplistic - is still , in my opinion , correct in its spirit and core.   The same as a matter of fact is true about anything else in real world and life - it is all about people.

Coming back to the book review , I believe Mr.Demarco has done remarkably well in employing this pedagogical device of a novel like like setting to discuss  various issues one has to cope with in a high tech software project . This has been done through various characters with different roles who interact with the lead character of the novel : people like superb project manager colleagues , bossy and stupid management, expert consultants , good and bad team members etc .
Any reader who has been in the software industry for a while in any role will be able to relate to a fair subset of these people and the experiences.

The value of this novel is in the various valuable insights coming from different people of the novel setting which invariably have parallels in the real world . It would not have been possible for someone to write this novel unless like Mr.Demarco they have been in the software industry themselves .

I would highly recommend this very readable novel to people from the software industry , as it offers a lot of educating insights even if at times one does not agree to some of the opinions of the characters involved

</review>
<review>

Deadline follows the two-year fictitious journey of IS project manager Webster Tompkins, illustrating the lessons he learns along the way. I bought this book primarily due to the great reviews it garnered on Amazon.com. After all, you can't go wrong when a book rates 4.5 out of 5 stars from over 25 readers, can you? Yep. This book was terrible, because of two very big problems: the book didn't say very much in 300+ pages and what it did say I don't agree with (it also tends to contradict much of Tom Peter's 'In Search of Excellence'). Or, to state it another way, the book points out about five very useful lessons/pieces of information, but takes forever to do so. Those lessons could have been summarized in about five pages--with compelling examples.

</review>
<review>

While I greatly enjoyed DeMarco's non-fiction books "Peopleware" and "Slack", I felt this attempt at a novel was weak.

*** spoiler warning ***

Tompkins, the main character, has supposedly been chosen for his role in this novel because he is an gifted, experienced manager. Yet pretty much every chapter is a lesson he learns by screwing up.  Perhaps I would have found it more palatable if the character was a newly-promoted manager, who knew he was ignorant.

In the end, comes the revelation that, in spite of all the mistakes, he is an excellent manager because he *cares* about people.  I don't see how this shows.  Among the management problems he faces is reporting to a difficult supervisor up the chain, and the solution to this problem is essentially to have the man poisoned and sent to the hospital! Can you say cognitive dissonance?

</review>
<review>

This is perhaps the only management novel for IT.  In the vein of "the Goal" by Goldratt, Tom DeMarco preaches the gospel of good project management.  The ideas on staffing, conflict resolution and managing to deadlines are very helpful.  The challenge is that the novel format could and should provide insight into the conflicts dealing with situations that are not ideal.  In reality, we are left with great ideas, but a lost opportunity on the difficulties of implementing them

</review>
<review>

If you think that you can apply Tom DeMarco's novel knowledge only to the software engineering field, you will get surprised how management is the same across all fields, including software development. This is my favorite quote from this book.  and quot;It's not what you don't know what kills you, but what you know and isn't so. and quot

</review>
<review>

Book catalogues are loaded with titles extolling the benefits and virtues of god-belief and religions. However, testimonials about atheism are in short supply.

David Eller's "Natural Atheism" fills that niche beautifully. The author doesn't just explain atheism and make a compelling case for its validity. He also advocates "evangelism" on behalf of atheism and points out why it is so important to our modern world, especially to the culture of the United States.

Dr. Eller writes with candor and clarity. His book is a welcome addition to this atheist's library. It sits alongside Dianna Narciso's "Like Rolling Uphill: realizing the honesty of Atheism," David Mills' "Atheist Universe," George Smith's "Atheism: the case against God," and my own modest effort.

As more and more atheists speak out, maybe there will be less and less misunderstanding about what atheism means and who atheists are and greater appreciation for why it matters.

"Natural Atheism" is a valuable contribution toward that effort

</review>
<review>

This book will hopefully persuade parents to provide an environment for their children that encourages the critical thinking skills that they will sorely need to successfully maneuver through life.  Dr. Eller contrasts the concepts of knowledge and belief in an enlightening manner.  I found logic, reason, insight, and humor on every page.  I highly recommend

</review>
<review>

I agree with the premises of this book, but found it rather boring, and not the easiest to read. If you want to read something similar that doesn't read like a textbook, I would suggest "Losing Faith in Faith", "Atheist Universe" or "Like Rolling Uphill."

</review>
<review>

Natural Atheism covers almost every aspect of atheism in a compendious and lucid manner. The chapters of the book are presented in a logical order and address a variety of issues such as what exactly is atheism and why it is the logical conclusion of the critically thinking person, so-called different types of atheism, agnosticism, the relationship between science and religion, an atheistic spirituality, and the complex history of separation between church and state. The author doesn't delve as deeply as possible into the variety of philosophical and scientific reasoning's that might point to the existence of a  Creator, but then again, he doesn't have to. There are other books on the market dedicated to discussing these issues from an atheistic perspective. The objective that Natural Atheism focuses on is  the conclusion that atheism is the conclusion of the rational individual and the book does this extremely well.  Eller uses his erudition to demolish a panoply of reasons that a theist might have for believing in a god ( or more accurately, gods) . An atheist will find that this book reaffirms their reasons for becoming (or staying) an atheist in the first place. The theist will have their opinions, beliefs, and conclusions thoroughly challenged. This is not a book that attempts to turn a theist into an atheist by denigrating religion; the author shows how religion, every religion, practically begs the believer to question its veracity by simply studying the very idea of religion objectively. This book should be read by theists and atheists alike.

</review>
<review>

In addition to being a contribution to clear and unpretentious explanations on the premises of atheism, this book succeeds in identifying several pitfalls created by faulty argumentation. Eller makes a remarkable distinction between the basis of a "belief," which is neither "true or false" since it is beyond the scope of reason, and a contention presented as fact which requires evidence that can be observed or tested.

In one of my favorite examples, Eller responds in this way when asked if he "believes" in evolution: he states that he doesn't "believe" in evolution but rather "accepts" evolution as the best explanation we have so far based on available evidence; if something more convincing comes along, he is ready to part with his previous views. Would theists be as willing to part with their views in light of hostile new evidence? This is one of many instances where Eller demonstrates his care in avoiding any games associated with "belief." People can hide behind "beliefs" and justify them unfairly, either by using feelings and/ or personal experiences or reason itself--until, of course, reason fails to support their claims. That is, when convenient, logic and reason are allies to the believer. When not, it is time to hide behind the myriad of gods, spiritual experiences, etc.

Eller maintains an open mind and recommends rigorous questioning and skepticism as a way of avoiding hasty conslusions and assumptions. Much explanation is given, and the reader should come away with a lucid understanding of the importance of the "burden of proof." If we are to accept everything at face value without question, we would resort to considering any claim--regardless of how ludicrous--as serious.

This book can reinforce a healthy mentality, challenging readers to examine the integrity of their thinking. From the role of philosophy and logic to the often misrepresented views of the "founding fathers," Eller covers plenty of ground; to oversimplify his discussion of serveral matters with general comments would be unfair. I can hardly represent the depth of his elaborations. Eller delivers impeccable arguments complete with a combination of honesty, sophistication, experience, and wit rarely seen in a work of this nature

</review>
<review>

I bought this book based on the review by David Mills, author of Atheist Universe. I bought them both at the same time. Fully expecting Natural Atheism to be better, I read Mills' book first. Though Natural Atheism presents the arguments comprehensibly, I found it less interesting and far more dry than Atheist Universe. I would still recommend it together with Atheist Universe for a rounded expression of the arguments but I think the points could have been made in simpler language

</review>
<review>

David Eller writes with wit and passion. "Passion" is not a word applied by so-called mainstreamers to Atheists, since they are supposed to be feckless and ignorant. David Eller shows how this is not so as he passionately, intelligently and articulately lays out the Atheistic position.

Prior to reading this, I read Sam Harris' *End of Faith* and can say there's simply no comparison. Harris' case is sophomoric in comparison. Mr. Eller hits the nails on their heads repeatedly. It would be hard to argue with the position he stakes out, without resorting to intellectual dishonesty, ad hominem abuse, and self-contradiction -- all which Theists are usually willing to do.

One of the very strongest aspects of the book comes from Mr. Eller's anthropological background. He makes a point very forcefully and in different contexts that Theists really have no answer to whatsoever: which god(s) do we accept as real? Which body of supposedly divine teaching is right? There are so very many out there to choose from. Since most of the claims of these different traditions are mutually exclusive, which is right?  You will find, says Mr. Eller, that Theists insist that their particular version is right and everyone else, by extension, must be wrong. You can't believe in Yahweh, Allah, Buddha and the Hindu pantheon all at once. These religions make mutually exclusive claims.  So who has it right?

Theists, of course, will defend their particular version of god(s). They are very uncomfortable if you try to extend that defence to other religious traditions. The more blinkered will condemn the other traditions as idolatry etc; the more open may pay lip service to ecumenism or other wishy-washy brands of toleration. But then you only have to point out that they are traducing the demands of the very god they profess, who insists as an absolutely basic point of faith, the he and he alone is god.  They may then admit that the other god(s) are not real, that their followers are misguided, and so on. But the crucial point, no matter how it's dressed up, is that the monotheist denies the existence of the Greek, Roman or Hindu gods, African witches, Amazonian forest spirits, dead ancestor spirits, Aztec rain and war gods, or other monotheistic head honchos (like Allah). He has no other choice. If he didn't, he wouldn't be a monotheist.

Most monotheists are therefore disbelievers. They disbelieve in many hundreds (if not thousands) of deities worshipped by others. Atheists only disbelieve in one more god than monotheists. So what's the fuss?

This simple and beautiful point illustrates the book's elegant argument. A fabulous read. Highly recommended

</review>
<review>

The best book ive read in a long time. If you are a little interested in the subject or are already a rationalist atheist, this book is a must have

</review>
<review>

This book is very, very good. Dr. Eller put in an incredible amount of thought and research into each topic that he covers. This book is full of very helpful information... everything from refuting the arguments for Gods existance to a short lesson in logic to a nice summary on the history of the whole church and state thing.

The only reason I didn't give this book 5 stars was because I had a really hard time getthing through the second half of this book. The topics, while very informative, didn't really interest me that much. However, i still reccomend this book if you are interested in atheism, and would like to read a very thoughtful analysis of it, without any religion bashing

</review>
<review>

A five star book.  To most westerners, China is a huge enigma and this book sheds light on what is happening in China today.  Most westerners have some idea of the horrors of the cultural revolution but may not understand how it permeated the lives of most of the educated Chinese.  This book tells those stories and how these five classmates of his have fared,and about how new China works today. His personal story is also very interesting

</review>
<review>

This is a must read.  I just came back from one year in China and his observations are right on the money for the current situation in China.  He put things clearly, and it is not a difficult read- I couldn't put it down

</review>
<review>

This is an excellent book, written by someone who has lived many years in China, married a Chinese wife, yet remains objectively concise in analyzing China's unique approach to business, cultural, and personal relationships.  As we become ever more intertwined with Asian, and especially Chinese influences, this book is critical to our understanding and to merging our national interests with China's interests

</review>
<review>

Pomfret provides insight into China's Cultural Revolution through the eyes of his classmates at a Chinese university who participated.  The result of youths gone wild, even abusing their own parents for trivial issues, is bone-chilling, almost otherwise unimaginable.  We also learn of serious discrimination against females during that same time period.  Everyone is encouraged/required to report on each other for any form of non-conformist behavior.

Non-political limitations include a ban on most dancing, most Chinese fraternizing with foreigners (Pomfret lived in a dormitory room with six other Chinese students), rationing of food, travel restrictions, and frequent ID checks.  Jobs are assigned, per the Communist Party hierarchy, and any "bad" history (often including one's immediate relatives) can severely limit opportunities.  Even divorce requires Party approval.

Pomfret's account also provides stories of incredible hard work and motivation by classmates trying to get ahead despite the political and educational obstacles.

Then we fast-forward to the late 1980's - changes were sweeping the country and the U.S. was the model (vs. a despised enemy previously).  Capitalism replaced egalitarianism ("we're all poor together;" China goes from very egalitarian to very unequal).  Still, however, the secret police continues monitoring for anti-Party sentiments, and now monitors Internet e-mail, chat-rooms, and other usage; the "good news" is that wild accusations are much less common, and punishments much milder than 20 years prior.  Communist Party officials at the city level could even jail people for up to three years without a trial.  Pollution becomes extreme in some areas.  Bribery and extortion involving Party leaders is common, even though prosecuted (sometimes).

Finally, censorship is also shown to be a problem - the SARS epidemic and the Tiananmen Square massacre providing prime examples.

Bottom Line:  China has made great economic progress, but a climate of fear still pervades; hopefully China never returns to the Cultural Revolution excesses experienced by Pomfret's classmates, or worse yet, anything approaching Mao's "Great Leap Forward" that led to millions starving in the prior years.

</review>
<review>

Having for many years read and admired Pomfret's excellent articles in the Washington Post, especially his superb reporting from China, I was not surprised by the quality of the factual content of his book, but was moved by the depth of the author's ability to portray his classmates characters with understanding and compassion.

Among the numerous recent books on China I had read, this one ranks at the top

</review>
<review>

When John Pomfret found the rampant prostitution on his third trip to China in 1990s, he looked back at his observations in early 1980s, and realized that Chinese people had been deprived of sexuality for decades under Mao. Women were hiding their gender identity by wearing clothes and making hair fashions similar to man. There were no make-ups or little decorations like earrings. No feminine curves were displayed publicly. From back ward or even lateral view it was hard to tell people's gender difference. Sexual desires were prohibited to display publicly. Husband and wives were denied the right of living together when they worked in different locations far apart. Prostitution were cleansed thoroughly. That is "where we have come from" as one of his roommates, Book Idiot Joe believes we need to know. Small wonder that when the door suddenly opened to the outside world after Mao's death, sexual suppression rebounded into ubiquitous promiscuity.

But the rebound was not limited to Asexuality. John Pomfret noticed that the number of Christians increased from one million in 1949 up to 60 millions today. This was an example of rebound from Atheism. Rebound involves almost all the new prosperity; for example, countless luxurious restaurants have opened up with a strong renaissance of traditional cuisine everywhere. This is but a small part of rebound from Asceticism. Actually rebound from the Three Big A endured by Chinese for three decades under Mao has made China's stunning and unprecedented growth possible.

So China's rise came when the Cultural Revolution ended after Mao's death; this was not a matter of fortuity but inevitability. This is also what we are learning from John Pomfret's "Chinese Lessons.

</review>
<review>

perhaps the finest correspondent to write on china over the last two decades, john pomfret's "chinese lessons" is a penetrating, insightful and frequently moving exploration of the transformations that have remolded much of china. only pomfret, whose immersion in china began with his language work at a chinese university, could write this book, a work that traces the lives of student colleagues he met twenty-five years ago, and through those lives he  elegantly and unsparingly chronicles the cataclysmic change that has swept the country. his intimate portraits are stunning in their detail, their passion, and their lessons. if there is one book i would recommend on the complexities and landscape of chinese society, it would be pomfret's superlative effort.

(in the interests of full disclosure, pomfret thanks me in his acknowledgements; that said, the book is a masterpiece.

</review>
<review>


This book is beyond five stars, and not just for business, where it is receiving all the praise it is due, but within government, where it has not yet been noticed. It was recommended to me by the author of "Building a Knowledge-Driven Organization," and I now recommend it to everyone I know. If there are two books that can "change the world," these are the ones.

Although the Chinese understood all this stuff centuries ago (Yin/Yang, space between the dots, the human web), the author is correct when she notes late in the book that the commoditization of the human worker (Cf. Lionel Tiger, "The Manufacture of Evil") and the emphasis on scientific objectivity and scientific manager (Cf. Jean Ralston Saul, "Voltaire's Bastards") were perhaps the greatest error we might have made in terms of long-run progress. Coincidentally, as I finished the book, on the Discovery channel in the background they were discussing how the leveeing of the Mississippi blocked the Louisiana watershed from cleansing the Mississippi naturally, as it once used to.

It's all about systems--the author does cite Donella Meadows' 1982 article in Stewart Brand's Co-Evolution Quarterly, but does not pay much heed to the large body of literature that thrived in the 1970's around the Club of Rome.

There are perhaps three bottom lines in this book that I would recommend to any government leader who hopes to stabilize and reconstruct our world:

1) Information is what defines who we are, what we can become, what we can perceive, what we are capable of achieving. Blocking or controlling information flows stunts our growth and virtually assures defeat if not death. It is the optimization of listening--being open to *all* information (and especially all the information the secret world now ignores)--that optimizes our ability to adjust, evolve, and grow.

2) Command  and  control is history, block and wire diagrams are history. General Al Gray had it right in the 1990's when he talked about "commander's intent" as the baseline. Leaders today need to be disruptive, to look for dissonant views and news, and to empower all individuals at all levels with both information, and the authority to act on that information.

3) Disorder is an *opportunity*. We have the power to define ourselves, our "opponents," and our circumstances in ways that can either inspire protective, constricted, secretive, "armed" responses, or inclusive, open, sharing "pro-active" peaceful responses.

The author is to be praised for noting early on in the book that "Ethical and moral questions are no longer fuzzy religious concepts but key elements in the relationship any organization has with colleagues, stakeholders, and communities." I would extend that to note that social ethics and foreign policy ethics are the foundation for sustainable life on the planet, and we appear to be a long way from understanding that it is ethics, not guns, that will stabilize and fertilize...Cf Jonathan Schell, "Unconquerable World."

It also merits comment that the author essentially kills the industry of forecasting, scenarios, modeling, and futures simulations. I agree with her view (and that of others) that early warning is achieved, not through the theft of secret plans and intentions or the forecasting of behavior, but rather by casting a very wide net, listening carefully to all that is openly available, sharing it very widely (as the LINUX guys say, put enough eyeballs on it, and no bug will be invisible), and then being open to changed relationships. Trying to maintain the status quo will simply not do.

I give the author credit for carrying out an extraordinary survey of the literature on quantum mechanics, and for developing a PhD-level explanation of why old organization theory, based on the linear concepts of Newtonian physics, is bad for us, and how the new emergent organization theory, understood by too few, is let about the things and more about the relationships between and among the things.

This is an elegant essay and a heroic personal work of discovery, interpretation, and integration. While I would have liked to see more credit given to Kuhn, Drucker, Garfield, Brand, Rheingold, and numerous others that I have reviewed here for Amazon, on balance, given the academic narrowness of her Harvard PhD, I think the author has performed at the Olympic level. This is a radical book, somewhat reminiscent of Charles Hampden-Turner's book, "Radical Man," which as I recall was not accepted by Harvard as a thesis at the time. Perhaps Harvard is evolving (smile).

For other key books that complement and precede this book, see my lists on information society, collective intelligence, business intelligence, and intelligence qua spies and secrecy in an open world.

Read this book BEFORE you read her new collection of essays, "Finding Our Way: Leadership for an Uncertain Time.

</review>
<review>

I am ordering copies for all 23 middle school principals and the two assistant principals leading two middle school programs in the Milwaukee Public Schools system. We will use Wheatley's book as the primary resource  for our professional growth at our MPS Middle School Principals  Collaborative institute August 9-11, 1999. We are not just concerned with  reform; we seek renewal as well. Wheatley provides the basis. She notes  that Einstein said that  a problem cannot be solved from the same  consciousness that created it. The entire book is a marvelous exploration  of this philosophy

</review>
<review>

Despite that I'm losing a fair chunk of change on Kodak in the stock market, and that this book touts Kodak film, it remains one of the BEST all-time books for beginner/intermediate photographers!

This gem of a book explains in easy language all the basics one needs to learn - exposure (shutter speed, f-stops, ISO), lenses, composition, filters, flash and taking pictures in different lighting situations (daylight, backlight, sidelight etc.)

Although some may think this book is "dated" because it does not address the digital realm, it will remain a classic for teaching the basic, unchanging principles of photography.

Highly recommended!!

</review>
<review>

This book is so generic in its advice that it is all but useless. It tries to be all things to all cameras, and therefore says nothing specific about anything. Add to this the way it tries to tout Kodak film, and you realize Kodak should be paying people to read this book. But they still wouldn't know how to work their cameras

</review>
<review>

If you are a beginner or intermediate photographer, this book will tell you what you need to know to get the results you want in your photography. It covers the topics of film, exposure, and flash photography, from the basics to intermediate technique. It also has chapters that give advice on specific types of photography: action, existing-light, and close-up. There are also chapters on lenses and filters and a short chapter on digital manipulation. Most of the information in this book would be appropriate for digital as well as film photography. If you just bought your first SLR, or if you would like to better understand what your camera can do, this is the perfect book for you. It also makes a great gift for the young or relatively inexperienced photographer. Advanced amateurs may find it useful as a refresher or reference to keep for those occasions when you forget some technique that you haven't used in a while. But the book's intended audience is novice to intermediate photographers, and it does a very good job of addressing the needs of those photographers

</review>
<review>

This is an Excellent book, it covers all the topics a beginner photographer should know and should practice with its own camera. It brings enough information on each one, including some very useful recommendations about what to do, showing and comparing the resulting photos you can get when using different camera settings. In the same purchase order, I bought three similar photographic books, after browsing each one, I liked it best

</review>
<review>

I like Stephen King's books. I have not read them all but I have put a serious dent in the King inventory and believe him to be one of the finest writers of our era. His popularity and prolific writing attests to his skill to spin a yarn.

Hearts in Atlantis disturbed me more than his other books (that are gory at times but are ultimately fantasy). It's to King's credit that I'm disturbed, and attests to his writing skill. I've witnessed much violence in my life in different countries and I'm intimately acquainted with human folly.

Ultimately I found the book hard to read precisely because King is such a good novelist. Do I recommend it? Sort of

</review>
<review>

HEARTS IN ATLANTIS by Stephen King
THE GIRL WHO LOVED TOM GORDON by Stephen King

Two reviews in one? What up with that? Well, I read HEARTS IN ATLANTIS some time ago and, beyond "rah rah go read this," I said it exposed my inadequacies as a reviewer. How stupid was that? I'm going to try again.

I finished reading MY LIFE by Bill Clinton late one Tuesday afternoon, then immediately picked up THE MAN WHO LOVED TOM GORDON. I figured my old friend Stephen King could clear my exhausted mind. He immediately pulled me in, and I read it in a single sitting. It's gripping stuff. Incredibly realistic, insightful regarding human nature, and it'll scare your pants off. The Master is most definitely at the top of his game with this book. Ditto with ATLANTIS.

Authors, how do you feel when you spend months (years?) writing a book only to have some reader say he polished it off in a single evening? Actually, I think you oughta feel good. No writer, not even Isaac Asimov, could/can be sufficiently prolific to be the only one a reader ever needs. I think this is very cool, and I love working with fellow authors to promote this thing we do.

Okay, back to my book review. King was always great, right? But there came a point where a certain sameness crept in. It's hard to define, perhaps, but you know what I mean. I don't think he was having as much fun as he used to, and after a time, neither were we.

Then came ON WRITING, which I never run out of breath raving about, and now books like these. He's scaling back the supernatural, which never bothered me at all, because he's found even scarier things to write about. The Master has raised his game, and it's a joy to know I've got a big old pile of unread Stephen King novels downstairs. Expect more rave reviews.

Oh, and Stephen, if you're reading this, and you ever get the desire to raise your game yet again, just let me know. I'll go rent a truck and hit you with it. (It's a joke. Just like the idea that YOU subscribe to MY rag. I know you'd rather read DAVE'S RAG.)

</review>
<review>

Masterfully thought out  and  written. Not your usual supernatural, horror King story. Written in 4-5 completely different chapters there is some supernatural, but it begins as a story of some friends in childhood, follows them through the years  and  culminates with them as adults. Each chapter is completely different yet ties some characters in. At the end they are all tied together in some ways years later. It's ingenious in it's finale and I advise you set aside some time for reading. It's very difficult to put down. Once it grabs your interest, it just sucks you into the story. If you remember your childhood friends (we all do) you'll identify with the story

</review>
<review>

This is by far my favorite Stephen King novel. I did not hear any fanfare when it came out but purchased it is a break between the Dark Tower novels. The novel was a surprise in its unique story and depth.

Unlike a lot of Stephen King novels that deal with the darkening of human spirit, this novel delves more into hope. There are the bad men, "the low men in yellow coats (wonderful phrase!)" but there is also a concrete good in the world that the characters are trying to be and hold onto.

King weaves two different decades and makes connections that are not overly coincidental or trite. He also gives a few nods to his Dark Tower works, but they are not overt. You will not have had to read that series. They are more of a treat for his long term readers and the universe that he is trying to create throughout his novels.

I highly recommend this book (but don't be fooled by the movie, it is weak in comparison)

</review>
<review>

I loved the book and bought the CD to listen to while on long drives.  It's one of King's best restrained writings, with no stomch turning descriptions of blood and gore and very little off the wall, meaningless intrusion of aliens which characterize some of his other novels (Dreamcatcher, Regulators etc.)  The only thing off-putting was the extremely poor diction of William Hurt.  He routinely pronounced t's and d's as "tha," which may come across as laid back in a movie role, but in a reading sounds just plain sloppy. I would have given it five stars except for Hurt. I sincerely hope he is not used in readings again, at least until he receives some speech therapy.

</review>
<review>

This was one of the first Stephen King book I have read, I first read it back in 2002 and just got through with it agian. And it still moved me just as much as when I first read it. It's hard to explain just how it "moved" me, I'm not even sure if I know completly.

Now as you may have read in other reviews this is not like the old King books. This being the first King book I have read I always find my self comparing this to everything else he has written, I consider this a completly different side of King with some different subject matter, different writting style. You would really have to read the differnt styles for yourself to see which style you like(read The Shining then read this and you'll get the idea).

Okay, let me tell you a little bit about this book. First there are 5 stories that are interconnected. The first story, Low Men in Yellow Coats, tells about Bobby Garfield's childhood from 11 to 12 or 13(?). In this story is the new guy who moves in above Bobby and his moms apartment, and he's strange. And he's getting chased by "Low Men in Yellow Coats". This story really revolves around the dark tower universe(and dont worry its way better then how I just described it, the second best out of the 5).

The second story, Hearts in Atlantis, tells about a bunch of collage kids who get addicted to the game hearts. They find themselves with bad grades(because of the game) war protest(because of Vietnam) and friendship, love, hate and all that other stuff that collage kids get involved in. The only real connection with the first story is Carol Gerber who was Bobby's girlfriend. There are lots of other sutle connections but not as big as her. Another reason why this is My favorite King book.

The next 2 stories are Blind Willie and Why We're in Vietnam. Both are about People who grew up with Bobby, who went to Vietnam, and are now tyring to deal with "living"(if you could call it living) after the war. I found Blind Willie to be my least favorite story, it was just a strange story. Why We're in Vietnam is also strange but better then Blind Willie.

The last is Heavenly Shades of Night are Falling(the best out of the 5) is about how Bobby comes home to his hometown of Harwich, Connecticut. He comes looking for anwsers, memories of his childhood, old loves, or old friends. I loved this final story, it was such a great closing to this book of short stories as some call it(I consider this just one big novel though).

In closing, this book is great. I do hate when people compare this to old Stephen King, like I said before I like to think this as a new writting style for him. That is just my opinion, of course some will disagree. Most will agree however, that this is a good read.(You will find the title I used for this review in multiple places in the book. The meaning for it isn't really given in the book, but you can figure it out.)
Peace Kevin


</review>
<review>

I don't read much King, or the horror genre.  But I got this as an audio book and decided to try it out.  The narrators were quite good and didn't distract you from the story while at the same time, letting you picture the story in your head.

The first story, I fell in love with.  It had all the right elements; coming of age, a troubled young boy, a mysterious mentor and a brush with the fantastic.  Whenever I see the Infiniti FX, I think of the Low Men.  That story alone was all I needed to enjoy this book.  Or so I thought.

The other stories were harder for me to get into.  I didn't know what connection they should have, except for sharing a couple common characters.  I am also not of the same generation, and couldn't relate as well to the times.  I almost put the book away, but was curious to see if Ted would come into the story again.  It wasn't until the end, Heavenly Shades of Night, that I saw the connection through the whole book.  I also noticed that each story seemed as if it was set out on a spindle, to come full circle in the end.

The connection in all the stories wasn't Ted or Bobby.  It was Carol.  She is the symbol of the hope of the generation; the innocence of childhood, the hurting youth at war and in the end, the symbol of life for the generation who went through the Vietnam War.  They  fought like a lion on either side.  It is almost bittersweet in the raw telling, the words in the first and last story have a cadence of their own.  The end story is poignant as you mourn the loss of childhood innocence.

The audio version had the song, "Heavenly Shades of Night Are Falling" on the end.  The song stuck with me several days after I had listened.  The story itself is one that sticks in my mind and pops up now and then, to think about.  King is a masterful storyteller and I hope he has more of these types of stories in years to come.



</review>
<review>

What really sets this book apart from many others is the wonderful use of language and image. The evocative idea of "Low Men in Yellow Coats"...by itself is almost silly and certainly not scary, but as it is repeated with added bits of observation, it becomes ominous.

King has always excelled at taking the everyday and spinning it just slightly to where it takes on more meaning than it should have. He achieves that agian with this collection

</review>
<review>

I think that this was a really good book. In about the first half of the book, it is the story of Bobby and the strange new neighbor that moves into the apartment on the 3rd floor. Bobby becomes friends with this man, whos name is Ted, and starts to notice some somewhat strange things about him, and starts to get a little scared and confused when Ted tells him to keep an eye out and alert him right away so that he can leave if he sees the "low men" in yellow coats. The rest of this book is the personal stories of all the important people in Bobby's life. Each new section in the book tells what happend to Bobby's friends and some of the not so friendly people in his life, and eventuelly tells what happend to Bobby himself when he grew up.I strongly recommend this book

</review>
<review>

This book is fantastic. Just enough fantasy. Best thing is, the story of these kids' lives would be just as great without the fantasy, but adding it in just made it better. Absolutely one of the best S.K. books i've ever read, and i've read them all. The movie just doesn't do the book justice at all.

</review>
<review>

I purchased the digital version of this book for which I totally regret.  First, the book is bloated and really offers little more than can be viewed free on NIST's Website.  Second, the Adobe DRM (Digital Rights Manager) reader won't let you make a backup copy and Amazon (i.e., their Indian Customer "Service" Reps anyway) don't understand either U.S. fair use Copyright laws or customer service.  Thus not only wouldn't I buy this book...I won't ever buy another product from Amazon ever again.

To update, I although I cannot change my opinion of the book's content, Amazon did satisfactorily address my inability to make a backup copy of this e-book

</review>
<review>

The Woo Wei is in every line. Clever and accurate. Coming back to childhood of adults

</review>
<review>

I love this book. It isn't dogmatic and it doesn't so much alter one's thinking as it does challenge someone to pay attention to the nature of individual perception. Perception is not as it's claimed  "everything" but it does go a long way toward shaping how a person views the world, and Pooh is simply a master of life. What else can you say

</review>
<review>

I read this book in high school as part of epistemology course. It is very easy to understand the basic principles of taoism through the ideas of pooh and his friends. I suggest this book for all philospohy students

</review>
<review>

For those of you who are curious about this book and may be turned off by some of the "negative" comments, allow me to offer my humble opinion. I think that those people who did not like this book or felt it did not explain taoism, just really don't get the point. Taoism most certainly isn't something you seek and seek and then get frustrated at not finding, then angry, and then seek and seek. Taoism seen especially through Pooh's eyes and actions (or should I say "inactions") comes so near the mark to beginning to understand this ancient philosophy of harmonious existence on earth with the earth, and the duality of all things. I highly recommend this book for that open minded, non-judgemental, person open to the concept that indeed anything is possible...too many of us are so grounded in what we "absolutely know to be fact", when in reality anything in this universe is truly possible. Please explore this book on your path. I also highly recommend the companion book to this, The Te of Piglet, which delves ever more into taoism.

</review>
<review>

I first read this book when I was 19 years old - you always think you know who you are at that age, but you still have so much to learn.

using characters that I have always been familiar with, this book really shows you how to let go of stress and aspire to be, well, Pooh.

Depression, anxiety, stress, insecurity?  Don't go to the doctor, take hold of your life and find your inner peace.  This book is perfect for indroducing someone to the way

</review>
<review>

Not since "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" have I labored so much to get through a book.  I finally quit at page 35, unable to go on.  A complete non-sequitur, stream of consciousness mess, best describes this book.  Why this publication came so highly acclaimed I will never know.  Do yourself a favor........if you feel inclined to give it a read, go to your local library.  The paper and ink has already been wasted, don't waste your money too.  A better title would be, "The Tao of Poop"

</review>
<review>

I picked up this book because it seemed so charming. The author took the stories and characters of A.A. Milne and juxtaposed them with the Taoist teachings of people such as Lao Tzu.

Pooh as western Taoist starts off interestingly enough but halfway through it I came to the realization that it was making me want to just read the actual Milne, who was frankly probably a genius writer. Those were great books with great characters, each with their own type of intelligence.

Then about two thirds through the book, it just becomes insulting. The author is against pretty much anything useful. Rather than believing in the give and take of Ying and Yang (or any other name it may go under) he's against intellectuals who are secretly foolish for trying to figure anything about the world, against people who work hard and care about their jobs or contributions (again that's just foolish), people who enjoy sports or exercise...heck he's against leaving your house or caring about the rest of the world. I understand the idea behind the Busy Backson rant, but is there no middle ground at all?
The idea of the Indian American culture being superior to that of the almighty Puritans is used as an example, which could be built upon in several interesting ways, but instead the author chooses to illustrate how everything that came after was just silliness without supplying a single idea about how it could be done better...yet useful.

At one point he actually uses the example of (paraphrasing here) turning on the T.V. news to hear "`Thirty thousand people were killed today when five jumbo airliners collided over downtown Lose Angeles" *click* Stop worrying about everything and go about life. Listen to the birds chirp, they will tell you more about the world." ---wait, we shouldn't care about thirty thousand humans being killed in a horrific accident?

I am in no way an expert on Taoism, but unless everyone who IS finds that idea posing as a representation of their philosophy to be offensive, I want nothing to do with it. It isn't enlightened to go around hating everything while doing nothing. And I'm sure the author realizes this since he spends so much time writing best=selling books.

</review>
<review>

"The Tao of Pooh" is a good book as an introduction to Taoism. The book does not only present Taoism in a very simple way; the involvement of Pooh makes the book very enjoying.

I was afraid that this book will assume some knowledge about Pooh, which I have only watched a handful of time - a couple of years ago. Thankfully the book only uses characters of Pooh to present the ideas, rather than make this another Pooh story.

</review>
<review>

I've been through this book a few times now.  I admit that Pooh seems a good Taoist, if I remember my theology classes right.  I will also go so far as to say that the book amuses from time to time.  Where the book falls short in my opinion is the narrator's tone.

Mr. Hoff's contrasts between Taoist and Judeo-Christian approaches to life invariably give the air of self-satisfaction one so often finds in Western converts to Eastern religion.  It is this pall of smug (apologies to Trey Parker and Matt Stone) that makes the book progressively more annoying as the pages turn.

I'd give it 3 or 4 stars for accuracy and explanation, were it not for the tone

</review>
<review>

I received this unexpectantly.  I enjoyed this thoroughly.  I would recommend this to any one who is new to the concept of Math and Music being related and needing a rather easy and non complex explanation.  The author  diagrams nicely the examples with the explanations.  I really think this  book would be good a text book in either a high school music or math course  in the history of the subject.  Thank you to the person who knew me well  enough to give this to me. I like this book so much that I almost read it  cover to cover in one sitting

</review>
<review>

Farb's basic premise is that American Indians have ascended to the heights of culture (read: white culture) by 400 years of systematic genocide.  That's what the book boils down to.  Farb also makes numerous factual errors; e.g., he says the Mandan Indians are exitinct; umm, no, Mr. Farb, they're not

</review>
<review>

I hope this book will be re-edited, the prose is wonderful -I couldn't put it down- and without falling into the 'Noble Savage' trap, Farb shows how wonderful life might have been in most Amerindian cultures before Columbus. This book re-educates

</review>
<review>

I feel that all of these books in the series live up to the hpe, and each has continued to become better than the one before it. I have read all 12, and I would recommend the series to anyone

</review>
<review>

This book is so flawed in every which way, it is hard to know where to begin. First of all, we are living in the end times, and when Jesus comes, that's all she wrote, folks. There's no seven years, no Christians being zapped up, etc. This is our Second Chance on Earth. No tribulation. This book takes figurative visions and tries to apply it literally, and does it poorly. Reading this book made me think that if this was true, then what's the point of trying to be a Christian. Why not just live your life the way you want to, and then when people zap out of thin air, change your life. It's ridiculous and sends the wrong message. Plus, the writing is for second graders with no redeeming characteristics to it. But I really don't think the author's care at this point (seeing how many millions they've made printing lies). My recommendation is to read the bible instead of this series; then you'll get truth and the bible is probably shorter (and much better writing). Man, not even Kirk Cameron could save this train wreck.

</review>
<review>

Now the story picks up and get's interesting again. The characters that you have grown to know and care about are in a safe house. This book is quicker to read and the story moves at a fast pace. You can't put it down because you want to see what happens next

</review>
<review>

I have already written a review on the entire left behind series but i think that this book in this series deserves ALOT of credit for setting the path for the second half of the series. This entire series has been one of the most enjoyable reads of my life. Whether you are a believer or not you can easily find this book to be an enjoyable read.

This particular book is as exciting as any of the others, plain and simple, the basic premise of Assasins is the plan to assassinate Antichrist Nicolae Carpathia. The rest world and Carpathia are in the rebuilding process.  This entire series of books are that sooo darn good that you can't stop reading them.

Over the course of these books the storyline increases quickly and progresses into a story that really makes you think and question what could happen...and if you are not a believer, it's simply a great work of fiction!

I loved this book, it truely set the ground work for what was to come in the next few books....

</review>
<review>

I've read the reviews that some other people have written, and they say this book is very off topic and has a lot of selfishness in the characters, and that the events taking place in the tribulation don't happen the way they are supposed to.  HELLO PEOPLE, this is a FICTION book.  I'm not saying the events that the scriptures say will happen aren't going to happen, because the Rapture will occur some day.  I'm saying if Tim Lahaye and Jerry Jenkins wrote a story ONLY on the scriptures and no characters or settings or anything in the story, the story would be way shorter and not as suspenseful.  Because when the Anti-Christ gets assassinated, there can be hundreds, maybe thousands of ways that could happen.  So when you people say everything in this book is a bunch of garbage, remember this is a STORY.

</review>
<review>

Courtesy of CK2S Kwips and Kritiques

This story starts almost a year after Book 5 ends, with Rayford Steele contemplating the state of the world since the Rapture. He's filled with rage at the fate they've been dealt and wishes he could be the one to destroy Carpathia. Hattie has gone missing, in her own desperate desire to kill Nicolae, and the Trib Force worries she may have unknowingly compromised their safe house. At the same time, believers are preparing their underground network for the day that all are forced to take the Mark of the Beast to buy or sell anything.

This story keeps you guessing as to what will happen to Nicolae and will the Two Witnesses at the wailing wall in Jerusalem finally meet their foretold end. Many different members of the Trib Force wish Nicolae would die and hope they will be the one chosen to see out the prophecy. The book steamrolls through the end, with us meeting new people, and saying good bye to others, good and evil alike. The book ends with a cliff hanger as to what really happened and "whodunit.

</review>
<review>

The need for assassins is great - the evil keeps cranking up beyond belief as the suspense continues to buld.  What a book and what a series - more please

</review>
<review>

After the first 11 books, that were laced with black comedy and inopportune situations handled and aligned in a way to make sense, the 12th books somehow leaves the reader gasping for more and ends with a flat note. I can, however, find cognizance with the moral of the story that sometimes people you think you are close to, fail you with their "nobleness" or lack of guts! That you have to find strength in yourself to fight your own wars and that a family has an important part to play when you're struggling through your live. I think the gist of the story is that that the three children find succor in each other - almost a live force driven by love, that protects them and eventually helps to extricate them from impossible situations!

</review>
<review>

When we first met the three Baudelaire Orphans, they were splashing in tide pools along Briny Beach. That is, before their lives took a turn for the worst. Now, as we meet up with them once again in this twelfth volume, we again see them upon Briny Beach. However, this time things seem as if they are looking up, for they are in the hands of good - Kit Snicket. With the pregnant Kit in tow, the three Baudelaire's are brought to the Denouement Hotel. A place kept in order by the Dewey Decimal System. The Hotel Denouement is the last safe place, and within a few days, each and every volunteer will meet up with one another, where they will celebrate the claiming of the sugar bowl over the hands of evil. However, with Sunny, Klaus, and Violet disguised as concierges, they soon learn - by using their "flaneur" skills - that many of the people lurking around the hallways of the Hotel Denouement are anything but good. In fact, it is while wrapped up in their clever disguises that the three orphans run into various terrible people from their past - from the unescapable Count Olaf, to the treacherous Vice Principal Nero; and the oft-times brainless Justice Strauss, to the carnival freaks known as Kevin, Colette, and Hugo. With a bit more detective work, and a little help from identical triplets Dewey, Frank, and Ernest, the orphans soon realize that while the upcoming gathering of volunteers is supposed to showcase how good triumphs over evil; the hotel is overrun by unkind masterminds who plan on wrecking the celebration. Now it is up to Violet, Klaus, and Sunny to make a very important decision...call off the volunteer gathering, or think up a way to triumph over the evil that has surrounded them ever since the day Mr. Poe informed them of their parents deaths.

After reading the eleven books prior to THE PENULTIMATE PERIL, I had no idea that Snicket would bring back surviving characters from previous installments, and throw them into one very sordid, crazy affair at the Hotel Denouement. However, seeing these vicious faces rear their heads once again was quite a pleasant surprise, and indicates that the thirteenth book will certainly take the Baudelaire's out with a bang. As always, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny brave through their newest assignment, hoping for the best. From waiting hand and foot upon uncaring ex-caregivers, and taking abuse from demanding debutante-esque characters, the orphans manage to keep their heads above water. While a bit more tragic than the previous installments, with deaths and tears to boot, THE PENULTIMATE PERIL still stands out in my mind as possibly one of the best tales about the Baudelaire's yet. And, as with each tale before it, THE PENULTIMATE PERIL illustrates an unfortunate reunion which sets the scene for the extraordinary ending.

Erika Sorocc

</review>
<review>

Overflowing with thrills and mysteries, a very long journey to treachery, three orphans, a villain and his cohorts; this is what the Penultimate Peril is all bout. This next-to-last book makes some of the mysteries from the previous volumes clear to the series' avid readers.

This 12th book of the 13 volumes talks about the penultimate unfortunate happening in the lives of the Baudelaire siblings. It concentrates on how the noble part of the schism failed the orphans in the time of melancholy and tragedy and vice versa. It shows how the tragic circumstances changed the Baudelaire orphans' to accidental murderers, arsonists, and thieves. This book contains hazardous threats, an accidental murder, revealed mysterious initials, and a harpoon gun.

Lemony Snicket did an awesome job with his series. He has kept his aficionados hanging with questions and doubts which indicate that he is an effective author. He applied strong, deep words, and other phrases or sayings from different countries and relate it specifically to his miserable series, which includes denouement that means end.

Learning unusual words is one of my essentials as a reader. That is why I am fond of book writers who write passionately and share what they know more about. At one point, it inspires me to do the same as an apprentice writer. This volume and the rest of the series instill the love of curiosity in an educating, mind-boggling way.

The Penultimate Peril would be best recommended to readers who are into something different, and who have great interests in woeful stories. It will also help them learn more about English as it did help me. And I wouldn't dare suggest this book to readers who are after joyous endings.

</review>
<review>

Hello People wake up How Many times can the same 3 children escape 1 bad guy?!? this Book was horrid! Boring, Boring, Boring, After the 5th book i was snoring and this tops it all its not even the last one!!!!! After 12 books its still not over, my grandchildren will be reading the100th book if he continues like this! (and between me and you, what kind of a person cant recognize a baby in a conciarge outfit)I dont plan to even bother to read the 13th book, i can see lemony saying the series will continue after the book "The end" if there was a 0 star i would give it!!

</review>
<review>

The penultimate peril, as many of you have read, is an action packed comic book. Like the rest of the story, someone almost dies or is dead, and old characters are back.

Not ruining the plot, I will give you two clues, hotel and fire.

This is an action packed "book" that should only be taken for entertainment value, although snicket increased his vocabulary and the use of English techniques.

Denouement is pronounced de-no-ma

</review>
<review>

What a disjointed mess, talk about cashing in on fame.  All he did here was take a bunch of columns he wrote in the paper and called it a book.   I could have done better with the letter to the editor section of the paper.  I was not that enamored with Liar's Poker and this book has done it for me with this author.   It was just that the articles were not that relevant any more and his writing is not that good

</review>
<review>

This is a collection of essays previously published in newspapers and magazines around the nation where some 10 years ago we could witness Lewis' early literary attempts.  Although Lewis is a witty, scrutinizing, insightful, and overall entertaining writer, I think this book is highly overpriced. Most of the topics in this book cover financial/business culture issues that date back during the late eighties, so there's also a bit of historical perspective to it, when LBOs were a la mode, Donald Trump was making headlines, and Japan was considered a threat to the US economy and welfare...crazy thought.  Go for Liar's Poker if you want to read Michael Lewis, that script is a jewel

</review>
<review>

Highly recommended.  Don't let the comment about it being dated mislead you -- while the essays are rooted in their time (the early 90's) their insights are likely to remain ever relevent.  I especially enjoyed the essay about the changes in the Paris stock exchange

</review>
<review>

Though I am not a Vogue reader, I picked up this book out of curiosity to see what Anna W's splashes in the tabloids were all about.

While the subject is only mildly interesting to me, the author's prose reads like a 300+ page deposition against Anna Wintour from everybody who had/has a major or minor gripe with her. It's a heavy and boring read.

Gossip, if one can get over oneself and admit that it is entertaining, should remain light and diverting. In this book, it is difficult to garner much sympathy for the subject or its author, much less derive the slightest enjoyment from it. I was very happy to put it down.

Perhaps this lackluster effort will compel someone else to attempt a better job. But then again, when that time comes, Anna Wintour may be have disappeared completely from public interest

</review>
<review>

Wonderful, interesting, will sit on my bookcase and will reread agai

</review>
<review>

A fascinating life ... a view from the top ...and it makes one wonder ... is it worth it

</review>
<review>

You can tell that the author went to a great deal of trouble
to research Anna Wintour and her background.  He lays out in his book what we already know from "Devil Wear Prada"; Anna Wintour is a manipulative, selfish, and shallow woman.  It was interesting to learn that Anna decided at an early age that being Vogue editor was her goal.  The path she took to become
Vogue editor makes me wonder how she can lay her head on her pillow at night and sleep.  Personally, had I manipulated, lied, and used/controlled people the way she does to get ahead, I wouldn't be able to look in the mirror; No wonder she hides behind her dark sunglasses day and night. Apparently this woman has sociopathic qualities that keep her from having a conscience or feelings towards others and certainly must keep her from taking an inventory of her own character or lack thereof.  After completing Oppenheimers book, I wound up feeling sorry for Anna.  I don't think she is a happy/content person despite wealth and a never ending supply of designer clothes.  What a shallow and superficial life to lead and how frightening to think that she'll have to give an account of it all come Judgment Day. Highly recommend this well written book

</review>
<review>

An expose of a power hungry woman that does not give a hoot about civility and compassion. Riveting in its revelation about Anna Wintour's icy personality that even the sun cannot melt! Though it is not an official autobiography, it is well researched and the consistent views given by most 200+ interviewees who worked or had contacts with Anna directly is good enough to from a sound judgement of Anna's character with a report card of minus 100 for Anna's personality traits!! For those who think that an official autobiography would do it more justice, I would say that Anna Wintour would probably give a very skewed account in her favor that would make it more "Unofficial" than this Unauthorised one.

It makes you more determined than ever Never to work with these abnormal people who show such traits. If Earth needs to sacrifice some human beings to aliens invading from another solar system, Anna Wintour would surely make it to the top of the hit list of people to get rid of!!!:))))))

I find it incredible that there are willing sacrificial lambs willing to work for this woman from hell! I just think that those who work, have constant contact or live with her have their morals twisted beyond belief, they can no longer differentiate what is right or wrong!

A good example of this would be Bee Shaffer, daughter of Anna Wintour, who has recently remarked in a British newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, of which Bee is a monthly contributor, that her mother's nickname "Nuclear Wintour" is just a myth???!! excuse me??, Bee has this to say
Quote from Bee in The Daily Telegraph, UK dated 5 Oct 05:
"But it is such a myth to me. She just comes into the office and she has a goal: she wants to produce a great magazine, which I think she does. You have to work very hard to do that and she is very direct about what she wants. I don't think that makes her 'Nuclear Wintour' or whatever they call her.

</review>
<review>

This book is ah-mazing. It gives you all the details on mostly everything you ever wanted to know about Anna Wintour. This book will make you run out to purchase Vogue and flip through to the masthead page just to see her name, that, this book verifies, is bigger and bolder than everyone else's.

</review>
<review>

Having worked in several different sectors before arriving in fashion, I can say that there are lawyers, CEOs, doctors, etc. who are as equally psycho as Anna Wintour. But not too many people would want to read about a neurotic Hospital Director! It seems that some people who bought this book aren't even interested in fashion and have no real perspective on Vogue magazine. If you aren't fascinated by the subject matter, why buy the book? I have read every US Vogue since 1982, have lived in many European countries and am extremely familiar with other Vogues around the world and work in fashion, so I can say with full conviction that Anna Wintour is very important in her field. Fashion is a business like any other and it comes down to money. She turned UK Vogue around then came to NY and turned US Vogue around. I agree that she is pretty psychotic, but in general, you're kidding yourself if your think market leaders can be "normal". Who cares if she is a good writer or not? She DOESN'T write! She is a fashion editor and her magazine is THE most influential and financially successful in the world. Every other fashion magazine in the world is based upon what shows up in US Vogue whether we like it or not. And she does know how to pick interesting writers for her own publication! Do you think most CEOs can type their own letters or do market research? No, they are there to lead and make decisions. I love hearing the gossip on her, so this book was fun to read, but I do respect her immensely from a professional point of view. Appreciate the book for what it is - don't act like your profession (or colleagues) are more respectable or holy than the those of the fashion industry. And by the way, dressing well is part of the job in fashion. Would you expect a IT professional to not use a computer???!

</review>
<review>

In response to other reviewers, yes, this book does rely heavily on stereotypes of male and female behavior.  If you find you don't fit the stereotypes (and of course not everyone does!), then you'll need to look for another book.  But for many (most?) of us, the insights and advice in this book will be very helpful.  As I read, I was constantly amazed by how much I could see myself and my husband in John Gray's descriptions.  Last night I had my first opportunity to try out his techniques on how to prepare a man to listen...and it worked beautifully!  A situation that would certainly have escalated into a hurtful argument was diffused into a calm, brief conversation that left both of us feeling warm and loving toward each other.

</review>
<review>

Mars and Venus Together Forever is one of the most ridiculous, stupid books that I have ever had the gross misfortune to read.  I probably should have expected what I got, considering that Mars and Venus on a Date left me cold, but I read this one anyway because the original Mars and Venus book had SOME interesting insights and I'm a sucker for a cheap book.

Anyone who buys into the stereotypes promoted by John Gray must be barmy.  He exaggerates, overemphasises and blusters his way through the 200+ pages - probably with the best motives in his mind - but in the end the stuff he writes is uninspiring and insipid.  According to him men and women are still ruled by `ancient' traditions which dictate that women are all do-gooder types who only desire to stay at home, chatting with other women and looking at flowers whilst men are all aggressive cavemen, grunting their way through their lives with zero finesse, a beer in one hand and the TV remote in the other.

I don't see how anyone, man or woman, could read this book without being annoyed.  For women, the book is terribly unempowering.  If you don't fit in with any of Gray's ideas about what a woman should be then you are labelled as masculine.  I don't want to read a book which tells me that when I am at work I am moving towards my masculine side because being goal-oriented, competitive and efficient are male traits.  It's all phooey!  For men, the book is also offensive.  John Gray says that men shouldn't express their feelings because it will cause a woman to lose her attraction for him.  No, I don't believe that men and women are the same in all respects - there are gender differences - but in Mars and Venus these are distorted.

Overall this book is not worth your time.  Underneath the waffle there may be some good points, but all of these are outweighed by the stereotypes.

JoAnn

</review>
<review>

Interesting book.  Unfortunately it really plays on stereotypes.  It does have a few valuable things to say though

</review>
<review>

I picked up this book, after running into my ex-fiance five years after the fact. I have been struggling with gender role issues longer than I care to admit-I turned 50 this year. To my amazement, I learned some things that I can't apply to a male/female relationship at this time (i'm not in one), but is helping with the most difficult relationship I have-with my adopted mother who is my complete opposite. I learned that although she is a career woman, she still has a more traditional mindset than I. If you are a busy person, and you don't get the whole book read, the first three chapters may change your life significantly

</review>
<review>

Riveting! I hated that it had to end. Marvelous characters, a haunting tragedy and one of those "meant for each other" relationships that are a hallmark of Nora Roberts at her best. Carolina Moon is a richly layered, dark and dangerous variation on the Cinderella theme. It's also a fine whodunnit with a plot twist worthy of its twisted villain.

Heroine Faith, the ragged little girl destined to capture the attention of her small town's handsome prince, has an abusive father instead of a wicked stepmother. Her one escape from a relentlessly grim childhood is friendship with the daughter of the wealthy family who employ her father as a laborer on their farm.

When the girl is brutally killed - after sneaking out of the house to meet Faith at their 'secret place' in the woods - Faith has a psychic vision of the murder as it's happening. She leads the police to the body but can't give a rational explanation for what she knows. The victim's traumatized family pay Faith's father to leave town with his wife and child. It's the end of innocence and the beginning of a terrible exile, both real and self-imposed. Faith's guilt and sense of isolation will haunt her into adulthood.

The current-day story begins with Faith returning to the house of her childhood, intending to face her private demons and search for her friend's killer. The dead girl's brother, who was an adolescent boy when Faith left town, has grown into a compelling, determined and oh-so-sexy man.

He's attracted to Faith, but suspicious of her. She's wary of men after a painful rejection by the man she loved, a cop who used Faith's psychic skills to further his career - and blamed her when she was unable to prevent the death of a kidnapped child.

Meanwhile, others are displeased with Faith's unexpected homecoming. Among them are the murdered girl's mother, who disapproved of Faith's friendship with her favorite child and has never forgiven her for her role in the tragedy; the sister who was jealous of their closeness; and the killer himself, who risks exposure if Faith's psychic ability turns out to be authentic.

The stage is set for a reluctant but inevitable seduction, a love affair held together by a fragile thread of trust, the reopening of old wounds among those whose lives were altered by the tragedy - and the reawakening of a monster who might be hiding in plain sight.

</review>
<review>

I thought this book was great.  The combination of mystery with romance.  One of my favorites!!!! - Would love more books just like this one.  And a happy ending too

</review>
<review>

This was a great read and I think one of the first books Ive read by Nora Roberts(I cant remember if I read her several years ago). The book includes strong characterizations, lust, dysfunction,mystery into this book and I loved seeing the heroine develop to become her own hero in the end. Great read

</review>
<review>

Years ago this was first Nora read.... Love and mystery! It has still remained my favorite. I loved the twist at the end who new? Read this book and wait for the crazy end... WOW

</review>
<review>

This was my first Nora Roberts book and it will not be my last.  I could not put this book down.  Her writing style allows the reader to hear and visualize the characters.  I will recommend this book to everyone

</review>
<review>

Nora Roberts' blended talents branch into writing romance, mystery, action scenes, etc. and they are all present in this great read. I also loved the feisty 'twin' character who shows how opposite sisters can be as far as personality. There's also a strong portrayal of women as survivors and not just victims. The tension is high, and though I had some ideas, I did not figure out who the killer was until the very end.
Chrissy K. McVay
author of 'Souls of the North Wind

</review>
<review>

Young 8-year old Hope Lavelle is out on a nighttime adventure to meet her very best friend, 8-year old, Tory Bodeen, a victum of neglect and abuse by both her mother and father.  Hope has every comfort of life and is the daughter of a successful southern family with a twin sister, Faith and an older brother, Cade (Kincade).  Sneaking out to meet Tory, Hope is murdered.  The story moves ahead 18 years and picks up w/Tory as an adult dealing with the ghosts of her past and present.  "Carolina Moon" is a very well-written story and will keep you fascinated until the very conclusion.  Supporting players such as Iris, Cecil (Tory's grandma and significant other) as well as Wade (her cousin), add amazing color to the plot.  Personalities are described so well you can almost see these people and feel for each in their dealings with life's turmoil as well as joy.   I would definitely recommend this book to all, especially Nora lovers!  It has murder, mystery, romance, and comedy.  What more could you ask for in a book

</review>
<review>

This was the first book by Nora Roberts that I have read. Of course, now that I have read it, I plan on reading more of her books.

The Story starts off with Tory (Victoria) coming back to her home town Progress to open up a little shop. It is really hard for her because that was the place where her father beat her, and her best friend Hope was murdered. When she arrives, the town starts buzzing with gossip.

Once she arrives, Hopes older brother, the dashing Cade Lavelle, falls madly in love with her. But, after a short while, strange things start happening in Progress. There are murders, and other bad misfortunes, that are all somehow connected to Tory.

This was a great read. I could not put this book down. It will keep you riveted all the wat up to the very end, with a surprise twist

</review>
<review>

I was waiting in line at the college bookstore, (buying a textbook), and this book was prominently featured.  I thumbed through and was impressed at the straightforwardness of the questions. Making a list from these questions will, no doubt, give the impression on an interview, that you are focused, serious and organized. A worthwhile investment.

</review>
<review>

This book was recommended to me by several people as I interviewed hiring managers, HR personnel, senior-level employees, and others for my own book on the job market.  By all accounts, my own included, 201 Best Questions is comprehensive, helpful, and tactical, an important read when one is preparing for an interview.  It is not an all-inclusive resource, only interview-targeted, but for what it is, the book is top-notch

</review>
<review>

As a top producer in the recruiting industry, I would highly recommend this book to anyone seeking employment.  It is informative and helpful.  I loved the section on starting the interview with the question,  and quot;What are you looking for in a person to fill this position? and quot;  I have had two of my own candidates try it and they both got the job

</review>
<review>

John Kador has done a great job with this book.  As a very experienced Executive Recruiter, I am constantly shocked at how badly people interview.  This book will give you some excellent advice on what questions to ask and more importantly what questions not to ask.  Every Recruiter and Hiring Manager would like their candidates to ask good questions in the interview process.  This book will help stimulate you to ask the correct inquisitive questions.  If you have lost your job or are going to be looking for a new job soon, then I would recommend purchasing this book

</review>
<review>

If you haven't seen the show, go and do it.  If you have, well done.

What many piano arrangements for recent Broadway musicals nowadays such as Wicked, Mamma Mia, and Spamalot have in their respective arrangements is a lack of a challenging score to play, though it may sound easy, and how oftentimes, they composer tries to alter the original score into something more adaptive for the public.  Although this may sound like a good idea, it really isn't, because as soon as you play it based on the arrangement or sing it, you quickly realize it's not as good as the original, which is what everyone wants, right?

The Avenue Q Piano arrangement, however, keeps all the songs in their original context, letting everyone emulate the classic songs the way they're supposed to be sang.  No one wants to sing "Defying Gravity" from Wicked without the chorus back-up or Glinda singing in every now and then, right?  Avenue Q gives you the score straight from the source, without awkwardly messing up the original greatness of the music.  A must-buy

</review>
<review>

As a casual piano player and a Broadway fanatic, I was so jazzed to play some of the songs from Avenue Q. The book contains everything you find on the CD and includes a few production photos.
Of course the little details are fun, using terms like "manilowesque" "Huey-Lewis shuffle" "prissy sonata" and "funky a** groove" to describe some of the songs. Fun fun fu

</review>
<review>

I love this musical and I think it is so fun! I am glad that I got the vocal selections and it was exactly what i wanted

</review>
<review>

After reading the reviews availible here and other places online I was concerned when I ordered my score of Avenue Q.  To read some of the comments of other customers one might thinks this musical score to actually be quite challenging to play.

This is a very nice arrangement for a simply wonder musical!!  There are a FEW places where the timing might take a second to figure out but words like challenging, difficult, and hard certainly do not discribe any piece of this arrangment.

I was able to sit down and play through the musical this afternoon when it arrived with out any trouble.  A Mixed Tape has to be the most challenging and even that once you see exactly what is going on is easily understood. That said, I am a studio musician here in Los Angeles so easy to me might not be easy to every one, however this score is VERY PLAYABLE.

I encourage anyone who has enjoyed the musical Avenue Q to also purchase the score for their piano

</review>
<review>

I think this songbok is great. I'm practicing some of the songs, and I'm doing very well, and I haven't had lessons in a very long time (about 9 years) and I can still hold my own.

.....but I could swear some of the keys have been changed. "There's a fine, fine line" just seems to be in a different key then on the CD, but I have yet to play the piano while the CD is going to be sure

</review>
<review>

If you loved the show and you play the piano, this is a must-buy.
These 'reductions' or arrangements, for the most part, faithfully recreate the very colorful songs of the musical.
Songs like "It Sucks To Be Me" and "For Now", along with the theme song, are very similar, and bookend the show playfully.
"If You Were Gay" is great fun to play; the arrangement lies nicely under your fingers...
Many, many of the other songs are also a joy to play, sound good, and are of intermediate level, I'd say.
Bottom line: if you're thinking about getting this, do so. It's a no-brainer

</review>
<review>

I am musical theater singer who loves to buy sheet music and sing through all the songs I love.  This past year I have purchased Avenue Q, Wicked,The boy from Oz, and Assasins on sheet music.  Unfortunately I am an intermediate pianist, so I often find myself player the right hand melody line and adding in as much of the left as I can.  All these new musicals have such difficult keys, and they change constantly throughout the songs.
I can also recommend "Voice Lessons To Go" by Vaccarino.  They are voice lessons on CD.  They have saved me a ton of money in voice lessons.  I may need the money for some more piano lessons to play these scores

</review>
<review>

This score, from  and quot;Avenue Q and quot;, a show described as a combination of  and quot;South Park and quot; and Sesame Street and quot;, is truly excellent. Be warned--the performers on the CD and in the show may make it seem simple, but some of the songs are hard to play. Believe it or not.

This reduction for voice/piano/guitar is pretty good---it would have been better if they had used an arrangement for vocal line with piano accompaniment. Incorparating the vocal line into the accompaniment works for some of the songs, but the quality of most of the songs is hurt by it. Nonetheless, this score is very playable (although sometimes hard to play) and contains many great songs for recreational use or performances and auditions.

This book contains every song from the show and not one note has been cut (although not all dialouge said in the songs is included). The certain gem of the score is  and quot;There's a fine, fine line and quot; the  and quot;folk rock and quot; ballad that ends the first act. Simple and melodic, it certainly steals the show.  and quot;If you were gay, and quot;  and quot;Purpose, and quot; the  and quot;Manilowesque--- and quot;Fantasies Come True, and quot; and  and quot;The More you Ruv someone and quot; are all uniquely composed with a different style in mind. Also very melodic and enjoyable. The upbeat and very similar  and quot;It Sucks to Be Me, and quot;  and quot;Everyone's a Little Bit Racist, and quot; and  and quot;For Now and quot; are also delightful highlights.

Hilarious, witty songs are contained in this collection. You would be wise to purchase the CD for inspiration on how to perform these songs, if you haven't already. You definately should also see the musical anytime you're in New York for a fun-filled evening or afternoon

</review>
<review>

Just when I think I'm getting out, they pull me back in! The many aspects of the addictive personality are complex and TRICKY. The chances of understanding how it all works, apart from an excellent book like this, are remote.

The addictive personality that develops within some of us, replaces the "true" self and will go to great lengths to survive, even giving-up one addiction for another, just to remain in control.

I am so glad I read this book. It gives a clear view of what the addict is up against in his efforts to regain control of his life. BONUS! Craig Nakken also discusses the tools that are available and necessary to put the addictive personality in it's place and keep it there.

This book covers a lot of technical information, but does so in a way that is easy to understand, yet still valuable for professional therapists or just folks who are struggling as an addict or someone who loves an addict.

There is so much incredible information in these 120 pages, it's not surprising that the book has sold over 100,000 copies. Truthfully, it deserves to be even more widely read.

</review>
<review>

It is easy to read and understand concepts for entry level counselor or persons who are interested in addictions

</review>
<review>

Nakken's book provides a clear and comprehensive description of the main aspects of the addicted person.  He discusses the stages of addiction, Society and addiction, family and addiction, and recovery.  this book is definitely a useful read for those intereste in understanding addiction and what is actually going on within the addicted individual.  However, we must always remember that people are unique and each case is individualized, thus these are generalizations and may not perfectly fit all who are addicted.  The most imporatnt thing to realize is addiction is a disease and there is treatment.  Highly recommended book

</review>
<review>

As a middle aged woman, married to a sex addict in denial, reading this book proved to be a most enlightening experience.  Of the 15 or so books I have read on the subject, I found this to be the most explicit and succinctly worded in just 120 pages. I highly recommend it to anyone struggling to comprehend the world of an addict in their life.

</review>
<review>

I would reccomend this book to anyone who is or knows an addict. It provides clear information on the topics of addiction, addictive logic, stages of addiction, the Addict, recovery, and how to help. It clarifies a compicated topic into language anyone can understand and gives one a true sense of just what ANY addiction- drugs, alcohol, sex, gambling, food- is really all about. It explains all the elements of addiction thouroughly and is a must have for an addict or family member.
I, myself, am a writer writing on the topic and was amazed at how much I learned from this book.

</review>
<review>

I am a substance abuse counselor who read the first edition for a better understanding of my patients. I feel Mr. Nakken is right on based on my exeperiences. In the military we preach that abstenence is the only cure for persons diagnosed with dependence. I also like the spiritual link. I have found this to be an important element in recovery.
I found this book simple without the counselor mumbo jumbo. The person that said that abstenence is not the only way needs to get to know more addicts. I grew up in NY where addicts were addicted to methadone and were even selling it. I highly recommend this book to anyone in recovery, anyone associated with an addict or persons questioning themselves.

</review>
<review>

I first read this book maybe ten years ago, shortly after I quit drinking.  At the time I was at a loss in terms of understanding what I had put myself through, and why.  When I read the book, it gave me an apt context in which to view my addiction.  Every year or two I read it again, and always gain fresh insights.  It surprised me greatly to read a few reviews here which put Nakken's work down.  One person said the book was "useless" because it's too "theoretical".  Funny, but I didn't find that to be the case.  It definitely offered up thoughts on what I was going through which proved quite practical.  Someone else implied Nakken's book is too contingent on the tenets of AA.  I didn't find that to be the case either.  It's a paradigm for understanding addiction which stands alone from the 12 steps.  If people choose to use it in tandem with them, so be it.  But it's not essential to what he says.  Deng Xiaoping once said, "It doesn't matter if a cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice."  Such is the case here.  Some might feel he's too "theoretical", or take issue with his concept of the "addictive personality".  Say what you want -- the man knows what he's talking about.  He offers his readers some keen insights which are quite useful in understanding their own addictive issues, or those of someone close to them.  I did NOT read this for a class.  I read it because I had a problem, wanted to understand it, and when I was finished I actually did.  As far as I'm concerned, Nakken's book was an excellent buy, and it's paid for itself maaaaany times over.

</review>
<review>

This book is more like a theoretical exploration of what promotes addictive behavior, and will be of no real help to you if you are trying to help (or are yourself) an addict. There is no exploration into what treatments will work or not work, and some of what he says doesn't really seem to make sense in a real-life situation. Overall, it's useless unless you are curious about what might (theoretically) cause addictive behavior

</review>
<review>

I had to read this book for my college course. Most of the people in the class did not like it or agree with many of nakkan's viewpoints. I personally think he is repeating NA to us in his own words. if you are not into NA, yo will not like this book.

Nakkan states abstinence is the only way to recovery, I beg to differ with him, there are many successful treatment modalities that do not include total abstinence such as methadone and methadone maintenance. Also, Naltraxone for those that are in disagreement with MMT. how about Antabuse? That is medicinal, he also thinks that is not "real recovery" then because it is medication assisted recovery?

Did not like this book or his opinions

</review>
<review>

To my mind, this is the best of Michael Lewis's work.  His style and observations show the humor and zing that have become his hallmark, and his writing is at top form.  Next examines the changes wrought by the Internet from the perspective of several entrepreneurs who have exploited its potential, mainly in the form of vignettes.  There is no beginning, middle or end, so if you're looking for a story with a plot line, this is likely not going to appeal to you.  The lack of story line is, however, what I found compelling - the theme of the book is, "There's this 1800-pound bull out there that everyone is studying and avoiding, and here are a few folks who have ventured out and ridden the bull and had great rides."  This is pretty much quintessential Michael Lewis - he finds an individual, or an event, or an industry that has fomented a paradigm shift (a deliberate choice of words here, since Moneyball dealt with the emergence of SABRmetrics, whose acolytes all seem to have read "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions").

</review>
<review>

Not  a profound book. Lots of story-telling to make a few good points. A fast and fun read.

</review>
<review>

Michael Lewis has an almost unique talent for providing one with an intuitive feel for a subject while simultaneously making you laugh out loud.  I think I learned more about Wall Street from "Liar's Poker" than all the great serious tomes I've read, while at the same time enjoying it as pure farce, and yet I was left with an increased respect for the people and institutions.  How is that even possible?

After "Liar's Poker" I needed to read more of Mr. Lewis, but I avoided "Next" for a long time because the internet is my "Wall Street", a place with which I am intimately familiar.  Non-technical books on the subject thus tend to annoy me, as I keep picking out nits where I feel the dilettante has gotten something wrong or missed the point.

Boy, did I underestimate Michael Lewis.  "Next" is as brilliant as "Liar's Poker", hilarious and incredibly informative.  He intuitively captures the significance of the Internet:  the way it breaks down all the old silos of expertise and authority and distributes them into the homes of everyone.  The best part is probably the description of Jonathan Lebed, the 15-year online trader charged with securities fraud by the SEC...and the complete inability of the SEC to come to grips with the absurdity of the situation.

</review>
<review>

Next: The Future Just Happened is about how the internet is changing the world. Lewis profiles Jonathan Lebed, a teenage stock market wizard (the SEC says he was a stock market manipulator -- Lewis isn't so sure); a teenage law expert who has never studied law; a teenager in England who is using Gnutella software as a springboard to, I don't know, take over the world, I guess.

It seems obvious from the first half of the book that teenage boys are using the internet to become rich, powerful, and influential. So maybe all the internet has really done is speed things up by a few decades. But Lewis throws the over-thirties among us a small bone by interviewing an aging rock group that uses the internet to raise money for a tour, an eighty-something woman who participates in WebTV polls, and the creators of TiVo.

The second half of the book is a bit unconvincing. Set-top boxes, big deal. Those teenagers rule the book, and it would seem, the world.

Lewis, as usual, writes an engaging book, it pulls you right in and moves quickly. The Lebed story itself makes the book worth your time.


</review>
<review>

As a lecturer of e-commerce, I was looking forward to reading this book on the social implications of the Internet.  However, I am most disappointed with the boring and superficial way the subject is explored.  The author takes a couple of anecdotical examples to show the concequences in the shift of power that the Internet has brought about.  The result is a disjointed treatment of an otherwise most interesting topic.  I have nothing good to say about this book - money wasted

</review>
<review>

I've read several bestsellers on the implications of the internet, but found this one a notch above the rest. Whilst others are often totally skewed by commercial and technological aspects, this one went a lot deeper and touched on the Meta changes underlying society. But far from being a grand, generalist thesis, Lewis grounds his observations in real flesh-and-blood stories that are highly readable. His experience as a professional writer shines through on every page.

The only reason I didn't give this five stars was that I feel Lewis missed some fundamental factors in his analysis of the three teenagers whose stories constitute the bulk of the book. I agree with him that children are more likely to leverage new technology because they can adopt and create new personas quicker than adults who carry along years of baggage. But there is, perhaps, an explanation much closer to home. The reason kids can rebel against the "insiders" and push the limits with such dedication and passion is because they are not paying off mortgages and education for their own kids.

Marcus Arnold, (the teenage prodigy legal expert) claimed, with total naivety, that he was handicapped against practising lawyers because he had 6 hours of school every day. Hogwash! The lawyers were handicapped because every hour of their day had to show some revenue return to cover their costs of living.

And when the "outsiders" bemoan the former outsiders who capitulate and sellout their technological ventures to the highest bidding "insiders", it is invariably because they are no longer been funded by Dad, and need to start footing their own bills.

Notwithstanding - this is an excellent book.

</review>
<review>

Without beating about the bush, let me state that this is one of the best non-fiction books I have read on the effects of the Internet on our society.

The book starts with the account of Jonathan Lebed, a 14 year old boy from New Jersey. Jonathan last year made half a million dollars in 6 months, using nothing but his savvy and the Internet. Using accounts and AOL and E-Trade, Jonathan and had bought stock, then using multiple fictitious names posted hundreds of messages on Yahoo Finance message boards recommending the stock to others. As a result, the stock would go up and Jonathan would make a nice profit on the sale.

The book also looks into how another teenager, Marcus Arnold, registered himself as a law expert at Askme.com and soon reached the number one place in popularity.

Lewis explores TV feedback technologies like the ones developed by Tivo (stock ticker: TIVO) and Sonicblue (stock ticker: SBLU), and how these technologies could affect us all in the near future.

Lewis has a lot of information at his disposal and he disseminates it in a fascinating way. He has a lively style of writing and a great turn of phrase. For instance: "The old hotshot capitalist was so narrow-minded you could use his brain to slice salami." It cracked me up.

A great read. Highly informative, highly interesting, highly recommended.

http://ahmedakhan.journalspace.co

</review>
<review>

The author attempts to paint some trends from haphazard internet-related happenings. His intent seems to be to say --

The internet changes _everything_, becomes a social leveller. Youngsters are making big changes not just in inventing new things, but also new processes, new paradigms, and oldies feel endangered and rightfully so.

He uses stories like a kiddie making big stock gains and being investigated by SEC, another being a freelance lawyer and making it big fast, yet another writing programs to napsterize everything.

He indicates "flattening" of normally hierarchically defined relationships in society and corporations, and has this concept of "insiders" being unseated by "outsiders" due to the ease with which radical new ideas can be imagined, developed and brought to market, thanks to the internet.

There is some truth to his observations, but the few examples he quotes may not be sufficient to determine a wider trend. It is of course true that the internet gives "access" and "freedom" renewed relevance. I like to think of it as "digital democratization" of society.


</review>
<review>

This review comes from a post I made on 21 July 2005 on an actors' forum, in honor of one of the amazing, fearless women profiled in the book.

I have a story to share.

Yesterday, my husband came home with a stack of mail from our post office box. As usual, the stack was pretty thick and was mainly headshot submissions, postcards from actors, invitations to shows, and a few bills. :\ At the bottom of the stack, however, there was a very thick express mail package. Heavy. Large. I know that Keith had to wait in a line to pick it up, as the post office would have put a yellow slip into our box so that we'd know we had something waiting.

Filled with curiousity, I began opening the package. Inside the first envelope, there was a second. Inside the second, there was a third. My excitement was building. "What *is* this?!?" Couldn't wait to find out!

Imagine my delight when I saw the gorgeous photograph on the cover of this book, immediately alerting me to the fact that the amazing Pamela Jansen had sent me a copy of "Fearless Women: Midlife Portraits" by Nancy Alspaugh and Marilyn Kentz, with photos by Mary Ann Halpin.

First, the book is simply gorgeous. These women are, in fact, fearless and their portraits are breathtaking, their stories inspiring, and their courage outstanding. But what touched me the most is the letter Pamela wrote. I won't share it here, as it was personal and beautiful, but I have to let you know... I cried.

I read the letter, I turned to Pamela's chapter, I read the inscription, and I cried some more.

Keith said to me, "I want you to keep that letter out. Anytime you need to be reminded of the beauty that is GRACE, you read that letter and continue on."

Pamela, after reading the letter again and placing it into the book for safekeeping, I pulled out your headshot, held it up, and said, "I WILL find a way to cast you someday."

And that is for sure. It is probably the only gift I could give back to you, for having shared so beautifully with the WORLD by being profiled in this wonderful book. I am humbled and honored that you sent this book to me. I am forever on your side and will be sure that others know what a gift LIFE is, as evidenced by your amazing story.

Everyone... GET your hands on this book. You will be blown away, inspired, delighted, and motivated to live your dreams like only you can.

I hope you don't mind the plug, Pamela. I just had to share my thoughts. Much love,
-Bon

</review>
<review>

This book contains photographs of some of the women I admire most. Unfortunately, the women are posed holding a large sword as a prop to indicate their fearlessness.

I suppose that this was the feature that "sold" the book idea, but I would much prefer portraits of my heroines without the sword. The sword is a symbol of much more than fearlessness, and detracts from the book. It makes the book corny.

My husband bought it for me for mother's day last year; I'd guess from an amazon recommendation -- but it was a most disappointing gift -- one that I would never leave out for others to view. This wouldn't be true if the swords weren't in every photo

</review>
<review>

After looking at three of the photographs and reading the first page of the introduction, I immediately purchased three copies of this book - one for myself, and one for each of my sisters.  Now halfway through looking at these amazing women and reading their inspiriational stories, I am empowered and inspired.  Life is long, and the middle of it is fabulous! My first book was published when I was 53 and my next one is due out when, God willing, I will be 57.  So take heart all you "women of an age."  The best is yet to come, as the authors of this book and the women in its pages will show you.  You, too, can join this company in making this the most delightful time of your life!  Give this book to every "Boomer Babe" you know

</review>
<review>

I purchased two copies of this book.  The photographs are strong and captivating, followed by awe inspiring stories from a variety of backgrounds.  It is a perfect gift for any woman in your life

</review>
<review>

Wow! I just got it and this book is beautiful and what amazing women.  I am so excited to buy this as gifts for my friends who are in that age range but also just my female friends who are making it up in this world like some of the women in the book.  The photos are awesome and it is also inspirational to read each of their stories.  Definitely one to keep out on the coffee table for when guests come over

</review>
<review>

If we follow Ledeen off the Machiavellian cliff, what is left of the dream of the Founding Fathers for us to defend? This book illustrates one thing that is very important: in times of stress, normally intelligent people lose their sense of reason and let partisanship, xenophobia, or even megalomania rule their thoughts. Ledeen tells us to pursue the very course our forefathers rejected when they founded the USA, and he says it without the slightest trace of irony. Unfortunately for Ledeen, he negates his own title, for if we follow his prescription, those who "hate our freedoms" have already won by causing errant and misguided patriots to subvert the framework which supported those freedoms. Unfortunately for all of us, Ledeen has been taken seriously and literally by the Bush administration. Laws, Constitution, and even Geneva conventions are ignored because the end supposedly justifies the means. History says otherwise. Ledeen apparently believes that his book represents the moment in which historical patterns no longer apply to our world. Historians, if there are any left, will tell us whether he was right.

Shooshi

</review>
<review>

I'm quite familiar with Mr. Ledeen's work on National Review and eagerly anticipated reading this tome.  It doesn't disappoint, although some of the details are common knowledge to those intelligent enough to know what the goals of those that have used the "ROP" to justify murdering civilians in order to install a global caliphate (yes, of course, not all Muslims feel this way about the infidels.  Mr. Daniel Pipes breaks it into thirds:  1/3 appalled at the terrorists, 1/3 that would not personally engage in terrorism but don't mind others involvement and 1/3 that want to kill us all).

In great detail, he destroys the liberals/leftists/Eurotrash canard that Saddam, the secular socialist, would EVER hook up with Islamic fascists of al-Qaeda.  The longtime wink-and-nod relationship between the terror masters is well documented by Mr. Ledeen.  They all share a common enemy: us!

Mr. Ledeen focuses on the big three for global terrorism: Iran, The House of Saud, and the Syrian, Prime Minister murdering, and optometrist, Bashar Assad.

The Saudis "problem" is simple.  They hate us but need us to purchase oil, so their agreement with the jihadists is simple: we'll fund madrassas all over the world to indoctrinate future terrorists, be silent when you kill infidels, block investigations into the murder of Americans (Khobar Towers, according to the heroic Louie Freeh), and in exchange you'll lay off the Royal Family--and oppression of their citizens.

With Iran, Mr. Ledeen says we have may have missed our opportunity following a student-led uprising (2002?)that terrified the mullahs who subsequently sent goons, er, police to beat down the freedom seekers.    He feels the US should have been much more vocal in support of the protesters, like we did with the orange and cedar revolutions.  Mr. Ledeen feels that Iran could fall at any moment because the rulers have no citizen support.  I'm not so sure.  The citizens--albeit without many options--have been very silent when their terrorist leader proudly called for Israel to be wiped off the map.  Mr. Ledeen feels Iran could be a turn key operation, overthrow and turn it over to "democrats" that are in exile...I'm skeptical.

With the Syrian dictator, it's very complicated.  Since Bubba/UN/Euros pressured Israel to abandon Lebanon to Hizzbollah, the Syrians have maintained a huge, murderous, contingent there (even now).  Then Bashar messed up bigtime: he whacked former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, and upset the MSM's favorite leader, Jacques Chirac.  Hariri was a close friend of his.  Amazingly, when the French/UN want to do something that doesn't involve Kofi/Kujo/Pooty Poot/Germany/China/France and the rest of the Oil-for-Palaces criminals, they can get tough.  Months after the assassination, Bashar removed his troops but left his secret agents (even the UN agrees with this).  With it common knowledge that Syria is the entry point to the head choppers in Iraq, I don't see any reason why we shouldn't obliterate the MANY terrorist camps in the Syria region.  They operate in plain view and with the support of the Syrians.

In great detail, he also excoriates the perjurer/criminal Bubba for ignoring not just several opportunities to whack Binny, but also the repeated attempts by Sudan to hand him over.

And for those ignorant about Foggy Botton and the Slam Dunkers at the CIA, Mr. Ledeen dissects the "realist" view from Arab lovers in the State Department.  These views are shared by our worthless CIA, who have waged a war against the President's foreign policy.  Example 1: CIA agent and Binny desk chief, Michael Scheuer and his Jewish lobby libel, well-timed leaks about "secret" prisons for terrorists, and on, and on.

My only criticism would be not adding the Palestinian Authority to the list of terror supporters/inciters.  Abu Mazen's support/blind eye to the daily murder parties by Hamas, Islam Jihad, etc. is both criminal and key to Middle East peace (why, WHY did GW have this Holocaust denier to our White House?)

Overall, a terrific, informative book, that may be a little optimistic about the future in the terror countries.

Paging Jeff Bezos, why no blogging option yet?  Instead, pouring money into the far behind A9?  Come on, Jeff there is no more logical blogging area that the people that love books/movies and Amazon

</review>
<review>

Excellent read for the 'beginner' who is trying to understand Islamic Extremism.  It gives the reader background information, details and explanations covering the major terror attacks in the last 25 years, and offers solutions as to how these ogrganizations can be defeated. The author also covers which countries or regimes are involved in the financing and supply of these groups as well as which states provide them with training grounds

</review>
<review>

Mr. Rove has said that Mr. Ledeen is his greatest policy influence.  For that reason alone you should read this book and find out what these psychos believe.

Or if you'd rather not, the message can be simplified to this..."The world will be safe from terrorism if we destroy it."
While the truth and logic of that statement is hard to deny, somehow I cannot accept it as a morally sane argument

</review>
<review>

It is imbecilic people like Michael Ledeen who contribute to the current U.S. foreign policy which separates the "good" countries and the "terrorists." It is common knowledge that the U.S. has a habit of supporting dictatorships, terrorist movements  and  groups throughout its history. Yet, the U.S. and people like Ledeen have the gall to declare a battle of "good vs. evil." Simply, the U.S. will support a regime whether it sponsors terrorism or not, if it so suits their interests. You have the Central Asian republics for example, Central American in the '80s, Saddam  and  Taliban in the '80's, Israel now, the list goes on and on. So, this "war" against the "terror masters," is a way the U.S. gov't can fool the American people into bloated military expansionism, imperialism, and a militant unilateralism that will ultimately cause its own demise. And, sorry to be the bearer of bad news but  the U.S. will NOT win for among other things, peak oil  and  the decline of the dollar will bring down the U.S. economy and hence military-industrialist complex very soon. In fact, the process has already begun with the Iraq war. The U.S. is no exception to the rises and falls of empires of the past, and in fact the collapse will be proportional to its size

</review>
<review>

Ledeen's book, written nearly two years before the 9/11 Commission report would have been a much cheaper and faster way for Congress to get to the same result; that the CIA has so lost its way that it will take a Herculean effort to make it effective in fighting Islamofascism. Ledeen points to the willingness of the Clinton administration to turn its head after the first attack on American soil in 1993 for the sake of political expediency. He also goes back into previous administrations, Republican and Democrat alike to see how the CIA has become "a cross between the Post Office and the Agriculture" department in efficiency and intensity in protecting the West from the onslaught of international terrorism. The parts of the book that are most telling is what the 9/11 Commission chose to ignore, the micromanaging of the CIA by Congress which slowly but surely turned it into a eunuch in the Middle East. Former Senator Torricelli's demands for an investigation are particularly amusing given his amendment which effectively prevented the CIA from employing the kind of agents we will need to infiltrate the terrorist cells active all over the world today, including in the US.
Ledeen writes frequently in his columns, and this book should have a three ring binder to attach more up to date information, but this book is still worth reading, if for no other reason to read the "politically incorrect" version of what the commission should have found.
I must admit that I am not as much an optimist as he is when it comes to the stomach of those in the West to do what is needed to win the fight. Americans are not much better than Europeans in understanding that this is a war which has been going on since 1979, and we have only just begun to fight it. Kerry's run for election and the Democrats current posturing will prove bin Laden right, that we do not have a sense of history, and the future looks to see millions in NYC or DC get vaporized by an Iranian or North Korean nuke before we wake up to the challenge. Of course the loss of so many Democrats will change the political landscape for generations, but what the hey, anybody but Bush.

</review>
<review>

No doubt, Michael Ledeen knows his stuff, has the inside contacts and provides insightful and compelling analysis and conclusions.  Plus, his style is a pleasure to read.  As at least one other reviewer has correctly pointed out, the Global War on Terrorism is so dynamic that it's pretty difficult for a book like this to maintain currency for long (it was written pre-IRAQI FREEDOM).  Yet, Ledeen makes several enduring points and provides provacative food for thought.  However, beware:  Everyone is a Middle East expert and no one is a Middle East expert.  Don't read this book and accept everything Ledeen says without reading other views and doing some critical thinking.  You'd be doing yourself a disservice if this were your only source to become informed on the important and complex issues Ledeen boldly takes on.  Bottom line:  This is a compact, concise treatment...well worth your time

</review>
<review>

This book by the noted Conservative author Michael Ledeen gives the reader a good introduction to what this nation must do to eventually defeat the purveyors of Islamic extremism and terrorism.  Additionally, the book states the reasons that we are now dealing with the terror menace and how current and prior Administrations have failed in their efforts to fight the building evil.  If you are interested in what will have to be done to defeat terrorism, even though it certainly is not politically correct, pick up a copy of this book.  Highly recommended

</review>
<review>

This is an excellent, well researched and documented primer on the aims and tactics of the "Christian" right wing.  I put "Christian" in quotes because I cannot believe that Jesus would be anything but horrified and disgusted with what they are trying to do in his name.  How anyone can claim to believe that Jesus was the incarnation in human form of a loving God, while vehemently opposing nearly everything Jesus advocated, is beyond me.  But the right-wing "Christian" push to turn America into a theocracy, forcing everyone else to live according to their dictates, is a clear and present danger to our religious freedom that everyone should be aware of.  Read this book and encourage your friends to read it

</review>
<review>

I strongly encourage the thoughtful reader to consider this book alongside any of the sloppily-produced, poorly-edited, "these people are attempting to destroy our country" books produced by the far Christian right, for they are of exactly the same genre, and are born of the same unsympathetic fear of the other.

The authors apparently have no interest in understanding the lives and motivations of those whom they condemn; instead we find sweeping descriptions of the destructive intent and power of "Fundamentalists," in which the most extreme criminal acts are held up as representative and on to which are tacked -- an apparent afterthought -- half-hearted disclaimers that maybe this doesn't describe all Christians. The resemblance to similar books decrying the insidious plots of "secular humanists" is really quite uncanny.

This is not to say that the book doesn't contain some useful data and interesting opinions, but the wheat is so buried in a chaff of wild generalizations, unfounded conclusions, and outright factual errors, all couched in prose that often rivals the worst undergraduate essay, that the reader is left not knowing what to trust and what to discard.

This book will meet the needs of those who already believe that all conservative Christians are poorly-educated, sexually-repressed conspirators in a plot to overthrow democracy -- it will not unduly challenge your preconceptions. However, it contributes little to the genuine conversation and understanding that will be required to bridge the divide that such demonizing rhetoric has planted between people of good will on both ends of the political spectrum.  If you're looking for a book that honestly represents the fundamentalist perspective, let this pass

</review>
<review>

I found this book to be based more on emotion than fact. The facts that were used were blown way out of proportion and context. While it is always healthy to look at both sides of the coin - politics included - this book would never give a fair representation of the fundamentalist side, because it is so focused on presenting the conservative view from a Gestapo perspective.

</review>
<review>

An important warning of the political forces organizing to turn America into a Christian theocracy at the earliest possible opportunity.

A specialist in legal psychiatry, John M. Suarez,M.D outlines the increased number of attacks on the First Amendment in "The Path to Theocracy." He describes how the First Amendment has saved us from religious war so far and how the most militant forces call openly for war.

The chapter "Inerrancy Turned Political" comes from Herb Silverman, Ph.D., a mathematician who forced the state of South Carolina to make him a notary public despite the fact that he refused to declare a belief in a Supreme Being.  Silverman exposes tactics used by the religious right to gain political influence and the damage their victories bring to our public school system.  He presents an alarming expose' of the Reconstructionist camp of Christian fundamentalists as he outlines the work of the moral Majority, Christian Coalition, and Catholic League, particularly their grip on the Republican Party.

Edward M. Buckner, Ph.D., executive director of the Council for Secular Humanism, in his chapter, "Winning the Battle Royal," reminds us that "the United States established the first significant secular government designed to lead the first truly secular society in history," and argues that only such a society can offer true religious freedom.  As he points out the similarities between Islamic and Christian fundamentalism, Buckner explains why fundamentalism is so dangerous and why we must maintain the secular nature of our Constitution and government

</review>
<review>

I have a Ph.D studying the Christian right and this is the worst book on Fundamentalism and the Christian Right that I have ever seen.  What is not outright lies are "straw men" arguments meant to make anyone who believes in Christianity look like an idiot.  I feel bad for the people who gave it a good review, they have been duped by the authors who are not arguing a case or explaining the Christian Right, they are feeding propoganda for their own side.  I was given a free copy of this book and after reading it, I threw it in the trash instead of donating it to a library, it is that bad.  Be sure to know something about the author of a book before you buy it, especially on a controversial topics like this one.

</review>
<review>

Ignore all the criticisms regarding the production value .. it is what is inside that is important!

These essays are well researched and much of the information comes straight from the Religious Right themselves.

I mean listen to one of the quotations that was in the book .. right from the horses mouth:

"I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good ... if a Christian voted for Clinton, he sinned against God. It's that simple. Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a biblical duty, we are called by God to conquer this country..."

RANDALL TERRY- FOunder of Operation Rescue and Terri Schaivo advocate


How can anyone say that this book is a Left Wing Hate book when the Christian Right themselves are so hateful?

I highly recommend this book for anyone wanting more information about this movement.

Another excellent book that was recently produced by Edwin Kagin, one of the authors of book.  BAUBLES OF BLASPHEMY



</review>
<review>

The Fundamentals of Extremism chronicles in minute detail the Talibanization of America.  It exposes both the high profile theofascists whom even moderate religionists recognize as a threat to their freedom to practise the belief system of their choice, and the behind-the-scenes theofascists who pull the visible fanatics' puppet strings.  Blaker's delineation of the Bush administration's conspiracy to abolish education in America and replace it with theofascist indoctrination is frightening, and should be required reading for anyone who disputes that the Christian Taliban is intentionally doing to America what Torquemada did to Spain.  While the Land of the Free is not dead yet, it is being systematically strangled.  Anyone who does not know that has not read this book

</review>
<review>

I was surprised to see that my grandmother, who has never spoken ill of anyone under any circumstance, who saw only the good in everyone she met and would give the shirt off her back when she had nothing to give, was completely villified by this book... because she is a christian. I dont think i have ever been more pushed towards christianity than by reading this book.

</review>
<review>

What a bunch of hypocrits.
This is a radical left-wing hate book. If you are a Hollywierdo, alcoholic, drug addict, socialist, communist, (...), then you will love this book.  In other words, this book is  for anyone who loves their sin and doesn't want God in their life.  Understandable, why would anyone who chooses to destroy their own life want to hear someone preach against it?  According to this book anyone who believes in God, Jesus, religion, faith, decency, and clean living is a "fundamentalist".  Which group do you belong to? Whoops, does that makes me a fundamentalist?  Well, I'm not. Being a conservative Chrisitian is not necessarily being a fundamentalist.
This is nothing but a hate book, which is typical of the new American left that has taken over the Democratic party

</review>
<review>

This book is wonderful at revealing the evils of religious fundmentalists.  It should be read by everyone including the religous.  It is very dense in information; with 900 references, it reads almost like a college textbook and cannot be dismissed as simply a collection of anti-religious opinions.  Be prepared to read a paragraph or a couple and have to put it down and think for a while.

</review>
<review>

Even though most people thought this book lacked what Bergdorf Blondes had, I personally really enjoyed this book. This book was a very light read, but at the same time it was funny and gossipy. Exactly what I need once in a blue moon. And I for one cannot wait for Plum Sykes next novel

</review>
<review>

Don't bother.  Characters are lifeless, plot is boring, can't believe her first book is a best seller.  Maybe it was just pure luck

</review>
<review>

If this is supposed to be a satire, then the author forgot the key element...wit. This waste of wood pulp lacks intelligence and humor, and only the most ditzy of flakes would be able to stomach reading more than halfway through. Here's a little advice for the author; take thirty-five cents out of your coin purse, drop it into the nearest pay phone, dial the number of whoever told you that you'd make a decent author, and inform them that they have made baby Jesus weep

</review>
<review>

What a pile of vapid tripe. Reading this book actually lowered my IQ. I quess I could've felt stupider, I could've actually paid for this book. If the overexcessive use of the terms "darling", "amazing", and "delicious" don't give you the douche-chills, then you might actually be able to plod your way through this refuse without wanting to take a hot iron to each of the characters' faces. Anyone who likes this vacuous load of landfill fodder probably thinks that Paris Hilton is a great musician

</review>
<review>

Another reviewer said it best.  This is a SATIRE people.  Don't take it so seriously.  Sykes offers a glimpse into a segment of society few of us see. I love her descriptions of fashion and jewelry - everything sounds so delicious.  I lover her writing style and hope she writes another.  Its actually fascinating to think there are really people out there like that

</review>
<review>

I read Bergdorf Blondes earlier this summer and highly recommend it if you'd like to suspend reality for a few hours and get a girly, humorous dose of the high-maintenance lifestyle of a Manhattan socialite.  I certainly can't say the same for Debutante Divorcee - the story is far less engaging; the observations of manners, dress, and other details of society life are shallow and don't add much to the storytelling.  Worse, the characters evolve from boring to saccharine - and their respective stories are tied up at the end in a very unimaginative, deux ex machina sort of way that will leave you rolling your eyes.  Methinks PS could do better.

</review>
<review>

All of Brown's books are required reading for any one who follows the mystery of spirit. Yet, Grandfather, is my personal favorite. Stalking Wolf was a man fully in confluence with Spirit, and with his own personal vision. Brown has honored the teachings of this Apache Elder/Medicine Man/Sage, and in his verse one discovers both profound and practical advice to change the way we walk on Mother Earth.

Tom Brown is one of the few men I respect on this planet. Unlike so many "self-proclaimed" teachers of Spirit, Brown walks the talk. A Coyote Teacher of the highest quality and caliber.

Many years ago, I attended his Standard Class. My mantra when I left was "What do I really need in life?" The answer, which I later discovered is, nothing. Everything one thinks one needs is nothing more than an illusion to keep you locked away from embarking on your own Heroes Journey.

You may not take it that far as I did, but if you truly seek to transform your life, along with your thinking, I can think of no better place to begin than this astonishing little book.

</review>
<review>

This book should be required reading for every human being on this earth.  I could only read one chapter at a time because each chapter is so profound, I needed time to decompress and absorb each one.  Amazing.  Profound.  More than thought provoking.  Life changing

</review>
<review>

I've seen some skeptical comments about Tom Brown's alleged Apache teacher, Stalking Wolf. All I can say is it doesn't really matter whether this book is biographical or a fictitious novel. It makes you think, which is the best any book can do. I've browsed Brown's Field Guides also but they do not show half the heart of "Grandfather". None of the ideas are earth-shatteringly new, but somehow Brown manages to radiate a real love for wilderness and a concern for where the modern world is headed, without resorting to the same old tree-hugger rants that are becoming background noise to most people today. His story rings true against "Black Elk Speaks" and "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee", and even if not based entirely on fact, hits the mark it is aimed at surely and squarely. Great read and I wish Brown would write more of those many stories about Grandfather that he claims to have

</review>
<review>

I was deeply affected by The Tracker -- after reading it, when I went to look at the stars in the winter, the cold didn't bother me as much.  I didn't expect this to be better, but it most definitely is.  If you've ever  struggled with why humans exist on this planet when we're so capable of  destroying it, you should get this book immediately and read the chapter  entitled  and quot;The Tree Speaks and quot;.  There are many other gems of native  wisdom in here as well

</review>
<review>

A friend loaned me the Tracker and The Search a few months ago and I was impressed with the straight forward truths in the writing and the experiences that the author shared.  I next chose Grandfather and was not  disappointed.  Each chapter struck me deeply and contained powerful   and quot;connection with earth and all things and quot; truths that will be with  me for a long time.  I highly recommend each of these three books and I  look forward to reading more from this author

</review>
<review>

Despite trying very hard to deny that this is just another fad management book - there is nothing new in this title.  Clueless managers will recite the core principals of this book and treat them as gospel as they try to improve their bottom line.  It is also worth noting that at least one of the "great" organizations in the book, Fannie May, has imploded in an accounting scandal.  Not the worst fad management book ever written, but that isn't saying much

</review>
<review>

The book separates core values from the operating practices of
companies. Ultimately, the core value system is the determinant
of success. It is the driver of success. The author plots the
profits of visionary companies as against non-visionaries. The
visionaries make over 5 times the profits. The challenge is to
preserve the core values and stimulate progress in the industry.
The core values involve innovation, integrity, individualism,
initiative, personal growth, quality, risk-taking ability and
expanded service. These types of attributes will give a large
institution the speed and agility of a small company according
to the authors.

The book is an excellent value for anyone navigating through
a large organization or facility in search of a strategic
plan or implementation

</review>
<review>

This is one of the business classics in the past twenty years.  It has sold a huge number of copies and I am sure many of those purchased copies were actually read!  As impressive as its sales numbers have been, the way it has affected the approach to the way business was discussed and talked about for the past dozen years has been even more impressive.

Yes, there are always newer fads and business is subject to fads more than most fields of human endeavor.  There are lots of theories about why this is so, but it might have something to do with the new managers coming in wanting to bring something new with them and so the previous guy's stuff is no good.  Hence, something comes and something goes for reasons beyond its ability to run business in a sound and profitable way.  However, when something comes along with some real substance it spreads and lasts, at least for awhile.  The ideas of core values and big (hairy audacious) goals hit a chord and lasted.  Of course, today they are part of the air businesspeople breathe rather than a quote from this book.

The authors looked at a number of big companies and found a list of those that had been around a long time, been financially successful, and were on a roll at the time of this book (but they don't say this is one of their criteria).    They also found some comparable big company that hadn't found the level of success of the "visionary company" as they call the successful firms.  They then looked for some traits common to those big successful companies that might explain their success.

The four big principles they came up with were: 1) Be a clock builder - or architect - not a time teller [once you read the chapter it will be clear], 2) Embrace the genius of the AND, 3) Preserve the core / stimulate progress, and 4) seek consistent alignment.

All this has to do with being opportunistic, building the organization that best supports the opportunities you are pursuing rather than letting the organization dictate what you pursue, that success requires doing seemingly contradictory goals simultaneously, making sure that the core culture gets preserved (if it has been a successful culture), and making sure that the whole process is focused on the core ideology - the core values and core purpose of the organization.  Sounds simple?  It's not.  And even so, the "visionary" companies the book lauded a dozen years ago have all, or almost all, fallen on various levels of hard times since the book came out.

This fact is addressed in a soft way in the frequently asked questions addition for this paperback addition.  There is also a new last chapter on building the vision and a section on questions for research (this acknowledges areas left unexplained by the book).

A book that has been this influential deserves your attention if you are interested in business literature.  However, as with all of these books, use the principles as they apply to your real life in the real world of competitive business rather than treating them as some kind of final truth.

</review>
<review>

A very inspiring book about creating and maintaining a vision for yourself, your company and even applicable to your own family.

A challenge given to plan and define the future in more than years but in decades

</review>
<review>

Jim Collins' books are well-researched, easy to read, and usually provide thoughtful, actionable guidlines for business owners. This book fits that mold in the context of describing precisely the framework that is needed to build a company that will both last a long time and outperform the market.

The "prequel" to Good to Great, this book covers the principles and practices of great companies, using a variety of companies that have lasted multiple chief officers for basis and comparisons. If you're looking to bring some moral fiber and long-term success to your company, I can't think of a better book to read and act upon.

</review>
<review>

This is a book that tries to uncover the common traits between companies considered visionary (companies that are regarded as being the standard bearers for the industry they compete in, that outperform the market and have been around for at least 50 years).

I think the sequel 'Good to Great' is better but this one is pretty instructive too.

The 12 myths it explodes are:
1. Visionary companies do not all start with a great idea. In fact great idea companies soon founder after the idea loses relevance. A company that is set up with processes that keep generating good ideas (a research lab that attracts the brightest talent for example) will over time outperform one set to capitalise on one 'big thing'
2. Visionary leaders and charismatic leaders are sometimes destructive for their companies in the long term since they lead to an over reliance on themselve and do not build successors who can take the company to the next level after them. Humble gritty guys are more likely to make the best CEOs
3. The best companies don't put shareholder returns as the prime objective. Although they think it's important they define their raison d' etre as for some greater cause - quality or innovation or pride or people or customers or product or whatever
4. Visionary companies do not all share the same set of shared common values. In fact some companies have completely opposite values from other companies and both can be equally succesful. However whatever they value, great companies truly believe in it.
5. Great companies do not keep changing with the times. There are core features that they just do not change no matter what. At the same time on the superficial level they adjust and keep ahead of changing times.
6. Blue chip companies do not always play safe. The best companies have at some time stake the house on a bet. But it has been a calculated well though out approach to risk taking.
7. Visionary companies are not great places to work for everyone. If you believe in their values then it is but for others it is distinctly an uncomfortable place and many people who 'do not fit' hate it there and soon are ejected like a virus. Fit is vital
8. Complex planning is not vital to building a great company. Instead quite often their strategies come from a 'let's try lots of stuff and keep what works' approach that is the opposite of analysis paralysis that plagues other companies.
9. The best CEOs are not those brought in from outside to reform a company. They are in fact the ones who have grown up from within the ranks who strongly believe in the company and have grown with it.
10. The most successful companies don't focus on beating the competition. They focus instead of focusing relentlessly on self improvement.
11. Great companies manage to make paradoxical things work together rather than chose one of them. for example they manage to give freedom of expression and yet have cult like conformity. Other companies try to go one route or the other or fail at trying to take the middle path.
12. Comapanies don't become visionary through visionary pronouncements and mission statements. Instead the entire tapestry fits seamlessly together and those mission statements and values are embodied in every facet of the organisation.

Some pretty interesting stuff here

</review>
<review>

I found Built to Last to be an analytical look at the intangibles of success.  Core development and maintenance, personal growth, employee development and more, highlight the "outside the bottom line" look into an organization lasting longer than any one leader's tenure of influence.  Although I don't agree with every aspect of the book I still rate this high due to its ability to stimulate positive thinking

</review>
<review>

I'm an employee with a small educational business, and I've started reading more business related stuff to get some perspective on how I can help our business evolve. I recently read "First, Break All of the Rules" and I picked this book up as a follow-up to get a different vantage point on growing a business. This study, completed in the early 1990s, focuses on 18 historically visionary companies that have built stable core cultures that can serve as role models for any business.

I greatly appreciated the historical perspective that evaluated the companies from their early roots. 3M a failed mining company? Sony building heating pads? Realizing how far rock-solid brands like this have come helps me to have some hope that a persistent, grounded organization can adapt to changing conditions.

I also value the emphasis on core values and presenting how these companies translate those values into a pervasive attitude throughout the company. Wal-mart and Nordstrom's are compared to "cult-like" organizations in a favorable way. Successful visionary companies not only have a vision, they find a way to attract employees who adhere to that vision and are able to "eject like a virus" any employees who don't match that vision.

This book, in contrast to many other business books I've read, relies heavily on thorough properly annotated sources. Even if you disagree with the author's conclusions you'll be pointed in the direction of some valuable published resources to assess companies like IBM and Merck for yourself.

My only concern with this book is the challenge of properly evaluating comparison companies and some of the visionary companies that look considerably less visionary in the present moment in time. The comparison companies are drawn from the time of the companies' founding. With companies like Boeing, this makes a lot of sense. With companies like Sony, this doesn't make as much sense to me. Sony has expanded into the music industry and technology industries successfully. I'd like to see how Sony's present comparision competitiors in industry compare on the visionary scale. Likewise, companies like Walt Disney thumped Columbia, which is now owned by Sony I believe. How does Walt Disney compare to some of its present competitors like Six Flags in the theme park arena or some of its competitors like Nicolodeon in the cable TV department?

The other criticism that some readers will have is that companies like Merck, IBM, and Wal-mart may not look as visionary in the popular press as they are presented in this 1994-completed work. The authors do speak to that concern in a later chapter and I accept their arguments for looking at the companies over 100 years and saying that, like Ford, they have the potential to return to visionary ways.

This book was real insightful, and I strongly recommend it to those who like some rigorous research with their business strategy advice.

4 stars

--S

</review>
<review>

This book is not for everyone. If you do not like to read classics with everything that goes along with that (such as long-winded language that seems outdated to us today), then you should stay away.

For lovers of classical and relatively easy to read literature, this is a good book. A lot of things are amazing, considering how long ago they were written and what overall level of scientific knowledge was at the time. Some of it just boggles my mind.

At the same time, the book is long winded and in the end, not quite as much happens as one would expect. Dan Brown's DaVinci code has more things happening in the first 20 pages than Verne has in his entire book. But that is OK in a way, because when I read a classic, I do not expect to compare it to modern standards. The entertainment is due to different factors. In fact, the way the book is written is part of the entertainment and not just the story.

I do not give this book 5 stars however, because I was disappointed in the end, since not enough of the story really comes to a conclusion. I do not want to spoil the book for you, but there are a lot of unanswered questions, and getting those answers really was what kept me reading. There is quite a bit of build-up, and then in some ways, the book just ends. (I noticed that style in many books of that time, where the narrator just says "here is what I know... but I do not know the whole story...").

Also, to some extent, I agree with some of my fellow reviewers that gave a lower score, in that it is too much of a narration rather than a real story. I do not complain about some of it being like a log book, but I would have wished to get a bit more information about the daily life on board. I just do not buy that the 3 travelers just stayed in their room. They must have found out a bit more about other parts of the boat. Or at least attempted it, and that would have been interesting to read about, without breaking with the overall style of the book

</review>
<review>

Note to all first time readers. This book was created for serialization and so comes across in a somewhat repetitive chapter formula. I read this in grade school and have yet to find anyone who truly disliked it. Journey To The Center Of The Earth is also a Classic, but I prefer this. Well written, with a unique story and good visuals throughout. The reader can clearly identify with the characters and their view of being on the Nautilus. Captain Nemo is an enigmatic person with many layers. In this one will see Man vs. man, and man vs. nature. For some the descriptions of various Marine life may seem over done. For me they gave context within a slide show of what truly made Captain Nemo tick. Mr. Verne's book deserves the appelation, "far ahead of its time."

</review>
<review>

Having chewed and digested "Around the World in Eighty Days", "Five Weeks in a Balloon" and "Journey to the Centre of the Earth", I set out to devour another chef d'oeuvre of Verne [the often overlooked "true" father of science fiction] with much relish. Sure, "20,000 Leagues" seemed bigger than the others I'd read, but I thought it would be the classic excitement and drama of Verne all the way. Well, I was nearly right.

Professor Arronax leaves a "normal" life in France for the US, taking his assistant with him, to investigate the matter that has taken all the attention of the "modern" or "known" world. Joined by the egotistic harpooner, Ned Land, they seek adventure, and they find it.

Again, I see Verne's classic touch of the dramatic as the threesome find the monster - the Nautilus - or rather, as the Nautilus finds them. They awaken to an interminable adventure under the sea. The Professor is fascinated, or perhaps, intoxicated with the endless wealth of life in the sea and spends hours, days and months observing and recording. The tireless taxonomist takes in all the eye can see and with the help of his assistant, classifies it all. This is where the tedium began for me as the reader. Pages upon pages of pure taxonomy.

The accounts of the undersea explorations in specially designed suits offers some relief. The enigmatic Captain Nemo is in charge; incidents and never accidents. Everything about him is shrouded in mystery - pondering on the life of Captain Nemo offers some useful distraction and provides the fuel to consume more and more pages.

However, you can never miss Verne's climactic scenes, where he brings drama and suspense to their peak. The almighty Nautilus is trapped inside a huge mass of ice at the South Pole, and for the first time, Captain Nemo shows signs of worry, however subtle. Yet, he goes on with a steely determination. Things are looking very desperate, but as usual, the day is saved. However, I found myself following every detail, sharing all their fears, their toil, their despair. Their ecstasy was mine when the Nautilus broke free. I was totally drawn in...

...The irritable Ned Land sparks the fire of escape. He's sick and tired of submarine life as Nemo shows no signs of releasing his charges. The adventure ends with the escape of the threesome back to terra firma, or does it? I guess it continued with Captain Nemo and his longsuffering crew until his death, burying years of useful knowledge and resources under the sea. Or did he live forever?

A highly challenging but rewarding read for the discerning reader or Verne fanatic

</review>
<review>

20,000 Leagues Under The Sea was a very complex book. The authors word choice was what made it so complex, the author used words like "Vexed" "Zoophytes" and "Connoisseur." The majority of these words were Old English, which added to the complexity of the book. The sentence structure was similar to the word choice, it was also very complex sentences, the sentences were usually not to long but not to short, at times they could be quite long though, and they were old an English style. The book itself is about Three Human beings chasing after a giant "Narwhal" as the author calls it. These three characters are known as Professor M. Arronax, a genius Professor from France whose passion is to study, Conseil, a teenage boy who devotes his life to serving the professor, and Ned Land, a Canadian Harpooner. Conseil and the Professor accept an invitation to the boat the Abram Lincoln, the goal of the voyage is to track down a giant Cetacean, or a sea creature. This creature has apparently been reeking havoc across the world causing all sorts of deeds, and so the 3 meet up at the boat. They pursue the creature for over a month, when they finally catch up with the lightning fast Cetacean they pursue it, however when the creature strikes back Ned Land, Conseil, and Professor Arronax are thrown into the ocean, and separated from their boat, they awake to find they are in the supposed cetacean, to find out that it is not at all a sea monster, but an amazing Submarine named the Nautilus led by Captain Nemo. They then learn of Captain Nemo's plans, and embark on a Submarine Hunt on the bottom of the Ocean, they Discover Atlantis, they venture to the south pole, and even fight among Poulps or Cuttlefish of enormous size, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea is full of adventure.
In 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea The Brilliant minds of Captain Nemo and Professor Arronax save them in times of danger, Captain Nemo's knowledge of the sea allows him to guide his submarine across the world, confronting the sea's greatest beauties and threats. Jules Verne does a very good job of telling the story and making out every last inch of the amazing journeys taken place on board the Nautilus. In my opinion this was a very good book, there are times in the book were discussions between the captain and the professor take place that are extremely difficult to comprehend, but in the end I would say this book is definitely worth the money. However as I've said before almost every page has Old English in it and is hard to understand, the sentences are very difficult and there are some words which I'd never heard before in my life, so because of the books complexity I would have to say that only someone 13+ can read this, this would be great for adults even, but I don't think anyone below the 7th grade could fully understand it, a 6th grader could but not get the full detail of the book

</review>
<review>

If you're going to read one of the great classics of literature-and you should-don't pick up this edition.  It is a reprint of a version that dates back to the 1870s and was exposed more than 40 years ago for cutting nearly one-quarter of Verne's story and mistranslating much of the remainder.  Its reappearance in this edition is all the more amazing considering Tor's status as a leading science fiction publisher, and the company's willingness to perpetrate this fraud on is many readers is truly stunning.  If you want to truly get to know Verne's novel, pick up the elegant Naval Institute Press edition, in a modern, complete, updated translation, with commentary by the leading American Verne expert today, Walter James Miller.  That book also comes with many of the artistic engravings that illustrated the original French first edition (no illustrations are to be found in the B and N Mercier reprint).  Less attractive but more academic is the Oxford Classics version of Twenty Thousand Leagues.  This review is posted on behalf of the North American Jules Verne Society by Jean-Michel Margot, president NAJVS

</review>
<review>

the book was awesome! I have a question to anyone out there who will answer it. In the story certain words are capitalized that really shouldn't be. Such as Time and Beauty. WHY? If anyone knows, drop me a line.  NIKKICELLO@excite.co

</review>
<review>

D IS FOR DEADBEAT is an odd story - Kinsey is hired to give $ 25,000 to a fifteen-year-old. Should be simple, right? Not with Sue Grafton writing the book!!  When Kinsey's retainer check bounces things really start to get interesting!! Next Kinsey finds the deadbeat who wrote the check, he was dead. Now she has to find out who killed him in order to get paid!

This is the first Sue Grafton book that I read and I was hooked after reading it. It's exciting and keeps a fast pace so you're never in danger of becoming bored. The plot is well developed, as are the characters. We see more into the personalities that make up not only Kinsey, but Henry the landlord as well. If Kinsey were older or Henry younger, you might see some romantic sparks fly - but that's not in the future, only a deep friendship.

Grafton also starts expanding the supporting cast of characters with a glimpse at Rosie, the Hungarian diner owner down the street. The people Grafton writes about are all flamboyant in their own ways.

Definitely a great book to spend some time with, but make sure you have the next book (E IS FOR EVIDENCE) ready to pick up as soon as you read the last page of this one - you won't want to stop reading!

</review>
<review>

The client came to Kinsey Millhone with an easy job she thought-deliver $25,000 to a fifteen-year-old kid. A little odd, and Kinsey wasn't sure what to make of this thing. So she takes Alvin Limardo's retainer check anyhow. It turns out that his real name is not Alvin Limardo, but John Daggett. And the check of course, is as phony as he is. John Daggett has a record as long as your arm and a reputation for sleazy deals. But he wasn't just a deadbeat. By the time Kinsey caught up with him, he was a dead body-with a whole host of people who were delighted to see him dead. There was four in particular that REALLY wanted him dead. Kinsey knew his death was no suicide-it was a plan to kill John. But which one of the four did it? Kinsey must put her detective skills to work and find out someone's secret

</review>
<review>

I found this to be one of the best of Sue Grafton's books so far.  I found it extremely suspenseful and was guessing all the way up to the end as to who was the murderer.  The ending surprised me and saddened me.  I have found myself engrossed in the series and can't wait to get on to the letter "E"

</review>
<review>

Private Investigator Kinsey Millhone is back again in this fourth installment of Sue Grafton's alphabet series.  This time she is offered a fee to give a $25,000 cashier's check to a young man named Tony Gahan.  The check for the fee bounces and Kinsey is now looking for the man who gave it to her, plus the young man she is to give the cashier's check to.  Everything she finds out about her client is bad.  He is a drunk, who has killed several people in a car wreck, and appears to be a bigamist.  When he is found dead, Kinsey has plenty of suspects including survivors of the dead motorists and two angry wives.  This book is written in Grafton's usual breezy style, and Kinsey becomes more independent and more likeable with each book.  I would recommend the whole series to mystery-lovers

</review>
<review>

Sue Grafton does a great job keeping this series fresh and interesting. Four books in and I still can't wait to read more! And she gets better with each book. In this book (and to a smaller degree in 'C') there were many times where I couldn't fathom how Kinsey would keep on the trail and solve the case. But she always manages to plausibley get back on the trail without causing the reader to lose interest. Kinsey's development as a character is also very well done. She is a very real, likeable person with amazing depth

</review>
<review>

As the dad of a teen girl who has gone through a lot of bullying I was nodding my head at the stories.  Then I got to the chapter on Dads and Daughters and thought  and quot;At last! and quot;  This is the first concrete advice I've found on how to help my daughter.  It's great to recognize that fathers play an important role too.  One of my daughter's teachers read this, and is going to start a program at her school to stop relational aggression, so even more girls will benefit

</review>
<review>

This book on female bullying is an absolutely wonderful.  "Sticks and stones can break your bones, but words can break your heart." That's what female bullying would hurt girls deeply.  This book is worth reading and there are some great take-home points. I really enjoyed the book and found it helpful. Only if I read it earlier

</review>
<review>

Whether you are a beginner photograher or you having been taking photographs for years...there is a lot in this book that im sure you never thought of when you snapped your picture.  It has a lot of great information in it

</review>
<review>

Basic Photography is a book explaining the basics of photography, technically as well as creatively, in a clear and easy to understand way. If you want to know how a camera (35mm SLR, medium-format, large-format, digital) or f-stops work, this is the book for you. It is a good book for beginners just starting out in photography as well as advanced photographers who just want to fill in the gaps of technical understanding.

Although this book does contain some mathematical equations, you do not need to know mathematics or physics to understand the concepts explained in the book. Here's an excerpt from the book's introduction: "It is intended for students of all ages and, beginning at square one, assumes that you have no theoretical knowledge of photography, nor any scientific background."

It won't teach you how to shoot beautiful pictures, but rather tell and show you what it takes in terms of photo equipment, working with photo equipment, light, and technique to produce photographs from exposure to final print. This book is not specific to any type of photography, but deals with photography in general and is basically a 'how photography works' kind of book. "In short, Basic Photography is planned as a primer for professionals which will interest and inform amateur photographers too."

Basic Photography is the kind of book I should have read when I was first starting out in landscape photography; it would have definitely made my life and learning easier.

</review>
<review>

I started photography in 1987  and  this book (the older version of course) is what  I started with. I quite recommend it  and  I think its a very useful book to add to your library.
Another real useful book I came across ( and  treasure) is the Photo know how.
This book was published by Sinar (www.sinar.ch)  and  most unfortunatly they do not have it in english any longer but I think they might still have the french  and  german language editions. If you ever find it, do't miss it

</review>
<review>

Mr. Langford certainly deserves praise for his continued excellence in photographic writing. 'Basic Photography' is THE manual for photographers. It is clear, concise and entertaining to read. This book should be in every photographers library

</review>
<review>

Oh boy. I wish I didn't have to finish every book. It is just a pet peeve of mine. However, I couldn't get into this book. I see no clear theme. I know everyone was horrified at 9/11, however the theme went throughout the book and made the book even worse. What happens to all the characters? One is blown up in a maybe terrorist attack on Starbucks? Another one goes back to her husband. One runs into a tree while skiing and dies. Frankie wanders the city trying to hold onto her dad. Jeez, I was really hoping to like this book, but I just am relieved it is over

</review>
<review>

I am a fan of novels curtailing the lives of the glamorous, but this was disappointing.  It had a promising start, but then just went nowhere and ended suddenly in a terrible mess.  Save your money; I wish that I could recover the six hours of my life that I wasted on this novel

</review>
<review>

I bought this book because I've read and enjoyed Wendy Wasserstein's plays and I knew it was her last work. Frankly, I wish she hadn't written it. Like many other reviewers, I was reminded of books like Hollywood Wives in the first half. Parodies of lifestyles of the super-rich, like most chick lit, have about exhausted themselves. Without more, it's like been there, done that. The second half of the book, if anything, was worse. Either someone else finished it for her, or she decided that everything in life was pointless and was going to illustrate that through each of the characters. Since it was difficult to care much what happened to any of these characters in the first place, I skimmed the last few chapters. Satire is the dark side of humor. It should be witty and thought-provoking. This book was just tiresome and hopefully she will be remembered for her other work

</review>
<review>

Full of painfully obvious cliches. I was insulted on so many levels I don't know where to begin.Save yourself the pain, run don't walk

</review>
<review>

Typical obvious (re-)placement and (recently all too common)  Italian American as disgusting, classless, filthy villain/movie producer makes this book a real disapointment.
So boring to make the Italian the new interchangeable bad white guy...tired and boring

</review>
<review>

Wendy does it again!  I won't repeat the story details here as you've heard them or can read the book description.  But suffice it to say: Wendy is very, very smart.  You know her, you love her, give this one a try!!  It's worth it

</review>
<review>

First off, there will be spoilers so if you want to read this book and don't like to know anything before you read it (like me) then don't read on!

What was this? I love Wendy Wasserstein as a playwright. I couldn't wait to read this book! I thought that it would be a witty satire on New York's "finest" (not the firefighters, the Upper East Siders) after 9/11. I was sorely mistaken.

The first few chapters are delightful and engaging, but soon, you long for the book to go somewhere... 307 pages later you shut the book realizing that it never did!

The political agenda being pushed was nauseating. I daresay it bordered on propaganda!

I liked not one character in this entire book- not one. At the beginning I thought that this was so that Ms Wasserstein would make a point later... SHE NEVER DID.

You can tell Wendy was an excellent playwright from the vivid descriptions of scene. It was written very visually.

I hate to say it, but this book's critical acclaim comes only from Ms Wasserstein's previous success as a playwright and her untimely death. Had she lived she would have discovered that she most certainly wasn't a novelist and should have spent her time writing what she is truly genious at- plays

</review>
<review>

Joan Borysenko's book, Inner Peace For Busy People, is an intelligently written, thought provoking read.  She has demonstrated a deep understanding of those things that create familiar feelings of being overwhelmed and stressed to the max, and better yet, she gives practical solutions on ways to cope with that stress.  The chapters in this book are short, one page or a little more.  I found that the best way to read this book was to read a chapter a week and attempt to instill these lessons gradually.  I can honestly say that it helped me to find new ways to relax and enjoy life, in spite of feeling at times as though I am "crazy busy" as the author discusses.  I highly recommend this book.  Unlike other self-help books, this guide doesn't overgeneralize, or have within it's pages unrealistic expectations that people would have difficulty implementing in their own lives.  I found it to be incredibly practical and life-changing.  I feel more rested and relaxed than I have in a very long time.

</review>
<review>

I had heard of this author for a long time and never read any of her work, so it was with careful reflection and consideration that I opened this book - attracted by the "Peace" and "Busy People" of the title.

The book is divided into 52 chapters (almost chapterettes) that include ideas for application of the principle discussed.  Borysenko writes with a friend-like, compassionate voice as she guides the reader into a more centered life style.

The strategies discussed won't be new for those "experienced" at Personal Development AND the presentation makes it worth the investment.  Each idea is narrowed down so succinctly and at the same time, the resulting "a-ha's" have the possibility of being substantial for those who take the principles and put them into practice.

I love how personable Joan comes across - in the section on perfectionism she describes how she still deals with it in her life through a story from a recent holiday dinner. Her chapter on "Breath" is so simple and yes, so powerful.  These happen to be my favorites, but each lesson has gold to be mined.

For those folks who don't want to do the lessons "one-a-week", the book could easily be opened to any page, read and applied in that moment.  The chapterettes can literally be read while waiting in line at the grocery store so there is no reason NOT to live more peacefully now -

There - see how effortless that was? *Smile* Reading and using this book is even easier than reading this review.... Enjoy!


</review>
<review>

This is a fabulous book.  The author's writing style is beautiful, inspiring and uplifting.  The book flows nicely, is pleasing to the eye, and covers everything you could hope to learn about strolling gently down the path to inner peace.  I've been reading personal growth books since 1995 and this has become my new favorite.  I learned so much and have already put it into practice.  I'm sending a copy to my mother for her birthday and recommending it to all my busy friends.  Even if your life isn't busy, you can gain so much from this book.  Thanks, Joan!  I'm going to read your other books now

</review>
<review>

This book has changed my life.  The strategies she gives in the book are absolutely wonderful.  They have helped me take time out for myself and relax and enjoy life.  It has definitely helped me deal with stress I encounter in everyday life. Her strategies on relaxing your body through breathing, and the importance of music were great

</review>
<review>

Joan Borysenko, who is possibly the smartest AND nicest woman in America, has done it again with this gem of a book.  For those of us with To Do lists that appear to be on steroids,(and sadly that's just about everybody, right?) this is the book. Practical, helpful, based in grounded psychology and integrated spirituality, eminently readable and instantly translatable into action... what can I say? Read it, use it and benefit from it

</review>
<review>

Prof Terry Tucker, Senior Doctrine Developer Saudi Arabian NG Modernization Program;
This book is heavy, scholarly and controversial. The author explores culture, nationalism and imperialism through the prism of literature. You will need to be very open minded when you read this and in some cases you will find yourself both enlightened and yet disgusted. Set this aside and think about what the author conveys from the position of an "Arab_American".
As an American working in the Middle East I have found this book extremely helpful.  This book will not be an easy weekend read. You will need to plan on taking some time to think about this book and digest what the author presents. If your highly patriotic or nationalistic in your inclination, you will definately need to set aside some extra time to get over the emotional impact that this book may have on yo

</review>
<review>

This book is highly recommended to understand the fact that imperalism goes beyond the political and economic domination. Imperialism stayed in the most subtle way, in the culture. Said clearly described that the reaction toward imperialism is mutual: from the Western side, the prejudice and biased and the supremacy-feeling, which unfortunately still existed today; and from the "other side", also prejudice and to the extreme side, anti-Western.

Readers who knows Said's background well will understand that Edward Said had a long commitment in building understanding between the "West" and the other,and contrast to some of the reviewers' accuses that "he forgive terrorism". Not at all.  Said opposed terrorism. He was very much concern about the idea of " to valued mutuale experience in order to understand the imperialism in a whole", and I think that is the main idea of the book.


</review>
<review>

Edward W.Said's Culture and Imperialism explores seemingly difficult areas of postcolonial discourse with consummate ease, carefully and clearly definining terms and writing an utterly convincing piece. As with all of his texts, Culture and Imperialism's main strength is in the conviction of the writer as he puts forward his claims. An invaluable tool for those approaching Postcolonialism, Culture and Imperialism is quite possibly the most illuminating piece of writing I have considered. A fine text, and one of immeasurable usefulness

</review>
<review>

Denying the suffering of Christians under Moslem rule is what Said wants the West to do.  The denial of Christian suffering by Christians who lived among Moslems is a phenomenon that is always overlooked.  As Christians who live in Egypt, neither Said nor I could marry a Moslem woman unless we convert to Islam; as Christians neither Said nor I would be allowed entrance to some Arab cities; as Christians, neither Said nor I would be allowed to build a church without permission from the President of Egypt.  Why is Said quiet about that

</review>
<review>

After listening to a public library audiobook copy of the first Artemis Fowl (Artemis Fowl), my children and I were eager to see if there were other books available in the series.  We learned that our library did not have subsequent copies, so I hurried to Amazon to see what I could find.  We've now purchased and listened to "Artemis Fowl - The Arctic Incident" and have donated it to our public library so others may share in the story.  Not only is each book in the series wonderfully written, with fully crafted, believable characters - insofar as fairy-tale characters can be believable - but the audiobook is narrated by one of the most skillful readers I've ever heard.  Nathaniel Parker, also the narrator for the first book, is back with his fantastic portrayals of our favorite characters.  This book has all the necessary ingredients for enjoyment:  comedy, adventure, fantasy - all played out through witty and engaging dialog between easily distinguishable characters.  The author, Eoin Colfer, must have been a Monty Python fan too, because some of the lines uttered as asides by a couple of his characters could just as likely have been said by one of the Flying Circus troupe.  My family highly recommends this book, in either printed or audio form

</review>
<review>

OK, so maybe the Fowl series is not exactly Lord of the Rings caliber, or even Harry Potter level.  But it is an enjoyable read if you take it for what it is.  Sure, it's directed towards kids, but this 42 year old kid at heart blew through it in a couple of days, and plans to do likewise with the next two in the series.  You'll enjoy it too

</review>
<review>

The now 13-year old criminal mastermind, Artemis Fowl, is up to new tricks, and more terrific adventures. Too short but a good read

</review>
<review>

My son and I really enjoyed the book.  It has alot of twists in the plot that keep you hanging on every word.  I highly recommend the series to anyone who enjoys a good suspense story with alot of fun attached.



</review>
<review>

I didn't discover the delight that is the Artemis Fowl series until a week ago, when I read ARTEMIS FOWL in one day.  So, of course, I had to pick up a copy of THE ARCTIC INCIDENT right away, to see if it was as good as the first.  It definitely is, and in my own humble opinion, I think I liked it even better than the first book.  There are points throughout the book where Artemis, now thirteen, shows a softer, more vulnerable side that I truly enjoyed.  Don't get me wrong, he's still an evil genius, but he's an evil genius with heart, and you can't help but love him.

Now that Angeline Fowl is out of her depression, thanks to some fairy magic from Captain Holly Short, she's sent Artemis back to Saint Bartelby's School for Young Gentlemen in Ireland.  Artemis is having quite a large amount of fun flumoxing the school's counselor, Dr. Po, when he gets an urgent message from Butler, his bodyguard/butler/majordomo--it seems that Artemis Fowl the First is alive in Russia, being held for ransom by the Russian Mafiya.

Young Artemis, of course, immediately sets out to devise a scheme to rescue his father.  It's been almost two years since Artemis Senior was last heard from, and his son is most eager to bring him home.  Before he can work out a devious scheme, though, he's visited by none other than Captain Short and her superior, Commander Root, and brought down to Haven City and into Police Plaza.  It seems the goblin triad, the B'Wa Kell, have a human counterpart aiding in their smuggling, and Artemis the Second is, quite justly I believe, suspected of being that human.

The fairies soon realize, however, that this time Artemis Fowl isn't the bad guy in this problem.  But now they'd like Artemis and Butler's help in figuring out who is behind the allaince between the goblins and the Mud Men--and Artemis is quite willing to help them out, in exchange for the fairies help in rescuing his father.

What follows is an action-packed story of good versus evil below ground, with deceptions, backstabbing, and revenge taking center stage.  As Holly, Root, Butler, and Artemis race to save Haven City from being destroyed, some of the same characters from the first book make appearances--Foaly, Mulch Diggums, Cudgeon, and Captain Trouble.  There's also a new foe in THE ARCTIC INCIDENT, Opal Koboi, to be dealt with.

I highly recommend the ARTEMIS FOWL series to anyone and everyone.  Highly enjoyable, thoroughly entertaining, and not soon forgotten.

</review>
<review>

You would think, after the outstanding success of Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer would find it hard to live up to. Not at all. Eoin Colfer seems to have a knack for turning out books that are impossible to put down, and which are capable of delighting readers of all ages. And the Arctic Incident is no exception.
It has everything it's predecessor had, but with one difference. Instead of being pitted against each other, Artemis and his fairy acquaintances are forced to work together, which is a bit awkward when your partner was once your hostage. Can Holly and Artemis put their differences aside?
There's action and humour aplenty, as well as an enterprising new villain that makes Artemis Fowl seem cute and cuddly by comparison. An excellent sequel, brought brilliantly to life once more by the vocal talents of Nathaniel Parker.

</review>
<review>

When I stared reading Danielle Steele's novels, well over 20 years ago,they were amazing. The characters were larger than life, the dialog spot on, and the plots original and well thought out. I'm sorry to say that I was drawn to this novel because of its slick cover and interesting premise. After reading "Coming Out," I had the feeling the author was as bored writing it as I was reading it. In no way could this book have been written by the same author who wrote "The Ring."

</review>
<review>

I almost wasn't going to read this book.  The description didn't appeal to me at all.  But, as we all are die-hard Danielle Steel fans, I knew I had to try, thinking "Oh well, she HAS to get better!"

Wrong - what a dumb book, dumb story.  While I didn't hate this as much as Impossible (who can forget the wacky artist?), this book was just a waste of time to read.  And come ON, how much more could go wrong before the ball?  I did enjoy her mother-in-law though, and I wish you read more about her past.  But the story was exactly just "fluff."  Who cares about such things anyway?  How I'd love to read a real-life story of someone who actually STRUGGLES in this life!  Although we all read to escape our own lives perhaps, and sometimes books about exciting lives can take our minds off our own troubles for a bit, Danielle Steel's books take us nowhere and we just end up frustrated.  How can she not read all these reviews from her unhappy fans and try to change her ways?  Ah for the days of Thurston House, The Ring, Wanderlust.....those days are long gone, I'm afraid.  But yet - we keep reading - and are bonded by our constant disappointment

</review>
<review>

I also have been a great fan of DS over the many years she's been writing books. However, I'm convinced that she can't possibly be writing these books any longer. They're terrible. And each time a new one comes out, I think I'll give it one more try. Then I complain about the book and vow "never again". Well, this time is the last--------this book was the worst.
As she's been doing lately, the stories are shallow. She repeats herself over and over again. Her sentence structure is awful. Her grammer is terrible. And did I say she repeats herself over and over and over. The story this time was about a "coming out" event for her twin daughters. Most of the story line was extremely predictible and very trite. Very boring and, as I said, terrible sentences and thoughts. I could write a book better than this one and I'm not an author.
Ok----I have said it all in past reviews and I won't digress------but this time I vow and will keep this vow--------no more Danielle Steel until she goes back to writing as she did in "Thurston House" and " Message from Nam". Until that time, I've given up on her entirely. Finally

</review>
<review>

Over the years I read numerous books by Danielle Steel and this definitly tops the list as the worst book yet.  Plot is incredibly weak..

</review>
<review>

I have been reading Danielle Steel since her first book was published and this is by far her worst one yet. Over the past few years her writing has deterioriated rapidly. It's almost as if she doesn't care anymore; she knows readers will buy her books no matter how poorly they're written.

The storyline for Coming Out is a dual one: A woman's twin teenaged daughters' invitations to a "coming out" ball (somewhat like a debutante presentation), and her son's "coming out" by announcing he is gay at the "coming out" ball. Along the way, one of the twins refuses to attend the ball, the other one loves the idea, her five year old son by her 2nd (and current) husband comes down with Chicken Pox, one of the twin daughters' long, white gloves for the ball are damaged, and her mother-in-law falls and breaks her ankle. Her husband is Jewish, her mother-in-law is a Holocaust survivor, her ex-husband is a gambler and alcoholic, his wife is a bimbo, and her oldest son is gay. I think she covered all the "politically correct" demographics. Even so, the characters are shallow, one dimensional and boring. The writing is simplistic, repetitive and amatuerish.

Steel used to write fascinating, wonderful to read books such as A Perfect Stranger, The Ring, Message from Nam, Wings, etc., but not lately.

[...

</review>
<review>

Oh, please, this book is just ridiculous and trite.

Here we have Olympia, the "perfect" modern woman, beautiful, a successful, high powered lawyer, who has the perfect job, gets to take every Friday off even (don't we all?), a perfect and wealthy husband who loves her dearly (but of course), two gorgeous twin teen-age daughters, one a "rebel" interested in protesting everything, the other a social butterfly (would you expect anything else?), a mother in law from heaven (An Auschwitz survivor - to bring a little pathos into the story) who she loves better than her own (dead) mother, (what other kind of mother in law could she be?) and a young, perfect son (naturally).  Oh, did I leave anyone out?  Let's see - she has her requisite ex-husband who naturally is an alcoholic and a complete jerk (hmm, nothing new there), with his silly new wife (well, did you expect her to be anything else?) , her one black friend (yes, keeping the story "real"), and oh yes, the real point of the "coming out" - not her beautiful twin daughter's coming out ball, but her eldest son admitting to her that he is gay, at the ball, of course, while she gazes up at him proudly with tears in her eyes.  (let's bring the storyline right into today's headlines).

The book was so filled with cliches it was pathetic.  From the husband taking a stand against going to the ball because it was against everything he believes in (while he is, naturally, fighting for the poor and downtrodden in his high powered legal job), to the ex-alcholic husband "playing the ponies" and living on his trust fund (has not worked in 15 years), to one of the twins getting a tattoo, which just almost destroys Olympia because the tattoo will show when the twin wears her dress to the ball, oh, but, handy survivor grandma to the rescue, who manages to sew a perfect stole by hand in one afternoon, after Olympia dashes around and naturally is able to find the material in the exact shade, weight and hue as the dress.

Of course this coming out ball is supposed to be for "WASP" society only, so the husband makes a stand by refusing to come to the ball.  Olympia  decides to make her own stand, by inviting her black friend and her husband, as well as her Auschwitz survivor mother in law, to the ball.  In the days before the ball, the youngest son gets chicken pox, the mother in law falls down and breaks her ankle, one of the twins boyfriends breaks up with her, one of the twins loses a glove (chewed up by a friend's dog) and Olivia has to run out to buy a pair of manolo blahnik heels for her daughter.  Oh, yes, and the twin's escort shows up to the ball with electric blue hair.

But, because Olympia is perfect, she manages to "fix" everything at the last minute . .  did you expect anything less?

This book was just awful, and did not ring true at all.  Each character was a cliche in themselves, way over the top.  The premise of the story was ridiculous. . .  I have read most of Danielle Steele's work, ok, so she is not Dostoyevsky, but her books were good for sitting down on a long afternoon with a nice cup of tea and reading a juicy and interesting story.  This short book seemed like it was almost written because she had contractual obligations to fulfill.  There was no passion, the sentences were short and stilted, and she seemed totally disinterested in her characters.  Come on Danielle Steele, you can and have done a lot better than this!!!

Don't bother with this book.  When I finished reading it I literally groaned, it was that bad

</review>
<review>

I just read this book, quite quickly in one afternoon. I think I've pretty much purchased and read every Danielle Steel book she's ever written as they used to be entertaining quick reads. I understand she has become an empire but must she also be a book writing factory. There is never much suprise as to how a DS book will end, the pleasure in reading them comes from the twist and turns,  historical and geographical research she puts into her books. This book reads more like a short story as many of her other recent books. Definately not worth the hardcover price.  Time to slow down and put out some quality work instead of quantity.  This book was fluffy  and  dull

</review>
<review>


I wonder if Danielle Steel is running out of material, as her recent books have been rather superficial and not very engaging compared to her classic and deeper earlier novels. Although quite glamorous, the idea of a posh "coming out" party isn't very interesting or applicable to an average person living in the contemporary world. As short as this novel was, there was so much repetition and rehashing of the storyline, and that space could have been better filled.  An author of Danielle Steel's calibre should have fleshed out the deeper issues contained in the plot instead of glossing over them at a fast pace.

</review>
<review>

how bad can she get???? i loved so many of her books....but this one was bad...dont bother....read her older ones.."Echoes " is the best book of hers...i loved it....

</review>
<review>

Riveting! I hated that it had to end. Marvelous characters, a haunting tragedy and one of those "meant for each other" relationships that are a hallmark of Nora Roberts at her best. Carolina Moon is a richly layered, dark and dangerous variation on the Cinderella theme. It's also a fine whodunnit with a plot twist worthy of its twisted villain.

Heroine Faith, the ragged little girl destined to capture the attention of her small town's handsome prince, has an abusive father instead of a wicked stepmother. Her one escape from a relentlessly grim childhood is friendship with the daughter of the wealthy family who employ her father as a laborer on their farm.

When the girl is brutally killed - after sneaking out of the house to meet Faith at their 'secret place' in the woods - Faith has a psychic vision of the murder as it's happening. She leads the police to the body but can't give a rational explanation for what she knows. The victim's traumatized family pay Faith's father to leave town with his wife and child. It's the end of innocence and the beginning of a terrible exile, both real and self-imposed. Faith's guilt and sense of isolation will haunt her into adulthood.

The current-day story begins with Faith returning to the house of her childhood, intending to face her private demons and search for her friend's killer. The dead girl's brother, who was an adolescent boy when Faith left town, has grown into a compelling, determined and oh-so-sexy man.

He's attracted to Faith, but suspicious of her. She's wary of men after a painful rejection by the man she loved, a cop who used Faith's psychic skills to further his career - and blamed her when she was unable to prevent the death of a kidnapped child.

Meanwhile, others are displeased with Faith's unexpected homecoming. Among them are the murdered girl's mother, who disapproved of Faith's friendship with her favorite child and has never forgiven her for her role in the tragedy; the sister who was jealous of their closeness; and the killer himself, who risks exposure if Faith's psychic ability turns out to be authentic.

The stage is set for a reluctant but inevitable seduction, a love affair held together by a fragile thread of trust, the reopening of old wounds among those whose lives were altered by the tragedy - and the reawakening of a monster who might be hiding in plain sight.

</review>
<review>

I thought this book was great.  The combination of mystery with romance.  One of my favorites!!!! - Would love more books just like this one.  And a happy ending too

</review>
<review>

This was a great read and I think one of the first books Ive read by Nora Roberts(I cant remember if I read her several years ago). The book includes strong characterizations, lust, dysfunction,mystery into this book and I loved seeing the heroine develop to become her own hero in the end. Great read

</review>
<review>

Years ago this was first Nora read.... Love and mystery! It has still remained my favorite. I loved the twist at the end who new? Read this book and wait for the crazy end... WOW

</review>
<review>

This was my first Nora Roberts book and it will not be my last.  I could not put this book down.  Her writing style allows the reader to hear and visualize the characters.  I will recommend this book to everyone

</review>
<review>

Nora Roberts' blended talents branch into writing romance, mystery, action scenes, etc. and they are all present in this great read. I also loved the feisty 'twin' character who shows how opposite sisters can be as far as personality. There's also a strong portrayal of women as survivors and not just victims. The tension is high, and though I had some ideas, I did not figure out who the killer was until the very end.
Chrissy K. McVay
author of 'Souls of the North Wind

</review>
<review>

Young 8-year old Hope Lavelle is out on a nighttime adventure to meet her very best friend, 8-year old, Tory Bodeen, a victum of neglect and abuse by both her mother and father.  Hope has every comfort of life and is the daughter of a successful southern family with a twin sister, Faith and an older brother, Cade (Kincade).  Sneaking out to meet Tory, Hope is murdered.  The story moves ahead 18 years and picks up w/Tory as an adult dealing with the ghosts of her past and present.  "Carolina Moon" is a very well-written story and will keep you fascinated until the very conclusion.  Supporting players such as Iris, Cecil (Tory's grandma and significant other) as well as Wade (her cousin), add amazing color to the plot.  Personalities are described so well you can almost see these people and feel for each in their dealings with life's turmoil as well as joy.   I would definitely recommend this book to all, especially Nora lovers!  It has murder, mystery, romance, and comedy.  What more could you ask for in a book

</review>
<review>

This was the first book by Nora Roberts that I have read. Of course, now that I have read it, I plan on reading more of her books.

The Story starts off with Tory (Victoria) coming back to her home town Progress to open up a little shop. It is really hard for her because that was the place where her father beat her, and her best friend Hope was murdered. When she arrives, the town starts buzzing with gossip.

Once she arrives, Hopes older brother, the dashing Cade Lavelle, falls madly in love with her. But, after a short while, strange things start happening in Progress. There are murders, and other bad misfortunes, that are all somehow connected to Tory.

This was a great read. I could not put this book down. It will keep you riveted all the wat up to the very end, with a surprise twist

</review>
<review>

The others in the series were great, and I really looked forward to A Breath of Snow and Ashes. It read like it was all Gabaldon's discarded notes for the previous installment.  I felt really cheated to have spent my time and money on this book.

</review>
<review>

What more can I say. This book is outstanding, just as the entire series and of course JAMIE is yummy like always!  I do want to correct one thing. - This is NOT the final book in the series. I just left Diana's website and she reassures us that there will be at least one more book, maybe two for Jamie and Claire!!! YEAH. That is all she will promise at this point, but I know we all sigh a breath of relief to know we have more Jamie to come :).
As for the book - READ IT. If you haven't read the others first, put it down, RUN to the bookstore and buy the series. Then find a comfortable place, away from the world, and ENJOY!!!  It is ABSOLUTELY worth every minute

</review>
<review>

This is the last book in a wonderful series by Diana Gabaldon.  It is simply great.  She has a very engaging way of writing that puts you in the book and lets you experience what is happening as if you are there.  It is obvious to me that she thoroughly researches her book's time frames as they refer not only to people, but to their way of living and to the sciences available.  I am not a history buff, but I have learned more (and enjoyed it) reading her books than I have learned from any other source to date!

</review>
<review>

I am hooked on the Diana Gabaldon Outlander series.  Jamie and Claire are such a romantic couple. Who doesn't like a guy in a kilt?? You want the story to go on and on.  (Diana, please don't kill off any characters!) Let's keep the Outlander series going with another book and another and another..

</review>
<review>

Like all of the book in this series this book did have its slow spots. But after reading all of the other books in this series I knew it was going to get moving so I couldn't put it down.  It is a great book and I am eagerly awaiting the next book, in this series, to come out

</review>
<review>

The Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon is wonderful.  This most recent book does not disappoint her readers.  There is so much history as well as wonderful characters.  I met the author last week at a book review.  She is a marvelous speaker, very intelligent and entertaining. She promised there would be one, if not two, more books in this series. Enjoy

</review>
<review>

After reading the "firery cross" I was skeptical when I started this one.  I thought that it might not be up to her usual standards (like the 5th book - firery cross).  Ms. Galbaldon is back to her exceptional standards.  If you were disappointed by the 5th book, don't let that discourage you from getting this one.  I enjoyed this one very much and look forward to reading her forth coming books

</review>
<review>

What a wonderful continuation of the Fraser saga!  This is a must have for the Outlander fans! Don't miss it

</review>
<review>

As an avid reader of the series I have been waiting impatiently for this book for a long time...I am glad to say that it did not disappoint in any way. It is highly recommended...just make sure that you have a good two weeks to devote to it

</review>
<review>

Another great book in the series! I couldn't put it down! It has a few slow spots but well worth the time in the end.

</review>
<review>

The Messenger by Daniel Silva is just as interesting, exciting, and intriguing as every other Gabriel Allon book
has been.  I was hooked on page one and had a hard time putting it down until I reached the last page. My only regret is
that more of the story is not set in Venice, my favorite city. There is just enough of a parallel to characters and events in the real world to make the stories
plausible and just enough romance and action to make it gripping and absorbing. I am already looking forward to the next Gabriel Allon story

</review>
<review>

well, imho, not as great as the other books in the allon series, but well worth the read!
i'm looking forward to the next in the series.


</review>
<review>

Very pleased with the price and speedy delievery and quality of the product.


</review>
<review>

In this novel we have the characters we have come to love. The writing is tighter and the plot clear. Not quite as exciting or fresh. Some further development with Leah happens which I won't reveal

</review>
<review>

A caveat to all Westerners who may think our most sacrosanct values are protected.  Silva reaches into inner space to warn us of the dedicated nature of the enemy.  If this is fiction, it is well dressed as a wake-up call to its readers

</review>
<review>

I'am unable to get this message to anyone.  This is the second book I orderd and both books are bad.  This one starting on disc #4 all is bad.
I sent back the customer card and explained my displeasure but no one has contacted me.  I had the same problem on Vanishing Point, the cd left will not play on my player.  I will not order another book from You. Once I can see this happen, but twice is unacceptable

</review>
<review>

Daniel Silva has taken his protaganist right onto the front pages of the worlds' newspapers with his best work to date

</review>
<review>

This is a timely, well written and exciting book. I enjoyed reading it.

</review>
<review>

Love Silva's characters and plots. Only wish is for more, more, more

</review>
<review>

This is a great resource for individuals looking for some leadership pointers

</review>
<review>

The world's benchmark with respect to leadership is the market driven capitalist company, however it seems they have lost their way when compared to the US Army.  After you read this book you will be shocked to find out how far ahead of private business the US Army is in the area of Leadership.

Ultimately the US Army has determined that in some fashion everyone that reports to you is also a leader and needs to be trained and respected as such.  The US Army's leaders are actively developed at all levels so that they can lead and develop others - no lip service here.

</review>
<review>

The United States Army is the largest training organization in the world. And among the subjects it teaches is leadership. The Army teaches leadership at all levels from the squad leader with only a few subordinates to generals with hundreds of thousands. With many years of studying leadership, the Army program nets down to the three words in the title of the book:

Be - To be an effective leader you have to be the kind of person people want to follow. This comes down to almost the Golden rule, Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Other words would be loyalty, integrity, personal courage; a good set of personal qualities that make a good person.

Know - You have to know what you are asking subordinates to do. It's hard to lead people into doing things that you can't do yourself.

Do - The old adage, Follow Me, summarizes the leaders point of view. You have to do, you have to show the way.

This book is different from many that are available on bookstore shelves. Most books are written by consultants or trainers that have developed their own programs. This book takes as its foundatation what the Army has developed over meany, many years, practiced, and observed the result. The study of the results of leadership training in the Army is based on combat where the losers die, not just watching the sales charts.

This book is different, but directly applicable to the business, research, academic world

</review>
<review>

Leadership often is assigned a mystical quality, as if people either possess the spark that makes others follow them, or they don't. Well, now you can lead without the innate spark. In fact, the U.S. Army sets out to prove that anyone can become a leader, as this engaging book from the Leader to Leader Institute explains. Using The Army Leadership Manual (abstract available from getAbstract) as its foundation, this volume demystifies leadership. Promisingly enough, this speedy read persuasively argues that being a leader requires little more than honesty and competence. Throw in an ability to communicate and a willingness to listen to your people, and you could become the next Patton, or at least a respected officer. This enlightening tome is a little thin on ways to turn its leadership development philosophy into action. Still, we recommend it to managers and to those who strive to become leaders

</review>
<review>

I am a "space nut".  I have read numerous books, seen numerous vhs and dvd stories of everything from the start of the space age to the shuttle flights.  I have never had a more inspiring feeling than upon finishing "Light this candle".  It started a little slow with all the early life details of Shepard but, helped later in the book with how  and  why he reacted to many (and I mean many) tough situations that he faced in his unbelievable life.  Being a space nut, I was happy to see little details explained in the book that are lacking in other books I have read.  Such things as Shepard talking about laying in the LEM following an EVA on Apollo 14.  He and Mitchell were supposed to be sleeping but Shepard talked about the "eerie silence" and hearing the A/C unit click on and off.  Also, feeling like they were going to tilt over and falling out of the bunk when he thought the LEM was sliding down the edge of the crater.  All of these things made it a "tough to put down" book that I would HIGHLY recommend.
I used to think of Al Shepard as an egotistical, bi-polar, spoiled fly-boy that I wanted no part in learning more about.  I would have rather stuck to anyone of the other 6 Mercury astronauts.  BOY WAS I WRONG!  This book might have turned me to thinking that Al Shepard is the most interesting of the original 7

</review>
<review>

I had been meaning to read this long-overdue biography of Alan Shepard, and I happened to pick it up in a cruise ship library.  As I read it I was surprised at the number of factual inaccuracies--there is at least one glaring non-technical error per chapter, which calls into question almost everything else between the covers.  Numerous reviews here mention more problems with technical aspects of the book that I was unaware of, but which do not surprise me given the apparent lack of proofreading and fact-checking.

An example:  upon finding the book, I leafed through it and found the section on Apollo 14.  There it mentioned that John Glenn had "almost killed himself when he lost control of the pace car at the Daytona 500 and slammed into a flatbed trailer crowded with journalists."  This sentence boggled my mind, for it contained two errors:  the pace car was at the Indianapolis 500, and John Glenn was a passenger while a local Dodge dealership owner was the driver.  The book is just full of examples of this kind of sloppy reporting.

Edit:  I see that at least the paperback edition correctly says Indianapolis 500, but it still incorrectly implies that Glenn was driving the pace car

</review>
<review>

I missed an opportunity to go to a book-signing where Alan Shepard was signing copies of "Moon Shot". I figured I would have another chance but then before long he was gone. What a thrill it would have been to have shook the hand of the first American in space.

Nostalgia aside, this book is a capsule of the life of the man. True, it is littered with inaccuracies in spots, and seems to delve far too deeply at moments on the personal life of one of the most important men in the last 50 years. But then again, how many JFK biographers have tried to delve into the hush-hush side of the man?

This book will give you a clear picture of the over-achieving, success-driven, consumate test pilot who one day became an important symbol to many Americans, who were afraid their world was about to be consumed by communism. At times wistful, sometimes aggrandizing, other times pointedly candid, this biography attempt to reveal the Alan Shepard even the man himself wanted no one to see.

You will be amazed at the story

</review>
<review>

I second Colin Burgess's insightful review.  Thompson's description of the flight portions of Apollo 14 is derived almost exclusively from Barbree and Benedict's unreliable "Moonshot" and, consequently, bears only a passing resemblance to reality.  The critical events related to the abort switch and landing radar simply did not happen as described.  In my work on the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal, I have always found it useful  to check astronaut memories against other sources.  I can only wish that Thompson had exercised such care

</review>
<review>

Alan Shepard was the first American man in space - this occured on May 5th, 1961 with John F. Kennedy in office.  I find it amazing that it took 43 long years to finally get some semblence of the affair in writing.  Well, like the old saying goes - better late than never.
Author, Neal Thompson did an excellent job of explaining the growing up years of one of the most famous aviators in the world, Alan B. Shepard.  He was courageous enough to print the truth about the man who was supremely confident in his physical as well as intellectual abilities.  But all great men have their downfalls, as is well-documented in this book.
The first man in space may have only been up there for 15 minutes, but it was this brief shining moment of accurate performing that launched the legend that is Alan Shepard.  He conquered Meniere's disease by having to first conquer and overcome his (bogus) Christian Science faith - - - and - - - no surprise, he was cured under the famous healing hand of Dr. House in Los Angeles.
I was intrigued to discover he almost commanded Apollo 13, but was reassigned to the next mission instead, due to preparation contingencies.  This decision saved Shepard the near-disasterous mission that we know occured on Apollo 13 - what a close call! Shepard always did display this lucky streak that never stopped.
He also might have been up on Apollo 1 - but his ear problem started around that time and he was grounded.
It's as if a higher power was looking out for him and doing creative things to keep Shepard alive and well.
His ride was on Apollo 14; he was the commander and he did another perfect job, what else is new?  What else did we expect from Alan Shepard?
His wife, Louise stood by his side, in good times and in bad for 50 years - she had a lot of competition out there with the Rocket groupies.  Not to mention the stress of living with a high risk occupation. But he always managed to call her at 5:00pm most nights, except for those times he was staying at the Apollo Motel # 14.
This book was so interesting and mesmerizing - I read it non-stop for 2 days.....all 399 pages of it.
I could not put it down - I even drug it to work with me today.
There are some nice photographs in there, but I would like to see about 1000 more of the life and times of Alan Shepard.
Some people are born to live lives of extreme risk, challenge  and unbelievable success.....and the rest of us can only imagine what it must have felt like to be in their shoes.
Shepard's life was very exciting indeed, and I wonder why on Earth did it take 43 years for this wonderful book to be published?  THe truth may be a painful and bitter thing to taste, but it's the way things panned out in real life.
They had a huge ego and they stroked that ego one times too many.  Why do risk takers take so many risks?  Well, I suppose it comes with the territory of being a risk taker in the first place.
TODAY ---All of our famous Apollo astronaughts are aging; many have passed on to the big rocket ship in the sky, so reading about these incredible men and the incredible lives they lived is a real treat for all persons who wonder about such immense challenges.  It is my sincere hope that all of them have books published about their biographies...they have lived and dared to fulfill outrageous dreams.  THey are what make this country great in the eyes of the universe.
Before long, the Apollo moon walkers will be gone from the face of this beautiful blue Earth.
We need to know them - at least by biographies - we need to hear thier stories and understand their feelings before their ultimate count-down to zero is counted.
Please read this book!  It's an excellent book!
It's the year 2004 and I can now say I know alot more about this man that held the facination of millions.....Alan Shepard - he was a great man who did great things, and lived life to the fullest possible

</review>
<review>

The author has done a good job on this one putting together a through biography of a man who fiercely guarded his privacy.  The information gathered to create this book required much research by the author and the results that he has pieced together reveal insight into one of America's most enigmatic heroes.  A good read

</review>
<review>

Having read most of the books about the glory days of NASA, this one stands out as one of the best. Unlike a number of the recent autobiographies of the astronauts, Shepard would not have written this book himself. He was too private a person. Thompson has written an engaging chronicle of what it takes to be the best of the best in the astronaut corps

</review>
<review>

As a close follower of space exploration, I have read many of the biographies/autobiographies of the astronauts of the early space program and greatly enjoyed this book.  In a review on this site, George S. Williams claimed it was poorly written and riddled with inaccuracies.  Like other forms of writing, an editorial should provide support of your claim, so, Mr. Williams, I would appreciate if you could share with me and others specific aspects of the book that displeased you (I am more interested in falsities of the book than your disliking of the author's style).  Please post a response on this website or email me at sbd218@nyu.ed

</review>
<review>

With fiction there is usually some distance between the reader and the action described.  After all, the reader is seated in a comfortable chair, one assumes, in pleasant surroundings.  But such is not the case with this novel.  The distance between this reader and the story disappeared almost from the beginning, and like the Wedding Guest in Coleridge's poem, I was dragged from Ohio to Mississippi in the heat of summer and forced to witness things I didn't want to see but could not avoid.

The book starts with an intense rape, described in detail.  A ten-year-old black girl is savaged by two cretins and left for dead by the side of the road.  When the girl's father kills the rapists, he is arrested for murder.  The book then focuses on his white defense attorney and the trial of a black man for murdering two whites--in Mississippi--although I suspect the tension would be little different elsewhere in America.

The plot is engrossing and the outcome is satisfying.  It certainly kept me reading late at night, long after I was tired.  The characters are extremely well drawn--diverse, individual, self-contradictory.  The atmosphere of a small county seat in the South is perfect.  After reading the book, I think I could find my way through the court house, the little restaurants and the defense attorney's offices.  The dialogue is just as excellent.

It is difficult sometimes to define exactly what the moral position of the author might be.  He seems even handed, understanding of all the parties and their positions.  That can be annoying at times, but it adds to the truthfulness of the book.  All sorts of people get into the action and not always for or against the defendant but rather for themselves.  There is the NAACP--the local ministers--the ambitious prosecutor--the defense attorney who dreams of fame from this trial--and lastly the ad hoc local KKK.

My only reservation would be in recommending this novel to the faint of heart.  The rape is not the only intense scene in the book.  The reader should be prepared for gasping a few times as the story unfolds.  Still, the trip will be worth it.  Brilliant--that's the only word to describe this.

</review>
<review>

I really am enjoying the audio recording of this book, but the one thing that really bothers me is the repeated use of the n word, to the point that it seems a bit gratuitous. I understand that sometimes authors feel language that is offensive is warranted for a period or regional piece, but I think there is a fine line between creating a sense of believability and just plain overdoing it.

</review>
<review>

I had to read this book for school. I thought I would love it, but it turns out I was WRONG. This book was mind numbing. It is drawn out and boring. I almost threw the book away and rented the movie. I should have. This books sucks. Don't waste your time reading it

</review>
<review>

"A Time to Kill" is definitely Grisham's best novel.  It's interesting that it was Grusham's first novel, but it was rejected for publication until after some of his other novels were published.  The story deals with a number of issues that all intertwine seamlessly.  Racism, murder, justice, revenge, law and order, etc.  The story will hold you from start to finish.  Most of Grisham's newer novels are simple, predictable stories that bash attorneys.  That is not the case with "A Time to Kill".  It will grip you, tear you and entertain you all at the same time

</review>
<review>

A Time to Kill and The Broker are my two favs from Grisham.  Suspense is the name of the game.   I like books that make me read them straight through because they're so suspense filled. Another great novel is Deadly Behavior by Dee Sullivan.

</review>
<review>

I have been interested in reading something by Grisham for quite a while, but I was recently "pushed" to actually read one of his books when I saw the movie version of "A Time to Kill". The obvious book to start with was "A Time to Kill". I had heard that Grisham is good, and I really enjoyed the movie, so I was expecting a lot. I was not disappointed. This book brings out some very interesting ideas about murder and the justification for it. It also gave a very large amount of information about the legal system in general and trials in particular. This legal iformation was probably my favorite part.
Throughout the book, I found myself thinking through how I would try to convince the jury to free Carl Lee. The book was obviously "prejudiced" in that it was written from the aspect of Carl Lee having adequate reason to murder the two rapists, but even so, there is a lot of material having to do with proving that.

Overall, this book isn't perfect, but its problems are relatively minor and do not detract from the book. The entire book flows rather smoothly and it really keeps you intrigued. I highly recommend this book, as well as others by Grisham. I will be reading more of his books soon. Also, I would recommend the book "The Sacrifice" by Robert Whitlow. It is a very intriguing legal thriller that is somewhat similar in style to Grisham's writing. I just finished reading it earlier today and it is great. Read and enjoy

</review>
<review>

I've read many of Grisham's novels, and this remains my favourite.  It addresses complex issues and does not attempt to gloss them over.  I recommend this novel to those more familiar with Grisham's more recent work: this is what he is capable of, and it is outstanding.
Whether or not the end is 'right', it is satisfying

</review>
<review>

This is my all-time favorite book.  In one word - POWERFUL.  Grisham does an excellent job at bringing the characters alive and making you care about them.  There is a lot of description to help you understand the south at a time when blacks were begining to be people, not things.  Wonderful

</review>
<review>

John Grisham has quite a reputation as being a very prolific author.  Being the best selling author the 90's means you've got quite a reputation.  So I wanted to see what all the fuss was about and I picked up "A Time to Kill."  Needless to say it was a good book, but there are a few moments where it glares.  As it is Grisham's first book (and believe me, in some areas it shows), I'd expect a lack of substance.  Surprisingly, there's substance.  But there are times when the book really rambles on for a very long time.

When a ten year old black girl gets raped by two drunken high racists white men, the father is outraged and decides to take justice into his own hands.  So he gets a hold of an assault rifle and guns the two rapists down.  Now Carl Lee Haily is on trial for vigilant justice, and the whole world is watching.  The lawyer to defend Carl Lee is a young man named Jake Brigance.

A reoccuring theme in the book seems to be the question, "What if it were your daughter?"  It posses a pretty thought provoking question, and whatever you decide on isn't wrong.  It's your interpretation.  The book touches on a lot of touchy areas.  Not just rape, vigilante justice, and the court systems, but it also touches on racism as well.  If you're easily offended by racism, this book is not for you.  It IS uncensored, but a lot of people tend to forget it's fiction, and doesn't express the authors true beliefs (any time an author touches race they're immediately labeled racist, you can usually find these accusations in one star reviews).  There are moments where it is offensive.  Even more so, the KKK plays a huge portion in the book.  There are a lot of common stereotypes, but it's nothing to get worked up about.  Again, it's fiction.

Second, the book really does ramble from time to time.  Grisham himself even admitted it in his notes.  The book is fantastic, the story even better.  The problem is... there's too much mumbo jumbo and not enough story.  Also, as it nears the end, a lot of stuff happens that either doesn't make much sense, or is totally unbelievable.

Grisham has a good story, but his characters are also a little flawed.  Very stereotypical in their roles.  Jake Brigance is the dashing hero, Carl Lee Haily the man in distress.  There's even one character he sort of forgets about.  In fact, he forgot about the character so much he never made it into any one page of the last two-hundred.  And there was no end to his story.

So yes, it's a good book.  However, it does ramble.  It's a great story, perhaps one of the best works of fiction I've read in a long time.  Some characters are cliched, and if race-relations aren't your thing... this book isn't for you.  I'm not offended by the book (I am an African-American), but I seem to notice others are.

Great story.  Rambles a bit from time to time, but overall, a good story.  One where you can get to end, disagree (or agree) and still say to yourself it wasn't bad.  It's definitely worth the time, despite the fact that it could be a little shorter.

</review>
<review>

A Tme to Kill, the debut novel from Acclaimed writer John Grishman deals with the thinly threaded storylines dealing with a rape and attempted murder of a [young] black girl.  Soon after race issues boil over as protesters on both sides of the fences barrier over the woodwork. Grishman expertly narrarates this complex issue by focusing on the more simplistic, organic notions of the case, and the bodies that are affected by each decision that is made.  True, the ending seems rather rushed and he certainly could of filled another 50-100 pages without question, but in the long run everyone believes that this magnificent story of Racial disharmony in present day and age end up asking, not answering, questions that need to be asked. Grishman was quoted in the reprinted foreword in saying he wouldn't change a word.  With a story like that, you can see that he doesn't need to, compelling storytelling will always be compelling storytelling. In the End Grisham nails it out of the park, and leaves his readers yearning for more

</review>
<review>

Creative or not, this is one of the best books you'll ever buy to help you discover how to get the world to stand up and take notice. It's contemporary, no-nonsense, and filled with tons of suggestions on how to promote yourself or your business. For me, the added bonus were the "mini-interviews" sprinkled throughout-- not only were they interesting, but they gave up lots of anecdotes and nuggets of wisdom from people who have successfully "been there and done that." Half practical advice, half motivational tour de force-- this tiny little book will send you through several yellow highlighter pens! I highly recommend it, you won't regret the purchase

</review>
<review>

Having had the fortune of learning from Lee in person, I can tell you that he is right on with all of his suggestions, in the world of the right brainers.His promotional tactics work. I have been using many of them and here are some of my successes:
- written 3 books of my own in a field that I am new to.
- Work in an organized studio instead of a Mess
- I can find the computer to write this reveiw !
thanks Lee and good luck to all of you that have the common sense to smile and use it

</review>
<review>

I have owned Self Promotion for the Creative Person for two and a half years now. I regret that I did not write a review sooner, since it is one of the best motivational books I have read. It has helped me to transform a fun but unsuccessful hobby/business into a thriving and extremely satisfying mission, in which I have found my passion [...]
~Memorial Keepsakes and Remembrance Jewelry to comfort those touched by the loss of a Child~
I have included this book in my recommended reading list in an online 'success story' interview which chronicled my journey.

My main problems were negative self-talk, doubt, and fear. I have read and re-read Mr. Silber's book numerous times just to keep me focused and to help realize that I am my own worst critic. Once I was able to overcome my internal struggles, I was able to focus on the positive and set goals with real steps to achieve them. My Silber also has a free motivational newsletter, which I often print out and refer to whenever I need an emotional boost.

This is an excellent book, and worth many more times the cover price. A must read for anyone interested in any type of success!

</review>
<review>

I'm a career counselor in New York City and "Self-Promotion for the Creative Person" is one of the books that I most frequently recommend. It is upbeat, creative and inspiring. This phenomenal book helps people shift their negative attitudes about self-promotion so that instead of feeling ashamed of marketing their creative work, they consider this part of the creative process. I've seen this book dramatically shift the attitutes and actions of countless people, resulting in well-deserved success for all of them in their various creative fields

</review>
<review>

I have not been paid to make this review; I am not a friend or relative of Mr. Silber, however, I have quickly become a fan.  Self-Promotion for the Creative Person should become the creative person's 'bible' ... keep it in a save place (a pedestal if you have one) and refer to it often.  It is a well-organized and effectively inspiring guide that calls you into action.  Open any page at any time and you will find something that moves you and gets you promoting ... on your terms ... in a way that is comfortable yet effective.  Mr. Silber understands the mindset of the creative person and offers ways to overcome the obstacles that they face and offers unique tips and techniques to achieve success.

I would suggest reading the book early in the day, as you will want to put his ideas into action IMMEDIATELY ... his writing is fun and humorous, and extremely motivational ... his writing is a force of its own ... pushing you to promote like you've never promoted before.

A fantastic book for the right-brainer; but no less inspiring for the left-brainer.  As for the negative review left by one gentlemen, evidently he is not a creative person because if he were he would have bonded immediately with the book .. wonder why he would have thought to read it if he is not of the clearly stated creative mind

</review>
<review>

Lee Silber has written a book with a plethora of ideas in an extrememly valuable way: from one creative person to another.  If you are looking for a book to take care of all your self promotion problems, you probably have so many issues that a book on self promotion will not help you.  But for the CREATIVE person who needs to prime the pump--this book is a goldmine.  Not all of these ideas will work for you.  Surely something will.  Sometimes the author offers simple advice (i.e., "smile").  However, the simple can be the most profound.  Think about it.  How many people to do you know and interact with that if they took that one piece of Silber's advice (to smile)--they would go to a whole new level of personal effectiveness!  So this is not a read for the linear folks who want to the expert to tell them how to solve all their issues.  That's called a normal book--and there are plenty of those out there.  This is an awesome book with practical ideas for CREATIVE people who will love Silber's smorgasboard style of writing.  I loved the book precisely because it's content and methods are out of the ordinary, simple, doable, and FUN!  I enjoyed this book so much that I read most of the "creative" series he has written as well

</review>
<review>

Mr Silber must indeed be very good at self-promotion: he obviously got all his friends and extended family to write great reviews about this mediocre book.

When I set out to pick a book on self-promotion, I wanted useful insights (something a little deeper than "smile, and the world smiles with you"), or at least a clear method -- a set of carefully selected and tested steps. After reading so many reviews praising this book, I thought I had finally found what I was looking for.

Big mistake. This book is not clear, or organized, or particularly insightful. It's just a big, long jumble of ideas loosely grouped into chapters that all seem to talk about everything and nothing. It is not very well written in terms of either formal grammar or style, and is only mildly amusing, as the lack of a clear direction quickly makes it boring.

But that's not all: the book is filled with quotes and pseudo-scientific "facts" that may be appropriate for a casual conversation among friends over a beer at a bar, but definitely not for a book that the reader would like to be able to rely on. In other words, it reads a lot more like The National Enquirer than The Washington Post.

In my opinion the author makes the mistake of confusing creative people with ignorant, unsophisticated people lacking a critical sense

</review>
<review>

I fit the typical profile of a "creative person" as described by author, Lee Silber.  This means that, up until now, I've focused 100% of my energy on developing my craft and felt my art should speak for itself.  I found most self-promoters to be pretty obnoxious and a big turn-off.  But somehow, the author manages to show how promotion can actually be creative and fun.  Silber gives so many examples that there's bound to be something that will match your personal style.  The best thing is that every time I read from this book -- I find myself coming up with ideas of my own -- and THAT, in itself, has made it worth every penny. Thanks, Lee!!

</review>
<review>

Lee Silber knows how to suggest lots of approaches so there's something for everyone. His own creativity shows itself brilliantly in this book. Whether you're just starting out or have been marketing for awhile, you'll do well to have this book -- and read it

</review>
<review>

Lee Silber's book "Self-Promotion for the Creative Person: Get The Word Out About Who You Are and What You Do," is honestly one of the most straightforward and realistic books on getting you and your business heard above the "din," in this crowded marketplace. I've read books from Sergio Zyman to Jay Conrad Levinson, and I feel Lee Silber's book ranks right up there. If you are a business owner or an entrprenuer, this book has hundreds of creative ideas to get your own word of mouth going and the "buzz" going about you and your work. Everyone knows that word of mouth is the key to new and continued business, but how do you generate it? How do you keep it going? What can you do to be different? How do you market what you do and have real success? All of these and many other questions are answered with very creative but sound business ideas. This is definitely a book to have in your personal and business library

</review>
<review>

I read so many books as a kid I can't even begin to try to remember them all. This is a great way for anyone to keep track of their readings. I've recently started reading for pleasure again and find much comfort that I have my feelings and memories about the book at my finger tips. No more wondering 'why was it i liked that book so much, I can't possibly remember, it's been so long since I've read it...'

The only thing that could make it better would be some kind of divider to help you find the separate sections faster. Otherwise, a great purchase

</review>
<review>

I admit, when I first opened this book, I thought it would contain a dry discussion of how to use AJAX methods with PHP.  But the book turned out to be so much more than advertised, I think its title must be wrong.  It should have been called, "How to Use AJAX Methods with PHP, MySQL, DOM, CSS, SVG, XSL, XML, RSS, and JavaScript Frameworks."  I certainly never expected to read it cover to cover, but that's what I did.

In addition to integrating a wide range of modern web technologies, the book contains great examples of how to write building blocks for powerful web applications.  These include form validation, chat, suggest, auto-complete, charting, grid, RSS, and drag-and-drop.  Somewhere in the code for these functions are techniques for almost everything you might want to program into an application.  What I really like about the book, however, is the ongoing explanation of how to write the code so it will be secure, and will perform correctly in every browser.  Most books I have read don't bother with such details, but this one even lays out a method to create user-friendly error reporting in production mode.  It has a strong focus on writing code that might actually be used in a production environment.

My only quibble with the authors is that they seemed to be avoiding OOP in their JavaScript, though they used it with their PHP code throughout the book.  They said OOP emulation techniques required a longer learning curve.  However, the result of their decision is JavaScript files that run for seven or eight pages.  I really think that OOP would have been less intimidating to a new programmer than page after page of unbroken code.  I would recommend that the authors at least use eye-catching headers for the major functions in these files to help the reader understand the structure of the code.  (Readers of the book as published might want to take a highlight pen to the function headings.)

As someone who is attempting to write my first significant web application, I think this book is wonderful.  I expect to wear it out before I'm through looking up techniques.  I already know that my application will need chat, validation, suggest, and data grid.  This book practically hands me the code for these.  But more than that, it provides me with a view of the basic methods to do many other things.

Much of the major content of this book is code.  While the authors explain how the code works, the reader will still need to know the basics of HTML, CSS, SQL, and scripting languages, such as PHP and JavaScript.  Another major advantage of this book, however, is that the authors give web links to many of the best tutorials on these topics.  In fact, it would be possible to start with this book, and use the authors' suggested links to look up almost every major web technology in order to learn it in the context of AJAX and PHP.  All in all, that's a lot of value for a book that has less than 300 pages

</review>
<review>

This book teaches by example.  The first few chapters introduce AJAX and what part PHP, Javascript and XML all play.  Then the remainder of the book takes you through several example applications.  The example apps are simple enough that you can easily follow.  These applications include Form Validation, Chat, Suggest and Autocomplete, Charting with SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics), using grids, and Drag and Drop.

Each example begins by showing you the source code and how to actually implemented/deploy that application.  There is also a supporting appendix for additional information about deploying the examples on a web server.  Then each chapter follows by by explaining how the example worked.

If you would like to quickly begin using AJAX from PHP this book is a great start

</review>
<review>

'ajax and php' is a very mediocre book with a lot of code in it, not especially good for learning, and not worth the price. if you want a really good ajax book, i recommend 'ajax in action'

</review>
<review>

This book tends to jump right in and show you the important parts of the code you will need for your applications. It walks you through creating some of the more requested scripts and explains each step in just enough detail to give you a good grasp. That said, the book isn't a major read at under 300 pages, which makes it light enough to get through in a weekend if needed. I highly recommend this book for those wanting to combine the power of AJAX with the speed and ease of PHP

</review>
<review>

Ajax and PHP came at exactly the right time in my self-inflicted education as I am just now gaining functional literacy in OOP, Client/Server. PHP, CSS et. al..

There are a lot of things to like about this book, starting with its organization. It starts off by documenting what you need to know to best use of this book. And supplies the URL/Hyperlinks to get those literacies if you don't have them. (Thank you!)

It achieves a nice balance of choosing what needs to go into an appendix.

It dispenses with the common irritating practice of showing code "excerpts" in favor of showing the entire script and follows each script example with a "What just happened" section that is as clear and concise as you will find anywhere.

If you only buy one AJAX book, make it this one.

</review>
<review>

The book is good, the topic is right, and pretty much everyone is thrilling to learn how to benefit from AJAX -- even if this means you're going to use a lot of JavaScript, which you thought it was not necessary, since you know PHP, a powerful language, right?

To be frank, I was contemplating this book quite a lot before daring to open it for real. I can't really explain why, but I was intimidated by the idea: not by its size (274 pages is a common size), not by the technology itself (I'm coding PHP pretty often, and JS is no more than... JS), so maybe it was just because I'm too conservative. I'm prone to use PHP pages the "go-to-the-server-and-come-back-with-another-one-please" way.

And this book really tries to learn you the basics of AJAX, through practical examples, that is. Quite impressive, given that most of us are usually grabbing new ideas  and  technologies from on-line articles, not from books entirely dedicated to a subject.

Packt (pronounced "packed") has made every effort to support this book, even up to a point where you're overwhelmed by their will to make it easier for you.

Here's what the web offer is:
* A book's "classical" page with the publisher
* A book's mini-site with the publisher, featuring demos of the case studies developed in the book
* A book's mini-site with one of the authors, hosting an Errata and Notes

Downloadables:
* Chapter 1: AJAX and the Future of Web Applications
* AJAX Chat Revised - Chapter 5: Ajax_Chat_and JSON, a revised version of Chapter 5, now using and presenting JSON instead of XML. The first printed edition is only featuring the original XML-based chapter.
* AJAX Whiteboard mini-book - a case study on how to implement efficient client-server communications when heavy realtime communication is needed.
* Appendix A - installing and configuring Apache, PHP, MySQL, and prepare the database used in the demos.
* Appendix B: tools that can make your AJAX and PHP programming/debugging life easier.
* Appendix C: - Advanced XML: XPath and XSLT.
* Code download: the code for the samples described in the book.

Let's get to the point.

The first contact with AJAX was, for most people, the suggest  and  autocomplete feature of Google Suggest, somewhere at the end of 2004 or beginning of 2005. If you want to implement such a feature for yourself, the whole Chapter 6 is dedicated to this subject: you will be implementing suggestions from PHP functions, with direct redirection to the corresponding manual page.

Unless you don't actually need any book on the matter, you should start with the beginning, to get a clear idea of what "Asynchronous JavaScript with XML" really is, and why is it needed to improve usability and to make a site more responsive, or to find out some drawbacks of using AJAX (bookmarking may become pointless).

The basic principles of AJAX are very much disclosed from the first chapter, where you're presented with a simple (and useless) simple PHP AJAX application, described in detail.

There is to note that the book features the full sources of all the applications used in the instructional process. If you download the source code, the use of the printed one is somehow limited, unless you want to make notes on the book, for analysing how things are done.

To ease the understanding, the book holds a few flowcharts, in key places. Otherwise, a rather important number of screenshots are presented to help you follow the topic even if you're not in the front of your computer.

OK, you're an intermediate PHP developer, but you know very few of JavaScript. Client-side scripting was not one of your major interests. How are you going to swallow the book?

Chapter 2 is set to make you feel more relaxed and comfortable. Not only it describes JavaScript and the Document Access Model (DOM) in a nutshell, but it also provides you with useful reference links (page 30).

As a general rule, you will find useful URLs in several places throughout the book, so be prepared to improve your skills even after having finished with it.

The next "hard nut" is the very heart of AJAX: the XMLHttpRequest object. You will learn of it in the same Chapter 2, and the table at page 47 lists its methods and properties.

But it wasn't tough, so far. Most people already knew about DOM (at least if they have used CSS), and a bit of JS too. Some people never needed to use XML though, but, you know, the "X" in AJAX is from XML, even if there is no XML involved in the functioning of XMLHttpRequest, and you're not bound to use XML if you don't want to!

XML is a vast subject, and so are DTSs, schemas and namespaces, XSLT and Xpath, etc. Page 55 lists some starting points, and recommends Appendix C (not present in the first printed edition) for an introduction to XSLT and Xpath.

Fininshing the Chapter 2, which is very dense in information, will get you introduced to some basic handling of XML, but more important, to handling errors and throwing exceptions.

In the real world, you will need to do some serious data processing at the server level. This is what Chapter 3 is meant for, with some more examples too.

This time, you will also need to work with a database, MySQL in our case. Make sure you'll properly setup the database, because you will need to create some tables in some future sample project too -- fortunately, the book is supportive, especially if you're using phpMyAdmin.

As a general rule, once the access to the database is solved, everything should "just work". Each sample needing MySQL access has the credentials in a config.php file, so it's better you just create the user "ajaxuser" with the password "practical", to avoid editing several files.

The only problem I encountered was an error message:
"Class 'mysqli' not found"
which should be solved by adding
extension=mysqli.so
or
extension=php_mysqli.dll
to php.ini (and don't forget to restart Apache).

One of the first usability gain of using AJAX is form validation within the same page, without pushing back and forth error pages and the like. This is the first thing I'll implement in a web site in the process of "ajaxing" it -- and you will read Chapter 4 to get a good grip of one of the most useful usages of AJAX.

The rest of the book is very much a sequence of labs where you will learn more and more through practical exercises, with full code and explanations provided. You will do with AJAX:
* a web chat (Chapter 5).
* real-time charts with SVG (Chapter 7).
* grids with client-side XSLT (Chapter 8).
* a RSS reader (Chapter 9).
* drag and drop (Chapter 10).

What are my impressions with this book?

Once I went beyond the initial reluctance, I could see the book is actually not a bad one. The four Romanian authors did a good job, although some would have appreciated if a more playful style was used, instead of the rather academic one. For instance, PHP books by Julie C. Meloni can be swallowed easier due to the lighter style, more appropriated for people not willing to feel like in the front of a teacher.

Also, fragmenting the code with more comments shouldn't hurt -- no, actually not "code comments", but textual descriptions of what is actually happening in there.

For a practical introduction into AJAX with PHP, I would rate the book with 4 stars out of 5, but not more, for style reasons mainly

</review>
<review>

This book assumes a working knowledge of PHP, XML, JavaScript and MySQL and that you have PHP, MySQL, phpMyAdmin and a server such as Apache installed on your computer. In this book the authors, Cristian Darie, Bogdan Brinzarea, Filip Chereches-Tosa and Mihai Bucica, teach their readers how to add Ajax client-side features to PHP driven web applications.

As you would expect, the authors begin by discussing what Ajax is, its history and which Ajax features you will be adding to the PHP applications discussed in the book. The authors take a modular approach when building these web applications.

The first programming task discussed in many computer books is client-side form validation and in this book the authors have done the same by showing how Ajax has changed the traditional form validation process. In the traditional process, the client-side validation occurs after the form has been submitted but before it reaches the server. The authors show you how to improve on this process by using Ajax to validate the user's input as he types.

Next you will build an Ajax chat application. The authors do not cover supporting processes such as chat rooms, chat user lists and login. They choose to concentrate on improving the message posting and receiving processes using Ajax to eliminate the need to reload the webpage when performing these tasks. Before Ajax and other XMLHTTP related programming, this was only possible using Java, Flash or other special programming.

Ajax was made popular due to Google Suggest. So it is only logical that the authors would show you how to build your own Ajax suggest and autocomplete application. The database used for the working example for this application is the PHP Function List at PHP.net. Next you learn how to build two real-time charting applications. The first is a graph drawn in real-time using SVG and the other is an Ajax grid using XSLT and XPath. Both of these applications update these charts without reloading the webpage.

The popularity of RSS syndication makes this next application my favorite. You will build a simple RSS reader (aggregator) using Ajax, PHP, XSLT and SimpleSML. Finally, the last lesson is based on an existing web application (script.aculo.us). You will learn how to use Ajax to add drag and drop support to this task management application. (To Do List)

The book has a supporting website which has working demos of the web applications featured in the book, sample chapters and a free case study eBook entitled AJAX Whiteboard. This is a simple Ajax web application that allows you to draw with your mouse.

The authors of this book blend their varying backgrounds for this project. Cristian Darie is a software engineer and technical author. Bogdan Brinzarea has a background in banking and security. Filip Chereches-Tosa is a web developer and Mihai Bucica works in the field of communication software

</review>
<review>

If you are a PHP programmer who is looking to start integrating AJAX in your upcoming projects, then this book will be a perfect start for you. The book focuses more on code rather than theory, and explains the pile of code in an easy manner.

The book starts with a great chapter explaining how web evolved and why the need for AJAX was created. It then explains what AJAX is and how it works - a difficult task to explain to the beginners, but the authors did it wonderfully. For the kick-starters, the chapter ends with a simple yet interesting hand-on example of a quick AJAX app, something that inspires many.

The next chapter goes into the basics of JavaScript, DOM, XMLHTTPRequest and related key points and explains each of them with good examples. This makes sure that you know what you'll do and why you'll do things in a specific way.

Before going into building core AJAX functionalities, the authors then introduces you to handling several PHP situations with AJAX (error handling, returning outputs, etc). Also, they show you how you can create the bridge between AJAX and MySQL.

After telling you everything you need to boost your own site with AJAX, they start to tell you how you can avail different AJAX functionalities in your site - Form Validation, Auto complete, Real-time Charting, Drag-n-drop, and so on. These are divided in the rest of the book in chapters. Each of them has a real-life working example that can make you think "Oh man!! I was looking for this to be in my site!!!" Although it's more code than theory, you won't loose the path as they start the chapters with a problem-solving manner and after showing the code, explain them step-by-step.

The book marvels at boosting you with both knowledge and practical application of AJAX to start with. But, it lacks in telling about the many great AJAX frameworks out there for PHP. The authors could have gone further to include a chapter mentioning the PHP-based open-source frameworks currently available (such as AJASON, XAJAX, TinyAJAX, AJAX Agent, etc). This could have helped the readers avoid writing all the basic request handling codes by hand (in both JavaScript and PHP). Also, there could have been a more detailed explanation on where the usage of AJAX is not appropriate.

Apart from this, the book was a sheer pleasure to follow and the choices of examples were very relevant to the current web trends and should help anyone who wants to implement AJAX real soon

</review>
<review>

I think the marketing hype for Ajax has some people skeptical.  So let's get the record straight:  Ajax is here to help move web development ahead into the arenas that it needs to be in, while not needing to rely on Flash to implement a killer interface.  It utilizes standard technologies that have been around, and is functional on almost all web browsers, but with a new mentality and intention. It's also a load of fun to develop, and see the results...

This book far exceeds the majority of PHP development books out there. Besides teaching you how to implement exciting and creative interfaces into your web site, this book actually is giving you first hand insight as to higher level PHP development as well.  I can tell you from experience with Cristian Darie's previous books that I've read and used, his PHP development knowledge and skills far exceed the majority of PHP books that I have read.  This one is not an exception. While the code isn't exactly beginner's stuff, I would suggest that some who has just begun on their road to PHP development give this a whirl.  Because it'll not only show you a larger scope in PHP and Javascript, it'll also give you something fun and inspiring to want to shoot for...

The actual projects have a component feel to them. Meaning, you aren't just limited into developing these things, and then left scratching your head as to how you would need to customize them to make them work in your web projects. You can work through the code separately, and then implement them into your current web project via an include.

So, for those who are looking to not only learn about developing Ajax into your PHP pages, but to improve your scripting skills as a whole, as well as one of the more fun and enjoyable "activity books" to help you make killer U.I's..this is the best book I could recomend..

</review>
<review>

Thank you a thousand times, Ms. Walker, for the gift of your new poems.  They literally danced off the pages and into my soul as I read them.  I enjoyed the preface and especially being introduced to the shaman/priestess/healer, Maria Sabina.  My favorite poem is "Thanks for the Garlic".  You are a beautiful, amazing Apprentice Elder and someone I definitely will emulate in my own journey to become.....

</review>
<review>

I saw Ms. Walker read poems from this book last night in Los Angeles.  She spoke of how she thought she was done with writing and then the poetry started one day.  She described the return to poetry as a "spring" beginning to flow again.  Anyone involved in creative pursuits, such as writing poetry, can surely relate to the "spring" metaphor.  These poems are simply beautiful and seem effortless as you read them.  They seem to come from a vast, open space.  Reading the poetry engages the reader in a celebration of life, the spirit, and hope for humanity.  Highly recommended

</review>
<review>

Her poem from this volume  and quot;Thousands of feet below you and quot; is circulating on the net right now

</review>
<review>

Alice Walker possesses a gift that she has continually shared with her readers. In both her fiction  and amp; poetry writing she weaves a web of magnificent beauty, keeping alive the hope that humanity and life is good. Her work comes from a source of profound truth deep within, awakening that part that is within each human being. When I feel disoriented or in need of solace, Alice Walker's writing sings to me as a mother to child. I feel blessed to have discovered her writing, as it has been a gift beyond all others. Her poems rise up as prayers to the Divine  and amp; I am thankful to experience this connection. So thank you, Alice, for sharing your profound gift with us all

</review>
<review>

This book is the biggest piece of literary trash I have seen in a long time. It is a collection of peace-mongering propaganda that seems to take issue with political reality as much as the author does in her own life. The agendas in her poems spoil the spirit of the pieces and make the reader resent the author. The poems are rather sophomoric at best, and are poorly written. Most of them make no sense; you would have to be inside Ms. Walker's head to comprehend her contorted style. It appears that Ms. Walker should re-enroll in a college level poetry class. THIS BOOK IS TRASH. DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS PIECE OF JUNK--I TOOK MY COPY BACK AFTER 24 HOURS

</review>
<review>

As a therapist, I recommend it for relaxed reading.  As an amateur gourmet cook, I consider this book the basic cookbook for any kitchen.  It covers the culinary world of yesterday and today

</review>
<review>

If you want recipes for old fashioned candy and such, this is a good reference.  However recipes have changed radically in the last decade so the use of butter as a main ingredient has gone down in favor.  Also classic American cooking tends to  be fattening and bland.  New cookbooks use fresh ingredients and different methods of adding flavor besides using butter and flour.  However the art of candy making and canning is not as prevelant, so I find this book useful for those aspects.  Unless you are a triathelete though, I wouldn't want to live on the recipes here.  American cuisine has come a long way and the classic Joy of Cooking demonstrates that to a tee

</review>
<review>

My brother owns a very popular restaurant. Award winning in fact.  He has lots of cookbooks he uses in addition to his own or his chef's creations.  Many a time when I asked my brother for a recipe he whispered to me that he got it from The JOY of Cooking.

Now my name is Joy and I love to cook.  Enough of an excuse to buy this book as any. But what version I wondered...  So I searched around and felt that this vintage copy from 1975 was very well received.

In my humble opinion this is THE cookbook to have in one's cookbook library.  I learned a lot about the origins of recipes along with fun anecdotes.  This book really TEACHES as well as lists the ingredients.   And how many books will give you recipes for woodchuck along with hummus?  You name the recipe, it is IN there.  Lots of tried and true plus plenty of recipes new to try.

Now as far as the durability/quality of the book itself.  I wish it were better made.  As far as production values they have cut corners a bit but the quality of the recipes are such that I can let it go I suppose.  Yet it bothers me enough that I gave it four stars instead of five.  I give it five for the recipes and content though.

Am spoiled in that I had assumed there would be some photos of dishes.  Does contain some illustrations but I do love a cookbook which contains pics of the dishes.

This book also contains suggestions for serving and menus for holidays and special occasions.

So for my money, this book is more than worth the cost!

signed

The JOY of Cooking

</review>
<review>

We had Irma's old Joy of Cooking until it fell apart.We  bought what we thought was a reprint of it several years ago.It was not!
I came across the reprint edition on the web and bought it.WE are pleased to get a meaningful cookbook back
Chet Bentley

</review>
<review>

This was a gift to my mother-in-law to replace an old copy that is falling apart...We love the Joy of Cooking, especailly the older editions (I'm not very familiar with the new one yet)...I use it as a reference whenever I'm dealing with some ingedient or process I've never seen/done before. Before I cook I use Joy as a starting point for the basic recipe (proportions, tempurature, length of cooking) and then go from there with my own creation ...this allows me to be crative in the the kitchen.

</review>
<review>

Found recipes dated, layout makes it difficult to use and although some of the how-to is useful, its generally from another era. Bought Gourmet cook book instead

</review>
<review>

This is my second copy of Joy of Cooking.  I had the 70's printing, but it must've gotten lost during a move. I thought I was buying the 80's printing when I recently ordered it from Amazon, but I got another 70's one. But that's fine; It's still the bible. My mother swore by the 1952 Betty Crocker Cookbook, I cook according to Irma Rombauer

</review>
<review>

If you want bad gourmet recipes, then this is your book. The basic information is poor at best, and the "fancy" gourmet recipes are not even good. When I begin to cook a meal, i'll look in the "joy of cooking", get disappointed, and go and find what I want on the internet. The recipes are what you would expect to eat in the early 20th century. This book should have stayed there. I'm sure your grandma loves it though! squid in ink sauce?! for real? c'mon

</review>
<review>

I agree with everyone here, this book is comprehensive, easy to use, probably essential. I have the 1962 version that I inherited from my Mom.  I used to use it when I was a young girl, a teenager, a college student, all through my cooking upbringing. So I'm afraid I treat it like a well-worn pair of shoes, meaning that I mostly turn to sexier books for cooking inspiration--French gourmands, nouvelle superstars, vegetarian California mamas--but when I need the most basic of advice, the Joy of Cooking is always there, dependable, reliable, like Grandma waiting for you with a nice cup of tea and solid, sensible advice. Some of the recipes can be bizarre--I tried the recipe for those french doughnuts like I had in New Orleans, but the result was a strange concoction of boiled water and flour that you spoon into hot fat, nothing like the real thing--and others, like the muffin recipes, tend to be kind of blah.  But on the whole it's a dependable resource with a wide, almost encyclopedic, range. You can always have your flings with the sexier books, and after they break your heart JOC will still be there waiting for you with that cup of tea.

I'm sorry to hear that some of the printings are getting cheap.  I have the hardcover and it's lasted for over 40 years.

</review>
<review>

I bought a paperback edition of this book 20 years ago and it has not stood the test of time well. Pages and entire sections of pages have fallen out, the back cover and last 5 pages are detached and the pages are yellowed. So what am I doing about it? Buying another one, of course! This time, I'm splurging on the hardcover edition which I hope will last longer. It is such a wonderful cookbook with intructions on everything from how to boil water to butchering a turtle for soup. Any cooking question you have will be answered by this book - it is wonderful! I was going to buy the new revised edition, but after reading many reviews on the Amazon website, I decided to heed the advice and stick to the original. Highly recommended cookbook!

</review>
<review>

The "Two New Sciences" are required study at Thomas Aquinas College in California. I and a number of students have this paperback edition. The pages come loose and just keep coming loose as you study the propositions.  Even being very careful with the book, the pages still keep coming out.  I have heard a number of other people complain of this same problem.

Pretty much everyone here knows that the paperback edition falls apart and they only buy it since it is cheaper than the hardback.  I have no idea how the pages hold up on the hardback edition, but I hear that it is better than with the paperback.  So unless you intend to put it in a display case and read it from there, I urge you to skip the paperback version and get the hardback or get another publishing entirely (if such exists) until Wall  and  Emerson gets their act together and republishes this book, fixing the problem.  I rate two stars only because of the greatness of the text itself, subtracting three for the horrible binding.

</review>
<review>

This is a book that describes different African tribes from each letter of the alphabet. This is a great way to teach children about African tribes, and the book also pronounces each tribe so it is easier to read. The illustrations are wonderful and full of detail. This would be a great lesson in the classroom to learn about Africa. It would also be great to use each page as a poster or transparency

</review>
<review>

This is an amazing book, practically one of a kind! The information, illustions, and luster of the indigenous African cultures is beautiful to behold. I recommed introducing young children to cultures and peoples as varied as the come to fully portray to them the true beauty of this creation, life. There is nothing so intricate, so inveloping and powerful as life in this form. Pronounciation is given for the tribes names to bring ease of reading, which is, in fact, very enjoyable

</review>
<review>

"Ashanti to Zulu" presents 26 African tribes, from A to Z, and lets children learn something about the culture and customs of each one.  Aside from being a learning experience, the book is visually eye-popping; the illustrations are so gorgeous you'll want to blow them up and frame them.  The book won a well-deserved Caldecott Medal for the best illustrated children's book of 1977.  It's a great book for helping children to learn about some of the peoples of our least-known populated continent, and the pictures will hold the kids mesmerized.  It's a volume that belongs on every youngsters bookshelf

</review>
<review>

Very motivational with good ideas. It makes you think about what you can do better in your own business

</review>
<review>

Small business owners beyond the start-up phase will want to take a look at Alpha Dogs: How Your Small Business Can Become A Leader Of The Pack: Eight Strategies For Success. Here's a primer on how to stand out - spectacularly - from the crowd in a competitive world, using the allegory of the 'Alpha Dog' to analyze trends and directions. Author Donna Fenn is a contributing editor for Inc. Magazine with over twenty years' experience writing about such trends, so Alpha Dogs comes from the top of the pack. Here eight representative companies which have pursued different and specific strategies for success are profiled, with analysis from real world scenarios offering wisdom from different industries.

</review>
<review>

I picked up "Alpha Dogs" as part of my typical random-reading program, and was amazed. Intensely interesting and packed with great ideas, "Alpha Dogs" is a must both for small-business owners and corporate bigwigs alike. Compiled by Donna Fenn of Inc. Magazine, the book examines eight extraordinary small companies.

In an increasingly confusing business landscape, the companies profiled in this book have all found a way to break away from the pack, not by outsourcing jobs abroad or slashing paychecks, but by such unheard of techniques as stellar customer service, wonderful products, and kindness to employees. The innovations boil down to this: treat employees like gold and they'll work harder (and stay longer), make a great quality product from superior components instead of cheapening your goods, and project a fun and spirited image by being, well, fun and spirited. There's Chris Zane of Zane's Bicycles; thriving in an industry that has been steamrolled by Walmart, Jim Throneburg of THOR-LO socks, beating China at the margins game, and Trish Karter of Dancing Deer Bakery, just plain selling cookies, to the tune of nine million dollars a year. The stories of their success are fascinating; rises, falls, more rises and a whole lot of common sense.

Common sense is really the theme of this book; even though so many of these business owners are doing things unique in their particular industry, their strategies are logical and even obvious-seeming. It's the rest of the business world that's insane. Better yet, we learn from their mistakes, everything thing from the importance of security cameras even in the most bohemian of settings to the dangers of over-elaborate restaurant menus. In these chaotic and depressing economic times "Alpha Dogs" profiles people who made their dreams come true, and did so with integrity and compassion. And some of them even had fun. Now who can't learn from that?

GRADE: B

</review>
<review>

I have just completed ALPHA DOGS, a new book written by Donna Fenn.

Are you in business for yourself or hope to be someday?

The eight case studies Ms. Fenn includes in ALPHA DOGS is pure genius. As a CPA and perhaps the most unique CPA in America, I have lectured many audiences on entrepreneurship. There is not a single book out there I have read and I have read thousands, that entertains and teaches better than ALPHA DOGS.

Follow the life and business journeys of eight diverse subjects such as the owner of a bicycle shop to a woman who created a lifestyle business centered around her ice cream factory and stores to another entrepreneur who developed a nationwide public relations business with clients as well known as 7-Eleven, XM Satellite Radio, Blockbuster and Union Bank of California.

If you think that I might be blowing smoke with my repeated hyperbole, take note that I already have contacted and am pursuing a business relationship with one of the subjects in this book.

If you want to take a course in Entrepreneurial Success 101 and enjoy the reading of every page as you learn the techniques of those who have succeeded wildly matching their passion and purpose, pick up a copy of ALPHA DOGS.

You will want to become an Alpha Dog as well.

I guarantee it.

Steve Tarde CPA
www.stevetarde.com


</review>
<review>

Although a sole proprietor, I found Alpha Dogs to have great relevance to my own business.  I stayed up late at night, taking notes on all the advice I thought would be indispensible.  Ms. Fenn's writing style is wonderfully concise and lively.  I found the case study format to be much more engaging than anything didactic and the summaries at the end of each chapter make it easy to return again and again.  A great book for any entrepreneur, big or small, who aspires to be an alpha dog

</review>
<review>

Then buy this book.  It's engaging, easy to read and provides clear examples of how daring small business owners beat big competitors time after time.  Alpha Dogs is short on theory, long on real world success stories.  If you buy it, you won't need to hire a coach like me -- you can do it on your own!

Jim "Da Coach" Rohrbach
www.SuccessSkills.co

</review>
<review>

It seems like all we hear in the news lately is about outsourcing, the stripping away of defined benefit and retirement plans, and that there are no further opportunities to be found in business unless you are one of the lucky few at the top of a multinational corporation. In the face of such constant bad news, this book is a breath of fresh air.
Alpha Dogs is a result of a quest to find small businesses who have survived at least 10 years and have developed a strong reputation in their communities. This book is a series of case studies on some small businesses whose special qualities helped differentiate them from their competitors, whether it was a new Wal-Mart or a similar small business across town.
For example, you'll read about Dorothy Lane, a Dayton, Ohio grocer that became an upscale grocer modeled after Whole Foods that fought off an assault by Walmart when that chain began to operate grocery stores there in the early 1990's. The owner has succeeded by being committed to service - he once personally went to bone  a leg of lamb at 11:30 at night for a panicked customer who thought she had bought a boneless leg and needed to put it in the oven that night - and also committing to his employees by having 90% of the managers home-grown and having full-time jobs filled by part-timers.
You'll also read about Auction Systems, which uses databases to ferret out relevant customer information. For example, if customers participated in a coin auction, then the staff will call those customers to remind them of upcoming events involving coins. The owner added an audio feed to her website and found that the average time on the site doubled and that site registration grew 416%. For many customers the audio feed made the auction entertainment, so that the business grew into an online community which is what the founder had always envisioned.
Zane's Cycles is an example of "seducing the customer". Also in competition with Walmart, they offer 90 day price protection, and a 30 day return policy regardless of bike's condition. In 2004 ten returned their bikes and upgraded to more expensive models. Some used bikes were sold at discount, but the owner figures they pay for themselves in good will. Once, a customer wanted to rent a couple of mountain bikes for the weekend. Instead, Zane's let them borrow them for free. The customer, an organizational consultant, was so impressed with Zane's generosity that he donated a team training session for Zane's employees. Chasing the quick buck would have gotten the owner $200. Instead he got $1500 to $2000 in free training.
Amy's Ice Creams is an example of staking a hometown claim, deciding to concentrate in Austin and resist expansion into other cities despite the inroads of national chains into their "turf". Amy's distinguishes itself by its sense of fun and theatre and also by being a good local citizen. For example, one store locks in lingering patrons at closing time and makes them all dance "The Time Warp" from the Rocky Horror Picture Show before letting them out. As a result, people will come in at closing just to be part of this. The owner also sponsors one community event a week - whether it be a blood drive, donating ice-cream to an elementary school fundraiser, or sponsoring a charity race. This generates positive buzz and good-will toward the company.
I really found this book very inspirational by showing that the creativity and innovation in America's businesses still start small even now in the 21st century, and that if you are creative, smart, and persistent, with an eye out for customer service you can succeed. Highly recommended

</review>
<review>

Nearly any newscast will talk of big companies that have gotten themselves into really deep troubles. Just this week it was Ford and General Motors. These companies just loved big SUV's because they made so much money on them. But at $3 gasoline --- Well you don't see ads offering big sales on Japanese hybrid automobiles.

This book looks at a series of small companies, nothing with great technology, no super manufacturing sites to be found here. Just a series of small companies that have become the best in their particular business. The companies vary from an ice cream shop to a Harley-Davidson dealership, a US based manufacturer of socks, a local grocery store, a bicycle shop.

The stories of what the owners of these small businesses have done is more helpful to the average small business owner than the big oveall picture of the economy, or what Ford has done, or the latest high-tech trend that most of us are not going to be able to use.

A book that can really help

</review>
<review>

Being recently involved with a national retail dealers association (NARDA, North American Retail Dealers Association), the power of knowledge and motivation has never been made more obvious as the key to success.
"Alpha Dogs" is a dynamic and informative book that is a must read. The examples of successful people in everyday business' proves that the power of knowledge, the will to succeed and daring to be different can be achieved in all types of business and against all odds.
Donna Fenn did a tremendous job translating these real life stories into a formula for success in a variety of business'.
I have already successfully implemented several ideas from "Alpha Dogs"

David Pia
President -Associated Appliance  and  Service Stamford  and  Monroe, CT

Bd.of Directors - North American Retail Dealers Association

</review>
<review>

I read entrepreneurial business books all the time.  It's part of my job because I speak and consult with small business owners who want to turn their businesses into Consumer Destinations.  Sometimes the books I read are theory.  Sometimes they're written by marketing professors who talk a good game, but have never run a business in their lives.  Donna Fenn's book is different.  She found real-life small business successes that any business owner can identify with.  This book is so chocked full of real-life, 'these-really-work' tactics that an entrepreneur can read this book, and immediately apply them.  I also appreciate that Fenn takes you through the life of the businesses she highlights.  She doesn't just hit the high points; she describes the trauma and agony of becoming an Alpha Dog business.  I've already recommended Alpha Dogs to my coaching clients because I know that they'll read the book, and be able to mirror the successes of the businesses in the book.  I don't know if Fenn intended this book to be used this way, but I'd require it in my course, if I was a professor wanting to prepare my students for the real world

</review>
<review>

I picked this book up on a whim and am thankful I did.  The quote that grabbed my attention was on the back cover, "If you can't face one more slab of meat or chicken...[This book]can help."  This book just may have been written with me in mind!  What I like best about this book is that it is informal, light, and is an easy read.  I appreciate that people on any low carb diet could benefit from this book.  I see how this book would help people who are just beginning to diet, or who have fallen off track, however, this was not my case.  I was really just looking for some added motivation.  I did read the chapter about just starting or getting back on track but especially loved the later chapters about continuing success and hidden carbs.  This book left me feeling more knowledgable and charged to continue on my way to a lighter me

</review>
<review>

Once you've fallen off the low carb wagon, getting back on track can seem a daunting task. This book offers a sensible, gradual plan for easing back into the low carb life. It worked to get me successfully into a struggle-free induction when induction was always a major challenge before. The information about hidden carbs, artifical sweeteners, and other challenges low carbers face regularly is also a great asset. I've only tried a few of the included recipes so far, but they've all been very good.

</review>
<review>

The 7-Day Rescue/ Recovery Plan is a valuable addiction to the Hellers' writing, not to mention for the ever-expanding low-carb library. Perhaps the best advice in this book is to work up to your carbs on your "Reward Meal." (Side note: I DESPISE the term "Reward Meal." We are not animals, and we are not being rewarded for anything.) Most carb addicts, when they eat a meal with carbs, tend to head for the carbohydrates first and get sidetracked with the other stuff like protein or fiber. (Hey, that garlic bread just looks more appealing than a salad...) Working toward your carbs gives you a sense of pace and discipline.

My one problem with this book is the following statement: "Did you know that two stalks of broccoli are equal in carbohydrates to a chocolate-covered ice-cream bar?" All together now: can we say SENSATIONALISM! This is utter nonsense, and comments like these are what get the low-carb followers labeled as, shall we say, a short walk from sane. Somebody please tell the Hellers that broccoli is full of fiber (let's not even mention the other nutrients), and that the net carbs are about the same as other low-carb green veggies. What drives me especially crazy is that earlier books (eg., The Carbohydrate Addict's Lifespan Program) place broccoli on the "crave-reducing foods list."  What on earth did broccoli do to offend the Hellers since that time!? In short, broccoli is FAR more nutritious and low-carb than an ice-cream bar.

But the great thing about this diet is that you can have both. This book could be a saving grace for those who cannot long-term on Atkins.

</review>
<review>

I find this new addition to the Heller's body of work in the low carb war a must read. I have used the previous books in the past and found them to quite informative. I lost 20 pounds using the heller's method. Never had I successfully lost weight on any other plan (Carbohydrate Lifespan Program). With the 7 Day Recovery book I found the reason for my stall in weight loss and was back losing within 48 hour. I am Type 2 diabetic and this program immediately lowered my blood sugar levels. If you are interested in the latest info on low carb living purchase this book

</review>
<review>

I bought this book at a yard sale, just out of curiosity. It's been a good long time since I've had an opportunity to read some Marxist propaganda. Doggone it, the Soviet Union crashed and all the fun stopped. The propaganda wars of the 80s were a hoot for while. Between Vladimir Posner and the ever-dwindling, drowning CPUSA, we got a glimpse of a kinder, gentler Marxism. This book reads like something out of People's Daily World. I gave the book two stars for nostalgia value.

I read the book in one sitting and wasn't surprised at the conclusions it drew, that it is all the fault of the nasty capitalists who want only to enslave the beleaguered working class. They bombard us with advertising and like mindless dolts we go out and get ourselves in debt and become slaves to the system. Ultimately, the book is condescending and juvenilizing. Shame on you, authors! Treat your readers as intellectual equals! Typical of hardcore Marxists, you treat your fellow working people as not very bright, needing your divine guidance. It's always strikes me funny how none of these people plan on working in the pencil factory after the revolution.

There are two approaches one can take when confronted with the reality that workplaces have become increasingly toxic. (I agree with that assessment.) We can look to the nasty old government to change its ways or we can look to ourselves to create a living on our own, independent of corporations. I choose the second. Freedom is always the best option.

I recommend Claire Wolfe's "How to Kill the Job Culture Before It Kills You." It addresses these issues in a clever and intelligent manner and proposes reasonable solutions to "wage slavery."




</review>
<review>

Man could Buk write. But could he write. I suppose we are all just posers and pretenders and wanna-bes in his shadow, but Buk is essential reading for anyone interested in studying the craft and art and technique of writing, of, as Buk would say 'laying down the word,' and when it came to it, Buk could do it better than anyone. I've tried to write a passage with as much simplicity and elegance and attitude as he had and failed completely. His sparse prose and mastery of the obvious and attitude all contribute to a unique style in American letters that exemplify the beauty of our language when wielded by a master. Post Office, Hollywood, Factotum and Ham On Rye are MUST reads for any serious student of modern writing. And damned entertaining stories to boot

</review>
<review>

This had to be one of the most enjoyable books I've read in years.  It's actually based on Bukowski's life and the events that lead up to and involve the making of his movie  and quot;Barfly. and quot;  It's totally off the wall, but Bukowski's take on Hollywood's own particular brand of insanity is probably just as true today as it was when Charles Bukowski penned this masterpiece of the absurd.  Definitely a great book from one of my favorite writers.  Highly recommended

</review>
<review>

excellent story about how charles' BARFLY movie came to be. written in all honest candor and the trials an author has to endure throughout the system of getting this complete

</review>
<review>

Although far from Bukowski's best, this is a revealing send-up of what happens when brutal honesty (Buk) interacts with the California entertainment industry. A roman a clef about the making of the independent film Barfly based on Bukowski's life and some of his earlier stories,the book shows Bukowski finally gaining some recognition and acceptance near the end of his career. The movie stars Faye Dunnaway and Hollywood badboy Mickey Rourke who does a good job slurring and walking about with hemorrhoids. Yet it appears from the text that Bukowski would have preferred Sean Penn, who was originally cast in the part, to play him in the film--Penn had more heart. As always with Bukowski, there are real emotions, honest appraisals, and bone-cutting prose--not compromise, pandering, mediocrity, and unfortunately often successful attempts by MSG-dazed writers to pluck the heart strings and collect the cash.In all his books, Bukowski's presence is perhaps the most palpable of any author behind his fictional protagonist. This is, one might argue (and Phillipe Lacoue-Labarthe did, in the Paradox of the Actor), the diametric opposite of actors, whose abilities lie in taking on the personae of others, and consequently losing their own identity in the process. The story is that when Bukowski, although much older, first encountered Arnold Schwazenegger in Hollywood, he had to be restrained from attempting to fight him just for being such an obvious phony. Far from his most testosterone-crazed, drunken bull self here,he does not seduce but does manage as if for old time's sake to pull onto his lap the pretty co-star during a wine-drenched film party. Even and especially when confronted with (and making some money off of) L.A.s billion-dollar dream machine, Bukowski (as alter ego Henry Chinaski) preserves his uncompromising heart and unwavering eye in the face of the ugly truth. A welcome tonic to Hollywood's treacle

</review>
<review>

Buk was right. His take on screwie Hollywood. Funny and true. He was smart to stay clear of  Hollywood's phonies and neurotics (with the exception of writing Barfly for the big screen). See the flick by the way, doubt you'll be disappointed--unless you've got a bit too much starch in your white collar. Buk wrote about blue collar down-and-outers like himself, and did it with a uniqueness and originality all his own

</review>
<review>

This novel by Charles Bukowski is basically the making of the movie Barfly.  All of the people are recognizable even if given not so obvious fictional names.  If you are a lover of Bukowski and a lover of Barfly the movie, this is a five star classic.  If you are a lover of either of the above----it's still a four star, well written work.  I found that this novel exceeds both Pulp and Women, his other known longer works, in both writing style and movement of plot and characters.  Theme wise it takes you to the familiar places that Bukowski often drags you to

</review>
<review>

BARFLY is what first brought Buk into my life, so this thinly veiled fictional account of its making was a joy to read. It's a bit goofy in spots (some of the names Buk came up with to represent the real stars he encountered are ridiculous), but classic Buk nonetheless. Why isn't Buk taught in college English classes yet

</review>
<review>

Dr. Rosenfeld is a very knowledgeable and common sense doctor and I value his opinions

</review>
<review>

I am so well pleased with the information and suggestons in this book that I am back here today to order the same copy to be shipped to my family members in Flordia amd Texas.  Dr Rosenfeld speaks in a language we can ALL understand

</review>
<review>

Thank you Dr. Rosenfeld for your informative articles and books.  You are available to all patients with your informative wisdom and advice.  It is comforting to be able to read your books when illness or uexplained pain occurs.  You are the doctor in the white coat who used to visit patients at home.  Now you and your books are by our bedside to reassure us and inform us of the best medical treatment and advice

</review>
<review>

Dr. Isadore Rosenfeld steps forward to help those of us who may be in the dark concerning health problems, managed health care, or who may be locked into an insurance company that dictates treatment including physicians, and offers straightforward advice and guidance in order to educate patients as to what their rights are and what they should be asking and receiving.  This is an important book for Americans today

</review>
<review>

With all the publicity this book got I thought I would learn something I didn't know.  Very little new in this publication and not worth reading or owning.  Very disappointed

</review>
<review>

Everyone must have this book!  In this era of managed care (managed costs), patients have to be pro-active in order to get the Quality of Care and Appropriate Treatments to ensure their health and well being.  Patients will no longer feel powerless with this book at their fingertips

</review>
<review>

found the research very informative. The book has very elegant style of writingand tons of data. As HR consultant i used the book extensively to educate a number of my colleagues in innovating with hrm policie

</review>
<review>

I am computer professional and i search a job of comput

</review>
<review>

This is a wonderful book for anyone who is curious or who enjoys reading weird, funny, gross, or just plain interesting annecdotes. The guy invested a lot of time in his quest to read the entire encyclopedia, and if this book is the only result of that investment, it was time very well spent. I loved it

</review>
<review>

A fun book; a sort of biography mixed into encyclopedia enteries.  It's hard not to like a book based on random odd facts and, by entwining the events of his life with the entires, A.J. manages to make this as much an auto-biographical novel as a book of odd facts.  Regretably, Jacobs is pretty much a jackass.

</review>
<review>

This book had me laughing out loud from start to finish. Jacobs is clever.  And he seems completely honest and unafraid to write candidly about the sorts of thoughts and feelings that everyone has but few admit.  Well okay, maybe not everyone; maybe just me and him. Anyway, I have trouble imagining any intelligent person not liking this book

</review>
<review>

A plain- old -fashion-just down right-enjoyable book full of twists, turns and laughs!


Reginald V. Johnson, Author, "How To Be Happy, Successful And Rich

</review>
<review>

This is a great book to read right before bed as it is light, easy to follow and profoundly amusing. It cheers you up.

</review>
<review>

I just love books about funny stupid quests.
To date, the British seem to have excelled in this field ( Googlewhack Adventure - Dave Gorman , Shakespeare My B**t! - John Donoghue, etc)
Now though is a book to win back the stupid quest crown for the USA.
Jacobs is hilarious as he trawls through the encyclopedia with constant asides and digressions. Funny and informative? Jacobs succeeds. A fantastic read that will probably do something for the sales of Encyclopedias too

</review>
<review>

A.J. Jacobs journey through the Encyclopedia Brittanica is a very entertaining one, and you may learn a few totally useless things as you go through it.  A good number of books have been written recently about people's quests to do some pretty ridiculous things - cooking your way through Julia Child's MTAOFC, riding the Tour De France route by yourself, reading the entire Encyclopedia Brittanica.  This is definitely one of the best in that genre

</review>
<review>

The Know it All is a laugh-out loud book about a sarcastic New York editor who attempts to read the Encyclopedia Brittanica from A-Z.  Chapters are broken out by letter and topics range from important world history to weird Mensa conventions.  Although the book is set up to go through each volume in order, the author makes the book light and the reader never feels like he/she is plodding along through the alphabet just to get to Z.  What makes the book particularly interesting is the author's journey throughout the year which starts as an almost absurd self-challenge to a deeper contemplation on the value of knowledge.  Highly recommended.

</review>
<review>

As others have pointed out, this book is hard to put down. It contains tons and tons of interesting facts (generally told with the exactly right amount of humor). This in itself isn't what makes it great (there are many great "trivia" books out there). A.J Jacobs' personal tale during his "quest" is really what makes this book stand out so much. He really knows how to mix his personal life with what is being learned through the Britannica.

I honestly would both laugh and cry (well, at least well up a bit) on the same page sometimes. Jacobs was not afraid to be honest on the page, and this truly shows throughout the book; it feels as though he really put himself into this book.

I'm definitely a fact hound and got my fill from this while being vastly entertained by his stories of attempts to spread his knowledge to those around him (which wasn't always appreciated) which made me think of when I do similar things.

I would highly recommend this book

</review>
<review>

i agree with all the other reviewers.
this is a must read!!!!

</review>
<review>

I read this book about 2 years ago so the details have certainly gone in one eye and out the other (As opposed to ears).  But, there is one idea this book told me about conservation. Don't sweat most of the small stuff. Concentrate on the 2 primary causes...everything else flows from that.

**** There are only two things to be  and #34;concerned about and #34; 1) Don't buy more house than you NEED (Not want) and live closer together or in multi-story condos/townhomes, which is related to 2) Don't be so reliant on cars - live closer to work and get educated and involved to  encourage intelligent city design. ****

This all makes sense. Generally speaking (With some additions of my own):

Bigger homes = more stuff (furniture, knick knacks). More stuff = More giant sprawling, ugly superstores (Wal Mart, Home Depot, Target, etc...) with huge fields of asphalt (Low grade crude oil)  parking lots. More giant stores = more consumerism. More consumerism = more slaving away at the job. More slaving = less vacation to get perspective. Less perspective = more belief that stuff is the cure for an  and #34;empty and #34; life.  More stuff = more  and #34;Catching up with the Jones (CUWJ). More CUWJ = more superficiality.  More superficiality = less spirituality (If you didn't get there earlier).

Bigger homes = bigger lawns = more pesticides = ground water contamination. (Oh yeah...more polluting  and #34;high emission and #34; lawn equipment.)

Bigger homes = More sprawl. More sprawl = more cars. More cars = more accidents and time wasted in traffic. More accidents = More danger for children. More danger = more reliance on parents as chauffeurs.

More cars = less non-exercise walking. Less non-exercise walking = weight gain. More weight gain = more time wasted at gym to burn off extra calories from more eating.  More eating = less animals, more grazing / farmland.  Less animals = less appreciation for nature.

Somewhere in there I missed:

- More cars = more greenhouse gases = more global warming =  and #60;fill in blank and #62;
- More cars = more petroleum = more wars =  and #60;fill in blank and #62;
- Bigger homes = more wood required = more forest cutdown = less nature
- More weight gain = less attractive women (In my book anyway).

I could probably go on and on but you get the idea. Someday, if I think hard enough, maybe I will make an entire unbroken chain of connections.

Improvements to this book (Again from recollection - so don't tar and feather me if I'm wrong!) could be more visuals. There were plenty of tables from my recollection, but more visuals like graphs and charts.

I recommend for further reading Car Free Cities by JH Crawford. www.carfree.com ; Many ideas and places to consider visiting. To see for your own eyes that cars are NOT required at all or AS MUCH to live happily and harmoniously - and ideas that you can take to your city planners

</review>
<review>

The Consumer's Guide to Effective Environmental Choices (CGEEC) is perhaps the most useful guidebook ever published for environmentally concerned consumers.  It's divided into two parts:  The first part (82 pages) describes the impact of typical consumer activities in terms of environmental damage and resources consumption.  The second part (pages 83-178) identifies the specific actions consumers (citizens) should take to minimize environmental impact.  Appendix A provides detailed descriptions of the research methods and statistical analysis, while appendix B is a comprehensive list and description of resources for consumers.

The CGEEC eminently useful because it is thorough without being unnecessarily detailed; Brower, et all, describe the overall environmental impact without going in the details of production (which might be interesting, but aren't very useful). In part I, Brower and his colleagues examining various catagories of activities (food consumption, transportation, waste disposal, housing, etc.), describing the environmental impact of specific behavior within each catagory. Precise statistical information is presented in the form of graphs and tables, which makes it easy for readers to reference.  Using part I as a foundation, Part II provides specific actions consumer's should take to minimize environmental impact.  This includes not just how consumer's spend money and use resources, but how citizens can effectively influence government policy.  Boxes within the text provide specific examples of how individuals or small groups of people have had a tangible effect with personal behavior and sociopolitical influence.

The CGEEC is an invaluable resource because it is everything readers would want in a guidebook:  informative, comprehensive, concise, practical, and highly readable.  Another reviewer argued that the authors dismiss certain common consumer practices (specifically the choice of paper vs. plasitic grocery bags), but this exemplifies how useful this book is.  By debunking the perceived importance of such fallacies [the authors reveal that the production and use of paper and plastic bags have comparable (and negligible) environmental impact], this empowers consumers to focus on behavior that is truly significant (diet, transportation, housing, etc.).

The Epilogue of the CGEEC is an essay by Strasser tracing the development of U.S. consumerism from it's origins in the industrial revolution to modernity.  She reveals that public attitude towards consumerism has always been ambivalent.  The conveniences and opportunities are appreciated by some, while others see it as dehumanizing.  This denouement is germane because the argument made by the authors (convincingly) is essentially that the consumer system can be used and shaped in an environmentally (and humanely) responsible way.  The CGEEC shows that we can maintain most of the convenience and comfort afforded by modern society, while minimizing environmental damage.  Consumers have the ability to have a genuine, tangible influence and this book is an invaluable resource for environmentally conscientious citizens

</review>
<review>

This book gave a good in depth history of Osama Bin Laden and his Network of Terror from the late 80's to today. It's definately a good read if your into this kind of stuff

</review>
<review>

This book is very disappointing, as is most of Gunaratna's work on islamist terrorism. It's the sort of stuff governments and many of the public want to hear, ie. bin Laden and AQ are everywhere, responsible for every terrorism attack and all regional terorist groups (such as JI) are AQ franchises - total bollocks. The book lacks solid and verifiable reserach and is written by a "scholar" who spends most of his time doing alarmist media commentary

</review>
<review>

I really enjoyed this book.  I think it's the most detailed I've read.

But right now, I'm reading an advance preview copy of the autobiography of Bin Laden's Sudanese mistress, Kola Boof.  It's called "Diary of a Lost Girl".

It's absolutely fascinating!  This is an entirely different look at OSAMA from the inside and it raises interesting observations on Al Queda.  Kola Boof's a fascinating woman!




</review>
<review>

If you wish to destroy your database or knowledge on Al-Qaeda, buy this book.

The title is a warning in itself. No academic with high profile has ever managed to infiltrate inside `Al-Qaeda', or correctly speaking, the Muslim Brotherhood. It is barely possible to insert any deep cover agents at all, let alone an academic who is fluent in none of their languages, and is obviously not even a Muslim. Hanging off of the coat-tails of policemen is easy enough, but they will not reveal much to an academic who employs sensational, difficult-to-refute revelations to make a living.

Mr. Gunaratna claims to have been the Principle Investigator at the UN Terrorism Prevention Branch (TPB). This is a straightforward lie.
No Investigator positions exist there, or have ever existed. He was only a temporary consultant, and he was not a UN staff member.

The UN TPB is not an anti- or counter-terrorism organisation in any law enforcement sense, but an organisation which employs historians and lawyers to work on International and National legislation against terrorism - laws, no agents.

Mr Gunaratna claims 20 years of policy, operational and academic experience in counter terrorism, in his biography at
http://hlssummit.hawaii.gov/content/aboutthesummit/speakers.htm#Gunaratna

There is nothing to suggest that he ever been involved in counter-terrorism - the proactive, field operations form of anti-terrorism engaged in by some intelligence, security, police and elite army organisations. That said, bear in mind that a cleaner at Langley can truthfully say "I work at the CIA".

Mr Gunaratna has a remarkable but unenviable reputation in law enforcement and intelligence circles. But no-one is going to betray their oath of office or official secrets act to refute or confirm what Mr. Gunaratna asserts, so in the kingdom of the blind (the public domain information on Alqa'ida), the one-eyed man is King, except that he has not the one eye he claims.

To trust this nonsense-mixed-with-truth is to invite self-delusion.

Principle Investigator.....yes, and I am Napoleon Bonaparte

</review>
<review>

Inside Al Qaeda Global network of Terror was one of the most compelling books about Al Qaeda and the new threat of terrorism that I have ever read. The non-bias straightforward writing of Gunaratna brought to light the vastness of terrorism and its reach throughout the world. The book is very concise in the facts and the chapters are very fluid like. If you desire to learn about Al Qaeda and how complex it really is, I recommend this book. Over all an excellent read

</review>
<review>

One of the earliest books on Al-Qaida that offers comprehensive insights into the organization's structure and activities. In terms of explaining the 'what', 'how', 'who' and 'where' behind Al-Qaida's operations, this book is impressive. However, compared with others in the discourse, the book is weak in explaining the 'why' behind the controversial role of Salafism and Al-Qaida's rise using Islam as a battle cry.

Rohan's book is among the first to highlight that Al-Qaida is focusing on Asia as its new theater of operations. The parts on Jemaah Islamiyya, arguably an Al-Qaida ally, is especially enlightening for its time. His readable exploration of Jemaah Islamiyya's operations in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore provides a concise overview of how Southeast Asia is one of the new fronts in the 'war against terror'.

Skeptics have myopically slammed the book citing the reason that Rohan is not an authority on the Middle East or Islam. However, the book is instead mainly about terrorism, and after reading Rohan's engaging book, it becomes clear to the reader that Rohan knows what he is writing about.

</review>
<review>

This is a wonderful daily inspirational book.  Sarah Ban Breathnach does a great job of reminding you of what is important.  It is very easy to lose sight of yourself in all of the day to day activities.  She does an excellant job in jogging your memory.  I highly recommend the book.

</review>
<review>

Simple Abundance is the BEST kind of meditation book - for each day has a lengthy enough message that everyone can find something therein - a positive - to focus on during that day.  This one was a gift I gave to my daughter...and I recommend it to all

</review>
<review>

After being in an abusive relationship for ten years, I had feelings of hopelessness. I had no positive outlook about anything and the thought of a 'future' was slim to none in my eyes. I have always wanted to be a writer, but the misery that I was living in kept me from having a clear mind and my thoughts were jumbled and disoriented. In 1997, my parents bought me Simple Abundance. I read it, reread it, and read it again. I followed Sarah's suggestions and participated in all that she suggested with the wonderful inspiring activites she offered in the book. My book was published in May 2003! I have a wonderful marriage with my 'new' husband and am living my life as it is suppose to be. I am living the life God intended me to live. Thanks to Sarah Banbreathnach for sharing her insights and taking the time to write such a wonderful book that has changed a lot of lives for the better.

</review>
<review>

Sarah Breathnach writes about the simple pleasures in life in such a way that it makes you want to try all the wonderful small joys she speaks about in the book. Even my husband picks it up and reads the daily messages. He comes out with a smile on his face with some kind of comment on the subject matter each day!

</review>
<review>

This book continually gives me encouragement and motivation.  It helps to point out all the good things in life without having to go shopping or changing anything in my life but the way I see things.  I enjoy this book very much and recommend it to anyone looking for inspiration and validation.  The author highlights all the wonderful things in a woman's life, and literally celebrates the fact that we merely exist.  She helps with her terrific sense of humor, and her ability to admit her faults that are not unlike our own.  She reminds us of positive things we have that we may miss in the day-to-dayness of our lives

</review>
<review>

Dip into Simple Abundance by Breathnach for reminders to take care of yourself, your mind and soul.  There is a different essay for each day of the year.  One can read at random, choosing the topic most meaningful for the moment.  Maybe it is "Setting Your Own Pace", "Playing Hooky" or "Quieting the Wants".
When you feel harried and overwhelmed, pause and look at what you are doing.  Don't work harder, longer, more frantically, hoping you will catch up.  Don't let your life become one endless "To Do" list.  Americans are noted for their industriousness.  They are also leaders in heart attack statistics.
Is there time to "stop and smell the roses"?  There is time, but only if you make that a priority.  Maybe this book will help you find time for the important things in your life

</review>
<review>

This book, at first looks like a book of daily wisdoms starting with January 1, but it is also actually teaching woman how to embrace themselves and their value.
I gave up my 10 year career in the professional world almost 5 years ago.  I have a 3 yr. old and 4 1/2 yr. old and I stay at home raising them, while my husband has the career.  So, if this was my dream job 5 years ago, why am I so unsettled now?  This is the type of questions Sarah Breathnach addresses.  What are we looking for in life?  What should we appreciate in our daily lives?  What questions are okay to ask ourselves about our futures?  Let go of the fear and embrace the idea of a new frontier ahead of you. I already bought another of her books because I really enjoy her approach to daily life.

</review>
<review>

I was personally a little confused with the review written by Patty Benson, who claims that Sarah Ban Breathnach is Jewish and that is why she makes so many refrences regarding the Jewish religion. To begin with the author is not Jewish, she was raised Catholic. So the book is full of "Non-Jewish wisdom." Secondly, the book is not about religion which I feel people might assume from the previous review, the book incorporates elements from all religions and searches out the spirtual aspects within each that can be universally appreciated by everyone. And yes sometimes this does include quotes from Jewish mystics. If you're looking for a book that excludes the world at large and focuses on Christianity then perhaps you should read The Purpose Driven Life. If you're looking for a book that embraces the idea of "spirit" and tries to relate it to all walks of life then you should read Simple Abundance.

</review>
<review>

As many people did, I received a copy of "Simple Abundance" as a Christmas present when it was discussed on the Oprah Show a few years ago.  That New Year, I started reading the daily entries.  For the next few years, my New Year's resolution was to daily read the appropriate daily entry.  Even though I looked forward to reading the thoughtful observations, I never seemd to make it through January without missing a day.  Last year, I saw Gail Kasper on TV talking about failed New Year's resolutions and got a copy of her "Make A Decision To Win" CD.  Gail Kasper's personal experience, her systematic approach and workbook have shown me how to have a less stressed-filled life.  I now find the time for reflection and am on my way, as Sarah Ban Breathnach says, "to find the authentic life we were born to live."  I'm ordering both products to give as a present

</review>
<review>

This one of the many pop-up books Robert has out right now. I'd get Alice in Wonderland and/or The Wizard of Oz for your bookshelf. These are really great books to own. The Night Before Christmas is just not as "cool" as the other two books I mentioned above

</review>
<review>

Of all the Robert Sabuda's pop-up books this one is really awesome.  The way the reindeer seem to come out at you is amazing

</review>
<review>

2 WERE ORDERED AND ONE WAS DEFECTIVE. AMAZON SENT A NEW ONE IMMEDIATLEY AND THE DEFECTIOVE ONE WAS RETURNED AT NO CHARGE FOR POSTSGE. NO FURTHER BILLING OR CREDIT

</review>
<review>

Robert Sabuda is a gifted, gifted man. These pop-ups (and the others he's done) are astonishing. My first-grade class literally gasped, oohed and aahed as I turned each new page. They ask me to read the pop-up books at least once a week. And, I read them myself even after the kids have gone home for the day. What a treasure these books are

</review>
<review>

I shared this with my first graders today and all nineteen of them could barely sit still.  It is a beautiful book and the children absolutely loved it.  Robert Sabuda's TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS got the same reactions.  They are amazing books and I highly recommend them to other teachers, even up to third grade.  The children could not wait for me to turn the pages. In 16 years of teaching I've never had books that got reactions like these did!  I'm definitely ordering more.  The kids would never forgive me if I didn't

</review>
<review>

We read this on Christmas eve and my kids love it.  This book is a work of art.  Worth every penny

</review>
<review>

This book is FANTASTIC!!  I bought it for my grandkids and kept it for myself

</review>
<review>

This beautiful book takes an old Christmas favorite and turns it into a book to be treasured for many years.  The striking popout art enhanses the story in a magical way

</review>
<review>

WOW!, This book is a master peice of art and wonder.  I play Santa Claus for enjoyment and the response I received this year was unbeivable from young to old.  Each page would come to life before the audience I would read too.  The breath taking response was overwheling to me.  This book is in a catagory of it's own!  The joy of those who encountered this book every time I would read it, made it worth while EVERY time.  If you buy it, you will NOT be disapointed

</review>
<review>

Clement Moore's "Night Before Christmas" gets an almost origami pop-up treatment engineered to be as sophisticated as it is adorable.  Magically designed, value-priced and thoughtfully executed it is sturdy but it really is "art" and not for very young children without supervision.

One of the best Christmas gifts for '04.

</review>
<review>

Excellent book for anyone interested in working for a nonprofit organization and anyone who will someday want to start one of their own

</review>
<review>

I recomend this book to every new mom. It explains everything that is happening and I knew what to expect before I went to my Dr's appointment. It told me things my doctor didn't.

</review>
<review>

My wife and I receieved this book as a gift when we announced her pregnancy.  It is by far our favorite pregnancy book.  The week-by-week format is perfect for following along with your progress and also makes it nice to read together.  There are even helpful hints for dads along the way.

My wife found that the book answered her questions and concerns as they arose.  Should I be feeling the baby move?  When does morning sickness start?  Is my weight gain normal?  The timing of when this book discusses what is happening to a pregnant woman is good.

What we like best about this book is that the information is up-to-date and, unlike MANY of the pregnancy books out there, it isn't just filled with negativity.  Yes, there are a lot of things that can go wrong and there are things you need to know.  But, this book presents that information in a positive manner and doesn't go overboard.  There is much about pregnancy that is positive and this book celebrates that and is reassuring.  But, it isn't purely platitudes.  It also gives you information to help you when you prepare to see the doctor.  That balance, we have found, is very rare in pregnancy books

</review>
<review>

When I was pregnant my first time, I carried this around everywhere!  I was hungry for knowledge and this seemed to be the only book that I could refer to more frequently than just the month-to-month!  I had wished that there was a day-to-day book, but this came very close to providing me with new information as frequently as possible.  It is a staple of the pregnancy book diet!

Kelly Townsend
Author
Christ Centered Childbirt

</review>
<review>

I absolutely LOVE this book.  I grabbed a pile of books at the bookstore and looked through each one carefully before selecting this one.  It is the only best-selling guide written by a doctor with millions of copies sold.  And I know why now that I own it!!  I don't see the negative like some readers do.  It is written by a doctor, so it provides a lot of info that you'd get by talking with your doctor every day!  So there are things that you should know about even if you don't want to hear it or don't think it will happen to you!  It explains things such as bleeding during pregnancy, some common medications to avoid to prevent birth defects, pollutants to avoid and why, STDS during pregnancy, nutrition and sources/serving sizes, how your actions affect your baby's development (vaccinations, smoking, xray, falling, safety, etc.), possible tests, required tests, lying on your back, rh-sensitivity, douching, sex, backaches, exercise guidelines, air travel, car safety, breastfeeding, pregnancy discomforts (hemmorhoids, constipation, backaches, foot swelling, dizziness, breast itching, cramping, contractions), infections, hot tubs, jaundice...  It really is like having a doctor's advice for each week of your pregnancy.  It relieved alot of the worrying about symptoms I was experiencing, realizing that I was "normal".

It is very exciting to read each week's development and be able to check out the illustration of the baby's actual size and shape, read what I may be expecting (nausea, ultrasounds, testings, baby kicks, belly size, wt. gain).  Every week I sit on the couch and read aloud to hubby and we marvel at all the changes and progress this book explains each week.  Sometimes I even read ahead a few weeks because it reveals so many interesting changes occurring that you couldn't possibly know otherwise.  There are tips provided for each week and common concerns addressed that are very important during each week of pregnancy.  It is an invaluable resource!  I've learned so much from this book, I highly recommend it

</review>
<review>

The greatest strength of this book is the week-by-week format. It outlines specific changes that are pretty close to exactly as predicted. We noticed many of the things and then read them that week, ie. phlegmyness, inability to travel more than an hour and dryness at night just to name a few.  This book is very well balanced and it tends to focuses more on the positives of pregnancy and not the possible complications. This is the 5th Edition of this book with millions of copies sold. Overall it is a great help. I definitely recommend it to all expectant couples. These authors also wrote a number of supporting or complimentary books:
Bouncing Back From Your Pregnancy
Your Pregnancy Journal Week by Week
Your Pregnancy for the Father to Be
Your Pregnancy After 35
Your Pregnancy Questions and Answers
Your Pregnancy Every Woman's Guide
Your Baby's First Year Week by Wee

</review>
<review>

This book is appalling. It is disempowering to women, providing false and very negative information about out of hospital births (with no reference to back it up), and generally gives a "don't worry your pretty little head and do what the doctor tells you" attitude--even if what the doctor tells you will endanger you and your baby.

In spite of what this book says, there are things you can do to minimize tearing (and episiotomies don't heal better than tears, in spite of what the book says), things you can do to improve your chances of a healthy baby without a cesarean or other medical interventions, and so on. Of course there are times these things are needed, but not nearly so often as the book suggests, and it's not nearly so random. It continually cites opinions as facts, without any evidence base.

There are much, much better books out there than this one. Don't subject yourself to the needless anxiety of this book

</review>
<review>

Ok, so there might be some parts that are negative, but really- how cool is it to tell your husband, partner, whatever that "This week the ears will be growing and the baby will be able to start to hear things" or "The baby is now the size of a peanut- look at the scaled drawing in the book of what our baby looks like!"  I think that this is a great book.  Always take things with a grain of salt, but this book rocks.  I buy it for all my friends that are having babies.  Very informative, and the pics are really cool.  I thought this was the BEST book, way better that "what to expect when you are expecting"  yuck!  :

</review>
<review>

I know that no book can cover every topic, but this book left a lot out. It went into great detail about what I should do if I got some pretty rare diseases, but barely touched on the subject of Morning sickness, which is much more common.
And some of the information was just plain wrong. I trashed the book when it made me freak out in the 20th week because I couldn't feel the baby move. It advised that I should call the doctor. When I did, I found out most women don't feel it move until 21 weeks. Unfortunately I found this out after I had cried my eyes out thinking something was wrong.
I would not suggest this book to anyone

</review>
<review>

This book is almost entirely week by week description, so the information is detailed.  I especially liked the Dad Tips that are included with each week.  There is also a tiny section on labor and lists of common events for the first several post partum weeks.  I liked the simple writing style, but I often did not find the extra information for each week relevent to what I was going through at the time.  I prefer You and Your Baby Pregnancy: your ultimate week by week by Dr. Laura Riley

</review>
<review>

We have this and the "bible" of maternity books, "What to Expect When You're Expecting."  But we may have well just thrown the other one away.  This book is great.  Each weeks there is information on how your baby is developing.  Many weeks have illustrations depicting what the baby might look like.  Info on the size and development of the baby and what changes are happening to the mother's body.  There are plenty of facts on things like nutrition and warning signs and symptions of disease.  And my wife's personal favorite was the "Dad Tip" each week.  It really is a well written book.  It doesn't overload you on information but keeps you aware of the mother's changing body and the development of the baby. A must have for any mother or father out there

</review>
<review>

My wife's addiction to the Home Shopping Network was putting a real strain on our savings account.  All the money that we had set aside for our son's community college education was lost after a "Sale of the Century" on commemorative Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles plates.  Instead of buying one plate (like most people), my wife decided to get a 12-piece set (to match the 12-piece set of Bill and Hilary Clinton cutlery, I guess).  Normally, the plates wouldn't be that expensive, but these were the ones with the 14-karat gold border.  The rest, as they say, is history.

After practically begging my boss for a raise (and getting shot down), and being overqualified for a part-time job at the local video rental store, I knew that desperate times called for desperate measures.

I didn't have the guts to be a full-fledged burglar -- not to mention that you can hear my bum knee crack from a mile away -- so I had to find something with a lower level of risk involved.  Since we live in a pretty affluent neighborhood, it made sense to turn to a petty crime like pick pocketing.  After a few failed pocket-picking trial runs during neighborhood block parties, I turned to Eddie Joseph's book, "How to Pick Pockets for Fun and Profit: A Magicians Guide to Pickpocket Magic" for help.

Joseph is a professional magician who uses his mastery of the basic principles of misdirection and sleight-of-hand to teach you the skills you need to be an effective pickpocket.  Before you know it, you'll be removing wallets, watches, and even clothes from your neighbors, family members and strangers without them even noticing.

Within two months, I had lifted enough wallets and jewelry to pay off the hefty bill from the Home Shopping Network.  Later, when my wife heard about the troubles I endured to sustain her habit, she was touched.  It was shortly after this that she finally admitted that she had a problem, and got professional help to curb her wild spending sprees.

While my neighbors no longer invite us to dinner parties, and I'm forced to wear a monitoring device on my ankle for the next 18 months, it was all worth it, because those Prince Charles/Camilla Parker Bowles plates are beautiful.

If you're in need of some quick cash, "How to Pick Pockets for Fun and Profit: A Magicians Guide to Pickpocket Magic" is the book for you

</review>
<review>

I have this book and it is weak as hell.  It doesn't give you anything common sense can't figure out for you.  It doesn't explain anything in great detail enough to help you out at all.  Don't waste your money.  Try trial  and amp; error.  - Shabam the moderately sober fat mac

</review>
<review>

How to Pick Pockets for Fun and Profit : A Magicians Guide to Pickpocket Magic taught me everything i needed to know about the skills of pickpockets

</review>
<review>

Big disappointment.  I expected this book to be hysterical.  Her sense of humor is certainly different!  Very shallow material.
Marty Wurtz
Author of Deceptions and Betrayal

</review>
<review>

This is a very humorous--and should be mandatory--read for anyone over 50!! It's so true. I didn't realize how universal these thoughts on aging are. It's a great Christmas find for all of my friends who have not yet read it. These things must happen to men also--do they care as much as women

</review>
<review>

If you enjoy sharp prose, clever language, and insightful stories about our times, this book is for you -- be you man, woman, child, or monkey! Nice work Nora

</review>
<review>

A few good things, but she's lost her edge AND I find it impossible to identify AT ALL with women who regularly have themselves stitched up here and there, Botoxed, massaged, PT-ed...

Plus I've never made $150,000+ per year so I feel like I live in another cosmos.

Besides, I live in France, where real faces are appreciated.

constance rodrigu

</review>
<review>

Ever since Heartburn (the book) I have been a rabid fan of Ephron's, purchasing and greedily devouring previous books she had written and waiting anxiously for the next.  I Feel Bad About My Neck does not disappoint.  Bring on more.

</review>
<review>

Nora Ephron speaks to the female spirit.  She tells of many of the same problems I have, such as what to do with purses, or what type of purse to wear.  I found the book both informative and entertaining

</review>
<review>

Thank-you Nora Ephron for reminding me that honesty and humor are the best antidotes for sadness and regret

</review>
<review>

This book made me start thinking about my health problems. I would recommend this book

</review>
<review>

Add Nora Ephron to our list of turtleneck icons - Katherine Hepburn and Diane Keaton.  Katherine knew what she was doing. Rarely did we catch a glimpse of her neck.  And Diane made us all proud in "Something's Gotta Give", looking fabulous in all her mock turtles - even when she told Jack to "cut it off".  Nora has hit the nail on the head with this one - from our feelings about purses (and I'm not sure the manufacturers aren't somewhat to blame for our hatred of them - I often picture purse designers howling with glee as they mis-locate inner pockets or leave them out entirely - or put in so many that we walk around the house looking for items to fill them up) to hairstyle frustrations (what does one do with smooth, silky hair that overnight becomes stiff and bristley or starts to grow in the most unlikely places?).  I felt I was reading my own journal most of the time.  She lost me when she delved into the agony and ecstacy of New York apartment ownership and rent controls - but, what the heck, it's good for us ruralites to hear about the the trials of city living.  I loved this book - it's short and a quick read - and the perfect aging girlfriend gift.  Okay, Nora - now, please write another "When Hally Met Sally", "Sleepless in Seattle" or "You've Got Mail".  Meg Ryan is starting to wear turtlenecks, so time's a'wastin'!

</review>
<review>

I've read this book twice now.  The first time I was still using and the second when I quit.  It was a very comprehensive guide and I'm so glad I bought it.  Thanks so much for the help Jerry

</review>
<review>

I've worked with Jerry Dorsman closely, and I wanted to share with you my personal high regards for Jerry Dorsman and his new book  and quot;How to Quit Drugs for Good and quot;.  I was fortunate enough to see Jerry apply many of  the methods he details in his book with real people in real settings.   Jerry is not a one-track thinker and is aware that different strokes work  for different folks.  The purpose of his book is to highlight the whole  spectrum of treatments available for addictions so that the reader can  better select a treatment more suitable to their unique needs.  It is a  comprehensive manual that goes into detail about all drugs, their effects,  and effective treatments and therapies available.  One would do very well  in selecting this book to help themselves or as a manual in helping others  in the field of addictions treatment.  I found his first book  and quot;How to  Quit Drinking Without AA and quot; an essential tool in my own counseling  experiences.  It was so incredibly useful from a concrete treatment  perspective that I referenced it in my own treatment plan development.  I  saw great results, and I stand by that.  That's all I needed to see. Now I  recommend all his books, because he cuts right to the chase without all the  fluff.  When you're in trouble, you don't want to waste time.  You want to  know what to do and how as soon as you can.  This book is not the cure, but  it's the best stepping stone to the cure only you can provide.  Trust me on  this

</review>
<review>

To be honest, I still haven't finished this book.  I keep it next to my bed for when I feel most alone.  Try to keep the amounts I do read to a bare minimum because I never want it to end. This collection of letters  captures so many sides of Buk: his business side, his harsh side; but also  a great deal of his sensitive, sad, depressive-but-loving side, that is  refreshing to see in any man, let alone one with such a weathered face. I  just can't help but Love him

</review>
<review>

This is a wonderful story and is told in such a way that it makes you feel like you're right there in the midst of it.  Beautifully and realistically written, and you don't want to put it down

</review>
<review>

Background
I read Isaac's Storm, by Erik Larson, around 1998. Recently I had occasion to thumb through it again which has prompted this review. Larson covered three killer hurricanes, two killer blizzards and one flash flood.

Galveston and related Hurricanes
My first impression was that anyone who had read this book, about a major hurricane, would never consider riding out such a storm. Larson painted a frightening story of brick homes and brick schools being torn apart by the surging waters.
Isaac Cline was the U. S. Weather Service Chief at Galveston at this time. This book gives much detail on the Galveston storm. This hit the island in September 1900, with very little warning. Indeed it was the arrogance of the U. S. Weather Service in general, and Issac Cline, their station chief for this area, in particular, that essentially preempted any warning. "Cline was one of the 'new men', a scientist who believed he knew all there was to know about the motion of clouds and the behavior of storms." First, the U. S. Weather Service refused to pay any attention to any inputs from Cuba. The U. S. Weather Service had men stationed in Cuba who "said the storm was nothing to worry about." Cuban's "own weather observers, who had pioneered hurricane detection, disagreed." Secondly the U. S. Weather Service insisted that, any storm warning had to come from the Washington office, with absolutely no exceptions. Finally Isaac had the conviction, and public position, that no hurricane could ever hit Galveston, as they would be steered north before reaching as far west as Galveston. With such a position Cline had no motivation to try and influence headquarters.
Larson cited two older hurricanes in his book.
* September 16, 1875 - "The storm raised an immense dome of water and shoved it through Indianola, pushing the waters of the Gulf and Matagorda Bay inland until for 20 miles the back country prairie was an open sea." This storm took 176 lives.
* August 20, 1886 - This storm completed the destruction of Indianola. So many residents were killed that the survivors abandoned the town completely.
In 1891, "in the wake of a tropical storm that Galveston weathered handily" Cline  was asked to appraise the city's vulnerability to extreme weather. Isaac wrote: "The opinion held by some - - - that Galveston at some time will be seriously damaged by some such disturbance is simply an absurd delusion." He made this statement in spite of the fact that the maximum elevation of Galveston Island, at that time, was an almost trivial 8.7 feet above sea level. He made it also in spite of the two killer hurricanes hitting and destroying the town of Indianola, about 150 miles southwest of Galveston on Matagorda Bay.
Cline had a "model" of Gulf hurricanes, namely that no hurricane could ever hit Galveston, as they would be steered north before reaching as far west as Galveston. His "model" of these storms was clearly fatally flawed, or politically influenced, and it resulted in 6,000 to 10,000 deaths.
Larson suggests there was a "scent of boosterism" behind this article, and that he was writing an article that Galveston promoters would be happy to see. Could this have been a harbinger of things to come? Could Cline have been the first government weather scientist to prostitute himself by writing favorable papers on the weather for his sponsors?
Then the storm hit. Both the U. S. Weather Service and Isaac Cline looked very arrogant before the storm, and also in defending their overall performance, after the storm.

Other extreme weather events
Larson also covered two blizzards and one flash flood in his book in this book.
* Hail and flash flood, August 1885 - "a severe downpour near San Angelo, including hailstones the size of ostrich eggs, killed hundreds of cattle and created a flash flood with An escarpment of water that Isaac estimated to be 15 or 20 feet high."
* Blizzard, November 1888 - this surprise blizzard destroyed 150 vessels off New England, and caused the death of 450.
* Blizzard, January 1899 - "this blizzard swept much of the South. Icebergs 10 feet high flowed down the Mississippi past New Orleans." This storm even hit Galveston and piled snow on it's beaches and drove water out of the Bay into the Gulf exposing portions of the bay bottom.

Conclusion
Isaac's Storm shows the incredoble wrath of hurricanes, 105 to 125  years ago. It also depicts the incredible spectrum of extreme weather events, also of the same vintage. All in all a most interesting and rewarding book, one that I would recommend highly.

</review>
<review>

NOT MUCH TO ADD TO THE GREAT REVIEWS I HAVE READ HERE SINCE READING THIS BOOK MYSELF . IF YOU ARE INTRIGUED OR JUST INTERESTED IN MAN AGAINS THE ELEMENTS ( and losing ) THIS IS ONE MORE TO ADD TO YOUR READING MUSTS .
ERIK LARSON DID A SPLENDID JOB IN COMBINING NOT JUST THE STORM OF 1900 BUT, MAKING NOTE OF OTHER STORMS AND EVENTS AROUND THAT TIME.  ALSO HIS ABILITY TO MAKE YOU HAVE THE SENSATION OF ALSO FEELING WHAT SOME OF THE LUCKY SURVIVORS MUST HAVE BEEN GOING THRU AND HAVE WRITTEN ABOUT .
MR. LARSON HAS DONE HIS HOMEWORK. RARE WHEN I SAY " OUTSTANDING JOB " , ABOUT ANY WRITTEN WORK ON HERE . BUT..." OUTSTANDING JOB , MR. LARSON " , SIMPLY OUTSTANDING.
BY THE WAY, IF YOU LIKE THE MORE GROSS SIDE OF HUMAN NATURE, I SUGGEST YOU PICK UP MR. LARSON'S " DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY " . RECOUNTS A SERIAL KILLER OF THE MOST GRUESOME  KIND DURING THE  " CHICAGO'S " 1893  WORLD'S FAIR .

</review>
<review>

Isaac's Storm by Erik Larsen is a compelling read.  It's the story of the events leading up to the 1900 hurricane that devastated Galveston, Texas.  The time was so different.  Today we're starting to see the results of our indiscriminate destruction of the environment in the melting of the polar caps and global warming.  In 1900, meteorologists were of the belief that someday they would be able to control the weather, stop hail, start rain, there was nothing they couldn't do.  And they hoarded their responsibility and priviledge from any who might disagree.  Into this political climate blew a storm that would change not only an entire city, but National Weather Bureau, but especially the people who lived through it.  Larsen does an excellent job of building the timeline by focusing on just a few people to tell the tragedy.  Occasionally he uses the tired technique of ending a chapter on a cliffhanger to heighten and maintain interest.  It's not necessary; the story is powerful enough with cheesy literary devices.  My only other complaint about the book is the lack of photographs.  While it sounds gruesome, pictures of the city before and after the hurricane would help heighten the story.  The Isaac in the title is Isaac Cline, head of the National Weather Bureau at the time who ignored the signs of the city's impending doom and suffered for it personally in many ways.  This is a horrible story that still holds lessons for us today

</review>
<review>

This book does well to explain the anatomy of a hurricane and the damage it can do.  Erik Larson illustrated the stories of so many as if he were right there with them.

</review>
<review>

I must admit that I normally am not drawn to books about natural disasters, yet after seeing a documentary on the Galveston hurricane and finding this book, my curiosity overcame me.  Also, I had recently read and enjoyed Larson's book "The Devil in the White City" and felt certain that he would be a thorough and more than competent narrator to tell this story.  I must also admit that recent natural disasters only heightened my interest in the storm that is considered the deadliest hurricane in history.

On Saturday, September 8, 1900, Galveston, Texas was struck with deadly and intense force by a hurricane; by the time the storm was over, the city lay in unrecognizable shambles, and estimates of the dead would stretch to 10,000 people.  Those who survived the deadly storm were forever haunted by the events that preceded it, the chief one being Isaac Cline.  Cline was a meterologist with the burgeoning (and struggling) Weather Bureau, stationed in Galveston at a time when weather forecasting was still considered a matter of chance rather than science.  It was a time when America prided itself as too powerful and sufficient to worry that any thing, war or weather, could affect its course.  The hurricane that swept through the U.S. at the gates of Galveston would prove them wrong.

Erik Larson has done a tremendous job in recreating the events leading to the storm, and in describing the hurricane itself.  Using first-hand accounts, along with his own imaginings, Larson puts the reader front and center to experience the storm along with its victims.  It is an achingly beautiful picture of destruction centered on one man's pride and another man's folly.  Many often try to rewrite history, to write about themselves after events in order to enhance their image in the eyes of the beholder; Isaac Cline (and his superior) tried to do just that, to magnify the role that they played in the Galveston disaster.  Larson examines all angles and paints a picture of Cline as a man who was haunted for the rest of his days by hurricanes.  This led to groundbreaking research in the field, but also left him forever questioning his actions on that fateful day.  Could more have been done if he had heeded his fears, the signs, the warnings from Cuba?

"Isaac's Storm" is quickly-paced, at times it even reads like a novel, intensifying and quickening as the storm builds to its destructive climax.  Larson's writing is well-researched and so finely crafted that he could draw the attention of the unlikeliest range of readers to his works.  If there is one flaw with "Isaac's Storm" it is the lack of photographs to accompany the horrific happenings, but perhaps Larson's vivid word pictures are enough

</review>
<review>

Overall very interesting and nice historical book even though the POV's shift rather awkwardly and seem disjointed at times.  The book also provides a good narration of the competition between the Cuban and American meteorological services.

The only part that annoys me is the parts of narration that are sensationalist.  A storm is not a living breathing entity and does not have a mind of its own.  Yet the storm of 1900 is constantly described as "having Galveston in its sights" and there is even one point where it is described as "hunting children".  Please Mr. Larson if you ever do a book like this again just still to the facts and the first hand accounts.  That's all any of us really want.

</review>
<review>

It seems that today people are becoming more aware of the danger that hurricanes pose, especially after the Gulf's devestation from Katrina, Wilma, and Rita; the four hurricanes to strike the Florida coast in 2004, and now Cyclone Larry which devestated Northern Queensland, Australia. Hurricanes are becoming a much talked about and even debatable topic of how to prepare, track, and live with these storms that are now on the rise.

The reader's of Isaac's Storm will get a sense that no matter what time period you live in, hurricanes prove to be a great threat if not treated with respect and caution.  This was the deadliest natural disaster to strike the United States. Many people will say this was because it happened over 100 years ago, therefore the technology and warning system was not as advanced, but Katrina proved this to be wrong.

While reading this book I was able to pull many similarities from the Galveston Hurricane and Katrina.  Most of the people to have perished in both hurricanes was due to flooding. Galveston and New Orleans are surrounded by a body of water on both sides.  Although many people did not heed the warning in Galveston (since there was no official warning), Katrina victims had ample warning, and either refused or could not leave the area under certain circumstances.

Erik Lawson gives a very detailed account of what had happened that night on September 8, 1900.  But even before he depicts the magnitute of this atrocity he goes back in time to explain how weather became a science and hurricanes were discovered by man.  After the storm has passed, the author continues to recount the aftermath and the struggle for Galveston to revive itself to it's former glory (it never has).

Isaac's Storm is a fantastic, intereting read for anyone who is interested in weather or life altering events.  If anything, you will gain a new respect for hurricanes and it may prompt you to listen and leave if you ever have to face an evacuation

</review>
<review>

I listened to Isaac's Storm on CD while painting a room, and it made the time fly!  The CD rendition was clearly spoken and had excellent production value.  That said, I also loved the story.  I am a weather-hound, and I enjoyed the detail of the way in which the nation maintained it's weather bureau.  (I had recently read "The Children's Blizzard" and I would consider this as a nice companion book for we weather-hounds.)  The descriptions from survivors was threaded effectively along with a panoramic view of the Galveston tragedy.  I have not read the book, but I found the CD riveting.

</review>
<review>

"Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time,  and  the Deadliest Hurricane in History," Erik Larson, NY, Vintage, 2000  ISBN: 0-375-70827-8, SC, 323/273 pgs., Notes 31 pgs., 7 pg. Biblio, 7 pg. Index, 8" x 5 1/8"

This is author Larson's 3rd. of 4 books,  and  herein he writes with meticulous stype a chronicle of America's most devastating storm, the Galveston 1900 hurricane that caused over 8,000 deaths.  Well-researched, based on archived materials, he inserts masterful fluent prose as he recounts the Galveston affair from viewpoint of resident U.S. Weather Bureau meteorologist, Isaac Cline ( and  family), of an unrecognized storm which defied existing rules  and  pounced upon a busy, bustling city totally unprepared for its near-total devastation: - a storm born, perhaps, of "non-linear dynamics."

The jerky writing manner, at times appearing non sequitur,  actually embellishes his story-telling style.  It orchestrates fervid glimpses of erratic events registering splashes of waves, rising tides, salvos of destructive winds all causing dwellings to be torn  and  made topsy-turvy  and  then submerged whilst families within sought sanctuary in crowed upper rooms knocked asunder, wtih peoples, pets, animals including toad-frogs, snakes all engulfed in rising waters amidst surf  and  cyclonic winds during an otherwise not too unusual, hot-humid Saturday afternoon.

The reader gains considerable insight into those forces of Nature which make up a storm  and  of the reliance people have come to place upon weather forecasting.  Whichever way, "Isaac's Storm" or "Isaac's blunder", it's an excellent read

</review>
<review>

Savagely funny and pointed, Dicker pulls no punches in his crystalization of the walmart juggernaut as it seeks to dominate a retail landscape near you.
Probing both the good and the bad, Dicker manages a balanced account of Walmart and is sensible enough to point out that Walmart, essentially, is a colossal version of the american consumer. It, Walmart, pursues cheap because we the customer want it that way.
Sprinkled with anecdotes, Dicker provides interesting reading for anyone who follows Walmart

</review>
<review>

I will admit right up front that John Dicker has written a clearly biased book against Wal-Mart. He is out to expose all that is bad about Wal-Mart and is reluctant to point out any good things about Wal-Mart (if there even are any). That being said, there are plenty of bad things to write about, and Dicker covers them all. The poor wages, forcing stores on communities that don't want one, foreign sweat shops, putting local small businesses out of business, and practicing censorship by not selling CDs and other items that don't mesh with the "family-friendly" image of Wal-Mart. The quintessential problem with Wal-Mart is that with every charge that is thrown at it, it views the each problem as a public relations matter and think that they need to work on adjusting their image, not their behavior.

In the end, Dicker does briefly play devil's advocate and points out that Wal-Mart provides jobs for poor people (even if they are paid very little) and provides affordable goods in communities where other retailers refuse to go. Dicker suggests that rather than get people to stop shopping at Wal-Mart, we should ask Wal-Mart to be a better company. Easier said than done

</review>
<review>

wal-mart is having a profound effect on our world. this book is intelligent and well written. it's easy to read and very compelling. hopefully it will have a very large audience. keep an open mind. the life you save may be your own

</review>
<review>

Mr. Dicker seems to believe that peppering his text with foul language gives his work an edge. I can't decide if he is just trying to be hip, urbane or if his vocabulary is so limited he has no other option.

If Mr. Dicker considers himself a serious writer, and apparently he does, he should concentrate on holding the readers' attention through solid writing and give up the crass language.

I would not recommend this book for anyone expecting a thoughtful, carefully crafted critique of Wal-mart

</review>
<review>

This book by author/researcher John Dicker criticizes the growing retail domination of the mammoth chain store, Wal-Mart. He argues that it has destroyed, and continues to crush, smaller local companies like Toys 'R Us, Vons, etc. by exploiting workers through very low wages. Dicker presents many credible points throughout his book and lists the various references for his extensive source material.

His argument is chocked full of interesting factual and anecdotal information. At one point Dicker writes, "Wal-Mart employs one of every 115 American workers. If it were a nation-state, it would be one of the world's top twenty economies." Throughout his book, examples such as these validate the premise of Dicker's argument about Wal-Mart's growing power, allowing the reader to become aware of the drastically damaging effects that Wal-Mart creates.

Dicker points out that the ones victimized the most by Wal-Mart are the majority of it's employees. Burdened with low wages and very limited employee benefits, Wal-Mart employees (not to mention those bargain-seeking consumers) perpetuate the growing power of Wal-Mart by doing all of their shopping at the store that offers those low prices. It really is a vicious cycle that only serves to empower the force that keeps them down.

Dicker skillfully addresses the scorching subject of Wal-Mart's power in the American marketplace that has been the fodder for such rampant argument over the years. Dicker's book is an interesting, witty, and very direct analysis of how Wal-Mart out-competed and continues to out-compete local retail stores through their frequent (and well documented) unethical and monopolistic business practices, and how that ultimately effects us all as American consumers.

I have always been aware of the questionable ethical business policies of Wal-Mart, and this book simply provided me with the factual information and examples needed to make a more solid argument against shopping at the behemoth of Wal-Mart. Dicker delivers this information with the wit, humor and tenacity that the subject matter deserves.

My only criticism of this book would be that it did not present any information on some of the more controversial and recent lawsuits against Wal-Mart, including class action lawsuits for racial discrimination and for paying women employees less than their male counterparts. Of course, these are ongoing lawsuits and may have taken place after Dicker wrote this book.

I still highly recommend this book to anyone who is truly interested in finding out why Wal-Mart is bad for American business, and bad for American consumers in general.

Final Grade: B+

</review>
<review>

We don't have a Wal Mart in our area yet ~~ but it's coming soon. I will be honest. I picked this book up out of curiousity. It seems that Wal Mart is everyone's favorite new bashing toy ~~ no matter how many people I know work there. The author has had me intrigued from the first page on.

He gives some interesting history of Sam Walton, the founder of the company. He also gives some history of retail business and how it affects the economy/nation. He interjects sarcastic remarks as well as insightful remarks ~~ he keeps me, the reader, on my toes throughout this book. He presents the facts as I've read throughout the years in the newspapers as well as presenting some interesting tidbits that one wouldn't get from the media.

He makes good points in his arguments. Yes. Wal Mart is a retail giant ~~ one of the largest in the world. Yes. Wal Mart is not paying her employees fairly or with health insurance. Yes. Wal Mart has a high turnover in employees. Yes. Wal Mart has moved into small rural communities and "take away the jobs" and edged out their mom and pop competitors. Yes. Wal Mart is a way of life nowadays for a lot of people. Yes. Wal Mart is cheap.

Wal Mart took advantage of the suburbia mania ~~ when everyone started leaving the downtown and moving to the suburbs, where the malls are. Wal Mart also made the prices lower than the competitors till the competitors all fade away. Wal Mart also practices censorships of certain musical artists, magazines but yet sells guns and religious material in their stores. They have a ready excuse for any complaint and yet doesn't do anything to address the issue at hand.

It is an interesting book ~~ one that has definitely waken me up to what is going on in our country. My husband is an union member and now I am finally starting to understand why the unions are so anti-Wal Mart. And Wal Mart is not the only institution out there guilty of being cheap. But they're the biggest and easiest to point at because the facts are there. The author pointed out that sometimes the truth hurts.

If you're looking for an entertainment reading, I wouldn't pick this one. It's not entertaining. It's a book that keeps you thinking and reading and thinking. It's a book that compels you to action ~~ even if it's just a simple act of not shopping at Wal Mart anymore and supporting the local businesses in your community. This is not your beach book ~~ this is a insightful book on a serious situation facing our country today. It's one that I wish I had read a lot sooner.

1-29-0

</review>
<review>

This book uses the information that is a matter of public record to examine the phenomenon of Wal-Mart.  As the author says early on there are no secret memos revealed or other shocking new information.  Unfortunately this means that there are so many other things he doesn't report.  That being said however, this book is almost too small for what it contains.  He could have easily written a book 3 times the size with a little more in depth work.  The author does jump from one topic to the next pretty quickly so be prepared to keep up.

The only major drawback to this book is the cultural references to Paris Hilton and others that will make the book seem very dated in just a short time.  This is a shame as it's such a bitter wonderful rant against the Evil Empire.

</review>
<review>

This book is the only one of twelve editions that I have read. It is absolutely amazing. Not only does it question our common place world but it bends, strechtes and recreates you mind. I am looking to buy the book so I  can read it all and have the stories at my finger tips. I am also going to  read the next editions. Try one story, you will be hooked

</review>
<review>

This book clearly illustrates the need to be disciplined as an investor.  Unfortunately, as many Americans do not exercise this discipline they will never achieve the potential returns that can be had in the market.  This book should be mandatory for all students to read and study probably at the high school level

</review>
<review>

Stocks for the Long Run: The Definitive Guide to Financial Market Returns and Long-Term Investment Strategies   Jeremy J. Siegel

Stocks for the Long Run makes the most convincing case for long-term stock market investing. Part history book and part finance book, it is brilliant. I want to give this book to my clients who want to put all or most of their money in CDs, bonds and other debt instruments.  Siegel uses historical records to prove that well allocated, diversified stock investments truly are the best way to steadily accumulate wealth over time. His historical narrative also turns what could be just another hard-to-read investment book into a compelling story -- there really is a great deal of drama in the retelling.

If you read this book you will be armed with information to make educated choices about how to invest your hard earned money. Weathering the stock markets ups and downs can be a profound challenge to the uninformed investor. This book provides a perspective that allays some fears and offers cautions as well. Stocks for the Long Run will help you make good investment decisions, and give you confidence in the decisions you make.

James Lange, CPA/Attorney and author of Retire Secure! Pay Taxes Later: The Key to Making Your Money Last as Long as You D

</review>
<review>

When you are done with this book, DO NOT LOAN IT TO ANYBODY.  I lost my first copy when an intern did not return it.  I lost the next copy when a friend gave it to his mom.

Reading this book will give you a better understanding of the financial markets than 99% of the people around you.  If you do not understand any part of the book, skip it and go back later.  For a first book, there is none better.

If you are already knowledgeable, it is still a great read.
-Enjo

</review>
<review>

This is a helpful book for novice investors and those more experienced. The main point he makes is that in the long run, stocks are the safest investment, the best hedge against inflation, better than bonds or money market accounts. This book is very valuable for Siegel's detailed historical research into the long term returns of stocks, and the causes of the big crashes and bull markets. Siegel explains well why interest rates are such an important indicator of market trends. This book is mainly useful for devising an overall strategy to market investing rather than help picking specific stocks. Siegel suggests that a buy and hold strategy is best. Highly recommended.

</review>
<review>

This book did not teach me anything and was a waste of money. page 364:  Principles of Long term investing:  "Chapter 8 shows that among the S and P 500 Index returns, large value stocks have a small edge over large growth stocks."  Now look at Chapter 8.  "Of the 10 largest corporations, only 2  (Exxon Mobile and Citigroup) are value stocks."  duuhhh.  Now I know what to do.  I have a choice of two stocks.  If you already know all there is to know about the stockmarket, buy this book and pat yourself on the back for being so smart. If you know little, it won't add to your knowledge at all

</review>
<review>

There are a lot of books out there that try to tell you how to make money in the stock market.  This one accomplishes something else.  By giving quite a bit of history of market performance and explaining why stocks performed as they did over multiple time periods, Siegel gives the reader a basis for understanding how and why stocks respond to different inputs.

Stocks for the Long Run ends up being a great book to start with for someone who is just beginning to invest in stocks, or for someone who has had a tough go of investing in stocks and is looking to re-ground themselves in the realities of stocks.  Siegel does a very nice job of setting realistic return expectations, showing the power of stocks over the long-term and giving guidance on portfolio construction.

This book doesn't give much guidance at all on how to select individual stocks, but that isn't its intent.  Instead, it makes a compelling argument for the asset class of stocks in general and lets you know what you can expect as a stock investor.

Well-written and a great background for any aspiring stock investor.

</review>
<review>

I read everything that Jeremy writes.  He is simply the best researcher on equity investing alive today.  Every fact in the book is extremely well researched, I imagine helped out by a team of eager finance students at Wharton, the best finance school in the world.  This book gives even novice investors a very readable broad based knowledge set for investing.  It also proves that equities should be the foundation of everyones long term investment portfolio.  His other more recent book The Future for Investors is also a must read.  I have bought both of these books for everyone in my family and have told them if they want to build wealth they will read these books

</review>
<review>

This book seems to be a direct descendant of Edgar Smith's "Common Stocks as Long Term Investments", first published in 1924.

Although the thesis are interesting, please look at my review of Smith's book and be careful. Very careful. After all, it is your hard-earned money

</review>
<review>

Siegel's book is considered the one book, next to Graham's Intelligent Investor, that all serious investors need to read and reread. I count myself a very fortunate investor for having changed my life by reading knowledgeable authors and applying what I learned with the same enthusiasm that I devote to Great Literature and Revolutionary Science.

</review>
<review>

This book is not meant to teach you about investing schemes as much as to validate the old known fact that equity markets beat anything else as an investing vehicle. The book is dedicated to illustrate to readers  the ultimate message "patience is the vertue". Great outline/charts to illustarte stocks advantage against any investment mechanism in the long run. The author also advised readers to implement a definsive style approach by investing in index funds to take advantage of the low managemenr fee and to mimic the broader market which he found to reflect around 12% in the past 200 years.

I got this book as a gift from my broker 5 years ago and have been wiser since.

Strenghts: Great charts. Good Examples. Ecxellent work driving the idea through.
Weaknesses: I have not found any, that's why I called it the best introduction book for investment.

</review>
<review>

The book is an excellant study of small war tactics through Israel's occupation of Lebanon. While I don't agree with the U.S. allied with Israel; this is still an outstanding overview of the way Israel fights its wars.

Lt. Colonel Robert A. Lynn, Florida Guard

</review>
<review>

This is a solid, and lengthy study of the Arab-Israeli conflict.  The reader benefits from the author's inside knowledge of the topic for sure.  That said, this is not a short history of the subject.  Those seeking that will not find it here.  This is primarily a military history.  Those seeking more social and political perspectives will not find too much of that here.  This is basically a chronogical study of the various Arab-Israeli wars from 1948 to the present.  The author does a fine job describing each event in good detail.  His inside knowledge provides an authoritative approach to the subject.  The narrative is also clearly written and easy to read.  There is more than a slight pro-Israeli bias, but it is not distorting.  Herzog credits the Arabs on occasion, and reserves his own political views for the most part.  He is often much harder on Israeli set-backs than he is on the Arabs.  This in itself implies in his bias that more is expected from the IDF than its opponets.  For a comprehenive military history of the Arab-Israeli conflict this is a must read.  Those seeking a more general approach should look elsewhere

</review>
<review>

This book offers a detailed look at the tactical and operational level.  It does not offer much for the strategic level.  Nor does it contain a lot of interviews in the "I was there" mode.  This book tells you what this company/battalion/brigade was doing and why.  I don't think I am ranting if I say the author tilts towards the Israeli view on events.  I read this book exactly for what it offers.  There are other books out there for the "big picture".  I disagree strongly with a previous reviewer who described the book as tedious.  This book can be criticized but not for being tedious.  This is the Israeli version of Mellenthin's Panzer Battles and that is how it should be taken

</review>
<review>

Former Israeli president Chain Herzog's account of the wars/conflicts between The State of Israel and her Arab neighbors is a riveting history. The book covers almost every Israeli military operation from 1948-2004 (this refers to the most recent version updated by former Israeli Intelligence officer Shlomo Gazit).

I personally liked how the book covered the little known conflicts, such as Israel's counter terror raids against PLO bases in Karameh, Jordan and Samu in the West Bank. In addition The book is complete with countless maps and photos. Maps of some battles (such as the Suez raids in the late 60s-early 70s between the Israelis and Egyptians) are incredibly detailed and as far as my own reading of other books can tell me, can't be found in other books.

The book was also quite objective, even comming from one of Israel's former presidents. The only flaw I found in the book was when Herzog claims Gen. Sharon increased fixed defenses 5-7 miles from the Suez Canal, for $500 million (see pg. 220). In reality Ariel Sharon who talks about this in his autobiography, Warrior, actually removed troops and shut down much of the Bar-Lev line. He, like General Patton some 30 years before did not belive in fixed emplacements, and felt they could serve better as small forward observation posts.

This book is perfect for anyone studying the Middle East, Zionism, terrorism, or modern armed conflict. You can't find a better account of Israel's wars in any other book

</review>
<review>

Chaim Herzog(1918-1997) who served as Israel's Ambassador to The
UN was easily my favorite UN ambassador from any country at any time-to the organization I despise;It was Herzog,who I first saw denounce the UN's equation of Zionism-as racism-and more to the point,as an Irishman-whenever I saw him in action,I always figured he would've preferred to line up all the idiots in the UN,take 'em outside and knock 'em out.Aside from that,he was also my favorite,clear speaking guy to listen to;I just  wish he would've done a few fights with Howard Cosell.But he did everything else,including commanding a tank division in WW II,being involved in the capture of Heinrich Himmler,President of Israel-and in this case,the author of possibly the most concise,clear book on the wars between Israel and its neighbors

</review>
<review>

This account of the Wars of Israel from the War of Independence is written with fairness and a real attention to the facts. Herzog can fault Israel, and is aware of mistakes but points out to the essentially defensive character of the Jewish state's major military actions. As a participant in the War of Independence and as the major commentator and in fact ' national spokesman' in the 1967 war he well understands Israeli society from inside. He has great military knowledge and shows this in detailed explanations of the battle. Considering however the tremendous drama of the events involved the work is a bit less humanly moving than it could have been had he written more personally about the major characters involved

</review>
<review>

Mr Herzogs book is a winner.  I have read it several times and find it informative.  He explains in great detail each conflict and also gives us many details of the events that occurred between each conflict.  I recommend this book to anyone interested in gaining a clear understanding of this part of the world

</review>
<review>

After having read HOW TO DEVELOP SELF-CONFIDENCE  and  INFLUENCE PEOPLE  by PUBLIC SPEAKING by Dale Carnegie, I genuinely feel compelled to write a brief review.


First, I found this book to be useful and pratical.  The author provides general principles regarding how to develop self-confidence and improve one's speaking peformance, then provides an illustration of that principle.  In other words, the author is effectively instructing us on how to improve our public speaking peformance, which is critical in so many professions.


Second, this book contains brilliant depth.  In fact, to be forward, I was skeptical I would even find this book useful.  I have provided speeches with nearly 300 people in attendance.  However, when it came to my performance before small groups --say, three to twelve people-- I tended to flounder.  From this book, I learned that I must prepare for my short presentations as I prepare for my more lengthy presentations.  A few quick pointers:  memorize your opening and closing, which I was not doing for my small group presentations;  I was often attempting to "wing" them.  However, subsequently reading this book, my presentations are more effective and have more grace.


Third and in conclusion, the final chapter was somewhat astonishing for me.  I was literally mispronouncing a few words, and I am very grateful for having received instruction and guidance from the author.  For example, I was mispronouncing vIand, antIdote, amEnable, cUlinary, sUpine, lab-o-ra-tory, bev-er-age, Cath-o-lic, choc-o-late, di-a-mond, fo-li-age, gal-ler-y, et al.!  I honestly state with confidence that this little treasure is a "must read" for professionals, particularly those required to speak before small and large audiences.  On a final note, I only wish I had read this book earlier, my life would have been quite easier.


Sincerely,
Clovi

</review>
<review>

I regularly give public talks, and am always looking for ways to improve my speaking and organizational abilities. On a lark, I picked this up from a friend's bookshelf, and simply couldn't put it down, eventually buying my own copy. It isn't only that the author offers highly useful, practical information regarding poise, confidence, and organization, but also writes with a level of skill that is truly rare. I recommend this book not only to burgeoning and expert public speakers alike, but also to writers interested in reading truly masterful prose

</review>
<review>

Very good book.  A page turner chalk full of great ideas

</review>
<review>

This is a very good book.  It kept me very interested and I read it in a few days.  It is full of stories and practical advice on how to speak

</review>
<review>

As one could expect from a expert in human interaction, Dale Carnegie  wrote a clear and concise book on public speaking. The book is very  readable, with loads of  and quot;practical and quot; examples, and with a  fantastic summary after each chapter. I am sure the book can be of help to  the novice as for the expert speaker alike. I gave the book 4 stars,  because in my view only mind blowing books like Carnegie's  and quot;How to Win  Friends and Influence People and quot; deserve the maximum of 5 stars

</review>
<review>

I am very pleased with this book.  Although I have other books that touch upon some of the same topics, The Expert's Guide to the Baby Years contains short chapters that get straight to the point.  Each section is written by an expert in that specific field, so you know that you are getting the best information out there. I highly recommend this book!

</review>
<review>

In this hectic world it is critical to have the most essential information concentrated into a fun and easy to digest form.  Everyone has opinions and advice when it comes to babies, but this book extracts the most valuable pearls of wisdom from the experts whe know best.  I just ordered copies to give as gifts to all of my friends who have young ones or are soon expecting.  Thanks to Samantha Ettus for keeping experts advice coming our way!!!

</review>
<review>

As an expecting first time mom, I have a lot on my mind and this book has helped me think through a lot of those concerns.  The Expert's Guide to the Baby Years has given me fantastic insight into many of the issues I'm facing while pregnant and those I'm sure to face in the coming months and years.  It has been a lot of fun to read all of the topics such as how to "Choose a Name", "Dress Your Baby" and "Nurture Your Marriage."  This beautiful book would be a great gift, as I'm sure every new mom would benefit from and enjoy reading advice from the experts.

</review>
<review>

This slim volume has a some nice features that make up for a lack of illustrations and model photos, including a clever pentagon template, tips for cutting equilateral triangles  and  hexagons, and suggestions for cutting multiple pieces for the projects. I especially enjoyed working with the triangle, simple square, and the spike ball modules, which I used to make solid, satisfying models.  The "triangle edge module" can be used to make a nice tetrahedron or an icosahedron (which helped me see the relationship between that shape and a dodecahedron).  I skipped a couple of spiky models that required glue, but  I was generally very pleased with the book

</review>
<review>

The perfect book to have an adventure with your mind. You travel in this book has you would by closing your eyes and point a finger on a map to see where to go on your next trip. Totally random safe dates with yourself. I keep this book close at hand for the moments when I think I need a little stimulation. Highly recommended.

</review>
<review>

This book is a gem, a pearl for all visual arts aficionados. It intrigues you, it provokes you, it challenges you into seeing - and thinking - from another perspective: sideways. You can't read it - or even peruse it - all in one sitting, but you will find yourself going to it again and again looking for some artistic stimuli and visual intelligence and wit.
The author is a genius

</review>
<review>

Whenever I need to reset my thinking about a particular problem, this is the book I reach for. It is essentially an entire book of prompts to get your mind moving again. I find it an irreplaceable source of inspiration for new ideas.

It is also just fun to open it up, let fall open at a random pages and start reading.

</review>
<review>

The Art of Looking Sideways is fascinating.  A Potpourri of different treasures, from written words to visual art.  After buying a copy used, I was so impressed that I bought seven more new copies, one for each of my adult kids.  I'm sorry I can't describe the book in more detail, but each page is a different detail.  If you want a wealth of ... well, just a wealth--I recommend this book

</review>
<review>

The Art of Looking Sideways [Alan Fletcher] is inspirational, intelligent, invigorating, and stimulating. This book is a collage of witty text, images, metaphors, idioms, paradoxes, and humor.

I believe W. Todd Dominey (a preceding reviewer) said it best:
"The Art of Looking Sideways is an instruction manual of sorts for adults to deconstruct their preconceived belief systems of reality. Readers are encouraged to look, see, explore, turn upside down, rip apart, and to ultimately rebuild that which everyday people believe to be true through a series of word plays, found quotations, paradoxes, and unusual truths. There are no answers. Just questions, and differences of perception."

I use this book as a source of inspiration to regain mental clarity, a right hemisphere brain stimulant if you will.
Five minutes of looking sideways is often the remedy for my worst mind block, leaving me reinvigorated with a fresh perspective. :)

A philosophic question to ponder as you flip through this book: "Which way is up?"

This is an excellent book

</review>
<review>

As an artist and designer I found this to be a most wonderful book. The title is very appropriate. The layout, text and pictures really challenge conventional thinking. The book is huge and not really meant to be read in one sitting so don't try. I just keep mine of the coffee table and pick it up opening it to a random page everytime. I always put it away with a new sense of vision and delight. Highly recommended for everyone. EXCELLENT

</review>
<review>

i bought it for me and it is so amazing that i bought it twice as a gift for my friends!!
you never get bored of this book! you discover something new everyday! it is a REAL GUIDE for looking life sideways!

</review>
<review>


This is a book that anyone interested in design, philosophy or a laugh could not possibly tire of. Witty and intelligent, it is contains a wealth of information, delight and humour. It is jam packed with funny and inspirational quotes, random and interesting facts and philosophies. The design is fun and clever and full of all sorts of visual stimuli. This book will inspire you and make you THINK in a way that could hurt no-one and that you are bound to enjoy. Perhaps my favourite book to date

</review>
<review>

This book is essentially a very inteligent scrapbook.
It is amazingly researched, apparently a lifetimes worth of storing away snippits of information, quotations and facts.

Fantastic to dip into, I keep my copy on a shelf in the bathroom and often find myself staying in there a bit longer than I ought to. And this is the ultimate toilet book. Not challenging but insightful, friendly, very well designed, satisfying, very long (it'll last years of daily use), uplifting and it also atempts to change your perceptions.
Personally, because of this book I now face backwards in trains as the view dosn't race past. It is such small things as this that makes this book enjoyable.

</review>
<review>

This book isn't meant to be read from cover to cover (it's size is already a source of intimidation), but picked up from time to time, to surprise, to inspire, to entertain, to stimulate. A collection so worth the money

</review>
<review>

This book is one of the most comprehensive latin books out.  It has nearly everything a latin student, like me, would need

</review>
<review>

It seems a little presumptuous to comment on this classic, but it would be much easier to use if the section numbers were given at the top of the pages (like keywords in a dictionary). Since every reference in the index is by section number, the page numbers emphasized in the current design are extremely distracting. There is no way to find a section number except by scanning the text. I hope the publisher will read this review and change the design in a future edition

</review>
<review>

This book's low average rating is, unfortunately, a reflection not of its quality, but of the error of a previous reviewer whose mistake was to expect the book to be a basic grammar rather than a reference grammar for more advanced students. Put simply, there is no better Latin reference grammar available in English. If there is, I am not aware of it. This is the only Latin grammar that rivals Smyth's Greek Grammar in its depth and clarity. That said, students should note that this is a thorough descriptive reference grammar, not a grammar meant to teach Latin or to provide the intermediate student with a basic reference. Those seeking a simpler reference more suitable to the intermediate level may benefit from Bennet's grammar of the same title

</review>
<review>

This is one of the great Latin reference grammars.  Where most people fail is in expecting a grammar to be a textbook; case in point, another reviewer compared this to Moreland and Fleischer's _Intensive Latin Course_, which is a fine textbook, but not a reference grammar.  This and similar grammars by Hale  and amp; Buck or Gildersleeve are essential for the advancing student, but should never be approached like a lesson book or be read straight through.  They're called  and quot;reference and quot; grammars because you're meant to  and quot;refer and quot; to them on specific questions of grammar.  Get it?  For the beginning student or for a simpler (albeit less authoritative) treatment, I recommend Bennett's grammar.  But Allen  and amp; Greenough is an excellent, excellent grammar.  When you've gotten a bit further along you may consider adding Woodcock's _New Latin Syntax_

</review>
<review>

I find it much more difficult to navigate this book than, say, Moreland and Fleisher's book of Latin grammar. Furthermore, it's verbosity is frequently difficult to penetrate. The author seems to have an aversion to synthetic explanation, relying instead on an overabundance of examples that serve to clarify little of the readers confusion

</review>
<review>

I used this book when I was writing a thesis on Austen. The chapters are each broken into themes (Money, Class, etc.) for easy reference, and there is an extensive index. The book can be uneven because each chapter is written by a different author. Still, the authors represented are among the most prominent Austen authorities in the world.

</review>
<review>

Look, I knew Nick Belane. This story is real. The characters are real. Anyone who says otherwise is insane or crazy. See, Nick and I drank together back in the day. The book is mostly how it all happened. They left me out because I wanted big money ($25). Bukowski wouldn't pay me so I told him, "Keep my name out of it then, or I'll bust your sack.

</review>
<review>

Still 20 pages to go but this is one of the best bukowski books. Different from all the other novels and full of really strange and unreal things. Or real. I really liked it, shame it's coming to an end so fast

</review>
<review>

I saw a documentary on "Hank" Bukowski, and thought I'd give him a day in court. This was the only work of his available at the library, so this is what I sampled. It's crap. A waste of time. Bukowski's reputation certainly can't rest on this alone. Did he pull an esoteric fast-one, and write this just for the initiated? Maybe. The book still sucks

</review>
<review>

I first picked this up a year ago and didn't like it. I think that's because I'd just read his powerful autobiographical novels Post Office and Ham on Rye and wanted more of the same. Pulp, Bukowski's last novel, was completed shortly before his death in 1994 and is more a work of fantasy--an absurd detective tale written in classic hardboiled private eye style. It's a pageturner, and I'd love to see it turned into a movie. It starts when Lady Death hires private dick Nick Belane to ascertain the identity of someone she thinks is Celine, who has somehow escaped her grasp. Bukowski's Celine is hilarious, a master of the put-down. More clients follow, in the best film noir tradition, but with bizarre and humorous twists. Belane's association with Lady Death proves beneficial a number of times, but it is not without its price. I couldn't put this down and the ending is a gutwrencher. Running gags like Belane's "high" fee ($6 an hour) and his inability to get served in bars without a hassle prove Buk's masterful comic touch, while slice of life digressions take the reader places few writers go. For instance, a space alien laments: "The earth. Smog, murder, the poisoned air, the poisoned water, the poisoned food, the hatred, the hopelessness, everything. The only beautiful thing about the earth is the animals and now they are being killed off, soon they will be gone except for pet rats and race horses. It's so sad, no wonder you drink so much." Dedicated to "bad writing," Pulp is anything but

</review>
<review>

This was Bukowski's last published work before he died. It's an old-fashioned detective novel, or a parody of one, and an allegory about a man getting ready to die. It's clever at best. There are some great one-liners. At worst, it's convoluted and easy. Taken in context of Bukowski's life, it's a big middle finger to all the literary elitism Bukowski despised. But as a stand-alone book, it's little more than its title suggests: pulp. Fluff. And if you're not interested in Bukowski's life, this book has little to offer.

</review>
<review>

Written as he was fighting the illness that would kill him, this is Bukowski's farewell to his readers. As he said elsewhere of his hero Cline, "they ripped his guts out and he made them laugh". And this is what he proceeds to to in Pulp. Portraying himself as a blundering, idiotic detective, he pokes the ultimate fun at his own work as a writer. He hasn't even begun to solve any of the mysteries of life and yet he is about to die a meaningless death (in the allegory, the lease on his office is expiring), surrounded by even worse clowns and failures than he is. Personifications of his earlier selves are also there (the gambling addict mailman, see Post Office) and he resolutely thrashes them in the most poignant self-critique you'll ever find anywhere. Believe it or not, this book is a sublime act of bravery in the face of insurmountable odds

</review>
<review>

This book is a final middle finger to all those who can't see it for what it is. A last footnote to an incredible body of work dedicated to breaking the rules. I thinks its rather entertaining. Way to go old man, I get it

</review>
<review>

First off, before picking up this book I was under the false impression that with old age Bukowski would have lost his edge. I think I felt this way because some one told me once to stick to his earlier works so I did. This was usually the rule of thumb with most of the music I listen to, so I didn't see why it wouldn't apply to books. Anyway, a friend recently gave me a copy and I found myself really enjoying this book a lot. Sure it's not like Women where there's a sex scene every page, but it still is written from the mind of a dirty man. The book is a detective mystery where the dick takes on a bunch of really surreal mysteries that deal with sex, life, and death. He gets most of his work done by doing nothing, and when he's not doing so hot he kills time at the track or the bar which are classic Bukowski settings. I found that this book was surprisingly witty and had a lot of clever little twists throughout it that kepty me thoroughly entertained. When I got to the part where the space aliens were introduced I thought the book would suddenly turn ridiculous, but it didn't. It was really humorous and quite imaginative. All in all, this book ranks right up there w/Post Office and Ham on Rye for me. It's an amazing book, and deserves to be read by any Buck fan

</review>
<review>

Now don't get me wrong, I'm a huge Bukowski fan. Post Office is a great novel and Women is pretty damn good also, but this is just awful. If this was his first ever novel, it would never have been published. Bukowski always writes about how he never got anything into print for 25 years and if it was anything like this then I can believe why. Pulp, is just a very bad book. The story is stupid, the plot is a mess, the characters are dumb. The only good thing about it is it's short. It's a shame to read something so bad from someone I used to love to read. Stay well away from this book, you will only be very disappointed

</review>
<review>

I bought this to give to my boyfriend for his birthday. Thankfully we broke up before it rolled around. What a bonus for me!! This is the best collection of the best comic strip ever written.

</review>
<review>

Calvin  and  Hobbes is far and away the best comic strip ever, and I looked forward to getting this set for quite some time. If it weren't for the problems described below, I'd give this set 5 stars. But, I have several issues with the production quality:

1) The "removable" goop they stick the top label on (under the shrink wrap) stuck to the fabric-like covering on the slip-case and left a spot that won't come off.

2) The books fit very tight in the case, and when I pulled the first one out, the covering of the case was caught on the corner of the book and pulled loose. There was no way to get it out without that happening. It also came loose in other places. This is unacceptable, as it caused permanent damage.

3) The corner of the slip-case was crumpled, even though it was packaged very tightly. This was the fault of the shipper, as it had clearly been dropped. But, one of the books had damaged pages (corners slightly dented and folded over). This couldn't be blamed on the shipper, as it was inside the shrink wrap.

I think I will be sending this set back to be exchanged or refunded.

</review>
<review>

This was a splurge purchase for us and the best hundred bucks or thereabouts we've spent in a long time.  The intro is fascinating and the comics, reproduced full size, rather than the shrunken newspaper versions, are brilliant.  We have no problems getting our son up in the mornings as he relishes the prospect of reading Calvin  and  Hobbes once he is ready for school.  He can't wait for it to snow so that we can fill the yard with Snow Goons.  Go on - go mad and treat yourself

</review>
<review>

Calvin and Hobbes is possibly and arguably the greatest comic strip ever drawn. Their adventures are what every kid has gone through, with all the humor in tact

</review>
<review>

C and H is simply the best comic I've ever read.  I already had 3 anthologies, but this was completely worth it.  The extra stuff in the anthologies (e.g. Calvin turns into and elephant, something under the bed is drooling, etc.) is in here too.  The books are very nice, thick paper, and the original publishing dates are on each page

</review>
<review>

Everyone in my family loves Calvin  and  Hobbes.  My younger son has wanted this collection for a long time so this year on his birthday I bought it for him.  It arrived in perfect condition.  It weighs a TON, and I think that adds to the charm of it.  My son says each book is a "Tome".  He is thrilled.

I would highly recommend this set to anyone who can appreciate the charmimg humor of Calvin  and  Hobbes.  It's a definite keeper

</review>
<review>

I don't understand how a product of this quality and size can be this cheap! I bought it as a gift for my wifes 30th birthday, and she was very happy. Some of the guests at the party showed a lot of greed though.:)

After reading it I can only say that Calvin  and  Hobbes has really stood the test of time well (in a way that some cartoons don't). I guess the arena of parenting and childrens fantasies doesn't change that much, and that Bill Waterson is a man of integrity - he had no need of commenting on current events through his art.

</review>
<review>

It arrived in great condition, and was a timely turnaround as well

</review>
<review>

It's virtually unheard of for a book publisher to treat a comic strip with the sort of reverence demonstrated in The Complete Calvin and Hobbes. Beautifully-arranged and reproduced strips even preserve the context of the daily strip size against the pure white of the paper. Here are three volumes which provide years of reading and re-reading, and a perfect gift for future generations who will never have been exposed to Bill Watterson and his brilliant creations

</review>
<review>

"Free L.A., The Ultimate Free Fun Guide to the City of Angels" contains more free things to do in L.A. than one can count! Over 250 pages of events and attractions are presented with details and contact information (many with websites).

The book begins with monthly Annual Events so you can plan what to do whenever you visit. You'll learn how to attend the January 1 Tournament of Roses Parade for free, complete with parking instructions. On the first two Saturdays in February, your family can enjoy the Pan African Film and Arts Festival Children's Festival at Magic Johnson Theatres. And, in July, there's the Courtyard Kid's Festival at the Japanese American National Museum.

There's another section with Holiday Events, which kicks off with the Chinese New Year's Festival in Chinatown as the first of several New Year's Celebrations. Other holidays which have dedicated sections include Earth Day, Cinco de Mayo, Fourth of July, Halloween and Winter Holidays.

There is also an "Extra Events" section, which features free Concerts, Films, Gardening and more.

The last part of "Free L.A." is entitled "Venues" and includes sections of Free Museums, Museums with Free Days, Botanical Gardens, Historic Places and Nature Centers  and  Preserves.

Finally, you'll find an index listing all the free goodies, both alphabetically and by location. The book is approximately 3  by 8 inches and would easily fit into a tote bag or a purse so you can take it with you as you tour the "City of Angels".


</review>
<review>

...and I loved this book.  Sorry, but a Google is just not the same. This book mentions places I didn't know existed so I would know to Google them!  (LA is a very big place. ) And  it gives nitty-gritty secrets about each (especially the free days!) that many sites don't give.  I keep it on my desktop right along with my writing references.  It's saved me way more than the cost of the book.
---------
Reviewed by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, award-winning author of THIS IS THE PLACE, HARKENING, TRACINGS and THE FRUGAL BOOK PROMOTER: HOW TO DO WHAT YOUR PUBLISHER WON'

</review>
<review>

Very disappointed in this book.  I think one could get more from a google of LA.  Oh well, I guess I expected unusual stuff, given the title

</review>
<review>

Free L.A. is an event guide rather than a travel guide per se, so tourists seeking a broader wealth of information concerning hotels, restaurants, etc. will want to supplement it with a more well-rounded guidebook. Free L.A. is a travel, entertainment and tourist guide especially for the budget-conscious - since all the events, activities, and things to do it lists in the City of Angels are free! Free festivals, museums, historic landmarks, botanical gardens, tours, concerts, art events, films, holiday celebrations and more pack this suprisingly thick little book. Arranged by month and season, each listed event includes an applicable phone number or website, a brief description, parking notes, information on whether the event is kid-friendly or has wheelchair/stroller access, and more. A superb introduction to Los Angeles travel and fun, and also an excellent resource for L.A. natives looking to enjoy themselves.


</review>
<review>

No matter what time of year you decide to go to L.A., there is something fun happening and it might just be free. Most of the events listed in this book are free to the public because they are funded through government grants, corporate sponsorships, non-profit groups and individual donations. If you want, you can make a donation at various locations.

The items in this book are listed from January to December. The dates may be subject to change, so it is advisable to check the website for current information.

Some of the Fun Free Adventures Include:

A LA Harbor Tour that leaves every 20-60 minutes. Take a tour in an open-air tour boat.
Central Avenue Jazz Festival - dine on ethnic cuisine while you listen to music
Summer Concerts in the Park - evenings of music in July and August

There is also information for every interest. If you love gardening, there are many beautiful gardens to visit. You might even enjoy volunteering to help decorate a float for the Tournament of Roses Parade. I saw one of the floats up close and they are pretty amazing. I wondered who had all that time on their hands, and now we know. You can sign up to volunteer through a special website.

Other Interesting Places to Visit:

Frederick's of Hollywood Lingerie Museum
Fall Festival Farmer's Market
Holiday Movie Shorts at Santa Monica Place

This book is filled with free festivals, museums, historic landmarks, botanical gardens, tours, summer fun, concerts, art events, films and holiday events. Each entry features Thomas Guide map coordinates to make finding your free fun much easier.

~TheRebeccaReview.com

</review>
<review>

Thank God someone has finally put together a comprehensive guide of affordable things to do in LA!  As a parent I am always struggling to come up with entertaining (and inexpensive) activities to do with my kids.  This pocket guide is loaded with tons of FREE things to do in LA.  They even have info about parking, directions, stroller accessibility...  It's great!  This has become an essential item in my household.

</review>
<review>

Wow what a book, and what a writer. After i read the books about Mma Ramotswe and her friends i bought this book about the funny dr. von Igelfeld... And I enjoyed it from page one. The absurd problems dr. von Igelfeld is facing, is enjoyable to read and puts a smile on your face while you're reading this book.
I bought this book on CD and that makes it even funnier, with Hugh Laurie reading makes it a funny experience :o

</review>
<review>

In "The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs," Alexander McCall Smith has written a wry and worthy sequel to "Portuguese Irregular Verbs." The humor here is extremely dry, but the results are absolutely delicious.

In this installment Dr. Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld, noted romance philologist and famed author of "Portuguese Irregular Verbs" undertakes many new endeavors and travels. He causes mayhem on farms in Arkansas, where he is inadvertently confused with the author of "Further Studies of Canine Pulmonary Efficiency," Professor Martin Igelfold of the University of Munster. Before his saga is at an end he ends up practicing veterinary medicine without a license, an ill-fated venture that ultimately costs Dr. Detlev Amadeus Unterholzer's dachshund three legs, which are conveniently replaced by wheels. By the end of the book, Walter the sausage dog becomes sanctified by the Coptic church after a misadventure with extreme Christmas implications.

Von Igelfeld also undergoes psychotherapy, which is characteristically unproductive, and lectures to elderly vacationers on a cruise ship on such captivating subjects as "Portuguese, a Deviant Spanish?," and "The Perfect Imperfect." He even manages to insult the Pope in the Vatican library, which leads to a fracas of Papal proportions.

Wherever he goes, peculiar mayhem results with hilarious and frequently unpredictable consequences. The entire book is delightful, although I felt occasionally that the chapter "The Bones of Father Christmas" was a bit on the lengthy side. While I preferred "Portuguese Irregular Verbs," I highly recommend this book

</review>
<review>

von Igelfeld has got to be one of the most pompous and endearing characters that I have ever read.  He has to give a lecture on a subject he knows nothing about and then he goes on a mission for a member of the Coptic Church.

All of the stories are equally hilarious but the part about the sausage dogs (when it finally appears) is as horrifying as it is funny.

Overall-Don't let my bland review turn you off to the book it really is very good.


</review>
<review>

The unlikely adventures of Professor Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld continue in this collection of five stories by Alexander McCall Smith. The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs finds our hero--the renowned author of that philological masterwork Portuguese Irregular Verbs--lecturing on the subject of veterinary medicine at the University of Arkansas ("The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs"), evading man-hungry widows on board a cruise ship ("The Perfect Imperfect"), and hobnobbing with Vatican bigwigs while vacationing in Italy ("The Bones of Father Christmas"). His relationship with his nemesis, Dr Detlev Amadeus Unterholzer (the author of a study on the Portuguese imperfect subjunctive, which is not, however, as fine a piece of scholarship as Igelfeld's own monograph), deepens in the course of these stories, despite Igelfeld's unwonted involvement with sausage dogs and as a direct result of the aforementioned widows.

The situations into which von Igelfeld stumbles in his life can be inherently amusing: McCall Smith's account of Igelfeld's initial encounter with the Pope in the Vatican Library and the fallout from that meeting are well worth the read. But what makes the series so successful is the character of von Igelfeld. He is both oblivious to the perceptions of those around him and imperturbably convinced of his own self worth. His ego and his personal and academic jealousies inform his actions to a great degree. But at the same time there is a redeeming decency to Igelfeld, a sentimentality, that makes him likeable despite his many character flaws.

McCall Smith's von Igelfeld series makes for a good, quietly comic read. Academics in particular will enjoy the author's wry mockery of their world--in which, as Kissinger's famous quip has it, the battles are vicious and the stakes so very small.

Debra Hamel -- author of Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in ancient Greece (Yale University Press, 2003

</review>
<review>

Professor von Igelfeld stumbles upon a series of short adventures, mostly dealing (oddly) with a dachshound.  Of particular fun was the canine surgery.  It was a hoot.  Throughout the stories, his intellectually inferior colleague Unterholzer receives praise that Igelfeld thinks is due to him.  The final episode involves Igelfeld chasing off a swarm of middle aged widows who discover he is the only single man available on a Meditarrean cruise ship.

</review>
<review>

If Alexander McCall Smith had stopped with Mma Romotswe's series, he would have gone far to prove he's a great writer with insight into human nature and a fabulous sense of humor.
This series, however, shows just how great the depth and diversity of his writing is.
These books are absolutely hilarious.  While most of the characters are caricatures, the situations, the humor, and the obvious intelligence that went into writing this series just comes shining through.
A lot of dry humor, but you will find yourself chuckling out loud

</review>
<review>

this book is very funny. my friend let me borrow his copy one day and i fell in love with this book. The jokes are very subtle and lots of times absurd. this book is not for everyone as stated below but is incredibly funny

</review>
<review>

No one should read this book thinking it's part of the Botswana books.  I also recommend that you read Portuguese Irregular Verbs first.  Without that background, the humor here won't work as well.

Professor Doctor Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld (as in "hedge hog field") is a very self-important expert on Portuguese irregular verbs at the Institute of Romance Philology at Regensburg, Germany.  We learned in the prior book that he's also a bit insecure about his position within this field.  At the end of that book, we discovered that he also harbors a disdain for dachshunds ("sausage dogs") as being insufficiently noble (he is a "von" after all).  This dislike only reinforces his low opinion of his colleague, Unterholzer, who owns such a creature.

As this book opens, the good professor finds himself feeling out of sorts because his colleague and friend, Professor Doctor Doctor Florianus Prinzel, will be making a lecture in the United States before von Igelfeld.  Such a blow to his pride is unsupportable, and our professor takes some short cuts to regain precedence in this arena.  That decision leads to some unexpected opportunities to meet new people that may leave you laughing aloud as I was did when I read the first story.

The second story builds on that humor nicely as the professor receives his American host for a visit to Regensburg.  There is a slapstick sequence in this story that had me howling on the floor.

The humor levels of the final three stories are lower and take more time to develop, but they are excellent character studies about how someone who has a superiority complex deals with the mundane bumps in the road.

In On the Couch, our professor deals with a feud between Unterholzer and him . . . while trying to maintain his commitment to truth.

The Bones of Father Christmas is a lengthy story with a delayed punch line that takes the professor back to Italy for an extended visit that puts him in the middle of a Christian controversy that has an unexpected conclusion.

The Perfect Imperfect explores how philology becomes a popular subject aboard a cruise ship when our professor takes over.

Don't take these stories too literally.  They are very exaggerated . . . almost like cartoons in their humor.  If you don't like such broad humor, avoid this book . . . especially if you are a dachshund lover.

I could see this book, however, being made into a pretty hilarious movie starring Steve Martin.




</review>
<review>

Portuguese Irregular Verbs is the setup and The Finer Point of Sausage Dogs is the payoff. You get to know Prof. von Iglefeld and his cronies in the first book, which helps you laugh even more reading about sausage dogs and other absurdities. Of course if you want to laugh out loud, 44 Scotland Street is the model. I had to read most of it out loud on a 1400 mile ferry trip up the coast of Alaska last summer

</review>
<review>

Any author who can make me laugh out loud deserves a medal -- give Alexander McCall Smith at least two! I was giggling through this second book in the "Professor" series. Absurdities galore, wonderfully quirky characters, and adventure after adventure for our darling Herr Dr Professor von Igelsfeld.

</review>
<review>

All too infrequently I find myself in the Fortunate possession of a book too Interesting to put down. "The Fate of the Corps" is one of those books. The other books I've read Regarding the Corps of Discovery's expedition  and c. always left me Wondering what became of the less well-known members. This book tells their Story in a highly Readable and captivating way.

While reading it, I often secretly hoped my Wife would want to go visit her sister in Lar in the Next town so I could have the solitude that Such a book deserves  and c.

This really is a great book - one of those that I was sorry to see end

</review>
<review>

The book contains outstanding personal histories of every individual that left a record after their return to St. Louis. Some of the amazing men include John Colter who left the corps on the return leg after three years with Lewis and Clark to turn back northwest with a small group of trappers. Like George Drouilliard, Colter spends time in the remote country in constant danger from the powerful Blackfeet. Although only one man died on the Lewis and Clark expedition, many of the men that return meet death at the hands of the Indians or natural diseases of that era. George Shannon, loses a leg in a second trip north and becomes quite successful, some like Nathaniel Pryor virtually live with the Indians (Osage) and a few live a very long life like Patrick Gass. Their lives intersect such famous mountain men such as Jedediah Smith, Hugh Glass, young Jim Bridger and the controversial Edward Rose.  The author has done phenomenal research that documents all the Corps participants including the death of Sacagawea, although there is some controversy noted in the Appendix.  Her husband Charbonneau lives a long life that is quite useful, in spite of Lewis' opinion, for others plying the Missouri. Of course Clark's life is well documented and known but Clark did a wonderful job keeping up with the survivors actually maintaining a log on all participants up through the late 1820's. Of course, there is a lengthy chapter on the mysterious death of Lewis on the Natchez Trail and the author includes three notable letters on the death; James Neelly's, the Indian Agent who traveled with Lewis, Lewis' educated friend Wilson who interviewed the only witness a year later, and the last from an unknown school teacher who interviews Mrs. Grinder one last time many years after. Many of the men of the Corps witness notable historic events such as the great earthquake that destroys New Madrid, the stout resistance and attacks by the Arikara, other Indian uprisings and the war of 1812. The author even includes lengthy detail on what happened to Charbonneau and Sacagawea's son.  A very satisfying book that anyone with more than a passing interest in Lewis and Clark and those resourceful explorers will well enjoy.

</review>
<review>

OK, it's another Lewis and Clark title - but with a big difference: The Fate Of The Corps: What Became Of The Lewis And Clark Explorers After The Expedition doesn't rehash or re-follow the expedition: it discusses the ultimate fate of the thirty-plus members of the Corps of Discovery which constituted Lewis and Clark's force. Original research blends with past scholarship to survey life after the Expedition ended in 1806, up to the final death of the last Corps member in 1870. Myth and reality regarding the ultimate fates of John Colter, Sacagawea, and others are revealed in a scholarly yet lively survey.

</review>
<review>

Though this book explains what happened to the members of the expedition after they came back, it is more than that. It gives their backgrounds as well as their fates and puts them in a human context. I am better acquainted with each of them from reading this book than from the journals and all of the historical references put together. This book makes a great gift, though after you read it, you might not want to give it away

</review>
<review>

Don't let the size of the book fool you - just because it doesn't take an encyclopedia sized book to get her ideas across does not mean they aren't profound, easy to internalize, and life changing.

I recently had the pleasure of taking a seminar on the Well-Ordered Home taught by Ms. Kendall-Tackett at a La Leche League conference and I was so impressed I ordered the book the next day.

It's not too simple to be true - this little book can help you get your home in order so you can spend more time enjoying life

</review>
<review>

As a psychologist, researcher and lecturer  the author shares
that she has cleaned homes for money while in school and that she faced firsthand the downside of being disorganized after her second child was born. So she's been there done that and knows what works. I appreciate her honesty, or the whole 'been there done that' attitude.

Her 4 key principles for household organization are Start where you are and don't make change a prerequisite for organization. Start where you are and work with the strengths you have. Have what you need. As a culture, we are inundated with stuff. Yet often we don't have what we need to work well. Use Active Storage. Active storage she notes means keeping things you use frequently in accessible areas.  And Get Rid of Clutter. Because clutter she notes creates stress and make every job more difficult.

She lays out some helpful and workable suggestions in Part 2 titled Organization Begins in Your Mind where she shows traps to avoid like Perfectionism. Because as she notes perfectionists put things off until they can do them 'perfectly,' but also perfect doesn't exist so things never get done.  The All Or Nothing Thinking where one thinks that if they cannot do everything NOW then they wont even start.  Or Feeling that domestic work is not worth our time, because its deemed beneath smart people.  When in fact a smart person will see the value in being organized and how it brings order and more free time to our lives.

Chapters 13, 14 deal very well with having the simplest yet best cleaning tools for cleaning home and laundry. Chapter 15 and 16 deal with an efficient but rightly stocked kitchen and pantry.  To some her advise will seem to common sense, but having watched my share of friends kitchens and television shows dedicated to getting organized I know that common sense is a lost art to many, and being reminded to only have a few knives that one uses for the right task, and dumping the rest is sage advise.

Personally I was surprised and pleased to see Chapter 19 Order to Go where she notes for women 'Women carry around a lot of junk and often end up with a purse the size of a battleship.'  Few if ANY books on decluttering or getting organzied ever deal with the #1 (in my opinion) problem for women which is their purse.

Personally I have a small, very small purse that is more like a passport purse since it can carry my money, credit card, cell phone. Its my belief that when we allow ourselves to get trapped in a big purse that we send a message to our family members that they need not plan better, since Mom will probably have what they need.  You can keep as the author notes, items like a first aid kit, Power Bars, tablet and pen etc in the car when you need them. No need to carry a mini home with you.

The book is choked full of valuable information, and as someone who owns dozens of books on downsizing, decluttering, simple living, I am picky about recommending books on the subject since the last need someone needs who is wanting to declutter is useless books on the subject

</review>
<review>

I have several home organization and storage books, but this is the only one that I have actually read cover to cover.  At first, when I got it, it was smaller than I was imagining and it had no pictures, so I thought I wouldn't like it.  I was wrong!  It gives ideas that make you maintain an organized house without much effort, once the initial setup of the suggested organizing ideas and techniques is in place.  This book confirmed some of the things I was already doing that worked, it gave me new ideas and it helped me refine some that I already had in place.  A quick and easy read and definitely suggested

</review>
<review>

I found Kathy Kendall-Tackett's book, The Well-Ordered Home an extremely helpful,easy-read book.  I don't have hours of spare time to read lengthy diatribes that I can't remember five minutes after putting the book down.  I prefer the two-pages-a-read kind of book, with common sense advice that I can apply the minute I stop reading, even at the midnight hour.  This book is that kind of helpful tool.  It's so much easier to follow someone who has been there and blazed the trail.  Kathy leads me by the hand and gives me practical ways to get the job done in sprints as well as long distance runs.  She anticipates my excuses for not tackling a job and addresses them before I whine them forth.  As I finished each chapter, I said,  and quot;I can do that! and quot;  And I did . . . well, except for the garment groomer and lint roller.  Think I can get it at Walmart?  Thanks, Kathy!

</review>
<review>

This book has become a permanent fixture at the breakfast spot on my kitchen table.  It could easily be titled  and quot;How to Eat an Elephant. and quot;  Every few days, I open to a different page and find out how to make my life sane.  The author has done a great job of helping me approach very difficult household tasks and become good at them.  This is after all another skill those of us who are not obsessively compulsive need to learn in order to survive life on the edge!  So far her ideas have gone down better and have saved me real time and real money by not having to re-buy what I know I have already bought but can't couldn't find if you had a gun to my head!  Her writing style is crisp and light and she approaches the negative emotion of why these tasks are so distasteful.  As you read you feel she is right there at your kitchen table to help you through the tough spots.  Enjoy

</review>
<review>

For all the women of my generation who are confused and frustrated by the millions of options and pitfalls involved in combining career, family and self, this book is a strong answer to those questions.  Peters writes clearly and well about the encouraging possibility that we can do everything we want without sacrificing ourselves, our families, or our careers.  Sound impossible?  That's because we've been brainwashed by the generations before us to believe that we must either be workaholics or stay-at-home mom.  Thanks to Peters, we can now remember that there is a balance between them

</review>
<review>

I loved this book  Could not put it down. A terrific book with wonderful characters.  A blend of suspense and romance. Another gem.
Thank you Debbie, you never fail to entertain

</review>
<review>

I bought the book because I enjoy evrything that Debbie Macomber writes.I like her style of writing and was not dissapointed in this book.I would also recommend her knitting club books

</review>
<review>

I deal with the aging population, an aging mother, and love gardening which is why I was immedialtly drawn to this book. Very realistic and heartwarming. Susannah finds herself "sandwiched" in between her aging mother and her young inexpirenced daughter who knows it all. She tried to deal with the emotions alone of moving her mother into assisted living, feelings she had with her father who dies before she had dealt with unresolved issues from her own childhood, and her daughter also who is dealing with some similar issues. Susannah re-developes friendships from her childhood, discovers "lost" love and respect for her parents.  I felt the ending was done very quickly and could have been finished with a little more information as she had given throughout the book.

</review>
<review>

I was HORRIBLY disappointed in this book. I look forward to Debbie Macomber books because she has a gift for presenting everyday problems of likeable people and allowing these people to solve them realistically.

Not this time. Chrissie was a pain in the neck, and the way Susannah handled her relationship with her daughter (allowing her to whine and blackmail her) almost forced me to stop listening to the book in the mddle. Her mother's sudden change of heart concerning her move to assisted living was almost laughable, except that this is a very real problem among people of my generation and I would have liked to have read a little more believable solution.

There is hope, however. Susannah is buying a flower shop on Blossom Street in Seattle. Could it be that she and Lydia Hoffman (The Shop on Blossom Street and A Good Yarn) will meet and appear together in a future publication? If so, I hope it's better than Susannah's Garden

</review>
<review>

Never having read Macomber before, I picked up Susannah with interest, hoping to discover the secret of her popularity. While the premise of this book is a promising one, it never reached it's potential. Susannah as a character is oh so nice, and for a woman in her 50's, remarkably impetuous and self-absorbed. Her husband Joe is incredibly mild mannered and forebearing, and daughter Chrissy, evidently meant to be charmingly naive and innocent, comes across as petulant and spoiled. As so often happens with writers who turn out book after book, Macomber annoyingly depends too much on favorite phrases (e.g., he "wound his arm around her waist"). Less than halfway through this story, its central "mystery" became transparently predictable, and in the final 30 pages, all the pieces fell conveniently into their happy ending places.
On the positive side, Macomber did a terrific job portraying the insidiousness of Alzheimer's. Perhaps her earlier novels are more skillfully written

</review>
<review>

Susannah Nelson isn't happy. She's tired of teaching, frustrated with her daughter's refusal to be more responsible about her life, worried about her aging mother, and now she's having dreams about her high school boyfriend--dreams she definitely can't share with her husband of twenty-five years. When she learns that her mother is having problems, she drops everything and heads from Seattle to Colville, in eastern Washington--only to find that her mother has lost weight, is having problems with her memory, and has been visited by her long-dead husband.

Susannah never got over her anger at her father for sending her away to boarding school, breaking up her romance with Jake. When Susannah's daughter visits and quickly falls for the neighborhood bad-boy, Susannah doesn't initially recognize that she's echoing her father's behavior, putting her relationship on the same destructive path that she took with her own father. Susannah's mother, Vivian, refuses to see any problems in her own life and resists the idea of moving into an assisted living center--until her dead husband tells her he approves. Meanwhile, Susannah renews her friendship with Carolyn, now owner of the local mill and the town's largest employer. Carolyn has long been divorced and is fighting a totally inappropriate reaction to a man who admits to being a drifter.

Susannah's story reflects the life of many women caught in the middle. On the one hand, aging parents are an increasing concern. On the other, children who are really old enough to be taking care of themselves refuse to accept responsibility and act as if 'fun' were the sole purpose of life. It seems that everything Susannah does only makes things worse. When she spots her daughter's new boyfriend kissing another woman, she tries to warn her daughter--only to have her threaten to turn away. Her mother is equally angry when Susannah recognizes that she needs assisted living, that her growing disorientation and weakness puts her in danger.

Author Debbie Macomber adds a bit of suspense. Someone is breaking into Vivian's home and stealing useless trinkets. Jake's old girlfriend, the girlfriend he had before Susannah, claims she's still in touch with him. And Susannah learns a horrible secret about her father's past. He paid five thousand dollars to Jake's father--and continued to make large withdrawals in cash for years. Could he have been supporting a mistress?

Debbie Macomber is a powerful writer who involves readers in her characters' lives. Susannah makes an interesting protagonist because she seems intent on rushing to destruction. Her dreams of her high school boyfriend threaten to destroy a marriage of twenty-five years. It's too late for her to recover from her over-the-top anger at her late father, but she can't seem to prevent herself from following the same destructive path with her daughter. Her impatience with her mother further alienates her from everyone who is most important to her.

It's hard to put down a Debbie Macomber book and SUSANNAH'S GARDEN is no exception. I didn't especially like Susannah. She was too quick to judge others, too blind to her own flaws. But these very flaws were what makes her an interesting character. The end of the story left several important moral questions unanswered. Was Susannah's husband right in insisting that Susannah not complete her promise to Troy? Is Carolyn's solution to the dilemma created by Dave the wanderer correct? Rather than wrapping things up neatly, Macomber chose to leave these questions to the reader--perhaps recognizing that some problems don't have easy answers and that real people have to make choices without the certainty of absolute moral correctness

</review>
<review>

This book hits home for me as my mom has been in a nursing home for seven years.  Ms. Macomber has hit the nail on the head as the role reversal scenes play themselves out.  I hope those who will be going through that phase of life will take notes and be prepared for it.  It's not an easy task but it a rewarding one.  Thank you, Ms. Macomber

</review>
<review>

This book was easy enough to read, it just wasn't what I expected from Quindlen.  I usually find her writing style and her way of thinking about things so captivating, in this book I really did not find either of those traits to stand out.  The back-and-forth from current day to the past was somewhat confusing, and sometimes I was in the middle of a paragraph before I realized this paragraph was a jump to the past, whereas the previous paragraph was present time.  Although I got used to that writing style, I always found it annoying.  The storyline itself never sold me either: a typical, young "sew-your-wild-oats" boy finds a baby and decides to keep it and is the "perfect" father. I just did not find such an occurrence likely.  And, as a mother myself, all the times he either left the newborn alone or took it with him while he labored on the land just made me squirm. Anyway the whole story seemed far-fetched and disjointed to me, and a disappointment especially since I have been a Quindlen fan for many, many years

</review>
<review>

I too just loved this book!  I wasn't expecting such beautiful prose from Anna Quindlan.  This is my first venture into her novels.  I am mostly familiar with her Newsweek writings.
She wrote this story with such a tender perspective of a woman Lydia Blessing in her eighties who lived through all the stages of life...young to very old.  Then as it seems by some miracle there came a change in her life with the hiring of a good man.  A young and well intentioned fella who finds a baby left on her property.  The baby, a little girl, is the center of love and hope within this story.  Skip's love for her and awe in the newness of her life unfolding to the world all about her creates a ripple effect in his own world.  I think Anna  Quindlan gives light to the notion that we all rescue each other every day in many ways.  Love is within us and all around us as we help, rescue, stumble, forgive, and make right each day.


</review>
<review>

In BLESSINGS, Anna Quindlen gives us a wonderful read. It's the story of two very different people, Lydia Blessing and Skip Cuddy. Lydia is a wealthy and difficult elderly woman who hires Skip as a handyman on her estate. She seems to have had it all, but actually her life has been filled with disappointments.  Skip lives over the garage on the estate and is a hard worker. Mrs. Blessing constantly watches him as he moves around her property.  Because she doesn't really trust anyone, she uses binoculars to make sure he does his chores and keeps busy. He is aware of her spying, but doesn't hold it against her.

Skip is a likeable guy, but he has had little guidance from his family. His poor judgment showed up when an old friend tricked and betrayed him and Skip landed in jail for a few months. Because he wants to make a go of the new job, he attempts to avoid his old friends All is going well until Skip finds an abandoned new born baby that he secretly keeps without telling a soul.  He wants the child that he names, Faith, to have the parental love and care that he lacked throughout his life.

BLESSINGS is about disappointment, love, bad judgment, secrets, betrayal and mostly, second chances. Anna Quindlen has a wonderful way with words and her lovely prose takes the reader directly to the heart of the story.

</review>
<review>

Loved it. Highly suggest it. Couldn't put it down

</review>
<review>

Blessings is one of those rare novels which takes a single-word title into seven-dimensions of meaning in a delightful story about family love.

Before introducing the story, let me outline the "blessings" references to help you appreciate the subtleties of this book.

1.  Blessings is a place, the country home of the Blessing family.

2.  The Blessings are a family that has had its ups and downs and sees its extinction coming.

3.  Blessings are those gifts that we receive from God every day that we take for granted . . . like our families, the beauties of nature around us and our health.

4.  Blessings occur when a new child is born . . . something we often call a blessed event.

5.  Blessings are ours when others show love and appreciation for us.

6.  Blessings can move us to live a better life when we are inspired to turn to goodness.

As the story begins, an unwed couple is sneaking up at night on Blessings, the home of 80 year-old Lydia Blessing.  Startled by a security light, the father takes their baby to the bottom of the stairs to the garage apartment rather than the main house.  There, handyman Skip Cuddy discovers the little girl and takes her in.  He finds himself totally charmed and challenged by this baby.

Soon, Lydia Blessing realizes that Skip is parenting a baby alone and agrees to help him tend Faith.  From that awkward beginning a strong bond develops among the three of them.

Strengthened by this chance to nurture Faith, Skip and Lydia discover new depths of love, understanding and respect in one another.  How well will these bonds endure when the world's expectations and perceptions intervene?  The answer to that question is what makes this a grand story.

Many will be disappointed with the story's ending, finding the transcendent focus of the conclusion to be unsatisfyingly spiritual . . . rather than tangible.

For me, the book's main weakness was a tendency to over draw characters and situations which made the story clearer . . . but less convincing.  If you read it more like you would a fable, you will undoubtedly rate the book as a five-star effort.




</review>
<review>

The book was very well writtem with great information on the amazing economy of China. The book is a must read for anyone interested in business or economy fields.

</review>
<review>

This book is similar to China Shakes the World, although the latter is better written - which is also why China Shakes the World has won the 2006 FT/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award.

So, if you are a general reader and want to understand how China is and will be impacting the rest of the world, read China Inc, which, I would say, contains a bigger amount of information than China Shakes the World (which is more entertaining because it does the job largely through stories).

If you are a business person and want to understand how to succeed in China, however, I would recommend Dr Wei Wang's The China Executive: Marrying Western and Chinese Strengths to Generate Profitability from Your Investment in China. I have found that The China Executive is simply the best book in this field and, with it, I am not puzzled by China any more

</review>
<review>

On this side of the Pacific, we are seized every 20 years with a sublime terror, as we watch the rise of another monster in the East.  In the land of rising suns, tigers and dragons, the Dragon is on the rise and, it seems, will remain so throughout the next century.

The "revolution against the Revolution" of course refers to the entreprenerial and state power of the Chinese economy working in tandem to dismantle the Communist edifice in Red China.  So far, it is a peaceful revolution weaving its way invisibly into the fabric of our global economy.  Every family in America knows that China's influence has been beneficial to our standard of living.  Although we complain about the rising oil prices caused by China's hunger for oil, we don't complain about the cheap clothes we buy at the Gap, the cheap, but beautiful furniture we buy at Pottery Barn, or the million-dollar houses we can afford thanks to low mortgage interest rates (due to China buying our Treasuries).

This revolution will not be televised, because the MSM has no way of tracking it in gross visual images or commenting on it without resorting to over-the-top scare tactics.  Fishman's book is not a nuanced book -- he does overstate his point once too many points -- but it does alert us to the amorality of it all.  China produces in large quantities, while we consume in large quantities.  We may not "feel" it, but this cycle of supply and demand is having a profound effect on our way of life.  It can end badly for us. Fishman seems to say: Don't blame China, unless we are willing to look honestly at our own behavior.
Highly recommended, and well-written book!

</review>
<review>

For those that are avid readers of journalistic works such as this one, you would absolutely enjoy every moment rummaging through the pages.  Statistics are provided but never to the point of being too dry and too boring for the readers to read through.  The writer endeavours to shed lights for us ramifications of China and its muscle power.  Instead of branding China as a villain, we need to understand that without support from purchasers who are looking for the cheapest bargains, China wouldn't be where it is now.  Wal-Mart is covered in detail.  The writer gives us a projection that if car manufacturing industry is heading the same direction of products manufacturing, it's only a matter of time before prices for cars would plummet quite considerably in the future when China has perfected its manufacturing bases just as Japan and South Korea had done before it.  Then, there's another discussion about the shifting of population from countryside into urban centres where manufacturing bases are located, and how China is able to sustain the supply of cheap labour.  China's progress isn't simply detrimental to other countries.  On contrary, it benefits them as well.  For example, Australia is having a boom right now due to exportation of natural resources to China.  With increase of living standard in China, Chinese needs more nutritious food.  As China couldn't provide enough, United States particularly the Middle States are enjoying a boom in supplying food to the Middle Kingdom.  Then, there are also discussions about other foreign powers keeping United States in check by siding with China, and also the love and hate relationship between USA and China of controlling the currencies so as to keep the interest rates at an attractive rate to facilitate growth in China and so forth.  Whilst nobody knows for certain the exact figures of information provided (since China has this tendency to manipulate figures since the beginning of time), suffice to say that the book explains how the mechanism works and allowing us to have an insight of how international trade ticks.  Yes, some reviewers are fastidious and highly critical of figures provided by the writer but ultimately, I think they are missing the points.  What's crucial from this book is that we need to understand better about China and learning how to work alongside it in order to share the gains it would garner over the years to come.  Highly recommended

</review>
<review>

This books offers a comprehensive overview of the China vs. World (Western / industrialized hemisphere) dynamics. Fishman intentionally does not get into the guessing game of Middle East/India factors in the equation but offers global trends that are relevant to everyone who is curious about the business world around them. What does it mean if a small fraction of Chinese can, or are willing, to do X? (Hint: a small fraction of one billion, in absolute terms, is an exceptionally large number of people nonetheless!) How will adding over a billion of people to the commercial world around us affect our lives and our countries? How can established companies make use of this new market?

If you want to know why, and how, China has ascended into such a prominent place in our lives, this book is a good place to start. And if you liked it, or want a more detailed look on the dynamics of Globalization as a whole, take a look at Globalization and Its Discontents by Joseph Stiglitz

</review>
<review>

I haven't actually read the book, but the title says it all...the author doesn't understand economics!

Wealth is made by the ingenuity of the people who seek to produce better goods and services that would satisfy consumer demand.

Ingenuity is sadly lacking in China, now, or ever. Look at any Chinese invention, and see its real development only when the Europeans got hold of it, from razor blades to paper money.

Not convinced, look at patent production in China. It is eclipsed by most US states or European nations.

Sorry, no sale

</review>
<review>

Mr. Fishman is straight-forward in delivering the details about the rising economic giant.  No matter where you stand politically, socially or economically YOU are directly effected by current developments in China.

Many will be absolutely shocked to find out exactly HOW MUCH of their current standard of living is OWED to Chinese investment and development.  The prices, products and policies of most American industries are tied in directly to using China as a manufacturing center. You will never look at a Wal-Mart the same way ever again. . .guaranteed.

A facinating, multi-dimensional book and very simple reading.  I recommend it to anyone who has a role in influencing public policy or works in the educational system.

Michae

</review>
<review>


This well-researched book reveals China as an awakening giant, experiencing roaring growth and impressive technological advances. Not only does the country have the unrivalled productive power derived from its huge low-cost labour force but its one billion plus consumers have made it a lucrative market.

One of the reasons for its breathtaking economic growth is that rural people have been moving to the cities in large numbers. Three of the most interesting chapters are titled The Revolution Against The Communist Revolution, Pirate Nation (which examines the problem of counterfeits and brand theft taking place in China), and chapter 11: The Chinese Century.

The author examines the implications of this rising colossus for the world, and for the West in particular. What if China manages to produce everything that the West does at half the cost? And at the same time as its industrial and knowledge economy is booming, the country is aggressively pursuing reliable sources of raw materials and acquiring foreign companies.

Its geopolitical influence is increasing, as is evident in its potentially dangerous friendship with Iran (as part of an Asian Economic Co-operation Group that includes Russia), and its growing influence in Africa (especially Sudan) and even in South America (Venezuela).

Time will tell if the Chinese economy is inherently sound and how far the country will take its alliances with rogue states like Iran. China's involvement in the Middle East might prove its undoing. The book provides all the latest statistics and plenty of intelligent analyses. It concludes with Notes, a Bibliography and Index.

</review>
<review>

Jenny McCarthy is a truly gifted writer.  My sister gave me this book as a Mothers Day gift after having Baby #2.  Jenny depicts the first year of "mommyhood" as realistic as you can get!  If you are expecting your first of fourth baby, you must read this book.  It's so much fun and enjoyable, too

</review>
<review>

I bought this book for a friend; not for me, a proud child-free woman. Yet, I found myself unable to put it down. Jenny had me laughing so much, my stomach hurt! While it may be coined as just a "humor-book," I think new moms may be able to learn a thing or two about their new role and what to expect during the first year of Mommyhood

</review>
<review>

Baby Laughs is hysterical!! Jenny has a fun way of looking at motherhood. Motherhood is a tough thing that people can be very critical about. Jenny's laugh out loud view of motherhood helps moms not to take the criticism to heart. Great Job Jenny!

</review>
<review>

Jenny McCarthy is so funny! This is a must read book weather you are pregnant a new mom or have been one for years. Sometimes she's so honest it's scary but it deffintly does not freak you out about being a mom. I highly recommend this book! I've just started reading life laughs by Jenny McCarthy.

</review>
<review>

I have never laughed out loud so much when reading a book.  I had to wipe away tears several times I was laughing so hard.  It is great for moms because we can relate to so much of what she writes

</review>
<review>

Baby Laughs was hilarious! It's comforting to know that even beautiful women such as McCarthy have those fat days and don't always find the time to shave their legs. My husband and I are expecting our first child in october so I've been trying to get all the advice that i can. I found this book to be a comic relief. Instead of the don't do this and you can't do that's, she weaves her experiences into hilarious images. I laughed so hard I had tears

</review>
<review>

My mom just gave me this book for mother's day and I read it with my husband.  We laughed to the point of tears!  This book is so much fun.  We are expecting our first child next month and of course have so many fears as first time parents.  I've heard about giving birth, the suffering after birth, breastfeeding and your first few weeks of parenting from various people, but no one tells these stories like Jenny.  You will be laughing throughout as it makes you feel more at ease and more excited about your little ones arrival.  This book makes a great gift

</review>
<review>

I LOVE IT SO MUCH THAT AFTER HIGH SCHOOL I WANT TO TRY BUD/S FOR MYSELF TO SEE I CAN DO IT.. I KNOW IT WILL BE HARD BUT I THINK I CAN MAKE IT...

</review>
<review>

One of the things that reveals itself throughout the book is that Dick's writing style gets old. If it wasn't for the ongoing story in "The Warrior Elite", I would have been bored with Dick's narrative. In "The Finishing School", the pace is slackened due to the fact that the men are all BUD/S grads and have less to worry about. It takes more patience to read and at times it feels like the pace is very slow. Another thing you'll notice is that Dick doesn't reveal much about the details regarding finishing schools. During BUD/S, people can actually see the candidates train in Coronado and the suffering is no secret. However, when they continue on, the training they get is much more classified. This is understandable, but at that same time it feels like Dick is talking much without revealing much. For someone who wants the details, this was frustrating and took out a significant amount of my interest. I haven't read the latest Couch book on SEALs, but I hear it's the same. Here's an advice for Mr. Couch - don't write a book that people will read for its details and not reveal anything. Better off waiting for several years and disclosing the info (like Haney's Delta Force) than beating around the bush. On the other hand, you'll get the big picture about what BUD/S grads do after BUD/S on their way to earn the trident

</review>
<review>

Most of us have sipped our favorite adult beverage through one or two re-runs of the tv programs documenting BUDS training.

What Dick Couch does is take us an a guided tour of the training that lies beyond. As the other reviewer noted it does not follow a class or group, but rather explores the broad range of skills learned at great effort ( and some risk) providing a far greater appreciation for the investment we and the individual Seals make in the production of a deployable warrior.

Reading this book provides great background for other books like First In  or Not A Good Day To Die .

Highly recommended.

</review>
<review>

I am not going to repeat the strengths of the book which had been covered extensively by other reviewers. I just want to add one more point. On top of the details given by the author about how "elite" every SEAL (only twelve sixteen-man platoons of Navy SEALs deployed around the world today) and how "tough" the training are (in particular the physical ones when you think of 500 push ups, 60 pull ups, 6+ miles of running, all in a "normal" day, not to mention the 60% high attrition rate "Hell Week" that trainees, beside taking extra heavy duties, sleep only four to five hours for an entire week), the author, an ex SEAL, had emphasized throughout the book, insightfully, the soft elements that make up SEALs. "I also believe one of the strongest motivators is the desire to belong....They want to be the best, and they want to serve with the best. I also believe that success at BUD/S (Basic Underwater Demolition/Seal training), is based on intelligence....the ability to think ahead and to clearly visualize one's personal goals...Those who have a clear goal of where they are going, and know why they're going there, are less likely to surrender mentally to the physical pain." pg 19

In short, an excellent read for anybody who wants to know about SEAL.

p.s. My salute to Neil Roberts, a SEAL (and other selfless heros) who fought and died bravely and honorably in the Iraqi War as described in the Introduction.

</review>
<review>

If you've read The Warrior Elite, you know what you'll get in this book.  Captain Couch does a great job describing what happens from the day the BUD/s graduates are secure from Coronado to the time they go on forward deployment with their SEAL Platoons.  I especially liked that he offered details on both the Officer and Enlisted sides of things.  As a person hoping to secure an Officer billet to BUD/s while maintaining a family, it was refreshing to see that others do it.  It also does justice to the modern SEAL and inadvertently dispels negative notions that the likes of Marchinko and Carracci have impressed on us.  The modern SEAL is above all a Professional, like most of his processors, not a blood thirsty Rambo like the previously mentioned would have you believe.  If you want to truly understand this world, read this book, if not go back to Rouge Warrior.  It's pretty detailed and has a few pictures just like the last book.  On the negative side, I was left wanting more for the $25.00 hardcover price.  The 263 pages read more like 170.  It's worth the 5 stars I gave it, but I also felt it was not as complete a product as The Warrior Elite.

</review>
<review>

Anyone interested in learning about the Navy SEALs should read Couch's works..

</review>
<review>

Most of the reviews that I have written for Amazon are based on the books, the DVDs, and the CDs that I already own. I occasionally buy a new product via Amazon, but I mostly review the stuff that I already own.

I own this book...this play because I read it while in a Humanities course in college. I went to college rather "late" in life...whatever that means...and yet I derived more from the experience than I probably would have had I gone right after High School. I am one of those people who believe that it's not college that makes a "well-rounded" indivividual, but life experience. If colleges and universities handed out degrees based on Life Experience, I'd probably have a doctorate three times over...

We were given the assignment of reading this play and seeing the live production that the college I was attending just so happened to be putting on. With my primary focus being on philosphy, I embraced the Existentialism Unit that we were now focused upon. My best friend, who was/is an "atheist" was less receptive of these Existentialist ideas he considered strange and elusive. You think he, being an atheist, would have been more open to them than I who had already been bitten by the Metaphysics/Spirituality plague. Truth be told I think the only reason he says he's an atheist is because he's a cheapskate and doesn't want to shell out extra money for Christmas gifts.

So we go see this play and people were getting pretty agitated. In this play everything goes round and round but never arrives at any final conclusions and I noticed how we, as a society, love our answers. We are not soothed by questions and proposistions and "what if?" scenarios. We feel the need to latch onto something because something is better than nothing.

Isn't it?

The Existentialists believe that the universe is random, chaotic, and ultimately meaningless and so in a sense they "give" meaning to meaninglessness. Just like an atheist believes in non-belief. You see, the human species cannot not give meaning to his/her life...we cannot not believe...we can "pretend" that life is without meaning and that we don't believe but everything that falls onto the screen of our perception, will take on the shape of our perceptions.

I loved this play. I loved the merry-go-round type dialouge. Isn't this what we all do? We get a belief so engrained in our heads and we think that it is the only way to believe and so we spend a lot of time trying to convince someone who may not be as receptive to our point of view as to why it's valid. What I have learned over the years is that the only reason why a belief is valid is because we are the ones who validate it. It doesn't make us "more right" than the person who doesn't believe it, it just makes us believers of the belief. And contrary to popular opinion, the more people you have who also believe the same way you believe does not prove that it's any more valid than if only one person believed it.

This play did not dissolve me into a puddle of desperation and futileness, in fact it added more meaning to my life which would probably make Samuel Beckett gag. It made me fall in love even more with this crazy life that only I can live. Nobody lives by proxy. Each of us are liberated and imprisoned by our beliefs. The best we can ever hope to be is determined by what we are willing to believe at any given time. This is why it's a good practice to sit down and journal about your beliefs from time to time and question why you still believe what you believe. You may have outgrown certain beliefs, certain ideas, certain ways of being in the world but don't be like the two "bums" in the play, don't keep postponing what it is that you eventually desire to see; see it now, live it now, be it now. If you are going to be an atheist, be the best atheist you can be. If you are going to be a Christian, be the best Christian you can be. If you are going to be an Anarchist, be the best Anarchist you can be. Just don't think that everyone is going to believe exactly as you believe and don't make others wrong simply because they may have another point of view. In the end, none of us truly know what's on the other side. Yes, we've had people with Near Death Experiences, but nobody has ever come back after being completely dead with a report, we just have reports from people who have been "mostly dead".

Take life with a grain of salt and enjoy the ride.

Peace  and  Blessings.




</review>
<review>

Waiting for Godot was dubbed a "tragicomedy" and there doesn't seem to be any other word better suited to describe this play.  The random and wandering personalities of Vladimir and Estragon, the main characters, lend an amusing air to the entire work.  However, their inability to accomplish anything or even grasp what is really going on around them inspires some sympathy (and irritation), though it may be weaker or stronger depending on how strange the book strikes the you.  Unless one goes into Waiting for Godot expecting the existentialism it can be somewhat confusing, and may seem a bit more pointless than it is meant to be.  Knowing a little bit about Beckett and his beliefs will probably make it more enjoyable, but it is interesting and well written enough to stand on its own.  What I love the most about this book is Beckett's ability to make the absurd seem so close to reality.  Vladimir and Estragon are most certainly not your average Joe, but a lot of what they say seems familiar and most of the time rather humorous.  Waiting for Gogot is really what you make it, because while at its core it is a just a story of two confused homeless men, it is also a meaningful and slightly endearing tale.  Go in looking for a meaning, and knowing how Beckett means to get things across, and I think that this play will end up reading much better than if one goes in just cold.  A short read, and worthwhile, I would say, at least for its originality and humor

</review>
<review>

Samuel Beckett's play seems to endlessly perplex reviewers: they want to see in it concrete associations that it generally denies them. Is Godot God? Are Didi and Gogo heroes for their seemingly indefatiguable faith he will arrive, or fools for hinging all their hopes and dreams on a man who never seems to arrive to help alleviate their suffering?

Waiting for Godot, in proper Modernist fashion, strips away all the layers of narrative and form and leaves nothing but the naked husk of a play, which Beckett no doubt felt revealed the human condition at its most basic. But the play's power doesn't really come from that. Rather, what makes Waiting for Godot so compelling is its wide applicability: it's a story about random oppression, brutality, and dreams deferred by harsh realities. It has been performed as an allegory of apartheid South African, the Jim Crow South, the horror of the war in Bosnia and about every other possible situation imaginable. Why? Because as Benjamin Kunkel pointed out in a piece in The New Yorker not so long ago, "[N]ot everyone has a God, but who doesn't have a Godot?"

Beyond the metaphysical implications of the play, though, it's popularity stems from its near-perfection: for all the philosophical meaning people see in it, the action progresses with virtually no direct reference to it, and every line which seems to suggests some sort of grand significance has a very concrete meaning in the action. Take the infamous opening: Estragon, the first of the tramps, struggles to pull off his boot to relieve his swollen foot. Unable to get it off, he gives up and announces "Nothing to be done." Vladimir, wincingly wandering onto the stage and grasping at his crotch (precious few readers and actors for that matter seem to grasp that one of the play's running jokes is Vladimir's venereal disease, which causes him immense pain when urinating), thinks Estragon is commenting on his own ailment, and announces, "I'm beginning to come round to that conclusion myself. All my life I've put it from me, saying Vladimir, be reasonable, you haven't yet tried everything! And I resumed the struggle."

On the one hand, the lines relate concretely to the action of the play; on the other, they have become representative of modern man's ambivalence towards a cruel and uncaring world, and such clever cynicism has linked Beckett to the French Existentialists in whose circles he moved after the Second World War. But seen merely as declamatory statements of world-weary cynicism, the lines lose all their power; Beckett's achievement comes from his ability to link such nihilistic sentiments to extremely comic moments, and it is the humor that carries the reader or the theatergoer through what would otherwise be an unbearably cynical  play. Steve Martin, who played Vladimir in a famous 1982 production at the Lincoln Center in New York, put it best when he said that he sought to serve the humor of the play, because the meaning could carry itself but the humor could not. That's a lesson which, sadly, precious few theater directors seem to grasp, but which the careful reader discovers in Beckett. Definitely a must-read, but read it before seeing it, because few productions do it justice

</review>
<review>

Some think Waiting for Godot is an argument for existentialism. Others believe it is about man's eternal struggle for the answer to the ultimate question. Neither seem correct.

In short, this is a play for those who prefer to strip everything down to the most basic form of language, to strip life down to a mere game of waiting. That is, in essence, what this is all about. We have two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, who both wait for a man who may or may not ever show up. They don't know why. They don't know exactly when he will be there. Still they wait, eternally, by the tree, by wherever they think he said he would show.

This isn't an absurdist play, although it has been labeled as such. Absurdism, though, seems such an insulting way of labeling such a masterpiece. We oftentimes go thorugh our readings with the idea that everything has to be complex, that there has to be a theme placed deep within a convoluted story, but with Waiting for Godot, we have a simple theme: waiting.

The two characters symbolize nothing. They are, quite simply, not waiting to be analyzed. They become, in effect, victims of Samuel Beckett's own game: they are his quotation, and he only says what needed to be said at the time, and so he wrote it, whether people would catch on or not, whether they would label it absurdism or not.

If you were to take every line of this play and utter it aloud, very slowly, word by word like a robot in a very monotone fashion, you would probably capture the idea. If it's any indication, he wrote everything in French first--his second language--and then translated it in to English, just so it can be simple. I don't assume, of course, that this work should be cherished simply because it's an exercise in simplicity. But I submit that it should be cherished because it's a genuine, themeless--somehow--masterpiece about two people waiting for the most unimportant, unknown thing that may or may not ever come. It is frequently hilarious and constantly frivolous, but somehow, it manages to charm. It is like one of those songs that you can listen to over and over again, and it has no lyrics, and no meaning--as far as you know--but it still makes you feel good under glaring adversity

</review>
<review>

I'm not a big fan of existentialism to start out with, but I began this play expecting at least to find an interesting theme or philosophy concerning the nature of life and existence.  This work, however, is pure tripe.  Critical appraisal should not even be attempted for this drivel- it's akin to the random scribblings of a two-year old or a mud-splattered canvas.  The drawing on the front cover has more artistic value than this play.  In my mind, it doesn't merit serious consideration and analysis, because it is by nature pure absurdity and nonsense.  Beckett sure accomplished his goal though- look how many reviewers commented on the "extremely difficult themes" and "brilliant artistry" of the play

</review>
<review>

WAITING FOR GODOT is somewhat akin to a conceptual artwork, in which the concept behind the artwork is more important than the sensual aesthetic experience or the entertainment value. In this case, however, what is behind the artwork is a non-concept, the impossibility of creating a masterpiece. After the monumental impossibility of Joyce's FINNEGANS WAKE, what remains for the serious artist? WAITING FOR GODOT is about the impossibility of a masterpiece in the modern world. In that sense, this play is the last masterpiece of "high art." The torch has now passed to movies and popular forms.

Many critics have tried to convince us that WAITING FOR GODOT is very funny and entertaining. I remain skeptical. There are a few moments of wry humor, but not enough to make up for the emptiness of "waiting." There is literally "Nothing to be done" in this play. "Waiting" is a non-action. What's interesting about the play is that the inconsequential dialogues and trivial actions are presented as significant; there's something like an "alienation effect," or a "defamiliarization," as we are invited to ponder how and why this drama is meaningful.

Why is there "Nothing to be done"? Is it simply because it's all been done before? Or is it because life in the modern world is without any serious purpose or meaning? In many ways, WAITING FOR GODOT is a reaction to the Holocaust and Hiroshima. The characters who have "something to do" in this play are Pozzo and Lucky, who by their stupidity illustrate the futility of action in the modern world.

</review>
<review>

Samuel Beckett's, soon to be classic, drama about two men, Vlad and Estro, transcends stage-play drama. Beckett's relatively short story is a pioneering foray into the mixture of a dramatic, literal story.

Most drama should be seen on stage, so that the performers can give their characters shape, bring in an audience, and produce a night of dramatic arts. That is not how this story seems to go; not at all, indeed.

Beckett's story can be seen as a naturalistic look at the life of the poor. Here are two men, both obviously at the end of their ropes, but each keeps this asinine hope that "GODot" will show up. But, he never does. Extra characters, like Pozzo and Lucky, simply add to the intended confusion.

As several previous reviewers have taken note--there is not action. While this idea is spurred by "The Threepenny Opera," Beckett takes postmodernism another step further. The characters' are so disillusioned the question becomes, Godot isn't coming, so did he ever care? Could Godot actually exist he allows these poor fellows to exist in such a state.

A fantastic read, and one of the best dramas ever written. This fairly short play should be read by EVERYONE.

</review>
<review>

Many readers of 'Waiting for Godot' obsess about the identity of Godot and whether he represents God or any other almighty being. It is unlikely that Beckett was referring to God as the man for whom the characters are waiting, as religion is only ever mockingly referred to in Beckett's theatre.

Although Beckett was not referring directly to God the name is not without importance. Godot is seen as a messianic being by the characters who will bring salvation for those who believed he would come. The wait for God is not represented by the play, but is used as a template.

'Waiting for Godot' is essentially a sustained metaphor for how most if not all human beings spend their whole life waiting for something that isn't coming. Beckett was not able to identify Godot because of the subjective nature of such a being. As critics have written, this play is a written ink-blot test and a failure to see any coherent meaning says more about the reader than the play.

This is yet another example of Beckett's chilling insight into human nature, and his readiness to state what others are unwilling to accept

</review>
<review>

Waiting for Godot, a play about two men who cannot communicate and always wait for something that never comes, attempts to show us the futility of waiting for that phantom message or meaning humanity is obsessed with--it is a call to action. This play is packed with nonsensical dialogue. The plot does not exsist. Yet, once we realized that Waiting for Godot is a parody of human existance it starts to make sense--at least in subtle ways. Much of the play cannot be interpreted in any finality, but, that is what has kept this play alive throughout the twentieth century. It's enigmatic, a puzzle of words, poetry, and philosophy. I recommend this to anyone who wants a challenge. The play is short and does not take too much commitment. Take a quiet evening and give it a shot. What are you waiting for

</review>
<review>

I work for a professional sports franchise (but not baseball), and this book really helped me understand the issues surrounding a professional team. This covers some major subjects, such as labor agreements, stadium financing, and broadcasting deals, by using major league baseball as an example. Anyone wanting to further their knowledge of how the economics of a professional sports league should grab this book.

</review>
<review>

The information presented in this book is amazing.  The economics of baseball are hardly talked about.  There are some things that go on behind the scenes that most of us don't know about.  It was fascinating to find out about this, but it got to be too much for me to handle.  I ended up being bored with it in the end and that is why I gave it two stars.  I also disagree with some of Zimbalist's theories on how to reform baseball.  He is not open to any other ways, and I should know since I met him once for a seminar

</review>
<review>

I had read somewhere that "The Woman In White"  was the original mystery novel and was the classic to measure all later ones by.  After a slow start I became very engaged with the subtle clues and flowery vocabulary.  The book is a chance to experience a Victorian past that adds a special touch to an interesting story.

</review>
<review>

First serialized in 1859, and then published as a novel in 1860, The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins, tellingly, has never been out-of-print since the time of our Civil War.

Considered the world's first detective novel, it is a richly-phrased and atmospheric page-turner that, in a complicated and rather unique fashion, reveals its mystery slowly, even luxuriously, through the testimonies of a host of memorable characters, such as the capable Marian Holcombe, and her nemesis, one of literature's more intriguing creations, the suave villain, Count Fosco.

Weighing in at a hefty 600-plus pages, The Woman in White may appear daunting to some; but the pairing of Collins' writing, which is often sublime, and his method of story-telling, which is always interesting, should, if given the chance, prove a winning-combination to most.

Also recommended: The Moonstone, by Wilkie Collins; The Winter Queen, by Boris Akunin; Gaston Leroux's The Mystery of the Yellow Room, and The Perfume of the Woman in Black; Caleb Carr's The Alienist, and The Angel of Darkness; Rennie Airth's River of Darkness, and The Blood-Dimmed Tide

</review>
<review>

This engaging mystery pits three idealistic young people in the traps of larcenous, black-hearted villians.  A mysterious woman-in-white encournters Walter Hartright, a young drawing master on his way to a new commission in the country.  From then on, it seems that their fate and lives are tangled together, this woman-in-white, and Walter and his pupils Marian Halcombe and Laura Fairlie.  At first it seemed like a lighthearted curiosity, that Marian searches for in her mother's letters, just a childhood acquaintance.  The first few months at Limmeridge, the Fairlie's mansion, Walter Hartright, Marian Halcombe and Laura Fairlie spend a happy companionable season as drawing master and pupils, with not a worry in their heads but the beautiful nature scenes, walks in the gardens and contemplation of the blue sky.  That is, until Laura's impending marriage to Sir Percival Glyde draws a gloomy end to their idyllic days.  From then on, the pace quickens as the woman-in-white first sends a letter of warning to Laura, and then later, lurks around attempting to deliver a Secret to Laura, only to be foiled by the maneuverings of an elderly corpulent Count who has allied himself with Sir Percival Glyde.

Laura becomes the victim, Walter the absent hero, and it is all up to Marian, the lion-hearted defender of her sister, who stands as protector, investigator, and emotional supporter to Laura, that is until tragic circumstances force their separation.  Just when things seem the darkest, a surprising twist grabs the reader for a rousing finale that carries Walter incognito from Central America to London to Blackwater Park to Cumberland to Welmingham to an old church where the "Secret" of Sir Percival Glyde is revealed and wickedness is recompensed.

A guaranteed page-turner that will keep you up way past your bedtime.  Everything is explained at the end, except for the reason that Laura's late father wanted her to marry Percival Glyde in the first place

</review>
<review>

I read this book in one day, a day where no classes were attended, no phone calls were taken, and no visits made. I cooked and ate my food with it in hand, and sometimes damned my inability to read faster, I was so eager to find out what was going to happen next.

"The Woman in White" is not just one of the most engaging and gripping Victorian novels I have ever read, it is one of the most engaging and gripping novels of all time. Collins creates vivid, memorable characters (ranging from brave intelligent Marian to the surprising and sinister Count Fosco) who are engaged in a plot that twists and turns like nothing else. There are so many unexpected, even shocking incidents, and Collins moves between them with exactingly precise yet graceful and beautiful prose. Not only that, his narrative style, which moves from character to character, allows for fantastic comic interludes which break up the drama (the chapter from the point of view of the hypochondriac uncle is gut-bustingly funny).

A couple of people I know, who are generally not fond of 19th century literature, loved this book. I have never met someone who has not been charmed by it. I strongly urge anyone and everyone to read it.

</review>
<review>

A great great novel! Catches you from the beginning and doesn't let go. You become obsessed and engrossed. Collins has the most gorgeous way of writing....drawing you in. And his descriptive ability is astounding

</review>
<review>

This advice for writing serial romances, alternately attributed to Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, and Charles Reade, is epitomized in this 1860 novel by Collins, a story of thwarted love, a marriage of obligation, claims on inheritance, the victimization of women, and, most of all, engaging mystery.  Collins, often credited as the father of the mystery genre, creates a fast-paced story of Victorian England, revealing much about Victorian society and its values--the role of women, the laws governing marriage and inheritance, the social institutions of the day, the contrasting attitudes toward the aristocracy and the lower classes, and even the level of medical care and the treatment of psychological illness.

When drawing master Walter Hartright is on his way to teach Marian Halcombe and Laura Fairlie at Limmeridge House, in Cumberland, England, he meets a "woman in white," a young woman who knows Limmeridge House well because she was mentored by Mrs. Fairlie, Laura Fairlie's deceased mother.  The "woman in white" is Anne Catherick, who looks just like Laura, but who is an escapee from a nearby mental asylum.  Upon his arrival at Limmeridge House, Walter immediately falls in love with the beautiful Laura, but she has made a deathbed pledge to her father to marry to Sir Percival Glyde, someone Anne Catherick despises and blames for her own incarceration.  Throughout the novel, Anne visits various characters to offer help in combating Sir Percival and his cohorts.

The story unfolds through documents held by a variety of characters, each of whom tells the story from his/her own point of view.  The reader develops sympathy for the innocent and beautiful Laura, respect for her homely but bright half-sister, Marian Halcombe, sadness for Walter Hartright, and hatred for Sir Percival and his friend, the Italian count Fosco, with whom Sir Percival is in business.  Sir Percival and the count need financing, and it is Laura's inheritance that is at stake.  A series of consecutive disasters, along with arguments, revelations of abuse, the fear of exposure, and the contemplation of murder by Sir Percival and Count Fosco, draws the reader irrevocably into the action.

The characters are sympathetically drawn, with Collins showing an early awareness of the influence of psychology on behavior.  The descriptions of nature, presented realistically and in  minute detail, build suspense, as Collins creates parallels between nature and the details of plot.  As is usually the case with romances, chance plays a huge role in the unfolding action, creating cliff-hanging suspense which contributes to the excitement--and pure fun--of this seductive novel.  The conclusion, involving a subplot unrelated to the primary action, resolves issues conveniently.  The almost-forgotten author of twenty-five novels, Collins was one of the most successful authors of Victorian mysteries, and he is gaining new attention as a result of reprints of this novel and The Moonstone.  n Mary Whipple

</review>
<review>

I enjoy reading mysteries and have read quite a few in my time, but I've never before come across anything like "The Woman in White." I'm always a little skeptical when I hear a book being described as a page turner but that description fits this novel to a tee. I found it very hard to find a stopping place each evening and lost more than a few hours of sleep, but it was definitely worth every minute!

I don't want to give away too much of the plot but here is a very brief overview. Walter Hartright is a drawing instructor who has been engaged by Mr. Frederick Fairlie of Limmeridge Estate to tutor his niece, Laura, and her half-sister Marian Halcombe. On his way to take up this appointment Walter encounters a woman along the road, a mysterious woman dressed completely in white. He offers his assistance to the woman and soon after they part he discovers that she is an escapee from a mental asylum and is being sought by the local authorities. Walter travels on to Limmeridge but his experience with this mysterious woman is far from over. Upon his arrival he is surprised to discover that Miss Laura Fairlie bears an uncanny resemblance to the woman in white. This amazing story of deception and mistaken identities takes off from there and the suspense doesn't let up until the final pages!

One of the things that is so gripping about this novel is the way it is written, in the form of a narrative told in turn by each of the major characters. It is almost as if they are giving their testimony about the incidents to a jury in a courtroom. One character narrates the story to a certain point and then the next person takes up the story from there and so on and on. It's just such a good book and so hard to put down. Mr. Collins was a genius in the way in which he brought everything together. The ending is terrific! This is definitely one of the best mysteries I've ever read. Don't miss it

</review>
<review>

Though the language is contemporary for its time (1860), and it is written in the style of a serial (thus in the author's interest to make it extend out a bit), this is a good story.  The plot device is quite inventive, the story gets better in the second half, and the final chapters are quite entertaining.

</review>
<review>

I really liked this book. It had a romantic appeal and vivid, memorable characters. The plot was also fantastic. Wilkie wrapped up everything quite nicely at the end--I won't say anymore for those who haven't read it. I didn't feel there were any unbelievable coincidences in the plot. It was a little slow at first, but once I got into it, I couldn't put it down. Some parts were hilarious. This book has it all. I would definitely recommend it.

</review>
<review>

I think Terry Frei did a fantastic recounting events of something that happened 60 years ago.  Clearly Mr. Frei did a thorough job researching all the events and the many characters he references.  As for the reader, he/she is taken on a journey about teenagers turning into young men during one of the most difficult times in American history.  Frei goes into great detail about the Wisconsin Badger roster and characters that make it up.  At times, it does get confusing but I honestly don't see how Frei could have singled anyone out -- except for perhaps Dave Schreiner.  I will admit I skipped some of the middle of book when the author gives a recap of all the Badger games from 1942.  The second half of the book (about the war) is very well done.  In fact, the second half of the book is a real page tuner.  All in all, it is a good book about some fine people that I would have loved to have met.

</review>
<review>

Through exhaustive research and interviews with the remaining Badgers, their families, and combat comrades, Frei tells the story of this team of young men who became real-life heroes by fulfilling a much greater calling. In describing their experiences on the football field and in service to their country, Frei makes it clear why the generation young men and women who came of age during the Second World War have become known simply as the "Greatest"

While some may think that this book is "too narrow," "too old," or "too local," let me say that it is far from that. This is a story of the highest degree, one that will leave the reader at various times laughing, mournful, amazed, and inspired. "Third Down And A War To Go" is much more than just a football story. It is much more than just a war story.

It is a story about us

</review>
<review>

Great job.  So good that I was brought  to tears.  So good that I almost need to visit the cemetery in Lancaster, Wis., and say "thanks" to Dave Schreiner and Mark Hoskins.  Thanks to you, Terry, for the idea, the research, the writing.  I rank your book up there with "Flags of our Fathers."  And you were correct in advising your readers to ask questions, and more questions, of their parents.  I look forward to Terry's next book and plan to read his previous one.

Randy Jesick
Journalism Department
Indiana University of Pennsylvani

</review>
<review>

Third Down and a War to Go is a page turner which chronicles the 1942 University of Wisconsin all-star football team and its college years, heroic service in World War II, and return to unsung ordinary lives. It was a different era for college football. Players actually wanted an education. The majority were less than six feet tall and weighed less than 200 pounds. What scholarships they received were so meager that even the All-Americans washed dishes and waited table. There was no question about them interrupting college and collegiate football to serve their country. Some selflessly gave their lives but most returned, played some more football, and contributed to America's post-war recovery as lawyers, teachers, real estate agents, and Jerry Frei, the author's father, as a college and pro football coach. Most never discussed their war service and certainly didn't consider themselves the "greatest generation."

Terry Frei tells their story in a moving style. Portions bring one to tears.

This book will engage WWII veterans, their children, those of us who grew up during the war, and readers who are interested in true "All Americans.

</review>
<review>

The author was inspired after talking to his dad, a guard for the Badgers and later a pilot. Many of the players suited up for the Badgers and later departed for the battlefields.
I was also moved after reading how these athletes were ready to leave college and fight for the country.
I review sports books. One of the best I've ever read

</review>
<review>

This book appeals to readers from many different angles.  I bought one for the history lover in the family, and another for a friend who enjoys tales of war.  This is to say nothing about the football and human interest stories that are intertwined as well.

Frei's book breaths new life and, in many cases, uncovers a side of life in the young men portrayed in the book.  Their heroic exploits as football greats in 1942 gave way to a higher level of heroism on the battle fields of Europe and Asia from 1943-45.  Frei brilliantly traces the tales of friendship, glory, fear, courage, love, honor, dignity, humor, joy, and sorrow in a slice of the American experience the likes of which we'll probably never again witness, except through accounts like this one.  Thanks, Terry!

</review>
<review>

Admittedly, I'm biased, because the 1942 Wisconsin Badgers won the first football game I ever saw. And what a way to get a kid started. It was one of those times when, briefly, it all came together: Heartland guys who hailed from small towns and cities and who played an extraordinary game of football for the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Names like Elroy Hirsh, Pat Harder, Dave Schreiner still resonate. Sadly the war put an end to this magic, and tragically some of the guys never made it back to pick up where they'd left off. Sportswriter Terry Frei, son of the late '42 Badger Jerry Frei, has done a remarkable job of reporting the drama and the triumphs of the season and the dedication and inevitable heartbreak that marked the war years. But despite the focus of this cleverly titled book, don't be fooled. This is an All-America story

</review>
<review>

So many had raved about this to me, on the web and in the media I didn't know if it could live up to all of that. It was even better than I expected. The friendships, the campus atmosphere in the first year of the war, the great football season involving famous players (Crazy Legs) and a famous coach (Four Horseman), and then the war experiences! When you get to the battle climaxes, you're both feeling proud and ready to cry in places, and you're also staggered because of the amount of research that had to go into this to find all of it out. Not to ruin the story, but this also shows why a lot of us Wisconsin fans think David Schreiner should be honored on the facade of Camp Randall Stadium. If you haven't heard of Dave Schreiner, you should. Talk about what this country is all about! He's it.

</review>
<review>

By the other reviews here, you'd think this was a marvelous sports-war book fullof interesting, endearing characters performing in extraordinary times. In fact, the book reads like a story from a friendly uncle who carries on and on about people you don't know who he hasn't made you care about. There's little to bond you to the characters, and much of the book explains the not particularly interesting game-by-game season of a Wisconsin football team. In the preface the autor relates how his father's life inspired the book, and this feels like something someone would write for the benefit of the narrow group of people who experienced it, not the general public

</review>
<review>

This book is a great book for beginners who have never done anything like drama,  It has a lot of great Ideas.  On remembering lines and games to help kids work and work together.  It would be a good book for kids to read also it they are wanting to do drama or theatre or even the movies.
I like this book and plan on using it this next week in my class

</review>
<review>

I used this book to teach a summer drama class for a local daycare to grades 1st-5th.  The kids couldn't get enough!  I used this book the whole summer, and it taught them how to work togather, even with their age differences

</review>
<review>

I was actually looking for kids monologue and scene books, but this book caught my attention, because of the good reviews, and I ordered it as well.  It is fantastic!!  Some old favourite theatre games I'd forgoten and lots of new fun ones!!  Also curriculum ideas for classes beyond theatre games.  I can't wait to teach my class today using these new tools!  I'll be using this book for along time

</review>
<review>

Great Book...well written, easy to follow exercises!  Lisa Bany-Winters has written a highly comprehensive and interactive book packed full of theater exercises with great tips for additions to each exercise.  This book is terrific for elementary school teachers, camp activity leaders, children's parties and of course, children's drama instructors.  I highly recommend this book to anyone who knows a wanna-be star

</review>
<review>

This book had such a wide variety of games and alot of ones I hadn't even seen before.  I do recommend this book

</review>
<review>

Mrs. Bany-Winters writes a great book!  I've tried all of the theatre games and they are all very fun to do.. even if you aren't into theatre!  I recommend this book to everyone.. try it at parties, try it by yourself, try with friends.. just try it

</review>
<review>

I teach theatre courses for all ages of kids, and this is the book that I turn to most often for quick ideas.  The illustrations and explanations are clear as day and the games themselves are alot of fun

</review>
<review>

I run The Independent Theatre Workshop - a theatre school for tots to teens in Dublin, Ireland and I am always on the lookout for material for my drama classes. I found this book easy to read and easy to use. Many  'teaching' books are so long winded that you never get far into them. This  book follows a clear and logical path taking the young actor from the very  basics, through to more complicated improvisations and short scripts in a  fun and imaginative way. I often pick up this book and open it at random to  select a game or excercise there and then - with great results! The  instructions are clear and reader friendly and although every game and  activity has a specific 'lesson' to teach, they all without exception  actually WORK with children - a rare quality in this day and age when  children know what they do and don't like and aren't shy about letting you  know it! This is also the perfect book for the non -drama teacher to use to  introduce drama into the classroom. Excellent for use with all children  from 7 - 12 years (although my teens and young adults love the stuff too!

</review>
<review>

This book is a perfect introduction to volcanoes for K-2 level kids, and older kids or early readers may enjoy reading them alone.  It is easy to understand and the illustrations are clear and nice-looking.  Unlike some science books for kids, this series tends to be very readable, versus a drier text that may make some kids lose interest quickly

</review>
<review>

The book was very good.  My son just started second grade and he loves science.  The book kept him very interested throughout.  He has read it more than 5 times and continues to ask questions about the different new concepts that were introduced in the book.
Very good purchase

</review>
<review>

As always with an Elie Wiesel book, the topic of the Holocaust and its aftershocks are explored in lyrical depth.  "The Forgotten" is no different, as it explores the memories of Elhanan Rosenbaum, just as he struggles with losing his memory to an incurable disease.  He desperately tries to pass his memories onto his son so that they will never die, even if he does.

"The Forgotten", like most of Wiesel's books, weaves back and forth through time and between different narrators.  At times the transitions between these various changes is a little choppy, but the stories all interconnect in the end.  Elhanan's son, Malkiel, struggles with the task his father has assigned him.  He cannot fathom how he is to possibly hold and retain his father's memories along with his own.  And when his father asks him to take a pilgrimage to his hometown, both are unsure as to what to look for, but know that an answer must exist there that will free Elhanan's painful memories and grant him peace.

Wiesel has devoted his life to searching for meaning in what has happened to the Jewish people.  As a survivor of the Holocaust, he has a tremendous witness to bear.  That aspect of being a witness plays a large role in "The Forgotten".  As Malkiel finally realizes, he must do what his father no longer can.  "I will bear witness in his place; I will speak for him.  It is the son's duty not to let his father die."  And it is the duty of the world not to let the past slip into oblivion.  Lest we forget

</review>
<review>

The Forgotten explores both the holocaust experiences of the aging father, and his new horror of losing his memory.  Both are intensely moving, whether seen through his own eyes, or those of his son struggling to  fulfill a difficult obligation. Like all of Elie Wiesel's writings, this  book stays with you and influences your own thinking on many topics.  A sad  story, unforgettable

</review>
<review>

I first read this in high school, in a single afternoon in a friend's car in the school parking lot. I loved it then and it's as good as I remember it. Knowles was a first-rate writer; he chose interesting subjects and fully developed his characters, and his command of the English language was second to no one. I recommend this book to everyone who loves to read good writing

</review>
<review>

This was required reading for my 15 year old son and he said:
It was boring

</review>
<review>

I had to read this book once. When I first saw the book, I wondered why we had to read this. But now I feel as though I have missed out on a great work of literature.
The story begins in 1957 when Gene returns to Devon School. There, he reflects on the year he met Phineas.
Phineas had created a society whose sole purpose was to jump from a tree, the tree that was being used to train the upperclassmen for war. But Gene thinks Phineas wants to destroy his chances of being valedictorian.
One day on the tree, Gene shakes the limb and Phineas falls. Phineas tells Gene that he has to play sports. But Gene does not have the courage to tell Phineas the truth.
Leper goes off to the war and returns. He claims to have seen things while on the frontlines.
Gene stands on trial for the accident. While the trial occurs, Leper comes and says that he saw what happened. Phineas tries to leave, but a terrible incident occurs.
I was absolutely captivated and spellbound by this book. I know I might read it again to recapture the memory of this great American novel

</review>
<review>

The year is 1943. War is raging across Eastern Europe and Northern Africa. Italy joins the battle, and so does Japan. Peace seems improbable. War is war, and its savage and horrific reality leaves tons of thousands of sodiers and civilians either dead or maimed for life.

Devon School is considered the most beautiful school in New England. Located astride the Naugamsett and Devon rivers, which are separated by a dam, Devon School--especially during the summer months--is considered to be one of the richest pearls of New Hampshire. Its lush green fields, ivy-covered buildings, and sprawling athletic complexes set it apart from many others. Its purpose is to train adolescents to become men both intellectually and physically.

In A Separate Peace, John Knowles masterfully juxtaposes the brutalities of war in Europe with the peace of Devon School in the summer of 1943. Knowles weaves a starkly intriguing parable about the dark forces that can invade the complex world of adolescence. The principal players are a small band of adolescents who remain to take summer courses. Named "The Super Suicide" by Phineas, the novel's tragic hero, these young men are magically attracted to Phineas because of his charisma, his ability to turn sadness into joy, and his marvelous way of diverting their minds away from the horror of war.

Finny is best friends with Gene Forrester, through whose eyes the novel unfolds. Gene is a scholar; Phineas is an athlete. Gene's life is regulated by societal expectations of studying hard, being on time, getting all As. Finny's life is one of spontaneity, skipping classes to take walks and inventing crazy games like blitzball--and taking risks.

One risk-taking venture turns into a tragedy when Finny's ankle is broken. The accident involves Gene and Finny, and it leaves Phineas nearly handicapped throughout the book. Gene knows he was responsible for the accent; Phineas denies his friend's culpability to the point where he has Gene convinced that the accident was just a fluke--a loss of balance that caused his fall from the branch of a large tree onto the hard ground below. However, Phineas cannot be a super athlete anymore because his mobility is severely compromised. Because the ankle is so vulnerable, it leads to another break and ultimate death of Phineas as durin gsurgery some of the bone marrow escapes into his blood stream and goes directly to his heart and stops it.

Beneath the major plot there is a complexity of subplots that Knowles expertly intertwines. These young men are superpatriots: they want to enlist to defend their country. Phineas tries to convince them that the war is only an illusion created by fat men who wear three-piece suits and occupy the seats of power. A kangaroo court is set up by one of the novel's compulsive activists named Brinker for the purpose of proving Forrester is in truth to blame for Phineas's injury. Before his death, the two friends strengthen their bond, but the separate peace carved between them and created that summer by the idiosyncratic escapades of Phineas is lost forever. It is during this time that Forrester learns of Phineas's passionate desire to enlist--a secret he keeps only to himself. All the time he was denying the reality of war, he was writing to all of the major military academies for the purpose of becoming a soldier. Because of his vulnerable ankle, however, he is rejected by everyone.

I first read this book during my college years in the 1960s. In reading it again, I was reminded of William Golding's Lord of the Flies, in which a small group of young men become marooned on an island out live out their evil by regressing to their primitive and animalistic behavior. In A Separate Peace, evil is everywhere present but in a more subtle and insidious way. The evil of war is also reflected in the evil of young minds when left to their devices. In both novels, however, goodness is defeated by the evil in men's reason, which is the worst evil of all.

My conclusion: war will never be eliminated unless we understand the evil within ourselves. Although a separate peace is created in the blissful summer of 1943 in a place where life is seen as a gift--beautiful and free--evil will sooner or later appear. How do we detect it? What is its M.O.? How can we know its devastating power? I don't have an answer. It still remains a mystery to me

</review>
<review>

Like many other readers and Amazon reviewers, this book was assigned reading for me in high school. I read it again recently when the kids got it...and found it has not improved with age. One wonders why generation after generation of teachers continues to tout this book as a "classic" when it's really far from enjoyable.

The premise is interesting - youths coming of age during the World War era that's changing not only their future but their entire way of life. Unfortunately the characters, from prestigious, wealthy families who are more than just a little bit snotty -  just can't hold the average reader's sympathy. Teens couldn't relate to them 30 years ago and can't now. The main character, furthermore, can't be referred to as a hero, since he deliberately wounds his best friend, and is indirectly responsible for his death. "Did he do it on purpose?" won't hold interest for hundreds of pages, and the fact remains that, whatever the reason, he DID do it either through deliberate cruelty or carelessness. Neither reason is excusable.

If we want kids to love reading, give them something that's interesting, and characters to like. "A Separate Peace" provides neither

</review>
<review>

If this book was assigned to you as a high school student, you may have a tough time liking it. Your high school teacher either doesn't like it but teaches it anyway, or else loves it so much that he/she can't understand why you don't.

"Who is this clown?" you're thinking. "Why should I care about this self-centered East Coast preppy who, by the way, actually HAS a choice of whether to go to war or not? Is it my problem that he can't express his feelings in a healthy way? Maybe he should go back in time and blame his Puritan ancestors. Or better yet, maybe he should wait until after the war, get together with his boozy network of good old boys, and impose his values on every single human being on the planet so we all have to suffer as well."

A valid point, but I swear to you, there's more to this book.

For one thing, it's funny. Don't let Gene's morose tone rub off on you. Finny is completely hilarious.

Even among people who really liked the book, there's a tendency to overlook how much Finny and Gene have in common:
-Sometimes I wish my friend were a little more like me...
-He can do some things I never could...
-There are certain situations where I'll do or say ANYTHING to keep from seeming vulnerable...

I think a lot of us can identify with thoughts like that, even if we are not of this book's time or place.

In literature, loyalty and love are around the most important themes there are. Knowles treats them both with real care in this book. The relationship between Finny and Gene is really something. You won't find many characters who care about each other this much. No kidding. I know Gene acts like a jerk, but...

Knowles also manages to weave all that in with an exploration of the subject of war that's actually very original, despite the relatively familiar framework of the basic plot. He questions whether innocence can survive certain situations, and the fact that, sometimes, we can't even tolerate innocence. There's an impulse to bring people down to our level.

By the way, I gave a four star rating because I wanted people to read this without thinking I was myself hopelessly in love with this book, but I obviously am. I would give it six stars if I could.

"Assistant crew manager?!"


</review>
<review>

A Separate Peace is a tale of two friends at an elite prep-school in New England during world war II. Gene is an intelligent and studious boy with much ambition, while his friend Phineas is more outgoing, athletic and charismatic. Gene feels jealous of Finny which leads him to believe that Finny doesn't really like him and is just using him. This insecure assertion leads to devastating results...

Masterfully interwoven with the war happenings, this book offers ponderings into the nature of friendship, jealousy, spite and social harmony. Ultimately, it redefines the concepts of war and peace in both every individual and the world at large. Well written, with great character descriptions.

It's a shame John Knowles couldn't follow up his act in the subsequent books he wrote, but this book will forever remain a great american classic

</review>
<review>

Having taught this book several times as an English teacher, I've certainly had my exposure to it.  My view of the novel has certainly changed over time, as I've come to regard the novel for all of its beauty.  I strike a single star from its score simply because I don't believe the book has aged well; it is not accessible and applicable to contemporary America like it was to the generation of adolescents who could still remember that there was such a thing as World War II and that it wasn't almost as long ago as Noah's flood.  To today's teenagers, it comes across as cheesy.  This is truly a shame, suggesting we have reached a period in history in which the naivet� of youth has been obliterated.  But then, that is what the novel is about, and perhaps it has grown even more meaningful today.  Instead of reading this text as a commentary on individual maturation and the rites of passage associated with it, A Separate Peace must be viewed as a commentary on the development of Modern America, a country that has grown much like Gene, made mistakes like Gene, and has come to realize a state of experience and worldliness that is a far cry from its origins.

The value of Knowles' novel lies, moreover, in its accessibility as an instructional tool.  His use of metaphor and symbolism yields easy discussion to the work's major themes and concepts.  It lacks scope in the its single-minded attention to Caucasian males does not lend itself toward all classrooms, ethnicities, or school districts, but for those two whom it may hold some relevance, there is a great deal to learn from it.  A Separate Peace shows ordinary teenagers encountering and engaging in the same foibles I see my students make on a daily basis.  There is something about Gene that is ubiquitous in all of us, and there is much that can be derived from his narrative.

</review>
<review>

A Separate Peace has been read by many highschoolers, including myself. Over the years I have dread every book handed to me at school, they all just dragged on. Except for A Separate Peace, which has become my all time favorite school book. The bond between two boys, named Phineas and Gene, at a boarding school in New Hampshire during WWII captured me. I ended up finishing it in four days (which is fast for me).

Nevertheless, if your school has not made you read this novel yet, you should read it on your own

</review>
<review>

The brilliant author/writer/wordmaster Pat Conroy has always been my favorite all-time author.  I love his style, his way with words, his storylines, dialogue, description, and masterful similes.  Another Conroy fan once e-mailed me, asking if I knew anyone else who wrote as well as Conroy.  Well, I did a search and asked some of Amazon's top reviewers and they admitted they couldn't find anyone comparable in style, etc.

Well, now I have found Jodi Picoult and I think she's in the same league with Conroy.  Her style is decidedly different, but just as brilliant. MY SISTER'S KEEPER is a real page-turner and frighteningly thought-provoking.

For details of why this book is so great, please read Eileen Rieback's great review posted here.  She hits the high-points of the book much better than I ever could; all I know is that in author Jodi Picoult I have FINALLY found the PERFECT BOOK, comparable in brilliance to Pat Conroy.  I especially admired pages 308 through 322 where one of the Fitzgerald teen-agers enjoys her first boyfriend, her first "prom."  Picoult certainly understands teen-age angst.  If this chapter doesn't move you from the heights of joy to utmost sadness, nothing will.

Even in the midst of a long-awaited vacation I found my eyes glued to the pages of this book, abandoning many of the recreational plans I had made ... even abandoning work on my fourth and fifth novels.  Even as much as I hated for Picoult's amazing story to end, and the Fitzgeralds' family trauma to be resolved, I'm pleased to get back to my own writing ... and my personal vacation pursuits.

I have many author friends who have come out with potential best-sellers recently, but this book is undoubtedly the very best I have read since Pat Conroy's BEACH MUSIC.  It's a sure-fire winner with believable characters in a very timely, controversial situation that has been well-researched by Picoult, brilliantly and powerfully written.

The NEW YORK TIMES wrote following her debut novel, SONGS OF THE HUMPBACK WHALE (twelve books ago): "Picoult spreads her wings and catches an updraft."  To that I add: With this novel (her thirteenth) she now soars with the eagles. ... On second thought, make that angels!

WOW!  Wish I could write like her ... which is the same thing I've always said about Pat Conroy.  Now I have two favorites to aspire to.

Next I plan to read another of Picoult's books, THE TENTH CIRCLE, but NOT on THIS vacation.

</review>
<review>

This was my first Jodi Picoult book and still my favorite. I love her writing style. The way she switches between characters keeps it interesting. A real surprise ending, dont read the end and ruin it for yourself

</review>
<review>

What a very touching story...that with stem cell research, could be true!  The author tells a gripping story through each characters' perspective.  This is a story that stays with you for a long, long time!!

</review>
<review>

The emotions and events of this book seemed mostly believable.  I found myself sobbing on more than one occasion.  Terminal illness and loss are given realistic but hopeful treatment.  I identified with many of the characters and at the end wanted to send it to my brother because of a special loss we have shared

</review>
<review>

A very interesting probe into a practice that is not too far from home. Any parent can identify with the pain of having a child with health problems, and the moral dilemna of having to choose one child over another is full of anguish. Well written and enjoyed by all I have shared this with

</review>
<review>

Very well written, and presents ethical challenges of having one child to save another.  The emotional status of each family member in a family with a dying child is well represented.  These feelings and assigned roles took place in my own family so I can say with certainty the author hit the nail on the head in examining the individual impact

</review>
<review>

This was a fantastic book.  It really made me think about the politics of organ donation and the hardship of having a child with a terminal illness.  The story is told from the perspective of each family member as well as the lawyer representing the well sister/organ donor.  I really felt compelled to side with the well sister, but as a parent I could empathize with the parents as well.  This book will keep you up late until it's finished...a great read

</review>
<review>

Makes you aware of some of the medical miracles happening in this country.
I passed this on to my daughter as she is a special teacher.

</review>
<review>

Very good book but only buy it if you are looking for a book with a very strange sense of humor. In the first story he explains his job as an Elf at Santaland and describes his daily life. It is so funny, some of the things people do there are amazing and crazy at the same time.

Don't buy this book if you are looking for a nice book to read to your young kids or just sit in front of the fire reading a romantic book while it is snowing outside.

But if you are looking for something funny and odd at the same time, then by all means buy this book

</review>
<review>

If you laugh at children falling down this is the book for you.  He may push it sometimes but isn't that what a good writer should do?  Knowing he is half Greek, so am I, I was hoping for a good egg cracking story or roasting lamb in your backyard.  Unfortunately there wasn't one.  Santaland was my favorite

</review>
<review>

I generally like David Sedaris; in fact he's one of my favorites. But when his stories veer off into the death of children, almost gratuitously, I can't see the humor. This is, please note, the first book of his that I haven't enjoyed. But it's got a couple of gruesome episodes that jarred the joy out of me

</review>
<review>

...David Sedaris was only famous for talking about Christmas. Santaland Diaries, heard on NPR stations across the country, is what gave him his first fame. This collection of stories came after his first book, Barrel Fever, and before the rest. This is back when he was still writing short stories, which he isn't really known for anymore. This book has a couple of short stories and, like the short stories in Barrel Fever, they're not really accessible to a wider audience. They're dark - baby murder dark. Definitely not something everyone can appreciate. But pick it up, maybe you'll like it. If you're the sort of person who finds the idea of a theatre critic reviewing children's holiday pageants bitterly, it's worth a try

</review>
<review>

Perhaps listening to the audiotape intensified the smug, "aren't I hilarious?" tone of this book. Note: It is entirely possible that I am not clever enough to understand the humor of this book.  Or even to IDENTIFY the humor in the book.

The story of the two families competing with each other - to the point of handing over their children to be abused by a beggar, and donating various organs - was the train wreck of the Holiday tales.  (Although it may have been the story about the preacher, I can't say for sure because I gave that deadly tale five minutes to redeem itself before skipping it entirely.  So, in fact, perhaps the story is not about a preacher.  I'll never know.  Neither should you.)

I think it's fair to say that the self-satisfied, condescending narrator of these tales simply couldn't bring himself to care about his characters.  They're simply dimensionless, cliched props - the self-centered suburban woman, the socially competitive neighbors - that should immediately journey to Oz so that they can collect the hearts and brains of which Sedaris has seen fit to deprive them.

Speaking of hearts and brains, this book could use a hefty dose of those, too.

</review>
<review>

If you are looking for the literary equivalent of "It's a Wonderful Life"-this book is definitely NOT for you. However, if you appreciate slightly cynical and sardonic commentary on the holidays, you will most likely appreciate this set of short stories by David Sedaris. From Jim Timothy, the extortionist who preys upon a Pentecostal church, to Dinah, the "Christmas [...]" Sedaris packs his vignettes with unforgettable characters who will make you laugh-even though you know Clarence the Angel would disapprove. If you've had enough of family bickering and other such holiday treats, curl up with this offering and you'll find a kindred spirit in David Sedaris

</review>
<review>

I was sitting on an airlpane reading this book and the gentleman next to me asked me if I was "OK". I was uncontrollably laughing. Even after trying to put it down for a few minutes and gaining my composure, it was a fruitless attempt because within seconds I was embarrassing myself again.

</review>
<review>

David Sedaris is absolutely the funniest author alive. All of his books make me laugh out loud  and  embarrass myself in public places, when I bring his books along. This one did not disappoint either.. FUNNY holidays tales that make the season brighter, or even out of season.. give you a healthy  and  hearty laugh.
I adore this man

</review>
<review>

Truly the author's pen is mightier than the sword as he takes on Christmas, parents, children, evangelical Christians from Kentucky, television, Macy's, the result of a dalliance during the Viet Nam War, and "keeping up with the Joneses".

This short book is much funnier than his best-selling "Me Talk Pretty Some Day" as the author's humorous cynicism is at its best.  One can't put it down for fear of missing some insight into the American psyche.

Three of the stories appear to be autobiographical (with obvious changes made to "protect the innocent") wherein the author "tells" the others in the guise of another.

Regardless, Sedaris pulls no punches and will have the reader in stitches, even if there's a little guilt attached to that feeling.

</review>
<review>

As i watched Elie Weisel on the Oprah show i cried..when ivbought his first book Dawn** i cried, and with every purchase i intend..i will cry and say thank you GOD!! and Mr Weisel..
I am a descendant of slaves, and i can now look back on what was done by MLK, Nelson Mandela, and others who have dedicated thier lives to freedom..for all people and dedication to our own cultures..Thank you Mr Weisel..Thank U..
U have opened my own eyes to the fact..that there is something i can do..
I also thank the Jewish people of this world who have survived to tell thier stories.

</review>
<review>

1986 Nobel Prize Peace Winner Elie Wiesel is one of the great moral figures in the modern era. His classic work 'Night' perhaps more than any other work made horrifically clear the pain and suffering of the Holocaust. He has written over fifty works of literary and moral testimony, a number of which are not simply classics of literature but which changed the course of history. One of those was his 'Jews of Silence' on the fate of Russian Jewry.
This present work is written about the Six- Day War of June 1967. It is written with the same humane quality, the same mystical lyricism that pervades much of his work. It expresses something of the relief felt in the Jewish world in 1967 when Israel overcame the threat of destruction from the Arab world initiated at Nasser's closing of the Suez Canal.
The work moves back and forth from the Jerusalem of the present to the small Eastern European village world Wiesel lived in before the Holocaust. The work despite its poetic and revelatory qualities is confusing in its narrative line, and in my judgment far from one of Wiesel's best. Yet it does express something of the longing of hundreds of Jewish generations to return to their ancestral home in Jerusalem, and the land of Israel - and to dwell there in peace with their neighbors. It is a book written in the same humane and generous spirit ( And thus follows the ancient Jewish adage- that the greatest triumph is to make a friend of a former enemy) of all Wiesel's works.
This work does give some feeling of that great exaltation the Jewish world felt in 1967 at its escaping existensial danger and returning to its holiest places.

</review>
<review>

Sue Grafton has created the best female detective--bar none!  Kinsey's cases are realistic, and she is so real that you find yourself looking for her on the street.  There is no higher praise for an author.

</review>
<review>

In this tale, our friend Kinsey, is out to find who started a fire in the Wood/Warren Warehouse.  But somewhere in the investigating Kinsey finds herself weaved into this horrible mess.  With her life and career on the line here Kinsey stretches to desperate measures to not only find out who started the fire but also who committed murder.  Its a rollercoaster ride till the end, but hop on, cause like I said "E" is for Excellent and Exciting

</review>
<review>

Evidence is the key word in E IS FOR EVIDENCE, from evidence planted to implement another, to lost evidence, etc. Grafton likes E words because there are lots of them in here to accompany evidence: We have ex-lovers, evasions, enemies, exoneration and endings.

Wow, are you as confused as I was when reading the back of this book?? My advice is not to read the back and just jump right in to it! This is the book where we see that Kinsey Millhone is not a super woman action figure, but can go through the normal garbage that we all experience. Except with Kinsey it's on a much grander scale. E IS FOR EVIDENCE tells a little of Kinsey's background, that she's thirty-two and had been married twice and divorced twice, used to be a cop, doesn't have many close friends (except for Henry) and usually takes the case of the underdog.

Grafton delves more into the personality behind her heroine and lets the reader see more of the real Kinsey Millhone, but so as not to bore you, she also brings us closer to Henry and others with glimpses into their homes and lives.

Another winner for Grafton!

</review>
<review>

"`E' is for Evidence" is the fifth in a series of Sue Grafton's mystery novels about the loner ex-cop private detective Kinsey Millhone.  In this episode, Kinsey is framed for insurance fraud along with her high school friend's brother, Lance Wood.  As she tries to clear her name, she gets caught up in the Wood family politics and we get to see a softer side of Kinsey than she would probably care to show.  Grafton does a thorough job of developing her characters along with providing enough detail to allow the reader to feel as though he or she is actually in Santa Teresa, California.  The twists and turns that this story takes will keep you guessing until the end

</review>
<review>

Usually people don't complain about receiving money from an anonymous source, but Investigator Kinsey Millhone knows that she needs to report the $5000 which has mysteriously appeared in her bank account.  No one seems to know where the money has come from and soon it is all part of a problem that involves Kinsey as a suspect in an insurance fraud case.  As she delves into the investigation, she uncovers a prominent family's secrets and continues to get into trouble herself.  As usual, Kinsey's investigation causes physical danger to her, until she hunts down the perpetrator.  This is another good read from Sue Grafton

</review>
<review>

This book is timeless in its content and most espescially in regard to Dr. Yunus winning the Nobel Peace Prize this year (2006) and Grameen's announcement of their open source software Mifos initiative. Anyone who wants to truly understand how micro-lending can be a powerful tool to battle poverty must read this book.

It will inspire you to do more!


</review>
<review>

This books makes you appreciate all of the advantages that one is afforded by simply being born into an advanced economy.  Yunus does an great job of explaining his rational for how he developed his bank and what has made it successful.  He truly does deserve his Nobel Prize as I am sure his banking model will have an ever-widening affect on the lives of millions for generations to come.

</review>
<review>

I found Banker to the Poor to be an excellent, enjoyable read that provided me invaluable insights into poverty in third world countries, and educated me about effective market-driven ways to allieviate poverty, empower the poor and transform poor women from victims to successful entrepreneurs.  Well worth anyone's time to read. The author's award of the Nobel Peace Prize seems very deserving.

</review>
<review>

Yunus tells a great story about his bank and its battle against poverty.  Outstanding business model for someone interested in micro lending

</review>
<review>

This was an absolutely amazing book.  It has given me renewed hope that poverty can be eliminated from this earth and will redirect my contribution dollars.  I am heartened by what one man could accomplish through his own initiatives.  A must read for all economists and humanitarians

</review>
<review>

In the 1970s Professor Mohammed Yunus had a great idea on how to help the poor of Bangladesh and he made it work. He invented micro-credit, or lending very small amounts to the poorest of the poor, without asking for collateral. This, rather than simple handouts, would help the poor become self-reliant enough so that they could lift themselves out of poverty. He concentrated on women. He relied on peer support to motivate repayment of the loans by making loans to one member of a group of women who would have access to credit only if the entire group had a good credit record (when a group started, they were assumed to have good credit). Professor Yunus's organization, the Grameen Bank, is a cooperative owned mostly by its members and boasts a repayment rate over 98%.

In the 30 years since Professor Yunus's first loan of 27 dollars, Grameen has now lent out billions to millions. It has liberated women in small villages, it has brought capitalist market mechanisms to the economic bottom 2% of the world population.

This first hand account by the American-educated Bangledeshi founder of Grameen Bank might not win any literary prize and it might end with a (I think) slightly naive vision of social work, but it effectively presents a simple story about a practical man who has made millions of the world's poorest people significantly better off.

</review>
<review>

Founded in Bangladesh by Muhammad Yunus in 1976, the Grameen Bank is one of the most successful attempts ever to employ capitalist principles to achieve social goals. By approaching poverty from a different tact, Grameen seeks to reconcile the inequalities inherent in capitalism by mobilizing the "informal sector" of society-the self-employed poor. By addressing the root cause of poverty (i.e. lack of access to capital) Yunus has succeeded where many others have failed. Often, well-intentioned governments fail to solve the issue of poverty because of "misguided development" policies and bloated bureaucracies. Similarly, many international financial institutions, such as the World Bank, have failed because their heavy-handed top-down approach excludes those most in need of aid. Yunus writes, "I have always believed that the elimination of poverty from the world is a matter of will" (248). Grameen succeeds where others fail because they appeal to the most downtrodden, the poorest of the poor-the bottom 50% of those already below the poverty line.

A precocious child and avid reader-especially of comicbooks-Yunus was one of fourteen children born to devout Muslim parents. The family lived on the second floor located above the jewelry store that his father owned and operated in Chittagong, the largest port-city in Bangladesh. His mother, despite her later mental illness, instilled a sense of charity early on in her son that would last a lifetime. While the seeds of the Grameen Bank were planted when Yunus was a child, they were certainly nurtured while studying under the tutelage of professor Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen in America. Yunus left to attend Vanderbilt University as a Fulbright scholar in 1965 after opening a successful packaging business in Bangladesh. The professor encouraged Yunus to question traditional economic theory, and to adopt a more pragmatic and social perspective. These influences resurfaced when Yunus returned to Bangladesh in 1972 to chair the economics department at Chittagong University.

Yunus experienced an epiphany one day while lecturing to his students. Amidst his moribund surroundings, Yunus became compelled to confront the obvious incongruence between the high theory he was espousing and the omnipresent reality of daily-life, "What good were all my complex theories when people were dying of starvation on the sidewalks and porches across from my lecture hall? Nothing in the economic theories I taught reflected the life around me" (viii). Yunus at once realized that he had an obligation as both a Bengali and a college professor to help alleviate the rampant starvation that wracked Bangladesh at the time.

After much contemplation Yunus decided that the best way to improve the material condition of the poor was to offer them a hand-up, rather than a handout. Yunus concluded that the poor were quite capable of prospering if only they were given the credit necessary to break out of poverty. He writes:

"But if you go out into the real world, you cannot miss seeing that the poor are poor not because they are untrained or illiterate but because they cannot retain the returns of their labor. They have no control over capital, and it is the ability to control capital that gives people the power to rise out of poverty (141)."

The limited access to capital kept the poorest of the poor enslaved to usurious rates charged by moneylenders whose strict terms affected the ability of the poor to ever repay. However, the very fact that the poor had managed somehow to survive is proof-positive that they too could become successful entrepreneurs if given the opportunity. With access to capital the poor can compete and retain control over profits.

In fulfilling its promise to raise the rural poor out of poverty Grameen has expanded its original income-generating loans to now include housing and education loans. The interest rates for each of the aforementioned loans are calculated based on simple interest and are 20%, 8%, and 5%, respectively. Proof of the strength of the Grameen project lies in its 98% recovery rate. Yunus attributes this success to making 95% of its loans to women. He believes that women are more likely to share the benefits of the opportunity with their family than are men. Unfortunately, this approach continues to meet strong opposition from conservative forces that view Grameen as a threat to their religious and traditional values. Nonetheless, the passion and commitment shared by villagers over the opportunity offered by Grameen eventually overcomes all local resistance.

The program requires a group of five to operate. As required by Grameen, an interested borrower must first pass an exam and also enlist others by explaining the program to them. Once they form a group, a chairman and secretary are elected. Then, two of its members requests a loan, typically for $25 each. Grameen encourages these groups to deposit 5% of each loan in a group-fund that can later be loaned out to members interest-free. After six weeks of successful repayment two more members may request a loan. Yunus writes:

"This is the beginning for almost every Grameen borrower. All her life she has been told that she is no good, that she brings only misery to her family, and that they cannot afford to pay her dowry. Many times she hears her mother or her father tell her she should have been killed at birth, aborted, or starved. But today, for the first time in her life, an institution has trusted her with a great sum of money. She promises that she will never let down the institution or herself. She will struggle to make sure that every penny is paid back (65)."

Despite all the good accomplished by Grameen, its micro-credit program represents only one element of a multi-pronged strategy needed to one day eradicate poverty from the surface of the earth, relegating it once and for all as an artifact of an unenlightened past.

Yunus envisions a more comprehensive program that would expand the notion of economic development to include "improving the general standard of living, reducing poverty, creating dignified employment opportunities, and reducing inequality" (72). He argues that the goal of such development should be measured by a new set of objective criteria, such as the "per capita income of the bottom 50% of the population" (146). The efforts of Grameen and others committed to fighting poverty culminated in the first ever "Micro-credit Summit of 1997" co-chaired by Hillary Clinton. Yunus believes that future success will require a new breed of "social entrepreneurs" who are driven by social goals rather than maximizing profit. The Grameen Bank's success has created an abundance of opportunities for social entrepreneurs to serve the needs of this emerging market.

Despite its demonstrated successes, Grameen still suffers attacks from its critics. Undeterred, Yunus embraces this criticism, "innovation can only sprout in an atmosphere of tolerance, diversity, and curiosity" (102). Pejoratively referred to by some as "poverty banking," Grameen has proven that its success is no fluke. Since making its first micro-loan of $27 to a Bengali basket weaver the Grameen Bank has grown to over 11,000 employees committed to ending world poverty. Grameen now operates in nearly 100 countries, originating over $4 billion in loans made to approximately 2.6 million borrowers worldwide. Much like its founder, Grameen continues to grow and meet the constantly evolving needs of its borrowers.

</review>
<review>

Reader,

This book will open your eyes, make you think but most important motivate you to take charge of your life. As a young man I can truly say Mr Kiyosaki has implanted a mindset of hope, hunger but most vital..education.

Enjoy sir/ m'am

</review>
<review>

This book was recommended by someone a lot more financially successful than I am.  But while I was reading, I kept asking myself, "When's he going to get to the point?"  The first part of the book is all about why it's good to be rich--something I thought was unnecessary.  The bulk of the book is filled with anecdotes that try to illustrate the different mindset of rich people as compared to middle-class and poor.  Finally, in the last part of the book, he gives some practical examples of what he considers to be good investment strategy.   This was the only part of the book I was interested in.  To me, it was like his publicist told him that no one is going to buy a 30-page book on investing and so Kiyosaki wrote what he knew about making money and filled the rest with "fluff".  However, even his advice is considered questionable by many experts.  I would say that the main idea I got from this book was to try to look at investing from different angles and not to just follow the crowd.  I just wish I hadn't invested so much time in a book that could have been a lot more concise

</review>
<review>

I think this is the best of the series. It is real easy to read which I like because you can finish it fast. It has some great lessons and makes some wonderful points about investing for future retirement. Anyone can learn something from this that they can put to good use.

There are a lot of generalities in this book but that doesn't mean that it isn't good. If you had to choose between this one and the first one I would choose this one. They both will get you thinking in terms of the big picture instead of the minute details of everyday life. I am currently investing in rental property and agree with the author that you must have positive cash flow in order to invest, which in a lot of markets you can't do right now.

Anyway this book will get you started down the road in the right direction which I must say a lot of them won't

</review>
<review>

I don't think you should read this book hoping to find HOW TO retire young and retire rich as most people would think of. The book doesn't tell you that. What the book DOES, is help you change your mind, the only thing I think that will really help you change your financial reality. I don't get tired of reading Kiyosaki. The more you read, the more you understand

</review>
<review>

This has to be my least favorite of my Kiyosaki collection.  I will sum it up for you...think and know the power of Leverage, Passive income is taxed at a lower rate than Earned income, and you gotta buy assets!  There, you can continue shopping

</review>
<review>

Retire Young Retire Rich is split up into four sections.  The fourth section is simply and closing speaking to those who may need help keeping the wind in their sails after aquireing the knowledge to fuel their finacial journey.  The first three sections are the real meat and potatoes of the book.  They not only include a collection of all of the advice, tactics, and tricks Kiyosaki's "Rich Dad" taught him over the years, but it also contains Kioysaki's testimonials- trajedy and triumph.
The first section is titled Leverage of Your Mind, and within it Kioysaki uses the tactics of repetition and warrant to suspend any doubts about becoming financially sound.  He teaches but also manipulates to allow the reader to feel safe about taking chances and risks in their future finacail lives.  The second Section is titled The leverage of Your Plan where more insight is given on how to create a health mindset concerning finance, money, and investing.  The third section, Leverage of Your Actions teaches how to develop habits, why, and when to use them in the future.

GREAT BOOK!!

</review>
<review>

Numerous reviewers of this book are disappointed that Kiyosaki does not present a detailed HOW TO become wealthy.

But just think about it---how MANY "how to" books are already out there? There are hundreds (maybe thousands) of books on HOW TO become rich in real estate, HOW TO become rich investing, HOW TO succeed at creating a business, etc.

One would have to assume that if all the "knowledge" in these books were actually applied, the U.S. (and much of the world) would be filled with very wealthy people.

Yet U.S. government (SSA)  statistics tell us that only about 5% of Americans will be financially free by age 65. Is there a major disconnect here?

What makes Kiyosaki unique is that he presents the all-important Mindset, without which all the "How To's" in the world will be of little value.

I have read a few of his other books. Not remembering exactly which principles came from which book, I recall the following essential principles:

1)  Do a self inventory--do you want to be Secure, Comfortable, or Rich?

2)  Use the Cashflow Quadrant to determine your predominant emotional makeup as regards money--Employee, Self-Employed, Business creator, or Investor.

(someone with a deeply entrenched Employee mindset will have a hard time taking the risks necessary to build a B-Quadrant business.)

3)  Decide what kind of Investor you want to be (I think there are 7 levels)

These three items are the essential SELF-INVENTORY you need BEFORE trying to become rich.

Once you have completed the inventories and decided on your own path to wealth it is essential...

4)  to form your Team (accountant, attorney, financial adviser, tax adviser, etc., etc.)  And you should NOT be the smartest member of your team! You should gather and lead people smarter than yourself. (The ability to do this alone is a MAJOR skill!)

5)  If you want to build a B-Quadrant business, you must follow the B-I Triangle.

Well, I could go on and on, but I would bet 99-1 that most of the complainers about Kiyosaki's books have NOT done any of the above.

Concerning Retire Young, Retire Rich,  one of the essentials is to decide WHY you want to become rich--"If you know the WHY, the HOW is easy to find."

And the use of Leverage and Velocity of money is absolutely essential--and differentiates the rich from the average person.

In short, this book, repetitive though it is, continues to give the reader ways and self-inventories to develop the Mindset of creating wealth and being wealthy.

Most of us who did not grow up with wealth, or surrounded by wealthy people, need a major conversion of Mindset in order to see the whole world of money in a new and more vital way.

This is the value of the Kiyosaki Rich Dad series.

Without the Mindset and the WHY of wanting to retire young and retire rich, all the how-to's in the world are of little value.

4 Stars just because the book IS awfully redundant in places

</review>
<review>

Words cannot describe how ripped off and disappointed I feel about buying this book.

Having read RDPD and CFQ in the Kiyosaki range previously and finding them great, I thought this book would be great as well. I'm sorry to say it's the worst book I've ever read. The entire book is a blatant sales brochure for all his other books.

There's all these annoying references where you get a little bit of information and then instructions that if you want to know more, you need to buy one of his other books.
I didn't get any useful information and it's certainly not a 'how to' book. I thought I would be reading about him and his wife's story but all I got was the same few points said over and over again. He doesn't even try to say them in a different way.

The other annoying thing was his promotion of network marketing as a good business option. It was obviously done to help sweeten the deal he has with the network marketing association who recommend all his books to their members.

I could seriously go on and on about why you shouldn't waste your money on this book but I won't.

I have NEVER written a book review on amazon before as I have never felt so strongly about a book. I generally feel if I get even just 1 thing out of reading a book then it was well worth it. In this case I didn't get anything out of it and felt really used and taken advantage of which is why I decided to post this review.

I hope it saves someone else from wasting their money. Buying this book WILL NOT HELP YOU RETIRE YOUNG OR RETIRE RICH

</review>
<review>

I read the first paragraph of this book in the bookstore and I knew I had to buy it.  It hits you right off the bat and doesn't let up until the end.  I love all the contradictions this book has in store.  Everything in this book is so far-fetched. but so funny.  Go out and buy it. Its a must read for anyone who wants a good laugh

</review>
<review>

This is undoubtedly the strangest book I've read in a long time.

I got Wigfield from the library because I love Stephen Colbert - his current show, of course, is amazing, but what I've seen of Strangers With Candy is perhaps even better. Naturally, a book written by the three talented people behind such a show sounded promising.

In addition to being funny in a I-really-shouldn't-be-laughing-at-stuff-like-this way, there's also brilliant wordplay and the like, which make it even more fun to read.

Not for the faint of heart, but definitely for those who enjoy somewhat reckless, completely politically incorrect (and I hate to use that phrase, because it's tossed about so much nowadays to refer to just about anything), and overall rather bizarre humor. Much like Strangers with Candy.

Great book.
It's kind of brilliant and terrible at the same time.
I'll have to read it again

</review>
<review>

I love "Strangers With Candy" so when I saw that this book was written by the same people I just had to buy it. I first got it for my best friend and he thought it was crazy but goo, so I gave it a try. Great book, CRAZY, but halarious. If you like the show then this book has the same comedy style so give it a try

</review>
<review>

If you enjoy The Cobert Report with Steven Cobert, formerly of The Daily Show, you will surely enjoy his reading of this wigged-out novel.  I love his malaprops, nonsequitors, puns, and insane logic.  Jokes come in threes.  The set up, the set up, and the twisted jab to the funny bone.  Perhaps, the people who don't like this book need to have it read to them like a bedtime story.  Then they would hear (out loud) the marvelously witty word play.  They could listen and hear the word paintings and crazy voices of the Wigfield sheriffs and mayors and strippers - there are at least three of each for reasons made clear in the book.  So, buy the cd version and play it while you drive (try not to run off the road laughing) and then when you read the book you won't have to move your lips to hear it.  As for me, I'm going to buy the book to see the funny photographs.  Pure genius marketing strategy if you ask me: If you can't read silently and understand the humor you have to buy the cd version, and then after you've listened to the cd you have to buy the book version  to see if the Wigfield populace can possibly look as stupid as they sound

</review>
<review>

I guess I'm in the minority of Talent Family/Strangers with Candy fans who LOVED this book.  It was so over-the-top and ridiculous, but that's what makes it great.  Like another reviewer said, the pictures alone make it worth the price of admission.  I checked this one out of the library, but wouldn't mind owning it, to go back and re-read my favorite passages and crack up over the insane pictures.

</review>
<review>

This would have been a good skit, or maybe a short story, but not an entire novel.  The book is tired like the town Wigfield

</review>
<review>

Sharp, quick whit.  If you like edgy comedy you will love this!  For all the bad reviews, it must have just been over their heads

</review>
<review>

I love David Sedaris. I like Strangers with Candy. But this is the worst book I've ever read. All of the characters are exactly the same, and the entire book is a repetition of one joke. Save yourself valuable time and money and stay far, far away from Wigfield

</review>
<review>

Funny people have it bad. When they're actually making you laugh they're fine. When they're failing to make you laugh they come off as desperate, flailing nerds. I was a huge fan of Stranger with Candy whose writing was incisive and brutally funny. Less so with the Book of Liz, and even less so with this book. Sedaris, Colbert  and  Dinello are funny people but this is an embarassment. It's abundantly clear now that they require a format (ripe for a send-up) to shine. Was there a 2nd draft or was this a cash-in for their agents? Every joke in this nervous-to-please dud is a throwaway. A tiresome type of joke starts on page 1. By page 2 you've detected the formula and by page 3 it's just grating. The plot is the flimsiest possible structure three smart asses can bounce bad puns  and  jokes off of. It quickly collapses. I could not complete it but I suspect the book ends up being lightweight crap. When you commit to nothing but your own funniness you never get around to questions of merit. This is a desperately nerdy book, just as the posed "funny" pictures suggest. (I've never seen less funny pictures...) Who was the intended audience for this? The dumbest person I know has a more sophisticated funny bone than this.

There's wit and then there's corn. This is a whole crop of the latter. Leave time for your own groaning if you plan to read the whole thing

</review>
<review>

Really, I hate to use such an overused phrase as the title for my review, but coming up with something clever is really more than this book deserves. You'd think it'd be a safe bet that a book written by people you find funny and endorsed on the back cover by people you find hilarious is going to be a hoot. You'd think that, but you'd be wrong. Instead you'd be left saying, "Jon Stewart, my man, you liked this? Seriously? Are you high? No, wait don't answer that, it's all becoming abundantly clear to me now."

</review>
<review>

I am reading the book right now and am enjoying all the little tid bits of information.  The book is easy to navigate through with it being set around days of the year.  Though, it is easy to forget that the author is talking about a specific day being "opening day" for a movie, someone's "birthday", etc

</review>
<review>

This book is so much fun. I love having something small to read daily. Some of the trivia is even new to me!! A great addition to any Disney collectors library

</review>
<review>

Today In History: Disney by Eve Zibart is an expansive, year-long compendium of informative "infobits" and trivia of the Walt Disney's elaborate and engaging business empire from its beginnings down to the present day -- all laid out in a kind of "fact for the day" format. For example: March 10th (1938) "The Old Mill" not only continued the studios' nearly unbroken streak of Best Animated Short Subject Oscars but also earned Walt Disney his first scientific and technical Oscar for the development of the multiplane camera. A Famously moody and dramatic film almost nine minutes long, "The Old Mill" depicts a Storm as it threatens a farmyard mill and the animals who make their home inside. Eventually, of course, the storm passes, the sun returns, and all is well. -- Name That 'Toon: Which animated film marked the first time mickey was digitally animated, using the technique developed for the Mickey's Philhar Magic attractions? (it gives the answer) and Disney Quiz: What is the former First Lady Nancy Reagan's surprising connection to the Disney movie "Aladdin?" -- the answer is provided). Compiling a wealth of fun knowledge and trivia quizzes on the history of the Disney theme parks, movies, television programs, technical accomplishments, memorable characters, the Mickey Mouse Club, and so much more, Today In History: Disney offers creative calendar of fun facts throughout the yearly on a "one-a-day" setup. The result is an all-inclusive and eclectic guide through Disney history. Today In History: Disney is enthusiastically recommended for all Disney fans.

</review>
<review>

I've read only a few of Hillerman's previous Leaphorn/Chee novels. I've enjoyed what I've rtead, though they are an acquired taste, and I don't indulge in them very often. I tend to enjoy the earlier, more active years of Joe Leaphorn more interesting than his ' semi-retired unofficial advisor to Jim Chee' phase.

From what I gather, 'Skeleton Man' continues a recent trend of disappointment with Hillerman's last few novels. Even without having read the books immediately prior to this one, I can understand that sentiment.
'Skeleton Man' starts off with a rather risky premise, tying the story in with the real life collision over the Grand Canyon in 1956. While an author can occasionally pull off a good story with a strong connection to 'real life'(See Nelson De Mille's 'Night Fall'), Hillerman fails here.
The story is bogged down with bland and unlikable supporting characters, flimsy motivation, and very little that could really be called 'action'.
Chee ends up joining Leaphorn in the background for much of the story.
The spiritual and ritualistic aspects of Hillerman's earlier books are, for the most part, glossed over here. Even what should have been a major plot development (Chee's wedding) is overshadowed by Chee have to rescue Manuelito, in the manner of far too many contrived 'Superman rescues Lois' situations.
Better to stick with Hillerman's earlier novels. The 'aging athlete past his prime' analogy suits Hillerman, I'm afraid

</review>
<review>

I had been a bit disappointed by the last couple of Tony Hillerman's books. This one was much more like the 'old' Hillerman. I am enchanted by how Hillerman moves Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn along the road of life, gives interesting insight into Navajo and Hopi culture, and still presents good solid mysteries. Hillerman is an outstanding writer with a relaxed and easy style. Like all of the earlier Chee/Leaphorn novels this one leaves you a bit breathless and with a smile on your face. Really good stuff.

Why the four stars instead of five? Well, the resolution of the mystery was a bit abrupt. Hillerman could have written an entire chapter to take up the loose ends, but he elected to do so in a couple of paragraphs. It left me feeling a bit left out, that's all

</review>
<review>

I read this and couldn't put it down.  I have a friend who reads him regularly so I thought I'd give his book a chance.
I shall read more of Mr. Hillerman's writings.

</review>
<review>

But the bones of the man attaced to a case of diamonds are the girl's best friend, and she's trying to find them to prove the bones match her DNA.  This mystery features a scramble along the Grand Canyon to find the missing bones, deposited as a result of a legendary 1956 airplane crash.  An unscrupulous lawyer also wants the bones, to prevent the lady from making her claim to the billion dollar inheritance.  Navaho and Hopi policemen from Hillerman's many books get involved in the hunt too.

</review>
<review>

After reading so many positive reviews, I decided to try Skeleton Man as my first Hillerman novel.  Unfortunately, I'm about 100 pages into it and have decided to give up on it.

I read a lot of novels and have never really had a problem with this before, but I find Hillerman's writing style to be very choppy and awkward.  I find I have to re-read sentences to catch the meaning because it just doesn't flow smoothly.

Here's an example of one paragraph that I opened to randomly:

"Getting this ceremonial procession from Tuve's village on Second Mesa to the canyon rim and them to the riverbank involved describing several more stops for prayers and offerings, the placing of painted feathers in the proper places with the proper songs, and putting prayer sticks where the proper spirits traditionally visited.  By the time Tuve had brought them to the Hopi shrine at the tribe's cliff-bottom salt deposits, Joanna Craig had looked at her watch three times that Chee had noticed.  Navajo fashion, he hadn't glanced at his own.  Tuve would finish when he finished."

It's like he talks in short cuts that you're expected to follow.
When I'm reading this book, my mind is wandering all over the place because the text doesn't draw me in.

I'm glad he has a lot of fans out there, but I'm not one of them

</review>
<review>

Skeleton Man is another masterpiece for Tony Hellerman. Only problem is he doesn't write them fast enough

</review>
<review>

Tony Hillerman never disappoints me! Another in a long line of attention grabbing stories

</review>
<review>

The newest Leaphorn/Chee sequel does not disappoint the reader.  The supporting characters were all present and the native (spiritual) customs were explained in their usual forthright manner.........If you are a follower of the Leaphorn/Chee mystery series this book is a must read - And if you are new to this series it won't matter because Hillerman does enough character backgrounding to bring you up to date.

</review>
<review>

Skeleton Man is another success for Tony Hillerman.  The usual well-planned mystery to solve, and more about three of my favorite characters, Joe, Jim, and Bernie who appreciate the desert so much

</review>
<review>

Like the easy to find requirements for each breed

</review>
<review>

This book is a Godsend for folks trying to decide which is the right breed of dog for them.  Concise yet complete, and very readable.  You sit down intending to glance through your new book, and end up reading it cover-to-cover (often laughing out loud).  You now have a short list of possible breeds, and you know just what to do next, to find your dog.  Great book for dog-hunters

</review>
<review>

This book is full of information on all kinds of different dog breeds. It tells you if the breed is good with kids, how much it sheds, what it is good at, and more

</review>
<review>

As a cat-owner looking for a dog, I needed help.  I've only lived with cats during my lifetime (except the dog my parents had until I was 5).  This book gives information about the different breeds of dogs, about finding a breeder or rescuing an animal, plus much much more.  If you are looking into finding the type of dog that will fit into your household, I highly recommend this book.  My husband also found it to be full of information, and he's been a dog-owner all of his life

</review>
<review>

As the author of this book, of course, I think it's great!  Seriously, this book helps make researching a breed fun.  I surveyed long-time owners and breeders of each breed, asking them to tell me the truth to avoid  and quot;mistake and quot; purchases.  This, in turn, will eliminate families with broken hearts and bewildered homeless dogs.  In addition to the first time buyer,  and quot;Choosing a Dog for Dummies and quot; also helps those looking for a second breed or someone who does breed referral or works in shelters

</review>
<review>

Chris Walkowicz's Choosing A Dog For Dummies is a simple, straightforward, easy-to-read, and dependable introduction on how to decide which pet qualities you value most and are compatible with your own particular life style; all of the practical steps to take in choosing a great dog for you; as well as all aspects of properly caring for your canine pet. Additionally, readers can find out about breed rescue, and there's an invaluable advice about selecting a  and quot;kid-friendly and quot; dog. If you are considering the acquisition of a canine companion for you or your family, read Chris Walkowicz's Choosing A Dog For Dummies

</review>
<review>

The Decline of the West is the magnum opus of Oswald Spengler (1880-1936), a German historian and philosopher. In it, Spengler rejects the idea that the future of the West (or indeed of any culture) is an open-ended advance from the primitive past to an ever more glorious and expansive future. Instead, cultures (including the West) experience an almost organic history of Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter.

According to Spengler, the West moved out of its Summer period with the dawn of the nineteenth century, and into a Civilization phase. This phase is dominated by mega-cities, and money and atheism come into ascendance. And what lies in the future? Caesarism, and a long period of stagnation in the arts and sciences.

Now, the above summary is inevitably bound to be overly simplistic, even to the point of being misleading. The Decline of the West was originally published as two books, and it is a deep and erudite philosophical look at the history of the world, so any small summary is bound to be insufficient to do it justice.

Having heard this work referenced so many times, I decided to read it for myself. In fact, though it does present a deterministic view of history, it does not propose a West that is about to collapse and be swept into the dustbin of history (as some people want it to). In fact, this is a cogent, penetrating look at history, which certainly seems to accurately predict how the West has developed from the first book's initial publication in 1918.

Now, I must admit that like many scholarly books of the era, this one has a dense, thickly argued text that makes for some very heavy reading indeed. But, if you are willing to devote time to the reading of this book, and more time to digest what it has to say, you will be rewarded with one of the fascinating and thought-provoking look at the modern West. Are we at the End of History, or the end of the West? Read this book and find out

</review>
<review>

This postmodern chronicle of the western world by early 20th century German historian and philosopher, Oswald Spengler, offers a lot for today's reader despite its flaws. It's an incredibly rich and complex analysis, attacking the causal factors of the development of western culture on many fronts simultaneously: historically, scientifically, artistically, architecturally, ecclesiastically, and so much more. This book is capable of describing many different aspects of western culture to many different readers, depending on who they happen to be and what their interest in western history is. I will only mention three aspects of Spengler's work in my review, since these aspects are what grabbed my attention, bearing in mind that the book contains much more than what I touch on here.

A. Spengler, a westerner himself, constructs detailed accounts in describing the historical development of western Europe. One of his main theses is a distinction between culture and civilization, which he derives from a credible, if difficult to falsify model for a universal cycle of human cultural growth, followed by decline into advanced civilization. For those familiar with biological theory, Spengler's model is essentially a growth curve. The familiar biological model is the lag phase, then the log phase, followed by the stationary phase, and ending in the death phase; which repeats itself virtually ad infinitum. In Spengler's model he labels these phases, respectively, after the seasons, beginning with spring and ending with winter. The spring-time of a people is a mythical phase, where settled economic life grows from a rural peasantry. This is followed by the summer, or cultural phase of strong and dynamic growth in all important aspects of a people; of economic, religious, martial, and other relevant human impulses. Then comes the fall, where dogma forms. Where adult-like reason takes root from the innocent cultural phase and puritan oversight of national religion and government begin to set hard like concrete. Finally, the winter of a people is when the national personality and traditions lose their effectiveness. Civilized and urbane money and economic issues tend to become preimminent over the cultural issues. Technology and irreligion become rampant. This cycle is not a modern phenomena, but repeats itself as seen in ancient Egyptian, Roman, and Aztec civilizations; and again, currently in America.

B. Spengler's style in elucidating a history of the west, and developing an hypothesis of universal and collective human behavior, is punctuated by the era in which he wrote: the early 20th century. Much of the historical analysis before and after this era lacks the materialist, psychoanalytical, and structural influence that typified thinking and literature when Spengler wrote. Published in 1926, The Decline of the West contains that biting air of criticism and structuralism so fecund in those times. This critical structural analysis gives Spengler's work a sharper contrast and greater depth of field than would likely have been possible for a writer from before or after Spengler's time. This is not to take away from Spengler's native insight and acuity, which was nevertheless, likely heightened by the charged literary atmosphere of early 20th century Germany.

C. The way Spengler psychoanalyzes the structure of history through art and architecture is almost wholey absent from the majority of standard historical analyses. Reading Spengler makes one aware of this common lack. This is one of the strong points of this book, since art and architecture express so much of what a culture is and why it thinks in the ways it does.

All in all, despite the typical fallacies of sex and race Spengler repeats, once could say this is a seminal work describing western development and thought which no student of history should leave unopened. An advantage of reading this book today instead of when it was originally released is the internet. If you lack truly comprehensive powers of recall regarding the art and architecture Spengler uses to analyze his subject cultures, then using the internet to pull up the various paintings, sculptures, and architectural examples is most helpful as an active part of reading this work; turning what could otherwise be a dry, boring read into something more alive that captures what the author is trying to convey. If possible, bring up the actual images of the art and architecture Spengler describes at the moment you're reading about it. This gave me a more graphic and focused perspective of the cultures he analyzes. Reading this book was like experiencing a kaleidoscope of mind candy

</review>
<review>

A poory written, racially charged work by a bitter, probably mentally ill schoolteacher that gives the illusion of having a "key" to historical development. In addition to the cycle of history thesis, he identifies eight civilizations and their birth to death cycle, Spengler points to a nation's "will" and race as the key to a "kultur's" success.

This is the sort of crank theory that held an appeal to National Socialists and amateur history buffs for whom decline mythology holds an attraction-- facts be damned.

Interesting as an historical footnote but dismissed by anyone with a serious foundation in history and historical analysis.

</review>
<review>

Quite simply the most important book of the twentieth century for several reasons:

1]  Spengler offers a morphology of history as an organic conception that can used to understand all historical development with genuine insight.

2]  Spengler's projection of coming trends (e.g. Militant Islam, environmental crisis, secularization of the elites, "second religiousness" of the folk, etc.) has enormous predictive value.  His understanding of current events (from the perspective of 1917!) is more acute and useful than any present day commentator.

3]  Without a doubt, Spengler is the most important National Bolshevik thinker.

4]  "Oswald Spengler is the greatest mystic of the twentieth century." - Klemmens von Klempere

</review>
<review>

The theory of Spengler is as follows: Historical comparison of cultural formation, of governments, of civilizations, of art, architecture and music, of mathematics, science, philosophy, revolutions and control, of formations, destructions and deteriorations of societies and cultures; are thus interpreted to have a similarity with biological structure. Just as a sentient being is born, forms, grows, molds, progresses, digresses, deteriorates, ages, decays and dies, so it is with cultures and civilizations. In this case, a culture in its childlike creative ability solidifies into non-creative matter, stagnant, authoritarian and brittle and then dies.

"The Decline of the West" is a major opus, indeed a masterwork, with a dense text full of mew terminology and new concepts. The fact that Dr.Spengler discovered a true existence of a living form in the history- and life-cycles of civilizations has been deliberately ignored by critics. Dr.Spengler in his work definitely belongs to the realm of the modern "TABOO," and precisely uncovers all the important facts and ideas, that our "accepted" intellectuals of the day DARE NOT touch upon, and prefer to avoid and misinterpret and misrepresent Dr.Spengler's thought and observations - for these are all too unnerving to them and too uncomfotably revealing about the character and direction of the times we live in. Unfortunately, and despite the book's popularity, the Decline of the West has made little impact on academic thought, which remains, at root, as shallow as it was a century ago.

One example, which I think has clearly been borne out by current events: in the aftermath of WWI, where armies with troops numbering in the millions were often too small, Spengler predicted that armies of our time would number in the hundreds of thousands, and that these small, war-keen armies were meant to be used. Everything that is happening in the world today, from American response to 9/11, to pornography, to the professionalization of sports, to families not eating dinner together, is elucidated by Spengler's theory. He stated that not only was the world in which he exist barren of all impressive spiritual form and style and predicted that it must and would remain so and it has. Spengler's basic point - that western Culture attained its highest cultural glories three centuries ago, and has been plummeting into a chaotic, irreligious stew of materialistic formlessness ever since, remains indisputably true. People living in the West, and particularly America, would do well to read this moving piece of literature. It might help dispell once and for all the casual attitude which assumes that "this" is infinite.

The best analogy is a scene from The Matrix: Morpheus offers Neo two pills. The red pill will reveal the world as it truly is, which very few people actually see. The blue pill will take Neo back where he was, still fooled by the Matrix, oblivious to reality. The Decline of the West is the red pill

</review>
<review>

This is the last book in the Dark Elf Trilogy that tells the tale of how Drizzt fares in the surface world. I think its a great follow up to Exile, and really puts into perspective the challenges a dark elf faces in the eyes of surface dwellers that do not want to accept him. Once again, Salvatore creates memorable characters that heavily influence Drizzt's life. He learns and gains much wisdom in this book and I think its a necessary bridge to Icewind Dale.

Although I admit I missed the underdark, Sojourn is still a very enjoyable read. Salvatore presents the material in a very believable manner and we really get to see inside the struggling character Drizzt Do'Urden. By the end of this book, he finally comes into his own and moves onto bigger and better things in the Icewind Dale Trilogy.  Welcome home  :-

</review>
<review>

The 2nd best book in my opinion of the trilogy puts Drizzt finding his home in the surface world. What makes this book so great is the fact he knows nothing about the surface and its surroundings, seeing him as he develops and learns the processes of weather conditions or how he learns to build a fire to survive those harsh conditions is intriguing. In this book he befriends a old and blind ranger called mooshie, and he teaches him a little bit of everything, including the human tongue, how to follow the ways of the goddess meliki and alot of other philosophy stuff to soothe his burden

</review>
<review>

This has got to be one of my all-time favorite books.  If you're a big fantasy buff, and have read any other works of R.A. Salvatore, this is a must read.  A lot of people really enjoyed the character Drizzt from the Icewind Dale trilogies, and this three part epic compiles everything that ever happened to him before you first met him in the earlier book.  The characters beside Drizzt are amazing and dynamic, bringing their own unique touch to the story.  This book is suitable for anyone over the age of ten, yet isn't a kid's novel.  The world Salvatore creates in The Dark Elf Trilogies is fantastic, and quite immense also.  Ranging from the delving caverns of the Underdark to the over world, the setting plays a major role in the story, just like in other fantasy books, except more so in this one.  This book is loaded with detail, and the plot will be sure to keep the reader wondering what's going to happen next.  Some parts may seem a bit predictable, but they aren't as important as the major events.  Overall, this has got to be one of the best fantasy books I have ever read, and I personally enjoy it more than the Lord of the Rings and other epics.  I definitely recommend to anyone interested in the fantasy genre to read this book, otherwise you'll be missing out on a great opportunity

</review>
<review>

God, this book was awful! Not just the story, it was the construction that turned me off. The storyline is weak and the writing immature. Characters seem to sprout and wither with all the imagination of a photocopier. There is nary a connection between personalities and their responses to events. I can go on but I guess I need to be more concrete.

A sprite introduced within the first 45 pages suddenly develops ventriloquistic abilities for just one scene. Nary a mention before or later of that ability. While it is the prerogative of the author, a little more finesse would have been nice.

There is an unnecessary page or two of pontification before each of the five parts that comprise the book. For a work so shallow in its content, this essentially has a "insult-to-injury" aura.

Guenhwyvar is totally wasted/domesticated in the book. There was some evocation of majesty associated with the panther in the first book. In this third book, he had all the majesty of a tomcat. Also unbelievable is a battle towards the end where the panther is unable to dispose of the pet dog of the bad guy.

Then there's Montolio, what can I say....for a couple of chapters I thought this might be a promising character, especially with the blind archer bit. He even defeats the great Drizzt in battle, seemingly teaching him a "valuable" lesson. Then dies a few months later of old age. C'mon!!

With this book I give up on Robert Salvatore, never mind the ringing endorsement given to him by Margaret Weis in the 'Introduction' (strike one for her)

</review>
<review>

I had never heard of R.A Salvatore before i picked up "Homeland", instantly within a few pages of reading i was hooked on what was the best Trilogy of books i have read since "The Lord fo the Rings", in my own opinion.  He managed to captivate my mind by exploring a world of complete darkness, but with such intricate detail i sometimes forgot that i had been reading for a few hours.  Its a great story about finding your own path in life no matter who stands in your way.  A story about love, even if its completely useless where you come from.  Drizzt Do'Urden is character that will forever live within, and prove what a true author can do

</review>
<review>

Sojourn is the conclusion of the Dark Elf Trilogy which began with Homeland, continued in Exile and ends here. If you've not read the first two books then I suggest you do so now because the third book is a direct continuation of the other books and you'll be missing out quite a lot by starting here.

Exile was a notch below Homeland. It suffered from poor characters and a very predictable storyline and Sojourn isn't much different. None of the characters from the first two books remain(besides Drizzt of course) so the reader has to deal with a whole new cast. For the most part, these new characters are very one dimensional and similar to the characters in Exile in that there's no attachment to the characters. They're just stage props that Drizzt interacts with before moving on to yet another part of his journey. Characters leave or die out of the blue and they're not very fleshed out. The only decent character Montolio receives almost no development besides a page or two about his past. The author could have spent more time on the characters instead of writing overly long, 10 page battles that go nowhere.

The action returns here in quantity as in the books before. Again, it feels that more of the book is spent in fights than anything else and the battles themselves are completely too long and are littered with many unnecessary descriptions.

The writing too is the worst yet. There are many sentences that just don't read well at all and show a very amateur style. The book itself is very simplisticly written so it will appeal to the younger crowd but if you're looking for some deep, well written fantasy then look elsewhere.

The poor writing, weak and boring characters, and overly long battles are the main downfalls of the book. The world still remains rather interesting with interesting creatures and a lush, although not fully developed world. The story is rather weak too as it just continues on the course exile took. The story is uninspired and nothing much really happens throughout; Drizzt just moves from one place to another with a few small stops and adventures. It's probably the worst part of the Dark Elf Trilogy although the ending does introduce some new characters that may bode well for the Icewind Dale trilogy.

</review>
<review>

the book was on good condition and quickly delivere

</review>
<review>

I'm the director of a Christian environmental website, and I've read dozens of Christian books on ecology and the environment.  This is one of my all-time favorites.  I love this book!  It may very well be the best book on the Biblical basis for environmental stewardship!  Buy it for yourself, or buy it as a textbook for environmental study.  Outstanding!  What makes it particularly unique and special is that it is written by 4 biologists!  My only complaint is that there is little or no mention of the great Christian conservationist, John Paul II.  It's still very much worth a read

</review>
<review>

The Boston based author, Dennis Lehane, wrote a great detective story with a social background so great, it is almost more important than the plot. "Mystic River" differs from Lehane's other books and indeed raises him to the next level as a writer.

"Mystic River" is set in the fictional Boston suburb, called East Buckingham (the author explains it as an amalgamate of Dorchester, Charlestown and South Boston and it really feels like Dorchester), home mostly to white working class, with plenty of crime. I liked the background info especially since I could relate to it, knowing the area...

The first part, which is the base and explanation for later events, takes place in 1975, when one of the three eleven-year old neighborhood boys playing in the street is abducted by two men in an apple-smelling car, and although he comes back after four days, his life as well as his friends' is changed forever. The ways of the boys soon part, Dave (the boy taken by the men) lives a quiet life, has a wife and a son, and likes his memories of being a football player in high school. Jimmy, the "bad boy", after doing some time in prison settles down as a storeowner with a nineteen-year old daughter from his first marriage, second wife and their two daughters. The third boy, college-educated Sean, becomes a policeman.

When Jimmy's beautiful daughter, Katie, is found murdered in the park after a night out Dave comes home covered in blood, Sean gets assigned to the case. There are many leads to different people... But the case is difficult. Meanwhile, Jimmy and his family embark on the search of their own.

The plot is very good until the end, and psychological details as well as the insights into the society are extremely accurate. The characters are very real, especially Jimmy and Sean, who are central to the plot. Their trauma after Dave's abduction made a lasting effect on their lives - in very different ways. They are complicated, multifaceted people, very well developed as literary characters. Some side protagonists, depicting perhaps types rather than individuals (Bobby, Roman, the Savage brothers, Sergeant Whitey), are very good. I was in the grasp of this book until the end - it is not only great entertainment, but also food for thought.

The movie based on "Mystic River" with Sean Penn is equally moving - recommended for those with little time...

</review>
<review>

What's wrong with all you Amamzon reviewers?

I actually quite liked Shutter Island but this was total garbage. The morose tone is totally overdone throughout, and the end is pathetic. The interesting situtation setup in the first chapter is never satisfyingly integrated with the rest of the story.

Avoid

</review>
<review>

Three childhood friends from a Boston working class neighborhood, who lost their innocence through a tragic shared occurrence, are forced together again as adults when one of their daughters is murdered.  Each is wrapped tightly into the investigation, but each must also unwrap themselves in order come to terms with this latest tragedy and its conclusion.

An exceptional book.
A powerhouse story so well written, that Mr. Lehane's words allow you to slip unseen into these charters lives and walk around with them for a while (which is not very pleasant during some events).

Although the story is essentially a murder mystery, the real gems are the characters.  The charters are so well thought out and contain so many layers, that it is a joy to experience these layers being peeled like an onion to reveal their true nature.  In fact, the actual mystery (or "who done it") is almost secondary to how the main characters will be affected by each action and layer being revealed.  Of course the "who done it" is pivotal, but when the killer is revealed, the gas tank has already exploded and no conclusion could justify the actions taken.

A story about survival and awakening, with a hell of a mystery to push it along.  It was awesome.

</review>
<review>

This is a brilliant novel that I can't recommend highly enough.

While the mystery of who killed the teenage girl is good, Mystic River is so much more than just a murder mystery. It is a dark, affecting, moral drama.

The Boston setting is gritty and real and the characters are complex and fascinating. This is a novel about loyalty, friendship, and family. While the murder mystery is solved in the closing pages, the ending to this novel is messy and complicated - like life is.

Lehane has written a powerful novel with sharp dialogue that never sounds contrived. It is filled with raw emotion; the anguish of losing a child, the horror of child abduction, revenge and madness.

Don't read this novel if you like murder mysteries that are solved by a cat or the ladies sewing circle. This is a human drama; an unflinching look into the dark side of human nature.

</review>
<review>

It's a crime novel. It's human drama. It's gritty eloquent and literary. There are few other writers to whom to compare Lehane. He has a style all his own and a beautiful way of weaving old fashioned crime fiction into a tapestry of moral drama and psychological examination.
Three childhood friends grow apart as they age, though each remains in South Boston, where the novel is set. There is a horrific crime and the old friends are drawn together again through coincidental circumstances. As a reader, you care deeply for each character and you become invested in them from the start. Once Lehane owns you that way, he begins to unravel a classic murder mystery with a few jaw dropping revelations along the way.
In many ways, Lehane does for Boston what Stephen King has done for Maine. The southie backdrop is every bit as vivid as the characters who pop off the page. Great writing, great story. The kind of book that will keep you up until the birds start chattering outside

</review>
<review>

Wow! An intense read. At time the subject matter can be difficult to handle, but the story is amazing.  The movie does not do the novel justice

</review>
<review>

When I bought the book I did not know that they already made a movie out of it but I learned about it later on. So I was really excited when I started to read it - also because other comments were really good.
Unfortunately the book could not live up to my expectations at all.

First the story development is really slow- it takes an awful lot of pages before the actual crime happens.

Second, several passages in the book do not contribute anything vital at all to the story but only slow down the pace significantly.

The worst part of the book though is its style: It does not matter if a person really contributes anything at all to the story or the crime - he/she gets an extensive characterization. Most of them are several pages long and bore the hell out of the reader. Without this absolutely unnecessary amount of information this book easily could be about 200 pages shorter.

But even if the pace is slow and the book should be shorter, couldn't it still be an interesting book? Unfortunately those of you who hope to find a decent crime story will be disappointed big time as well. The detective aspect is so simple it could be told in less than 100 pages. On top of that the solution to the crime is so simple that after the first clue you know who the murderer is - and wonder why you need to go through over 200 pages to find out officially.

Conclusion:
If you are a psychologist and/or like in-depth character studies this is exactly the right book for you.
BUT for those of you who like fast-paced stories, ample twist and turns, surprises, action, thrilling developments and/or elaborate detective stories this book will be an absolute waste of your time. Please do not come anyway near it. Watch the movie instead - this way you will see some really great actors and are over with it in 2 hours

</review>
<review>

This book is very touching you get caught up with daves character.This book pulls you in and keeps you on the edge waiting and wondering what would happen next. It takes a turning point when one of the friends gets kidnapped by two man claiming to be officers. During that time they fall apart at lease one of them does. They lose there friendship  after the incident and become friends again but not to the same strenght they did before.Until another problem occurs then all of them come back into contact with each other again.It makes you think how far does friendship go? Alot of people that had friends when they where younger dont anymore. So i ask my self a question how strong is a friendship after a traggic situation. This book tells more info then the movie did and i like that. I feel bad for one of the friends cause after all that happened to him he was different

</review>
<review>

I was really looking forward to both the book and the movie. Unfortunately I think both are very much overrated. Character development is non-existent. We're supposed to believe that the haunted, passive, timid character Dave was an all-star shortstop in high school? The book had a great premise and good beginning, but went nowhere interesting. The handling of Dave's character relies on cliche and we never really get insight into the book's most intriguing character.

</review>
<review>

Dennis Lehane's Mystic River is a suspenseful, mind-teasing thriller that keeps the reader geussing and wanting to read more.  One of three friends gets kidnapped and molested as a child, but manages to escape four days later.  Twenty-five years after that, the friends have grown apart, and one of the men's daughters has been mysteriously murdered.  This tragic event brings the three boys back together again and shows that the past can never be hidden or forgotten.  I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to be kept geussing with a suspenseful murder mystery

</review>
<review>

I accidentally bumped into this book when I was in my 20s.  Had no idea where it would lead me.  Read it practically in one sitting.  I was amazed that I understood what Cabell was driving at even tho I could not have explained it coherently to anyone.

Next I re-read it in my 50s. I never read books twice.  Still amazed by it.

The book was buried in a box, after house moving many times.  I re-discovered it last night. Now in my 80s I'm reading it all over again.  Amazed as ever

</review>
<review>

"I have finished Jurgen; a great and beautiful book, and the saddest book I ever read. I don't know why, exactly.  The book hurts me -- tears me to small pieces -- but somehow it sets me free. It says the word that I've been trying to pronounce for so long. It tells me everything I am, and have been, and may be, unsparingly...I don't know why I cry over it so much. It's too -- something-or-other -- to stand. I've been sitting here tonight, reading it aloud, with the tears streaming down my face..." -- Deems Taylor, in a letter dated December 12, 1920.

What can I add to that? Jurgen is on my short list of very favorite books. It wrestles, in its odd way, with the fundamental tragedy of human life in general and male life in particular: We are doomed to age and die; meanwhile happiness will prove elusive. Wow, I'm making this sound awfully depressing, aren't I? But that's not right. Jurgen is humorous and fun and weirdly uplifting. Jurgen's strange adventures manage to represent all that a man may pursue and aspire to. The tale burns, but in a wonderfully brilliant way. (I made that comment about the tragedy of "male life" because Jurgen is, among other things, the quintessential rogue. His notion of how happiness might be ideally pursued differs somewhat from the ideas of the females he holds discourse with. Thus does Cabell illustrate a reality that we can either acknowledge or deny; take your choice. Enlightened people will prefer the latter.)

Jurgen isn't for everyone. Some will "get it" and some won't. I once handed a copy to a person who returned it with the comment that he wasn't a fan of the S and S ("swords  and  sorcery") genre. This surprised me; the book can only be described as S and S by someone who does not look below the surface. I mention this not to mock but to warn.  Jurgen may be better appreciated by those who are stirred by symbol and metaphor. We may not be prancing through a magical world as Jurgen does, but some of us will see echoes of our own dreams and nightmares in his story. If you're such a person, then Jurgen may hit you like a ton of bricks. Otherwise you'll chuck the manuscript against the wall.

It's worth noting that Jurgen, in its circumspect way, managed to offend the contemporary powers-that-be. The book is obscurely suggestive without being explicit; it went over the heads of some, but others saw what was going on, and they either guffawed or objected vigorously. There were serious attempts to suppress it, which of course only made the text notorious. It was (and still is) politically incorrect, and it garnered something of a counter-cultural following for all the wrong reasons. Well, so be it.  The book is great, and that's all there is to say.

The tale incorporates supporting characters and environments rummaged from myth and history. You won't need to know all these background details to understand or enjoy the plot; however if you should want to follow up, some rabid fans (of which there were many) put together a collection of footnotes way back in 1928. It's long out of print, but you'll find an Amazon listing on it (Amazon lists everything!); search Amazon books for ASIN=B00085DJ0A. A copy of the notes is also posted online; search the web on the phrase "Notes on Jurgen".

If you buy the book, you'll want the Dover paperback edition (ISBN=0486235076), which is a trade paperback and includes the wonderful old illustrations. Holding this edition in my hands just feels right. There's also a great unabridged audio cassette (ISBN=1574534505), rendered by a troupe of actors. They do a very nice job, switching to the most appropriate character to read the text as the book progresses.

Cabell was a prolific author, with "Jurgen" being his best-known (and probably his greatest) work. If you're unfamiliar with Cabell, "Jurgen" is the book to start with. If you want to follow up, look for "Figures of Earth".

</review>
<review>

I read this 1921 book because H.L. Mencken, my guide when it comes to literature, thought so highly of it. It is perhaps most difficult to read because it is a fable and fables of course, do not consist of characters and actions which are based in reality. The book is a little hard to follow at the beginning. It is rather hard to explain what the story is about.

When the book starts, Jurgen is a pawnbroker in a mythical kingdom. Knowing what actions will please an elderly sorceress, he elicits from her the privillege of living as a young nobleman in several different kingdoms over the course of a year, all under different names and noble titles. Cabell writes in a slightly tongue in cheek tone as he describes Jurgen's vanity, and most explicitly his penchant for the ladies. The most common phrases Cabell uses to describe Jurgen's sexual exploits are that Jurgen "intended to deal fairly" with a particular lady and to the effect that when Jurgen retired to a lovemaking place with the lady, the place therein was dark and nobody can see anything in the dark. Because of the darkness the old sorceress, whose shadow followed Jurden, did not see Jurgen engage in sex acts which would have displeased her. Probably my favorite part of the book is where Cabell tongue in cheek uses evasive language to describe Jurgen's sexual actions, such as on page 140. At that point in the book Jurgen is married to the Queen Anaitis. Anaitis catches Jurgen and a lady at court, a resident expert on the Kama Sutra, involved in a "philosophical experiment, necessarily performed in the dark." Stella had asserted that a certain sexual position could only be performed in the dark and asserted that "in simple equity," she was entitled to prove her assertions. "So Jurgen proceeded to deal fairly with her," i.e. peformed the sex act with her. It is when he leaves the kingdome of Guenevere's father and goesto  live with Anaitis that the book gets really good. Jurgen also goes to live on the outskirts of the kingdom of Pseudopolis, getting married to a tree dweller and livining in a tree. He invades the home of Queen Helen of Troy in Pseudopolis and observes her sleeping. He goes to Hell and gets married to a female vampire and has an affair with Satan's wife.

The prose in this book is really quite beautiful.

A strong theme of this book is how reality is so covered up by our illusions about ourselves. We think that there is a God or a Devil that watches our every move, looking for virtue or sin. We think we are that important even though we are a tiny speck in the universe. Another theme relates to Jurgen never being able to find happiness, despite the sorceress granting him the privillege of living out all his longstanding dreams of being a king and nobleman and husband of some of the most beautiful women on earth. He discovers at the end of the story that he prefers to go back where he was before the sorceress granted him all his illusions.

I found it a somewhat difficult book. Particulary in the beginning of the book, Jurgen jumps from situation to situation without a certain logic that would make it easy for the reader to understand. Of course, the book is a fable and fables are not meant to be logical. The characters speak their dialogue in very beautiful language, though sometimes the meaning of the sentences are opaque.

However, I think it is easy to understand the book, if you just keep reading, you can understand everything eventually if you don't worry.

Cabell also constructs a phony introduction to the book written by some make believe bookish verbose academic or book reviewer. He also places some unintelliglbe blurbs after the title page, written by imaginary verbose, bookish book reviewer critics. This was all pretty funny.

</review>
<review>

..... than the memory of some temptation we resisted."

This book is a triumph for humankind and for what we are as functioning biological entities defying the cosmos - even if it is only for the tiny speck of cosmic time that we are allotted. But while we have it - yes, we are triumphant. Not only does Cabell elevate the human but he also manages to degrade all those icons we set up as unachievable envies - beautiful women (some famously from the past like Helen of Troy), kings, popes, fantasy creatures. But he even brings us truimphantly in engagements with the Devil and God itself!!! And yet, for all that, at the end Jurgen is still humbled and respectful.

To me Cabell's message is go out and live life well - enjoy the physical aspects of existence, the mental ones, the spiritual ones - deny yourself none of them. But nevertheless, remain conscious of your greatest treasures - no matter how humble they may be, they are yours and you should be proud to claim them.

It goes on a bit, but it is a wonderful book.


</review>
<review>

Other reviews have given the outline of the narrative, but a good way to convey the strength and variety of the writing - not always cynical, as some suggest - is to follow the example of the reviewer who quoted the first line as a touchstone. (Sell the apples by offering a free bite.)  In that respect, here are a few more snippets -

"Good and evil keep very exact accounts" said the Centaur, " and the face of every man is their ledger."

""...I wonder now if any of you gentlemen [he is talking with four archangels in heaven... never mind] can give me news of that Lisa who used to be my wife?"  He described her; and they regarded him with compassion."

But he does not only talk of emotion in terms of a contrast between cosy, if imperfect, domesticity, and casual eroticism. He acknowledges passion. Queen Anaitis says:

"For I, and none but I, can waken that desire which uses all of a man, and also wastes nothing, even though it leave that favoured man for ever after like wan ashes in the sunlight."   To me that ranks with Racine's famous "Venus toute entire  sa proie attache."

Incidentally, an amusing example of that casual eroticism which got the book into so much trouble is when Chloris is somewhat alarmed by his *staff* and therefore  "Jurgen hid his staff where Chloris could not possibly see it."  You can see where that could cause problems in the 1920's. The great enforcer Comstock had only died a few years before and his "Society for the Suppression of Vice" was active.  Today it rates nothing more than a mild chuckle and an appreciation of an alternative to biological detail

</review>
<review>

James Branch Cabell was once the most celebrated figure of American literature. He was the favourite author of Mark Twain, and was also praised by other renowned writers, including Sinclair Lewis. This book, Jurgen, is among Cabell's very finest (all his work is fine), a book that was long closest to Cabell's heart, and the one that has the centre of his philosophy, the eternal search for Beauty, his one Ideal, as the main subject matter.

Jurgen is the place to start. And after Jurgen, I would go back to Figures of Earth, of which happenings actually precede those of Jurgen, and then on to The Silver Stallion. Other great ones by Cabell: The King Was in His Counting House, Smirt, Smith, and Smire

</review>
<review>

Any guy, especially one over forty, who doesn't adore this book, and doesn't have at least a dozen Cabell books on his shelf, including at least one signed first edition, is a savage. If you don't understand the heart rending chapter, "Dorothy Who Did Not Understand", you haven't lived

</review>
<review>

Perhaps the finest fantasy ever written by an american writer.  It will change your life every time you read it.  Cabell was brilliant and Heinlein copied him more than once (compare Job: A Comedy of Justice).  Cabell was sexy, ironic, consistant.  Even Asimov, in his final works attempted to equal the History of Dom Manuel by combining the Robots and Foundation into a single cosmology

</review>
<review>

Magically recovering his youth, Jurgen, a poet-cum-pawn broker of medaeval France, begins an erotic odyssey, in which he beds King Arthur's bride-to-be, a love goddess in her realm of pleasure, a tree nymph, the queen of Philistines, a vampire in Hell. He also gets to talk to God, Satan -- and the mysterious Katschei, creator of all things as they are. Full of puns, word play, references to obscure myths and legends of various cultures, and Americanizing the tradition of the picaresque epic, JURGEN is a delight for the Mensa set and ordinary readers alike. This edition reproduces the delightful illustrations cut for the first British publication of the work

</review>
<review>

This work is more of a 'textbook' than a simple 'cookbook.'  It should be approached methodically, and with a goal of mastering the details of processes, rather than just creating something tasty for dinner---while that is still certainly the outcome.  It is a masterpiece as a culinary educational tool.

</review>
<review>

I ordered this classic book for my step-sister for her birthday. She is a gourmet cook and had always wanted this book by Ms. Child. It was on her Wish List created at Amazon.com.  She was elated to receive this Volume One and so my review is based on her exhuberant response

</review>
<review>

I got this book recently and I am super-pleased with it. The writing is very enjoyable and the directions on the recipes and added cultural information are superb. This classic belongs in every kitchen, so don't hesitate to purchase it. If your still not convinced here's some good reasons for you to get it:
-The book itself is exquisite and I love the cover colors (very French) and the illustrations.
-The list of utensils that you should have is very helpful especially if you're setting up your first kitchen.
-When you start to read it, you can tell that not only was great care put into its writing but a lot of love.
-Everyone who wants to be successful in the kitchen needs to know some basic techniques, this books clearly explains them. Think of it as cooking for dummies.
-French cuisine is very versatile and if you can succede here, you'll be set for other cuisines.
-If you're stumped on the perfect gift for a freshman or newlyweds, be stumped no more. You've found the ideal gift.

</review>
<review>

Full of information, and still relevant for todays cooks, these books should never be out of print

</review>
<review>

I have always enjoyed cooking, but had never read this book.  I thought that traditional French cooking would be difficult to master, high in fat and unnecessarily time-consuming.  Also -- I'm an Italian-American -- I thought that Hazan was the last word in cooking.  Boy, was I wrong.

A few months ago, my teenage son returned from his first trip abroad raving about the meals that he'd had in Paris.  I knew from experience how great those meals could be and, to please him and provide my family with a new dinner experience, I bought "Mastering" and tried a few recipes.  I am now totally hooked.  Julia's recipes are clear, well-organized and easy to follow.  The book is exquisitely -- and logically -- organized, with each section beginning with a master recipe and continuing through several variations on that theme.  This method of organization teaches the structure as well as the ingredients of each recipe, thus encouraging further experimentation by the reader.  In other words, by following the recipes, you learn to cook. (Having recently read "My Life In France," I now know that this was Child's intention: "Mastering" took years to write, with each recipe tested and refined many times.)

Some recipes contain too much butter or cream for modern diets, but these recipes may be easily modified.  The techniques, however, are flawless:  my pie crust was flaky and did not shrink; the ratatouille (which is low in fat) was perfect and beautiful; the swordfish provencale was so good that my son, who never eats leftovers, ate the leftovers cold out of the refrigerator.  Indeed, the pastry dough recipe works so well that, after turning it out into the pan, I exclaimed aloud, "Julia Child is brilliant!", much to the surprise of my plumber, who was working in the house at the time and had walked into the kitchen to ask about a leak.  In sum, if you have been afraid of this book, don't be, and if you think that it has become dated or irrelevant -- a mere collector's item -- you are very wrong.  I still love Hazan, but "Mastering" is the master class

</review>
<review>

This is the cookbook that formed the foundation for Julia Child's famous series "The French Chef." Some parts of this edition recognize the new appliances available since the book was published 25 years before, like the food processor.  The recipes, however, are still classics.   Although Julia apologizes in the foreword for being neither French nor a trained chef, it is this well-written, comprehensive cookbook that helped to change the way Americans eat.  Although some of the recipes are a bit intimidating like entirely boning a chicken or duck, most are attainable.  For the best quiche you've ever made - buy the crust if you can't bake - make Julia's recipe for this Lorraine classic

</review>
<review>

This is one of two books to get, to kick you from
"macaroni and cheese" to cheese souffle.  The second is
"Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 2".

The book takes the reader from the basics of equipment,
cooking terms, methods of preparation, and finally, eases
the reader from the simple to the most challenging aspects
of the art of French cookery.

I've owned my copy for over 10 years, and to this day, I can
still learn from it.  The basics of saucemaking (introduced
in one of the earlier chapters), for example, is still
basically the same for both the home chef and the
four-star saucier.

Thanks to this classic work, Julia Child has empowered
countless home chefs (and quite a few professional chefs)
to practice this tasteful art

</review>
<review>

Twenty five years ago I developed a taste for cooking.  Just out of the Marines, I picked up the Julia Child set after seeing and enjoying her show on PBS.  This set is a personal treasure and one that got me started on my collection of more than 100 cookbooks today

</review>
<review>

First,  I cannot cook.  other then basic heat and serve.

So I bought a ton of cookbooks and tried a ton of recipes from the food network. Still could not cook.

Picked up this book at a flea market ( the 1963 printing ).

This book is incredible.  My kids not only will eat the food, but they love it. ( and they demand the food now ).

I do not agree with other reviews about complexity and cost of the recipe's.  She provides both easy and complex recipes.

The recipes are well thought out, with step by step insrtructions and illustrations.  The illustrations are priceless, cooking is alot of technique, and the illustrations walk you through it.  Every question I would have had about the ingredients or prep are covered.

Oh, and ingredients..  She assumes that the grocery store is the only place you have to shop. So she notes how to adjust for canned or frozen vs fresh, and what you can substitute.   Not some cute ethnic market in New york city where everything is always in season from the 4 corners of the world.  You can literally take the book to the grocery store to buy your ingredients. and come out with everything you need.  ( I have a 40 year old copy of this book, and Julia's assumptions about what I will be able, and will not, to find in my grocery store is 100% correct. )

Crepes - been trying for a year to make the kids crepes. tried several recipes online.  failed.   first attempt with Julia, and viola crepes.

Omlette - so I could always make an omlette.  or at least I thought. now I am an omlette gourmet cook.


I cannot wait to graduate to her other cookbooks.



</review>
<review>

yes it is true,if you can read you can cook french.Julia and frendshave made it most easy to cook the french way and enjoy it

</review>
<review>

I wanted a book that would cover a wide array of reviews and struck gold with this one.  Though now that I think of it, maybe I should have held out for one that included non-American writers in it.  I'm such a dunce, I didn't see until too late that, on the title page, clearly marked, it reads, "A special publication of the Library of America."  No wonder it's so America-centric, but I picked up the book and opened it by happenstance to Penelope Gilliatt's scintillating review of Fassbinder's Petra Von Kant, and naturally I took the book to be more international in scope than it actually is.  In what universe do people think of Gilliatt as a US writer?  It doesn't really matter because what remains deserves four stars.

Lopate doesn't go just for the simple nobrainer essays by each of the authors, but he actually spends time thinking of new ways to showcase their skills.  Thus for James Agee we don't get the old Silent Clowns piece, or the one onm MONSIEUR VERDOUX nor Val Lewton.  He goes for the unfamiliar nearly every time, which is nice.  (The only exception I can see offhand is Molly Haskell on "The Woman's Film," but that's nice in a quite different way since Haskell's essay is so lengthy and comprehensive hat it is only occasionally reprinted anywhere, despite its historical significance.

Bell Hooks and John Ashbery have certainly written better work elsewhere.  But it is nice to see James Harvey and Stuart Klawans, both so underrated, here given pride of place.  And having Libby Gelman-Waxner in a book of this kind is certainly a victory for gay incursion into the canon.  James Baldwin on LADY SINGS THE BLUES and Paul Schrader's "Notes on Film Noir" would alone make a great book, and there are literally dozens of others of equal quality.  Gee, that Renata Adler could sure bite back, couldn't she?  I don't remember her as so aerbic as she is here about Richard Brooks' film of IN COLD BLOOD.  Talk about cold blooded, she's the kind of writer about whom I used to think, admiringly, "She's so New York," when I meant, acidic

</review>
<review>

I was surprised, first of all, that the book was available.  It had been published the day before.  I was also surprised at how fast it came--only about 3 days.  And, of course, the price was terrific

</review>
<review>

A popular entertainment that sometimes aspires to...and occasionally achieves the status of art. Criticism has always been a stressed and intricate exercise, something that few reviewers manage to excel at ...and those who do may come to regret it.(Just ask a few of Ammie's top reviewers)

The problem is, (stated in AMC) "the job of the American film critic is complicated by the fact that virtually all Americans regard themselves as astute judges of movies." This is because we've all seen so many films in theaters and on TV, but moreover it's really because reviewing combines an activity that almost everybody does...watching movies. And with an activity that almost everybody thinks they can do...writing. The truth is that almost nobody has seen as many movies of such widely varying quality as film critics have, and writing turns out to be harder than it looks..

The movies have been a prime subject for successive generations of American writers who, in response, have produced an extraordinary body of work--writing known for its craft, passion, restless curiosity, sparkling wit and, often, defiance of accepted conventions. Edited by renowned essayist Phillip Lopate is joined on the panel by film critics Richard Schickel, Kenneth Turan and Manohla Dargis....for a roundtable discussion of film criticism as a vibrant art form.

The daunting task of how do we give constructive criticism without appearing phony or cushioning the criticism to a point where the buyer does not take it seriously? Its not easy. Being critical takes time and practice...that is, if you want your criticism to be presented in a positive way and used effectively.
All of this and more are discussed within the binding of AMC

</review>
<review>

Any collection strong in entertainment and movie history, especially college-level holdings, will want to have AMERICAN MOVIE CRITICS: AN ANTHOLOGY FROM THE SILENTS UNTIL NOW in their collection. It's the first anthology to categorize, define and explore movie reviewing as a discipline of its own: chapters blend a history of the rose of movies with a concurrent survey of the rise of movie critics and reviewing methods, tracking changes in methods, contributions of notable critics over the decades, and including quotes and samples from some of today's best. Over a hundred fifty pieces by nearly eighty contributors span nearly a hundred years.

Diane C. Donovan, Editor
California Bookwatch

</review>
<review>

American Movie Critics, Phillip Lopate, ed. (NY: Library of America, 2006), 714pp.
A review by Harvey S. Karten, 2/27/06
Publication date: March 16, 2006

Several movie critics have had books published, tomes which for the most part are reprints of their reviews with introductions by the critics and comments here offering clarifications.  Pauline Kael, the best-known of all, wrote one with the clever title "I Lost It at the Movies," while Maitland McDonagh gave us "Broken Mirrors, Broken Minds." John Simon is known for "John Simon on Film," and my favorite for entertainment value, Anthony Lane, recently came out with "Nobody's Perfect."

The latest anthology comes from the editing pen of Phillip Lapote, whose "American Movie Critics" is a selective reprint of reviews by sixty-eight writers, living and otherwise.  The author prefaces the 714-page volume with a lively introduction and has peppered the book with introductions to the works of all assembled reviewers.  Some intros are a few sentences, others cover a page.  In his selection process, Lopate cites a number of contemporary critics, but for historical depth, he has included well-known writers of bygone times, some whose principal output has not been movie criticism.  They include Carl Sandburg, Vachel Lindsay, Robert E. Sherwood and Edmund Wilson.

The reader can feel free to either dig into the book chronologically, soaking in the history of movie criticism from step to step, like a film that takes you from A to B to C (Boy chases girl, boy loses girl, girl catches boy).  Or this can be utilized as a reference work, perhaps looking at contemporary reviews such as those knocked out by New York Press critic Armond White, New York Times writers A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargas, and Nation magazine's Stewart Klawas.  Lovers of film history are sure to like the reviews of James Agee, arguably one of the five great critics of the 20th century ("The Story of G.I. Joe," "The Lost Weekend," "Shoeshine") and Otis Ferguson (the brilliant "Stage Door," and "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs").

Essays are included as well.  Paul Goodman's "Griffith and the Technical Innovations" tells of the great director's technique with special emphasis on "The Musketeers of Pig Alley,"  "Intolerance" and of course "The Birth of a Nation."  Meyer Levin talks about how he overcame what makes us critics all feel guilty--walking out on a picture.  "I rarely walk out....It is only the more pretentious cinema efforts, the ones that try to be something besides just another movie, that may stimulate me to walking out."  (Read the chapter and you'll know the identity of this particular turkey.)

You'll want to absorb every word written for The New Republic by the dean of American critics, Stanley Kauffmann, who, soon to turn ninety, continues to surprise us with his scholarship.  The
aforementioned Armond White is to be savored: he is an original prose stylist and a frequent contrarian, i.e. he may champion a movie by De Palma but not necessary feel groovy about some Antonioni or Fellini.  If you love everything done by Steven Spielberg, White is your man.

While there are no particular errors of commission-after all editor Phillip Lapote presumably had a free hand in choosing his critics-there is an important omission which, given the fine quality of the book makes that oversight particularly egregious.  Where are the exclusively online critics, the dedicated women and men whose principal readers are the main demographic, the 16 to 30-year-olds?  Did Lapote bury himself so complete in paper that he included not a single one, not even the magnificent Stephanie Zacharek of Salon.com?  Perhaps that
editor should consider a new volume, "American Online Movie Critics?"  What do you say, Mr. Lapote?

The writer is director of New York Film Critics Online at NYFCO.org

</review>
<review>

James Rollins has followed up "Map of Bones" with another thought provoking action novel.  The Nazi obsession with the occult and their research into quantum technology proves a  very interesting centerpiece for this book.  Also, Rollins has also taken further steps to develop the characters that make up the Sigma force. Hopefully he will continue the Sigma Force series for years to come.

</review>
<review>

It was good read, indeed very good, but the writer needs to know that Fiona is not a Pakistani name, and pakistanis are light brown colored but not dark brown or balck. and no Pakistani can be mistaken for an african like he described in Fiona's disguise. Another thing that i felt was that except for Monk's bald head and prosthetic hand, all 3 sigma operatives including Gray, Crowe and Monk felt like the same person in terms of character building

</review>
<review>

Gripping from the first pages.  Don't start this until you have a pretty good chunk of time available.  You won't want to need to put the book down.  Elaine Garret

</review>
<review>

I didn't bargain on getting a complete understanding of quantum physics from a great work of fiction, but that is what I got.  You can be in two places at once. This work of art is the most enjoyable book I have read in years.  Rollins is to be commended for outstanding writing, research, plot development and overall hyper-speed fun

</review>
<review>

very interesting topic and fun to read. I couldn't wait to crawl into bed every night and find out what was going to happen next

</review>
<review>

The one caveat about reading a James Rollins book is that it takes patience to get through it. The storyline is usually a multi-threaded complexity that sweeps you from one country, in one chapter, to the other side of the world, in the next chapter; and pulls you into a fascinating plot that blends historical fact with science fiction.

What I do love about his books is his ability to build such rich and complex characters.  With books like these, sometimes character development is sacrificed for great action. Not so with James Rollins. His characters are mostly professional military people, but they also deal with insecurity and uncertainty about their personal lives.  I think that's what makes his books bestsellers. He's able to perfectly balance a brilliant storyline, filled with heart-stopping action and suspense, with well-developed characters and all the varying facets to their personalities.  It makes for a great read.

Black Order is no exception.  I guarantee that you won't be disappointed.

</review>
<review>

An exciting, fun book.  It keeps your interest with a fast pace and riveting adventure

</review>
<review>

Rollins' book is an unfortunate combination of the generic and the pretentious.  There's nothing wrong with a generic thriller, as other reviews have pointed out.  But if the author wishes to float a seemingly serious argument about evolution v intelligent design, it would behoove him to provide a moderately sturdy frame. The material from quantum physics does hark back to Jurassic Park, while the Nazi involvement moves us into the neighborhood of The Boys from Brazil or The Assassini.  Even the surprise ending - evident from about 200 pages away - is lifted straight from The Genesis Code by John Case.  But those conspiracy theory classics (well, Case's isn't a classic, but it's a good read) are anchored by well-developed characters and minimal dependency on the crutch of coincidence.

Rollins' characters are all of the usual suspects, and less.

There is the generic complement of intrepid males, most with two last names - Greyson Pierce, Monk Kokkalis, Logan Gregory, Painter Crow - and the mandatory super-skilled hottie, this one named Dr Lisa Cummings.  The street-wise waif role is filled by an orphaned Pakistani teenager with the unlikely name of Fiona.  Raised in London, she lived for several years on the streets after her parents died and left her to an abusive uncle;  she subsequently bummed across Europe (still trapped in the time-warp of her early teens) and ended up living as the adopted granddaughter of a Copenhagen book dealer.  Somewhere along this odyssey she managed to acquire fluent Dutch as well as staggering pick-pocket skills, the latter slightly less improbable than the former.

Dr Marsha Fairfield and Dr Paula Kane are two terrific exceptions to this collection of cut-out figures.  In a genre affording little space to the middle aged female (unless she's a type of Rosa Klebb,) Rollins gives us two accomplished and daring women - lesbians, no less.  Sadly, they get a minimal amount of ink.  Still, two stars for effort.

A devotee of the sentence fragment school of suspense writing, Rollins could use some serious editing.  Free-floating phrases and clauses are to be expected, but what's left should, at minimum, follow the conventional rules of grammar and usage.

"The air tasted old, moldering as much as the shop's paper stock.  It was like much of Europe.  Age and ancientness were a part of everyday life here."  P 50

Moldering air? Ancientness?

"Pile as much clothing between you and the rock to limit heat loss from conduction."  P 106

As much as . . . possible?

Other unedited gems include people walking after they have taken a seat, entering a room for the first time twice, and speaking after they have been said to exit.

As for the plot itself, there is the obligatory scene of obsessive Nazis fleeing Europe with material precious to the once and future Reich.  Fast-forward to today.  By page 80, the reader has witnessed simultaneous death and casual destruction in Copenhagen, in Zululand, South Africa, and at an isolated monastery in Nepal.  When I say simultaneous, that is no exaggeration.  By means of a time-stamp at the top of each section, Rollins asks us to accept that the trans-global cliff-hangers occur with perfect synchronicity.  OK, we've already suspended disbelief for yet another Nazi conspiracy theory, so why balk at this?  If the cliffs were hung less frequently, I wouldn't object.  But this book can be described as a series of near-death encounters lightly salted with narrative and boring digressions.  While Rollins seems to fancy himself something of a philosopher here - the attempt to include intelligent design into a mass of molecular biology is mind-numbingly pretentious - he doesn't trust his own story enough to rely on the tension generated by his ideas.  He has to keep loaded guns, monsters, explosives, fire, and all manner of imminent demise in the faces of his characters, who begin to resemble jacks-in-the-box as they pop up relatively unscathed ten pages later.  The idea of Darwin's family Bible holding genetic secrets is very intriguing.  But it goes up in smoke after failing to live up to its imaginative promise.


If all you want is to hop from one certain-death moment to another, this is the book for you.  If you want a well-thought-out conspiracy theory, try Michael Crichton's State of Fear or Michael Cordy's The Miracle Gene (aka The Messiah Code.

</review>
<review>

James Rollins is quickly becoming one of the best Thrill-Writers in America.  "Black Order" is an exciting story dealing with Nazis and Quantum-Evolution in an action packed trip reaching to the far corners of the world.

All of Rollin's Sigma Force characters make a return in "Black Order" as he is once again on the cutting edge of technology and leading the way in adventure excitment.  I definately recommend this novel and all others by James Rollin - You will not be dissappointed.

Fans of Dan Brown, Clive Cussler, and Steve Berry will enjoy this book for sure

</review>
<review>

I got "Black Order" without knowing the author or hearing anything about the book. I have to give props to a book that makes me seek out more by that author, which is exactly what happened after reading this one. Since then, I've only read an earlier Rollins book ("Amazonia") but I can already see that in later books, he's willing to inject a little more humor. "Black Order's" Fiona is one of my favorite characters I've encountered in a long time. She's fiesty, hilarious and so cool. The writing is more colorful, the way he frames the stories is more skillful in this book than "Amazonia." And it's got enough meat for the smart set: lots of history, travel, nature, philosophy. I heard the audiobook version and it did drag a little when the science got too heavy -- but there was enough fast-paced action to balance it all. Rollins has to be a fan of the James Bond and "Indiana Jones" b/c you definitely see elements of those in his work. That's all fine with me because I say: bring on more Sigma Force!

</review>
<review>

This book is more a bon bon than anything substantial. But if you like dogs, you'll find this book a hoot.  The premise is simple: dogs have had an impact on history.

The book commences with a chapter on dogs as sentinels.  Thereafter, we read stories of the role of dogs in the lives of people as varied as Saint Patrick, Sigmund Freud, Richard Wagner, Charles I, Alexander Graham Bell, George Washington, Sir Walter Scott, Frederick the Great, Christopher Columbus, George Armstrong Custer, and so on.

In the last chapter, the author asks the question (page 291): "If dogs have had such an influence on human culture and history, it is quite reasonable to ask, why is it that we don't see canine contributions cited in standard political, social, and cultural histories?"  The author provides no definitive answer, but his book is a lot of fun to read.  Dog lovers will enjoy seeing "The Pawprints of History."  One caution: There are a number of very bad factual errors in the chapter on General George Custer; this at least raises in my mind the accuracy of historical accounts elsewhere.  But this is still an enchanting book

</review>
<review>

This is an excellent and well-researched book describing how humans and dogs have interacted through history. It includes a wealth of interesting information about both individual and societal attitudes towards dogs and how those attitudes impacted events. Although the book is about the role of dogs in history, the stories humanize historical events by showing how compassion towards or fear of dogs affected individual people and societies. Great book.

</review>
<review>

Dogs are my passion, in this wonderfully written book I've found that I am in GREAT company. It was well written, some of the stories could have been shorter. But it made me laugh and cry, and after almost every chapter I was amazed at what I didn't know about the people in the chapter. The research was extensive for this book. So if you love dogs and you love history you will really love this book

</review>
<review>

This interesting book discusses the relationships between several noteable people and their dogs.  At least one cynical Washington D.C. politician said that "if you want someone to love you in this town, buy a dog," and you will find he was not the first one to conjure up that thought.  The author shows how people such as Florence Nightingale, Frederick the Great, Robert Burns, and Sigmund Freud were all warmly touched by the positive side of their dogs. These people, who somehow seemed so intensely boring in History class, never seemed so human as when interacting with their dogs. Dogs have served as companions for many others who needed a consistent friend, and they often served as inspirations for those who enriched our artistic and aesthetic lives (perhaps because they were so cheerful and so honest).  Oh, by the way, the author gives us some pretty interesting lessons in history and the arts, too, so this story is not just about the canids. If you are looking for a good book to curl up with, and read to, your animal companions, give this one a try

</review>
<review>

This is a wonderful book.  It is fun to read about Mary Manheim's childhood and her career and the cases she has worked on.  The short chapters focus on particular cases she has helped solve.  It is sprinkled through out with stories of life in Louisiana

</review>
<review>

Don't waste your time or money on this one as there are far better forensic books out there. This book was just a collection of short narratives reading more like a personal diary than any kind of scientific narrative laying out the facts of cases. I guess it lives up to its subtitle of "Life as a Forensic Anthropologist" in that she usually presents only HER part in each case with little presentation of the entire case. The forensic cases are not really the star of this book, the author is. I was frustrated with the lack of depth. Instead, read "The Body Farm" by Bill Bass. Excellent storytelling there! He gives you personal stories, but also provides all the fascinating forensic info to provide a complete picture for the cases he has investigated

</review>
<review>

I found this book quite tedious, since the author makes the fundamental mistake of thinking the subject of the book should be herself instead of her work.  There is almost no information on forensic anthropology; her descriptions of cases are very short and center mainly on how she felt about them, rather than what the actual details were.  From the cover and the blurbs I expected actual case histories; the book doesn't deliver.  The book as written would really only be interesting to people who know the author personally

</review>
<review>

I read this book with my bookclub.  It sounded witty and fun.  It was not.  It was very boring and a big let down.  Most of the stories went like this:  we found a dead body, this is what we did, then we went home.

My bookclub has been meeting many years.  This book was voted the worst book we have read as a group.  I would give it no stars if I could.  Don't waste your money

</review>
<review>

I found this book to be very interesting and an enjoyable, light read. As a real life CSI with an interest in skeletal remains, I am very much interested in forensic related books, both fiction and non-fiction. I had skipped the first chapter, which is an autobiography, wanting to get to the meat of the anthopology cases, but found myself developing an interest in the modest, likeable author. Halfway through the book, I went back and read the first chapter.
I was really taken with Manheim's easily read writing style, no heavy jargon to slow this book down while it still remained educational. I liked how she talked of her nervousness the first time she testified in a criminal trial, and when she had to deliver a presentation to a hostile group of Native Americans.  Also, her referring to herself as having a "funny little face." It added a human side to the clinical aspect of Manhein's work. I have the impression that while Manhein takes her work very seriously, she doesn't take herself too seriously. The stories, an interesting mixture of forensics, anthropology, and history, were anything but bland. Some photographs and sketches are in the book. I found the book educational and learned a lot from it that I can apply to my work.
I must note that I believe that author Patricia Cornwell must have read this book at one time or another. Several paragraphs in "The Bone Lady" discuss "the loup-garou"; (the werewolf), the Louisiana ex-Governor Huey Long shooting, and a character with the last name of "Robilliard". Those readers familiar with the last few Cornwell books from the "Kay Scarpetta" series will be familiar with these.
A good read for anyone interested in forensics, human remains, and Lousiana history.

</review>
<review>

Several years ago, I had the great opportunity to have Mary Manhein as a teacher in a Beginning Anthropology class at Louisiana State University. I have a great time and she had a great impact on me. I did make the mistake at the time of not going into anthropology at the time but right now I am trying to rectify that boo-boo. This is a great book and I highly recommend it

</review>
<review>

In this thorough grand history of Africa since independence every story is told, every nation explained and everything from economics to politics fully laid out.  In a region by region view all the great and tragic stories of Africa since 1950 are told, from Idi Amin ot Hastings Banda to Aparthied to the war in Angola and the death of Lumumba.  No stone is left unturned.  From Nasser to De Klerk to the Biafran war, to Rwanda  and Sudan.  This is an eminently fair account, unbiased and accurate, a giant tour of the continent of despair and hope.  Although a massive read the author writes with skill and interest, thoroughly researched with obscure primary sources and based on new material available from archives this book is a wonderful account of modern Africa.

For anyone interested in modern African history this is a great book.  The only shortcoming is that it does not give much background to the nations it is writing about, it also does not deal as much as it couold have with the importance of tribe in African politics and history, even one map showing the numerous tribes would have been helpful.  Nevertheless this is a tour de force, a must read, sure to be the standard account of Africa since independence for some time.

Seth J. Frantzman

</review>
<review>

Like Steven Gilbar's "The Book Book" (see my review), this is a great item to just pick up and open; you're sure to find something interesting in it no matter what page you choose.  Though not marketed as such, it will prove most interesting to parents of children from grade-school through high-school age, and may indeed be used as a compendium of reading lists by homeschoolers.  Besides allusions, quotations, and definitions, the bulk of the book, as with Gilbar, is given over to lists of books--everything from "Best-Selling Books" to "1990s Literature From Around the World;" there's no reason an intelligent teen can't take a taste of everything Strouf lists.  Serious-minded ones may also want to check out List #9 ("Influential Writers from Around the World"), #14 ("Literary Criticism"), and #16 ("U.S./British/Irish Critics") for ideas on where to go next.  But above all, buy it for Sections 2, 3, 5, 6, and 7 (Books...for All Ages, Genres...for Every Taste, Drama, Themes, and Literary Periods) and the titles and authors in Section 4 (Poetry).  It's true that there are a few rather glaring typos that would have been caught by an editor who knew his books, but by searching under both author and title you should still be able to find all the items listed.  Then get yourself a used copy of Gilbar (get his "Great Books" too) and "The Prentice-Hall Good Reading Guide," and you'll have a treasure trove worthy of the fabled Indies to search and sample

</review>
<review>

This book would've been a  and quot;find and quot; if I were in my early teens, but for any adult who considers themselves a bibliophile, this book is just too lightweight.  Yes, it is about books and literature, but the coverage is extremely shallow.  I would consider this to be something like the Reader's Digest Condensed Books form of Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia.  Buy that work instead of you're looking for a good reference work on literature

</review>
<review>

Literature Lovers Books Of Lists: Serious Trivia For The Bibliophile is a  splendid compendium of information ranging from the practical to the  whimsical and meant for anyone who loves books, reading, and the rich  literary legacy available for free to anyone with a library card. Organized  into nine sections, Literature Lover's Book Of Lists offers almost two  hundred lists relating to literary genres, authors, characters and  settings, awards, literary terms, books of prose and poetry available on  audio cassette, and more. If there is a bibliophile on your gift list, you  can't make a better choice than sending him or her their very own copy of  Judie Strouf's Literature Lover's Book Of Lists

</review>
<review>

Literature Lovers Books Of Lists: Serious Trivia For The Bibliophile is a  splendid compendium of information ranging from the practical to the  whimsical and meant for anyone who loves books, reading, and the rich  literary legacy available for free to anyone with a library card. Organized  into nine sections, Literature Lover's Book Of Lists offers almost two  hundred lists relating to literary genres, authors, characters and  settings, awards, literary terms, books of prose and poetry available on  audio cassette, and more. If there is a bibliophile on your gift list, you  can't make a better choice than sending him or her their very own copy of  Judie Strouf's Literature Lover's Book Of Lists

</review>
<review>

This is a must-have resource item for anyone who reads, and would be incredibly useful for teachers, students, booksellers, and ANYONE who comes in contact with books.  Strouf offers info on poetry, plays, journalism,  classics, contemporary fiction and nonfiction, fables, Shakespeare,  literature references, and so much more.  It's all arranged in a perfectly  easy format and style for reading straight through, or for browsing, or for  looking up specific information on just about anything that's ever been put  into a book.  This is definitely the most useful resource tool I've come  across for understanding and enjoying the written word.  There are a few  typos that are mildly distracting, but the phenomenal wealth of information  contained in this book really make it a something that you will go back to  again and again.  Buy four copies - one for yourself, one for your  reader/friend, and especially one for any student about to enter middle  school, high school, or college.  (That's three, but I guarantee that  you'll find someone else in your life who absolutely has to have this book  once they see yours!

</review>
<review>

Here goes my laymen's attempt at paraphrasing Matthew 22 vs 34 thru 3_...  Love God with all that you have in you, is the most important commandment... says Jesus, yet right along side (as on the other side of the same coin, or as two wings on a plane) is Love your neighbor as much as you love yourself...   and all of what the prophets say and all of the other commandments are built upon these 2 things that Jesus said. Labeled the Greatest Commandment...that indicates the importance of it.

So this book, Season of Life, looks at the real life of two men (football coaches) that put this in action in mentoring/descipling young men in the Baltimore area.  If you liked the movie Facing the Giants or you are mentoring/descipling young men, you will enjoy this book. Light on evanglism (word) but the actions (deeds-acting on your faith) and hearts of the men speak volumns. PTL for working in these men's life, a real life story that is getting much attention. Very well done Mr. Marx

</review>
<review>

I purchased this for my grandson' birthday and read it before i gave it to him.  I am not very sports minded but it was a well written biography of a spectacular human being who is doing a good job of showing young men what makes a great man in God's eyes.

</review>
<review>

A must read for all public and private school athletic coaches. This excellent book epitomizes the characteristics deemed necessary to assist and mold America's young people.

</review>
<review>

I played college football and pro baseball.  I have very vivid memories of my coaches since childhood.  I had a coach in high school, Larry Book, who made a big impression on me.  He was great and I remember him fondly, though I liked him more after I left than I did when I played for him.  As good as he was, we never talked about life things, real important things.  Joe Ehrman's coaching style I've never really heard of or come across.  He explains what it means to be a man, to love, to give, in words that I never really heard before, certainly not from a football coach.  Even if you've never played football, this true story is one you'll want to read and share with others.  I have multiple copies

</review>
<review>

This was a great book and very easy to read.  I liked it so much I sent a copy to about ten friends and family members.  Jeffrey Marx learns what is important in life, something we all have to decide at some point or another.

</review>
<review>

I'm fortunate enough to live in the Baltimore area and have heard Joe Ehrmann speak and preach. Knowing he is a thoroughly captivating speaker, I was eager to see if the book would stand up on its own.  It more than does -- Jeffrey Marx is an extremely talented and gifted author and captures not only the detail of the story, but also puts into words the emotions of his own journey.  The book takes you on a season-long journey with a high school football team and how they are taught to love one another, first and foremost.  I was extremely curious how this would be taught within the physicality of football.  This is a must read for all coaches, regardless of sport.  I have been able to discuss some of the principles in the book with my 8 year old son and 7 year old daughter and I can already see the change in their thinking and behaviors.

In today's "Me, Me, Me" society, this book is a must read to shift our focus from our own self-centered wants and desires to others needs.  I've already bought 3 copies and will undoubtedly buy 10 more.  Thank you and happy reading -- I hope the book will inspire you as much as it did me

</review>
<review>

This is an excellent book filled with many messages on what it means to be a man. Many of my friends and I are so inspired by this book that we have invited the author to our community to speak with our school administrators, teachers, coaches, and teenage boys.  Buy it for every father  and  coach you know; you won't regret it

</review>
<review>

I grew up idolizing sports heros. Stumbling on to a job as ball boy for the Colts like Marx did would have been my wildest dream come true. That put me in his shoes right away. What really gripped me though is having an 11 year old son to teach about becoming a good man.

We're mostly amateurs when it comes to teaching kids.  Watching the Gilmore coaches through Marx gives the opportunity to see some seasoned veterans at work as they 'send' their young men into the world.

Besides the engaging storyline I found Coach/Father Ehrmann's approach to passing along good values in a secular society very refreshing.  I suspect his players' parents did too, regardless of their particular faiths.

This one's a great read for parents, teachers and coaches

</review>
<review>

First, full disclosure, I am a Gilman Alumnus from the 80's. There is no question that Gilman is an elite school built by and for the wealthy of Baltimore. However, thanks in large part to a previous Headmaster, the school began integrating early in the 60's and strove to have a diverse student body. I will guarantee right now that the school is far more diverse, in every sense than 99% of schools out there. The few examples given of "underprivileged" kids going to Gilman only scratch the surface, and don't include those who were not recruited for athletics, but rather academics. Some as young as 5 years old, long before any athletic talent becomes apparent. Charleyhart's comments are only partially founded in the reality of the school. Indeed, long before Joe Ehrman, the majority of Gilman men believed that in an ideal world places like Gilman would be available to all children. Many of us, a higher proportion, than the general public, have gone into service, whether as teachers in the poorest of neighborhoods, or as health professionals, advocates etc. I agree that Gilman students by and large are extremely privileged, simply by attending the school. However, for those that are from wealthy families, the lessons that they learn at Gilman aid them in aiding society through politics, philanthropy, and service. I will always be proud stand shoulder to shoulder with my brethren and anyone else who believes that all children deserve the Gilman experience. I understand that in order to make this a reality, those with power must be taught to understand the realities of the world. Gilman does that, and has always emphasized this. Charleyhart's review does not reflect this reality. I'm sure that he and I agree that all children should have this experience and like all Gilman men, will strive in whatever ways we can to make it so.

</review>
<review>

Aldon Morris writes the history of the Civil Rights Movement as the gradual organization of black communities in the South in response to Jim Crow.  Morris' account begins with early protests in North Carolina, Tennessee and other peripheral states that multiplied and culminated in the more well-known actions in Alabama and Georiga.  Throughout the account, Morris emphasizes the indigenous nature of the movement - black communities organizing around black institutions (the black church) with their own financial and infrastructural resources.

The research for the project was conducted via interviews with many of the movement's leaders, so Morris is able to give first-hand accounts of the way protests were conducted and of the motivations for organizing in certain ways at certain times.  His account is extraordinarily rich and touches on the interplay between the often conflicting personalities of movement leaders.  He describes the means and motivation of the adoption of the non-violent protest method and, to a lesser extent, the roles played by women in the movement.  He also deals in passing with the ideological treatment of homosexuality by movement leaders.

As an account of how the civil rights movement developed in the South, Morris' book is exceptional.  It reads as well as a novel and uses the input of first-hand sources to make its story as much personal as academic, without losing its integrity.

Some have argued that Morris neglects the role of women in the movement and this might be a fair criticism.  But inasmuch as he argues that the civil rights movement was organized around and by the leaders of the black church, he justifies his focus on the (male) Baptist minister as a principle leader of movement activities.  I recommend this book to anyone who wants to better understand how the Civil Rights Movement was carried out in the United States

</review>
<review>

Articulate and provocative, Aldon Morris' study of the American Civil  Rights Movement is a comprehensive and comprehensible analysis of a  strategic struggle for human survival and essential dignity.  Emphasizing  that African Americans have rarely accepted the subordinate position forced  upon them, that the Civil Rights Movement was carefully orchestrated rather  than a series of random events, and that women played a critical role in  the organization and implementation of the movement, Morris incisively  resurrects and dismantles official discourses.  In the tradition of John  Hope Franklin's  and quot;From Slavery to Freedom and quot;, Lerone Bennett's   and quot;Forced into Glory and quot;, and Ivan Van Sertima's  and quot;They Came  Before Columbus and quot;, Morris reconstructs history with a fresh  perspective.      Morris' extensive use of the interview technique enables  the reader to probe the minds of the makers and shakers of the movement, as  we hear them speak in their own words.  Somewhat academic in its approach,  yet eminently readable,  and quot;Origins of the Civil Rights Movement and quot;  can be understood and appreciated by middle school students, academicians,  and history buffs alike.  It is a must-read for those interested in a  complete understanding of American history in general and of African  American history in particular

</review>
<review>

McDonald's is one of the great symbols of America, and most countries around the world absolutely love McDonald's.  If you want to know the history of the mega-giant corporation, this is a good starting place.  We are capitalists in America - we love making money, and that can only be considered a good thing.  McDonald's embodies much of the American spirit and American dream.  Sure, the food isn't healthy - as if that's a newflash for anyone these days.  But eating it in moderation is not harmful in any way.  Oh, and westcoaster (below) didn't actually read this book prior to reviewing it - that person just has a problem with successful business-people earning money.  If you don't have that problem, read the book and marvel at the entrepreneurial spirit.  And to Hades with the naysayers - come to think of it, I'm outta here - gotta grab a Quarter Pounder with cheese, baby

</review>
<review>

Funny how people always vote a review to be "not helpful" when the reviewer expresses an opinion the voter doesn't like...

If you are a mickey d's binger who gets pissed off when people expose the fact that their food is utter garbage (or, if you are a Mc-Exec), you'll automatically hate my review or any others like mine.  But if you're here to really see what someone who hasn't been mc-brainwashed, hopefully this review will help you.

This book tells an accurate tale of the solely profit-focused means by which mcdonald's has grown into the fast food empire it is today.  Sure, it's a capitalistic wet dream.  But what this book doesn't cover is how Mickey-D's exloits workers, vales corporate profits over franchise success, and feeds people McGarbage that can't even be called food, all without being honest about its products or practices.

I'm sure devoted McEaters and McCapitalists will trounce my 1-star rating  and  review, but that really just proves my point.

Read this book.  But if you care to know the WHOLE story, be sure to also read something presenting another view - such as Fast Food Nation

</review>
<review>

This is a great bio of a great company.  Though it is somewhat dated, this book will set the standard for every deep inquiry into how McDonald's operates.  It is simply a remarkable story.

In 1954, salesman Ray Kroc had traveled from Chicago to San Bernardino, California to visit a local restaurant, which was called "McDonald's Famous Hamburgers".  Its owners had bought 8 of his Multimixers; with five spindles, he calculated, those Multimixers could churn out 40 milkshakes every few minutes.  Why, he wondered, did they need so many?  Arriving just prior to the restaurant's opening, Kroc parked his car outside, and waited for customers to arrive.  What he saw left him thunderstruck:  it was like an assembly line for food that was affordable, good-tasting, and fast.  The restaurant was also very clean, the service friendly.  Kroc spent that evening with the owner-creators of restaurant, Mac and Dick McDonald, discussing the mechanics of their system.  The following day, with a business plan in his mind, Kroc secured the exclusive right from the McDonald brothers to franchise their fast-food system in the U.S.  Irrepressibly optimistic, Kroc was 52 and a veteran of several ventures in the food industry.

McDonald's was not the first fast-food restaurant chain:  there was A and W Root Beer, Dairy Queen, and scores of others.  Each depended on the use of the automobile, in which suburban families could travel to obtain a convenient and inexpensive meal in a clean setting.  As part of the contract with the McDonald brothers, Kroc had agreed to follow the basic model of their original restaurant, though changes could be approved in writing.  (That would prove an enormous problem later on.)  Where Kroc differed from his competitors was in the franchise system that he created.  His approach was long-term, based on what he judged to be equitable relationships with suppliers and the owner/operators of McDonald's franchises. Not seeking to make a quick profit, he charged relatively lower startup fees from carefully selected franchisees.  Kroc's business model included:

1) A gradual, restaurant-by-restaurant expansion to maintain control over restaurant standards and design;
2) Owner/operators who were expected to act as local entrepreneurs and were directly involved in the management of the individual restaurant;
3) The development of supplier relationships based on trust and the promise of future growth together;
4) A relentless focus on experimentation to enhance operational efficiency;
5) Consistent training and monitoring of personnel to maintain the company's philosophy of QSC and V (quality, service, cleanliness, and value).

Profits of the McDonald's chain came as a direct percentage of its franchisees' gross sales.   While certain aspects of the model were tweaked - from the early 1960s, corporate revenues came to be based largely on leasing fees from franchisees on McDonald's property - Kroc's basic structure and practices survived.   As Kroc wrote:  "My belief was that I had to help the individual operator succeed...His success would insure my success."  The same logic applied to his suppliers.

For their part, McDonald's competitors tended to treat their franchisees like captive customers rather than trusted partners.  For example, Dairy Queen and Tastee Freeze became suppliers to their franchisees, forcing them to buy equipment and other products at a profit for the corporate offices, in effect creating a structural conflict of interest.  Not only did this divert the attention of the central headquarters from maintaining the quality and operational efficiency of their restaurants, but it frequently led to price gouging for less than optimal equipment, which undermined the loyalty of franchisees over the long term.  Moreover, they sold "territorial franchises" for huge initial profits to local businessmen, relinquishing control over large geographical areas, which often led to the neglect of standards and brand consistency.  Finally, their relations with outside suppliers tended to be short-term, based more on cost savings than on quality or innovation within the system.

Over time, the McDonald's chain grew up as a kind of ecosystem or coalition of partners, in which the interests of its members - the central headquarters, the owner/operators, and the suppliers - coincided over the long term.  Suppliers were also encouraged to innovate:  to perfect the pre-frozen french fry, for example, Fred Simplot invested over $3.5 million (!) of his own funds; as a reward (upon success), the Simplot Company grew into the world's largest supplier of potato products.   In the same way, it was owner/operators who invented some of the most popular new menu items, including the Big Mac, the Filet-O-Fish sandwich, and the Egg McMuffin, which eventually were offered in all McDonald's restaurants.

Unfortunately, the book does not go much beyond this promising beginning.  While this made for a cohesive system that was self-reinforcing and -improving, it also complicated the task of managing it from the national headquarters of the McDonald's Corporation.  For any new policy, McDonald's execs have to convince franchisees and suppliers that it is in their interest to implement it.  As the saying goes, "if it doesn't happen in the restaurants, it doesn't happen."  For years, the company reacted to outside pressures, though this is now changing with new proactive policies.

Furthermore, as McDonald's grew into the world's largest restaurant chain and indeed into a cultural force, it became a lightening rod for criticism.  The accusations of activists have taken a heavy toll on the McDonald's brand.  For example, McDonald's had become a specific target of anti-globalist vandalism during the 1999 meeting of the World Trade Organization in Seattle.  Other critics included Jose Bove, the organic farmer who achieved world renown for his role in the destruction of a McDonald's restaurant in the French countryside.  Finally, for many the moniker "Mc" had become synonymous not only with low quality and cheapness, but also with the American form of capitalism.  This represents a reversal of the wholesome, family-oriented image that the company had long nurtured.

The company is struggling to deal with these challenges to its brand at the moment.  Even more important, the company's strategy for growth - just planting more and more restaurants - has ceased to function as well as it used to:  there are too many McDo outlets so they compete with eachother in addition to other brands.  Now, the company is attempting to attract new customers and get old ones to buy more at each visit.  While this is working with menu changes for healthier fare (which mothers, many of whom did not like the old menu, feel good about buying when they come with their kids) these issues represent major challenge for the future, in particular the distrust of the brand that has become almost visceral.

Nonetheless, this book covers the basics, to about the mid 1980s, with genuine excellence.  It is well written and does not pull too many punches though it was authorised by the company.

Recommended

</review>
<review>

You know how there have been some searing indictments of McDonald's in the last few years, ranging from "Fast Food Nation" to that movie "Supersize Me"?

Well, this book ain't in that category.

Not that this is an OFFICIAL biography of McDonald's or anything, no.  It's just that the author is a little too professional to get into the kind of vicious nitpicking that you might expect, given recent lurid developments (obesity lawsuits, bombings of McDonald's, etc.).

No, this book is more of a mature, considered chronicle of the overall health and strategy of the corporation as a whole than a series of cheap take-downs.

True, Love does criticize McDonald's from time to time, but it's not in particularly vicious terms.  For example, in the later chapters, he analyzes in some depth the company's ill-fated diversification strategy in the early 90s.  He also happily delves into several of Kroc's kooky, doomed ideas.

Unfortunately, many of the "minor hiccoughs" in the company's recent history (e.g., that French farmer that raised a ruckus, that British couple who have devoted their lives to taking them down) are so well-known and fascinating that their absence is keenly felt.  And what interesting reading they would have made, given Love's scholarship and even-handedness.

So, while Love is willing, from time to time, to cast a negative light on McDonald's, for the most part the book is a straight macroeconomic history by a man who obviously admires but is not overly-reverential of one of the world's greatest corporations.

If you find that to your liking, you will certainly declare the book an entertaining and useful read -- especially if you're stuck having to write a serious, no-nonsense paper about the chain's corporate strategy, say for a business class

</review>
<review>

The book is fantasticly well researched and shares with you the full story of how Ray Kroc built the restaurant chain. I must say that especially now during the times of obecedy and the Atkins Diet - I got to respect the hamburger guys (again). The concept and strategy of Mcdonalds and the execution of the strategy is an amazing study on how to run a business.
Go get a job at a McDonalds for a while in order to get the complete picture. Anyway in this book will be inspiration that if you mix it with some basic economics you will have a good platform to run or even to build a new business - also beyond the fast food industry. You can get it used for 3 bucks - buy one for your best freind as well

</review>
<review>

This is an incredible history and in depth anaylsis of McDonalds. Well written, easy to read and extremely well researched. I've re-read it at least 20 times and purchased several copies for friends..

</review>
<review>

I have read this book two times, once as a teenager and now 40+ years later.  It is a great book and easy to read.  I was amazed as a teen ager, and now, how such a famous author would do such an ordinary thing as travel around America in a camper and write about it.  He can do more than write well about things, he shows how to really observe and absorb experiences around him

</review>
<review>

I wasn't too into this one. I'm a big fan of Steinbeck's fiction, but this memoir is rather dull. I was looking to hear what he had to say about the zeitgeist of America at the time he wrote it. But as an older man (as he even admits) he isn't as inspired to talk to or rub shoulders with people whom he crosses paths. The ones that he does write  about come across as a bit uninspired. Nothing much happens on his journey and it almost seems like he doesn't have too much to say.

The one highlight was the last couple of chapters, when he goes to the South (New Orleans) and witnesses all the slimy, seperatists as they scream and holler, with pure craven hatred at the first little black children to be integrated into public schools. He is disillusioned and angry and when he tells the tale of what he saw it is absolutely heartbreaking.

As much as a mediocre work as it was, I did take an interest in it because I am a fan of Steinbeck. It was cool to hear him write a memoir. Other Steinbeck fans make get something out of it as well and for them I recommend it, just on that basis. As long as you take into account the stuff I said above. If you haven't read Steinbeck, please...start with "The Grapes of Wrath" or "Tortilla Flat." Those are much better works and will give you something to go on if you try to read this

</review>
<review>

Favorite memories of this book come from years ago when I could not put the book down as I read of Steinbecks travels with his poodle.  For those whose minds wander and wonder about the roads, towns and people of the U.S., I highly recommend this book.  I am purchasing it to read again

</review>
<review>

This book is vital and interesting, even across the gulf of the 40-odd years since it was written. Steinbeck writes to us from the far side of the 60's "generation gap" and even the far side of post-World War II industrialization and urbanization.

Steinbeck dislikes superhighways and cities, and is most comfortable on country roads and in rural areas. Steinbeck and his dog Charley fight bureaucracy, park rules, bad moods, and mistrust of strangers with free liquor, good old American hospitality, and wit. Along the way he encounters uncooperative Canadian border guards, quaint European migrant farm workers, his own politically polarized family, rich Texans, and other exemplars of the melting pot.

The book's climax is Steinbeck's description of racial tension in the south over the integration of public schools. He describes a performance by the New Orleans "cheerleaders," a group of racist women who yelled obscenities at white children and their parents who escorted them as the children dared to attend grade school with the first black children allowed in.

Steinbeck pulls this off through his remarkably pleasant narrative voice. Reading this book is like spending time with your well-liked great uncle. You know he is basically nostalgic and prefers things the way they were rather than the way they are, but he stops short of being tiresome about it, and doesn't seem to blame you.

In writing about America, Steinbeck directly demonstrates some of the best things about the american character. He honestly reports the good and the bad, believes that people are basically good and striving to improve, and shows that honest, respectful relations between individuals can cure, or at least make tolerable, most of society's ills

</review>
<review>

First I must admit to a certain bias here.  I travel a lot, I travel with a dog as a companion and I enjoy reading this particular author. I was doing all of this long before this book was published and continue to do so to this date. I can relate to this work!  That being said, this is one of those books that I have reread several times over the years, and year after year, I find that Steinbeck's observations contunue to be relevant.  This is a very easy reading book.  I do need to point out to a number of other reviewers though, that this is NOT a novel(despite what his son said)!  It is a travel book and it takes a look at parts of our country seen through the author's eyes.  It is interpreted through the author's past expierences and how he preceives the world.  I am sure that any ten (or one hundred) people could take the same trip and we would come up with ten (or one hundred) different stories and interpretations of those stories. I shared some of his opinions and agree with some of his observations...others I did not.  That is what makes life so wonderful and why it is always good to read, or better yet, talk to others, and agree or disagree, enjoy their views.  I certainly cannot fault the author's usage of language, syntax and organization.  It is all good solid Steinbeck. This is one of those books that can be read on several levels.  You can read it as a social commentary of that particular time in America, or, as I do, you can relax and enjoy the ride with the author.  As a side note:  I do note that many of the younger readers appear to feel this work is boring.  I can see where this might be the case when you consider the movies, T.V. etc. of this day and age.  I might suggest though, that you give it another read in a few years.  Perhaps you will look at it differently.  I know I have expierence that with other works by different authors.  All in all, recommend this one highly.

</review>
<review>

I first read this book at about age 12.  That period of my life was the height of my unrequited wanderlust and fixation with man's best friend, so I was delighted at finding this journal written by a guy who put a camper top on his pickup, took his dog, and drove around the United States. It didn't even bother me that the narrator of this adventure was an "old guy".  He shared my feeling about what it is like to get goosebumps when the wild geese fly overhead in the fall and the air is chill.  You want to grab a sleeping bag, some grub, and hit the road.  At that time, I was just like the young boy in the book who wanted to stow away in Steinbeck's camper.  It would be a few years before I saw the movies "Of Mice and Men" and "The Grapes of Wrath", which led me to reading his novels and really finding out who John Steinbeck was and what he was about.  In "Travels With Charley" the reader doesn't feel that gut wrenching sympathy for his fellow man which is such a big part of Steinbeck's fiction.  In this book Steinbeck is kind of a grumpy old man, like Andy Rooney.  Now that I'm getting kind of old myself, I find myself experiencing the changes in the world Steinbeck was discovering when he wrote this book.  When he writes about meeting a shiney young submarine officer, you get the willies along with Steinbeck about the nuclear sharks deep under the sea, manned by the very young, protecting us, yet at the same time menacing.  The first time I read his description of the waitress in the diner in Maine, so full of negativity that she would only think a big tipper was crazy, I had never met that kind of person before.  Since then I have worked with many just like her.  My favorite part was when Steinbeck camped out with the potato harvesters in Maine.  Also of note are his comentary about ubiquitous "top 40" songs on the radio, last generation's castoffs as today's antiques, and sadness as charmless but comfy mobile homes replace the old family place.  Steinbeck got road-weary halfway through the book, his dog got sick, and everything seemed wrong.  He witnessed the terrible discrimination and trouble of integration of the early '60s.  The badlands and the South creeped him out, and he couldn't wait to get back home.  Isn't that just the way a real trip works?

</review>
<review>

I love Steinbeck, so I try to read what ever he has written. This book was a total surprise, it is so diferent from his other books. I think this would appeal to people who are not Steinbeck fans. For the loyal reader it is a surprise to see his veiw of a country on the bring of the Interstate revolution. He observation of trailor park life is great, and I hear you can see the truck that he drove at the Steinbeck Museum in California.
This is one of my 3 favorite travel books. The other two being On the Road and Henry Rollins's "get in the van". If your going on a raod trip you should bring along one of these books so that you can enjoy the down time

</review>
<review>

Steinbeck's novels are some of the most powerful statements about American culture available on the planet.  But who knows the writer?  Travels with Charley lets readers get to know John Steinbeck, how he thinks, what he believes in, all with great wit and intimacy.  Steinbeck is a very funny man.  I even learned a new respect for poodles.  What else could you want in a book

</review>
<review>

This is one of the best, most enjoyable books ever written, in my opinion.  It is a combination history (of a now by-gone America), essay (on what it means to be American, on the coming modern world, on racism, on travel, even on what the mind of a dog may be thinking), memoir, history, travelogue and poem.  Steinbeck sets off with his dog Charley in a glorified pickup truck to see America in 1960.  He explores as many themes along the way as he does landscapes and states.  He meets people, he offers opinions, he converses with his pal Charley, and he offers a comment on America - past, present, and future.  I find this a fascinating, thoroughly enjoyable (and I'd even say "classic") read.  And I would highly recommend it for anyone who wants to reflect on America and travel with Charley and the great author who drove him around.  For those familiar with John Steinbeck only as a writer of fiction, this book reveals a new side, and one I think you will enjoy

</review>
<review>

Why are the three most powerful forces in our world--evolution, democracy and capitalism--so controversial? Hundreds (in the case of democracy, thousands) of years after they were first understood, we still can't quite believe these three phenomena work. Socialist Europe resists capitalism, the religious right in America questions evolution and the Middle East makes a mockery of democracy. When you think about it, it's easy to understand why: all three are radically counterintuitive. "One person, one vote?" What if they vote wrong?

But that's the problem--we're thinking about it. Our brains aren't wired to understand the wisdom of the crowd. Evolution, democracy and capitalism don't work at the anecdotal level of personal experience, the level at which our story-driven synapses are built to engage. Instead, they're statistical, operating in the realm of collective probability. They're not right--they're "righter". They're not predictable and controllable--they're inherently out of control. That's scary and unsettling, but also hugely important to understand in a world of increasing complexity and diminishing institutional power (mainstream media: meet blogs; military: meet insurgency).

Fortunately, this book that makes sense of all of this. Out of Control was first published in 1994, well before its time, but it's one of those rare books that sells better each year it gets older. That's because Kelly recognized that the messy markets of natural selection, enlightened self-interest and invisible hands all anticipated the Internet and the delights of watching peer-to-peer cacophony create the greatest oracle the world has ever seen. Some of the examples may be a bit dated a dozen years later, but the message has only become more true: "There is no central keeper of knowledge in a network, only curators of particular views," he writes. The emergent mob wisdom of the blogosphere and Wikipedia were unimaginable then, but somehow Kelly imagined them all the same. This may be the smartest book of the past decade

</review>
<review>

The first half of the book is simply as good as it gets.  Each Kelly pronouncement reads like a mantra from on high.  The second half of the book is merely brilliant, but Mr. Kelly gives you a pretty good run for your money at 500 pages.  There's only a couple of people even close to Kevin Kelly in the futuristic field, Ray Kurzweil, Howard Bloom, and Thomas L. Friedman. Alvin Toffler may have pioneered in a field that H.G. Wells started, but the new mavens like Robert D. Kaplan, Mike Davis, and Kevin Kelly, achieve levels of literacy as beautiful as a Dali.  There are about ten must-read human futures, "Out of Control" is one of them.

</review>
<review>

This is Kevin Kelly's own summary of his bottom- line conclusions.

" 	As we make our machines and institutions more complex, we have to make them more biological in order to manage them.
The most potent force in technology will be artificial evolution. We are already evolving software and drugs instead of engineering them.
Organic life is the ultimate technology, and all technology will improve towards biology.
The main thing computers are good for is creating little worlds so that we can try out the Great Questions. Online communities let us ask the question "what is a democracy; what do you need for it?" by trying to wire a democracy up, and re-wire it if it doesn't work. Virtual reality lets us ask "what is reality?" by trying to synthesize it. And computers give us room to ask "what is life?" by providing a universe in which to create computer viruses and artificial creatures of increasing complexity. Philosophers sitting in academies used to ask the Great Questions; now they are asked by experimentalists creating worlds.
As we shape technology, it shapes us. We are connecting everything to everything, and so our entire culture is migrating to a "network culture" and a new network economics.
In order to harvest the power of organic machines, we have to instill in them guidelines and self-governance, and relinquish some of our total control."

This is the kind of book I find extremely difficult to know how to read. I just do not have the proper scientific- technical background to evaluate the kinds of claims which are being made here. And this when I am naturally skeptical about books which claim to have a sure general understanding of the shape of the human future.
My skepticism also relates to the meaning of this kind of 'evolution' for the lives of individual human beings, and for society as a whole. Is the suggestion that we are on the verge of some vast transcending or de- humanizing of humanity, some creation of an 'organic collective mechanical consciousness' which will somehow 'direct' or guides society as a whole.?
If so , once again, what does this say about our own individual freedom and identity?


</review>
<review>

Out of Control is packed full of thought provoking ideas and ways of thinking.  Wired magazine readers will find greatly expanded versions of articles included in this book.  A must read for forward thinking technologists.  Don't confuse this book with some fluffy marketing rant because it isn't

</review>
<review>

It is always useful to revisit the future predictions of some time ago. What used to be a long time has changed - now, five yers is a long time. While time has show the truth of the book, the questions and difficulties have changed - new difficulties of inclusio

</review>
<review>

A well though out, easy to understand overview of complexity theory.  Kelly highlights several of the top researchers in the field (at the time) and gives countless real examples from the "natural" and "artificial" worlds.  From prairie fields to robotics, Biosphere 2 to genetic algorithms; the ideas in "Out of Control" will make you think.

The main idea:  "natural" and "artificial" obey the same rules.  As "artificial" systems become more complex, they behave more like "natural" systems.  Decentralized, redundant and inefficient. We will lose control of our own creations.  Don't be afraid, it's just the next step forward.

Don't forget this book was published in 1995.  Ten years is an eternity when you are talking about a relatively new scientific discipline.  Some of what Kelly highlights in the book has come to pass and some has passed away.  Despite being a decade old this book is well worth the time.

</review>
<review>

This book was published in 1994! We are just beginning to feel the changes. Things are changing rapidly, but not randomly. There is order to the crazy times we're in. The book offers rules to live by in these changing times

</review>
<review>

Kevin Kelly's book, written a decade ago, is, for the most part, still relevant today.  Anyone interested in the subject matter is encouraged to read it, with the exception of those already well informed on the workings of mobs and virtual evolution.  It is worth noting that Kevin Kelly's book is available online at his website

</review>
<review>

As reviewed [...]

After seeing Senator John McCain speak a few times over the years, I grew curious to learn more about him. He always comes across a very intelligent and insightful person. I knew he served in Vietnam and was held as a POW for a few years, but I had no idea what he and his fellow POW's endured while in captivity.

McCain's Faith of My Fathers was published in 1999 but is as inspiring a read today as it will be 50 years from now. McCain comes from a long line of American military heroes. His grandfather and father were both four-star admirals in the Navy. Although McCain comes across as a very reserved and quiet man, he apparently knew how to have a good time in high school and through the Naval Academy; McCain isn't at all shy about sharing some of the more colorful details of those formative years.

This isn't just a book about McCain's years as a POW, although that is the focus for the second half of the book. That part of the story is remarkable enough, but the coverage of both of the elder McCain's and their military highlights make for a truly special read

</review>
<review>

John McCain's book is verywell written.  I found the advanced vocabulary outstanding.  The way the book is put together is very hitorically orientated.  He starts with his Grandpa and the impacts he made on John's life, then about his own father and the sacrafices that helped shape his faith.  How he did in the navy and being shot down.  Finally he tells you about His struggles in 'nam and how his hardships there helped make him a better man.  A really good biography and tribute, John McCain for President.  GOD bless POW*MIA not forgotte

</review>
<review>

McCain et al write very well and I was impressed by his style.  The writing was not the only style with which I became familiar but the "style" of the man himself, John McCain.  This was a truthful, revealing account of a man of honor who is presently in an oft less-than-honorable profession.  We can only hope the remainder of his career echoes with laud that of his grandfather and father.  I believe this read is one to add to one's readings of autobiographies / biographies.

</review>
<review>

I usually stay away from bios of politicians, especially reads on living politicians who frequently write to exonerate/excuse/justify/blame etc... This book is a great read sice McCain's political life is purposely avoided. Sen McCain, obviously and justifiably proud of his heritage, spends a good deal of time delving into his family tree. Coupled with naval and military history, this potion of the book is interesting, though I felt a little too detailed. His war time experiences are horrific and inspiring. The bravado I expected to accompany his experiences was not there. He is a man who had a job to do and he did it. He suffered greatly, and he explained his weaknesses. He is straighforward and shows a personal and vulnerable side not shown in his political discussions. Highly recommended for anyone who wants to appreciate true hardships the power of the human spirit to shine

</review>
<review>

John McCain's autobiography is a stirring account of perseverance and family values that is ultimately a tribute to the will of humanity to prevail. If only more fathers would give their sons the lessons that John Sr. instilled in John, our world would be a better place. If only more men had the unwavering self-confidence that John had as a POW, we could all live inspired. John McCain shows us that we can grow as people if we learn to do what's right in the end. After all, he wasn't perfect, but he learned to hold his head high and make his life as perfect as it could be with what he had. Outstanding, altogether

</review>
<review>

This is not the type of book I usually read.However,I am so glad I dispensed with my usual fare to read this book. John  McCain's account of his family,his years at the Naval Academy and how those years molded him,his funny,entertaining and low key style are wonderful. His matter of fact recounting of his appalling six year captivity as a POW of the North Vietnamese is sickening and shocking. He writes about his captors,whose beatings,starvation and abuse were a way of life for him and other American prisoners,with amused comtempt,not bitterness or rancor. Since I hated them about three pages into his story of his years in prison,I find that remarkable. Probably helped him keep his sanity.
John McCain and his fellow prisoners are great Americans in every sense of the words.A must read,when you are losing faith in your country and all the cheap politicians that never wore a uniform

</review>
<review>

Ok, I can't really say what I thought of the book, as I bought it as a gift for my dad.  I knew he would enjoy this book without reading it myself and I was right.  He thoroughly enjoyed it and read it very quickly.  I would give it 5 stars, but since I didn't actually read it and am only going by what my dad said, it gets 4 solid stars

</review>
<review>

'Faith of My Fathers' is the story of three men - the grandfather and father of John McCain, who created a legacy of a life in service for McCain (the third man) to follow.  It is their legacies that led the young John McCain to the Naval Academy and to a career in the Navy.  Yet the legacy of these two men is wrapped up in morals, values and patriotism - exactly what makes John McCain the great leader that he is.

This book is divided into three sections.  It begins with the stories of McCain's grandfather, an admiral in the Navy who fought in WWII.  His grandfather is depicted as a true seaman, complete with the language.  He then goes on to talk about his father, another Navy admiral, who went on to serve as commander of the Pacific and entire naval force.  Greatly influenced by his grandfather and father, McCain received a commission in the Navy and sought to distinguish himself through serving the United States in war.  Unfortunately, that war happened to be Vietnam.

The third section of the book deals with McCain's experiences at the Naval Academy and his time as a prisoner of war in Hanoi.  McCain recognizes that because of his 'celebrity' status (due to his father's top position), he wasn't mistreated as severely as other prisoners.  His accounts of the heroism of these men are extraordinary; the pain they had to endure and the pain that broke them.  POWs were forced to make fake confessions, to listen to their former comrades condemn them in public, and to pretend that they were being treated humanely for the world audience.

Throughout his political career, McCain has been known as a POW of Vietnam, yet this is not how he distinguishes himself.  He took what he learned from his time as a prisoner and set about living his life, grateful for his experiences.  At times the book fluctuates in time periods, which can get rather confusing.  Besides the stories of his grandfather and father, and his time as a POW, McCain and co-author Mark Salter, weave in the world events - what went wrong in Vietnam, what could have gone right.  McCain lets his opinion be known, but recognizes that terrible responsibility that comes in waging war.  He has proven himself to be a hero worthy of admiration and the responsibility of leadership.

</review>
<review>

Autobiography that starts two generations ago. Those readers accustomed to the usual self-serving political memoir will be plesantly surprised. McCain's book begins with mini bios of both his father and his grandfather, hence the title. While the early third of the book dealing with his family tree may be a bit slow going once he gets into his own bio in the middle third, the book really starts to heat up.

John's willingness to reveal his own personal peccadillos and weaknesses is truly refreshing for a former and hopefully future Presidential candidate. For example, in the chapter entitled Low Grease, John recounts a quite hilarious anecdote about a visit to meet his girfriend's proper Main Line Philadelphia family for the first time. Unfortunately his train connections allowed him to accept the offers of several fellow travelers to join them for some beers.  He relates how, after several hours of drinking at the 30th Street Station in Philly, he finally catches the last train to the girl's town.  You can easily conjur the vision of him making his grand entrance wearing his Naval Academy Dress White Uniform.

The book really becomes a page-turner in the final third when John details in often excrutiating detail his time spent in a Vietnamese prisoner of war camp now infamously known as the Hanoi Hilton.  His descriptions are surprisingly not tinged with bitterness or rancor.  Apparently enough time has elapsed to allow his mental (but not physical) wounds to heal.  This period details how the POWs used various mental techniques to  survive, how they created alternative means of communication, how they organized and how they relied on one another.

The book ends with his and his fellow POWs release from the POW camp. This abrupt ending clearly leaves the readers hungry for more information, more narrative of his post-POW life. Luckily there are other later John McCain volumes which are available to nourish the hungry reader.  But that's another review.

This volume should be required reading for all students of the Vietnam War and for every American regardless of their age, race, gender or poltical party.

</review>
<review>


This is one of the volumes in the Harvard Business Essentials Series. Each offers authoritative answers to the most important questions concerning its specific subject. The material in this book is drawn from a variety of sources which include the Harvard Business School Press and the Harvard Business Review as well as Harvard ManageMentor_, an online service. I strongly recommend the official Harvard Business Essentials Web site (www.elearning.hbsp.org/businesstools) which offers free interactive versions of tools, checklists, and worksheets cited in this book and other books in the Essentials series. Each volume is indeed "a highly practical resource for readers with all levels of experience." And each is by intent and in execution solution-oriented. Although I think those who have only recently embarked on a business career will derive the greatest benefit, the material is well-worth a periodic review by senior-level executives.

Credit Richard Luecke with pulling together a wealth of information and counsel from various sources. He is also the author of several other books in the Essentials series. In this instance, he was assisted by a subject advisor, Richard D. Austin, a member of the Technology and Operations Management faculty at the Harvard Business School. Together, they have carefully organized the material within 12 chapters.

1. Project Management as a Process (four phases)
2. The Cast of Characters (i.e. who's who in project management)
3. A Written Charter ("your marching orders")
4. A Framework for Action (i.e. important first steps)
5. Work Breakdown (i.e. from huge job to manageable tasks)
6. Scheduling the Work ("put the horse before the cart")
7. Adjustments and Trade-Offs (i.e. more fine-tuning)
8. Managing Risk ("scanning the hazy horizon")
9. Project Adaptation (i.e. dealing with what you could not or did not anticipate)
10. Getting Off on the Right Foot (i.e., project needs to keep in mind)
11. Keeping on Track (i.e. maintaing control)
12. The Closedown Phase (i.e. wrapping up)

I especially appreciate the provision of a "Summing Up" section at the conclusion of each chapter, and, the provision also of two appendices: "Useful Implementation Tools" and "A Guide to Effective Meetings." Re the appendices, all executives should possess and continuously upgrade a "tool kit" even if what is needed this week or this month requires entirely different "tools" later. One of the most important value-added benefits of the "Essentials" series is that each of its volumes includes a number of "tools" relevant to the given subject and an explanation of how to use them effectively.

With regard to the advice provided on meetings (probably the single greatest time-waster), it is sensible but sparse. Years ago, I became convinced that most meetings are convened to discuss what needs to be discussed rather than to discuss what needs to be done. And even when the latter, more often than not, the "PTD Principle" is ignored (i.e. P = person, T = task, and D = deadline). I now presume to share my own advice.

1. Schedule a meeting only when it is absolutely necessary.
2. Include only those who must be present.
3. In advance, inform everyone involved what the meeting's specific objectives are.

NOTE: No more than three objectives per meeting.

4. Limit the discussion entirely to achieving the specified objective(s).
5. Encourage dissent.

NOTE: If two people in the group agree on everything, one of them is useless.

6. Have zero tolerance of gabbers.
7. Strictly follow the "PTD Principle."
8. Follow-up with everyone re who must do what and by when.
9. Have zero tolerance of slackers.
10. If someone suggests another meeting, see Point #1.

Other than Appendix B, the material which Luecke and Austin provide is first-rate. I highly recommend it to decision-makers in all organizations (regardless of size or nature) and especially to those who are now preparing for a business career or have recently embarked on one. Effective and efficient management of work at all levels and within all areas of any organization is absolutely essential.  However, what Peter Drucker suggested more than 40 years ago is even more relevant now than ever before: "There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all.

</review>
<review>

What a terrible story, was unable to finish it, Stuart Woods was at one time a very good author, but when he started with Holly and Stone, he in effect quit writing, this is about a militant band of right wingers robbing banks and oh by the way just had to kill Holly's intended just an hour before the wedding which didn't seem to break Holly up all that much as she still has her best friend, her dog and her father which she has conversations with regarding three somes and their sex lives in general, Signet books and Stuart Woods should both be ashamed of themselves for putting this on the market.

</review>
<review>

After an impressive debut in ORCHID BEACH, we meet Holly Barker on her wedding day....a day that is destined to become a fateful day instead of a happy one.   Woods paints a picture of a heroine who seems more interesting in solving the bank robbery than mourning the loss of the man she supposedly wanted to spend the rest of her life with.  In a painfully dreadful narrative, Woods presents us with another variation on the extremist group of fanatics who want to make the US better by getting rid of anyone who isn't white.  Been done so many times before, that it's redundant in this tepid story.  Woods doesn't offer us anything new and the pacing is so slow, it becomes sleep inducing.  Woods also makes the mistake of having Ham, Holly's tough father, carry the weight of the book.  While Ham's an okay guy, he comes across as a Dirk Pitt or superman in this one, and it just didn't work for me.  The ending is also pretty lame, and even the inclusion of Stone Barrington, makes little narrative sense.  A real disappointment; is the third any better??

</review>
<review>

Good read, enjoyable, but I have to complain on two points:
Sure, Stone Barrington makes a cameo appearance, for no reason at all except that we like him and he's easy on the eye.  BUT - he's there to buy a plane, tail number November 1 2 3 Tango Foxtrot.  Then in the end, when the bad guys are escaping, they escape in a plane with the tail number - you guessed it - November 1 2 3 Tango Foxtrot.  Did they steal Stone's plane?  Was the mysterious John actually Stone Barrington?  NO!  Wow, what a great plot twist was missed here.  Or maybe Mr. Woods just likes that number - maybe he has a plane, too, with the tail number - well, you get the point.
The other big boo-boo was having the bad guy go to Ham's for a drink, and nobody thought to get his fingerprints off the glass.  Well, he could've been wearing gloves, but you'd think someone would notice THAT.
All in all a good read, doesn't require a lot of mental investment on the readers' part, and a fairly good description of Florida's Treasure Coast.
C@

</review>
<review>

I've been enjoying the Stuart Woods series of books lately..been reading more stone barrington novels, but I wanted to pick up and see what holly barker was up to in her sophomore effort..

what I like about woods is that he writes these two characters so differently and it keeps the books varied and interesting....barrington, while likeable, has questionable moral standards at times, whereas Baker is quite the opposite..in other words, his books aren't predictable and they're never formulaic!

Anyway, onto this book..there are some BIG surprises and the return of some familiar faces (some surprise appearances as well)...the good guys are never perfect and the bad guys aren't always 'evil incarnate' either..everyone's got a motivation for doing something..

this one starts in a completely different place than where it ends (plot wise, not geographically speaking) so you're brought along for a pretty good ride...some parts just have palpable tension too...

definetly worth reading.

</review>
<review>

Holly Barker is the cities Police Chief and is accompanied by her best friend Daisy, her Doberman Pincher. The book starts with Holly waking up on the morning of her wedding day. However, her day takes a sharp downturn when her fianc is murdered during a bank robbery that turned violent. Holly leads the official investigation with the aid of her friend in the FBI. The investigation leads her to a town that is not shown on any maps. The inhabitants are white supremacists who recruit Holly's dad Ham into joining their organization. Ham pretends to join this group and is quickly given a key role within it. His infiltration of the group enables the law enforcment agencies involved to learn that Ham is selected to assassinate a VIP, but no one knows whom the intended victim is. Unless they can learn the identity of the target, someone will die.


</review>
<review>

"Orchid Blues" is not a heavy, deep, dark mystery. Now that that's out of the way, the book is a good read.  If you've read "Orchid Beach" you are already familiar with the characters and the writing.  The hook is Holly's fianc? being killed in cold blood at the beginning of the story.  The real star in this story is Ham.  He is able to infiltrate the group of underground militia that murdered Holly's fianc?.  Yes there are several lucky breaks, but you know what this is a work of FICTION

</review>
<review>

Stuart Wood's Orchid Blues is a fast read ... his chapters are short, making you want to read on  and amp; on.  Having only read one of Sutart's books (Orchid Blues), I am definitely going to read more of them.  You know there's violence; you know there's mystery; you know there's accuracy.  I read it so fast, I didn't even look at the back to see how it ended!  Now that's a good mystery!  And no swearing ... I am now going to read Blood Orchid.  And since Holly meets up with Stone, I will then go on to read the series of crime scenes he's involved in.  Thank you, Stuart Woods

</review>
<review>

If you want to understand Iraq, or war in the modern age in general, I think you must read this book.  Most wars are simply unwinnable -- as that term is commonly misunderstood in Hollywood terms.  WWI and WWII were the exceptions not the rule.  Where an when you must fight an unwinnable war, it must be by necessity and with a clearly defined objective and exit strategy.  This book illustrates these lessons vividly through the life, courage and devotion of a little known and less understood and altogether mystifying and facinating true American hero.  Even if you are not so interested in the politics and the present day relevance, it's still one great read

</review>
<review>

Again, I read this book for insight into the ferocity of the Asian warriors in modern times since the Book of Revelation prophesies of a gaint world war III with Asia in the Tribuation from which we are not far.
Also I grew up in the 60s' with coverage fo the Viet Nam War on the nightly news. And when the US retreated from Viet Nam in disgrace, it was a mystery to me.
This book makes it plain why the US lost the Viet Nam war. Even when I was in the Army as a Private in 1977, a sergeant was teaching about motion sensors that they shot into the forrests and attempted to detect the movenment of Viet Cong guerellas. Then he started mocking about how dumb and primitave these querallas were. He said they were armed with hatchets and that they used the hatchets  to hack the motion sensors apart. He thought that was funny to him. Yet he forgot that it was AMERICA THAT LOST THE WAR and retreated in disgrace!
Viet Nam was such a small impoverished nation. They did not have helicopter gun ships, an air force or B-52 bombers; yet with courage and dooged resistance they defeated the mighty American army there! Kind of like now in Iraq.
Viet Nam looked like an American comedy of errors. For instance, Sheehan had written how the US Army had discarded 125,000 obselete infantry rifles when changing over to the M-16. And how the Viet Cong got alold of them and used them to kill Americans.
The Vietnamese government was unjust and corrupt, not even allowing their own peasant soldiers to recieve treatment in their field hospitals!
Then I read about the American and ARVN Ranger Batallions that employed torture to interrogate their prisons with techniques that sounded worse than those used by Adolph Hitler and his Third Reich!
I believe that God was actually on the side of the Viet Cong to permit them to win such an upset against overwhelming odds. It had said in the Psalms where one righteous man can out 100 evil men to flight! And this apparently was what took place in the Viet Nam war.
Major televangelists in America are still whining about how America had lost the Viet Nam war. They just can't figure it out. But if they woud read this lenghty book they would find out just how come!
I say it was time well spent on gaining wisdom and insight into an issue that divided the nation in the 60's and 70's. Or as the Bible might say, "it is better to go to a house of mouring than a house of feasting because death is the fate of us all!
This book seems to universal that I can just about imagine a Viet Nam style guerella war going on right now in America, too! Compare the 500 pound car bomb that attacked the US Embassy in Saigon to Timothy McVeigh blowing up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Or when Colin Furgeson had massacred a Long Island commuter train in New York. TIME magazine had quoted one of the survivors as having said that this is the kind of things that went on in Viet Nam! Or a report on FRONTLINE on the Meth Amphetamine crisis inh America which showed DEA agents scouring the countryside looking for old barns and building which might conceal clandestine Meth labs. Its like Viet Nam is here already

</review>
<review>

It's generally accepted that Vietnam was the first real television war, where images from the front lines were constantly bombarding the senses of the American people. This means Vietnam in all likelihood started the complex and convoluted mind games that governments have been required to play since. In order to meet your aims, as a government, you need to convince your public that the ends justify the means. Showing dead children on television makes that a difficult message to swallow. Enter the Age of Flak.

The reason I open my review with that pre-caveat is because this book is just one version of the US war in Vietnam. There are countless versions retold in book form, and for me to say this one or that one is head and shoulders above or below some other version would be specious, at best, ridiculous at worst. What I can say is exactly what I title this review, this book is an interesting perspective of a confusing war. There are many other perspectives, the vast majority I have never read.

Make no mistake about it, Bright Shining Lie is a great book. It reads well, it's informative, in-depth, encompassing - all you can ask for in a history book. But for me, it's not quite 5 star material. Many people love this book, and indeed, it won a Pulitzer Prize in 1989 with good reason. But there's something missing in the pages, something a little short of a true classic 5 star book. I will now attempt to explain what that is, not entirely sure I can do that.

The story is in-depth. I'm not about to use the word complete, since a book on Vietnam would have to be 38,000 pages long to be complete, and even then it might come up short. My main problem is the meandering path it leads you down from time to time. I know this approach appeals to some, especially those who dole out the Pulitzer Prizes (see Guns Germs and Steel for another example). Personally, I found the book sometimes lacked focus, and certain sections tended to bog down, suffering from knowing exactly where it was going.

The research was solid, otherwise the book would have suffered. Sheehan had such a wealth of first-hand experience it only follows he would have this aspect nailed. But then, there are instances when too much background is revealed. Having known Vann, Sheehan probably felt the correlation was clear. As a reader, I was occasionally left wondering where the connection was. This leads me to use the word meandering. Again, some readers enjoy the complete analysis, no matter how small and long the adjacent path leads. Personally, I felt too much of the text was a side-story, and not enough discussion was aligned with the aim of the book.

Perhaps there is another contention: The aim of the book. In the second half, John Paul Vann occupies a much smaller role than he had in the beginning. The story, and of course the war being described, took on a life outside of Vann. This is fine. I have no delusions that the war was about one man, especially when he wasn't in the country for some of it. But the title of the book, and how that played into what I was reading...I don't know. Sometimes it was too scattered for my liking. I often wondered where the text was going, why it was going there. Sometimes the questions were answered, other times not.

Some other reviews cite this as a left-wing propaganda piece, which I think is laughable. Other reviews cite the fact that the man, John Paul Vann, was by and large a lousy excuse for a husband and person. While almost entirely true, that doesn't leave the text any less engrossing. Indeed, it probably gives you an idea where Vann's edge came from, and what kind of person he was. He liked to get his way, and generally stopped at nothing to make that happen. But knowing the subject matter, you know how well that worked out.

The book also touches on aspects not directly associated with Vann, which is to be expected in a book about war. The mindset of the native participants is explored, and it gives people like me - with insufficient knowledge about Vietnam - a better understanding of why things went the way they did. I believe this is why people call it liberal. But really, it explains so much more than some off-handed comment that tows the liberal-conservative dichotomy our nation feels the need to be a slave to. Far beyond that, the explanatory power of some of the observations is outstanding.

The book is really good, no doubt. But overall, I found it dragged too often. The book is large enough that you're bound to have low spots - it comes with the territory. But I think it happened too often. I think the book would have been better if some of the sections were shorter, or cut out altogether. Yet, despite these complaints - and I should note these are not condemnations of the book by any stretch - I enjoyed it immensely. It kept the pages turning and, for the most part, kept me interested. For one really good perspective of this confusing war, it is well worth the read

</review>
<review>

Subtitled "John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam", this 1988 non-fiction book won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and I can well understand why.  I'm an avid reader of books about Vietnam.  However, this 790 page epic, with an additional 70 pages of acknowledgments, footnotes and indexes, makes all those other books seem lightweight.  Sixteen years in the writing, every word has been scrupulously researched.  Not only are there detailed descriptions of the battles, however.  The reader is given the opportunity of looking at the really big picture of the politics of the time.  I'm not talking just about the national politics though.  There were politics inside the military and between the Americans and the South Vietnamese.  We read about real people and the human disaster and the interwoven complexities of waging this war. And, central to the book, we learn about of Lt. Colonel John Paul Vann whose opinions of how the war could be won often differed from those of his superiors.  But we learn more than just about his military expertise.  We learn about the man himself.  We never really like the man.  And yet, we do come to understand him with all his warts and demons.

Neil Sheehan was an award-winning Vietnam War correspondent for United Press International and The New York Times. He knew John Vann personally as well as the other military and political leaders mentioned.  But he goes much deeper into the character of John Vann, who died in a helicopter accident in 1972, than just his military experiences.  He really gets into John Van, the person.  And it's in these sections that the book reads like a novel, as we get to know John Vann, the man who could never really escape his early roots.  He was born in the South, an illegitimate first child of a mother who neglected her children to the extent that they never had quite enough to eat while she had many gentleman friends and spent money on fancy clothes for herself.  Eventually he enlisted in the army. That's where we learn about Korea and the blunderings and mistakes that happened there. I remember learning about this Korean war as a child.  But this book really made its folly real to me.

During John Vann's pilot training in the northeast, he met his wife, a respectable young woman from a middle class family.  They married young and had five children.  But John was a womanizer and couldn't seem to help himself.  There were always at least one or two other women in love with him.  And that doesn't even count the recreational pleasures he enjoyed in addition. Towards the end of his career he had a daughter with one of the Vietnamese woman he romanced while keeping another woman as a full time mistress.  He also often exaggerated his good deeds when it came to his family, always trying to make himself a hero.

This was a challenging book for me to read.  There were details of military operation which I had to read slowly in order to understand.  But once I got into it, a picture started to emerge.  This was a picture of mistakes turned into bigger mistakes, how the world views of the American military created a monster in Vietnam which was a sea of corruption as a way of life.  The Vietnamese people suffered the most of all.  It was really brutal and there were parts in the book where I couldn't help but shudder.

This is clearly the most comprehensive and best book about Vietnam that I have ever read.  I give it my highest recommendation.  But be forewarned of its density and appeal to those who want facts and figures along with a very human story

</review>
<review>

John Paul Vann was deceitful, manipulative, selfishly ambitious, driven by inferiority to crave leadership positions, selfish, a sex addict, a serial adulterer, a horrible husband, a lousy father.  But, John Paul Vann was also courageous, resourceful, a natural leader, a shrewd judge of others, intelligent, an original thinker, a warrior for freedom, tireless, energetic, and confident.

The author uses John Vann as a metaphor, or type to illustrate America's deepening involvement in the Vietnam war.  The metaphor seems to fit well and the result is a good overview of the war and our involvement in it.

The book is well researched and it answered most of the unanswered questions I had about this time in my life (I registered for the draft in 1973).  Some of the questions it answered for me were:
How did Ngo Diem come to power in South Vietnam?   Was he a good leader or a "anti-communist dictator"?   Was the South Vietnamese government and armed forces corrupt?   "Corruption" is hard to define, so what are examples of their corruption?    Why did our bombing of North Vietnam not tharwt the communist forces in the South?   Why were we unable to cut the Ho Chi Minh trail?  Were Thieu  and  Ky good leaders?   Why did the Buddhist monks set themselves on fire in protest?   Was General Westmoreland a good combat leader?   Why did the Marines set up the base at Khe Sahn?   Whose ideas was it to rotate the US miliary through Vietnam on one year terms?   Did the South Vietnamese really want our help?

My main conclusion from this book is summed up in the old country proverb, "You can't make a silk purse from a sows ear."

</review>
<review>

Historical events occur twice, one wooly philosopher claimed. His follower added, the first time as tragedy, the second as farce. Not true, America's wars suggest. It's tragedy all along, and that's why you need to read or re-read this book now.

The US stumbles, with only the haziest notion of what it is doing, into a grisly war on the other side of the planet. Initially the public goes along but then becomes dubious as the body count mounts, and mounts. Put that way, it sounds all too familiar. But history does not really repeat itself-you can find plenty of difference between the current conflict in Iraq and the Vietnam debacle.

Yet there is common ground: Denial of reality, in the political arena and in individuals' minds, underpins both adventures. That denial leads people step by step into a swamp, as this peerless book demonstrates. Ignorance, delusion, lies, betrayal-all mix together to extend the agony.

Sheehan's brilliant classic reveals the private life of a man as twisted as the war and as dark as the bloodletting, a man at the center of the public spectacle of mayhem and defeat. A man who deceives with the greatest ease, and charms everybody from young schoolgirls to his friend Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers fame, only to betray them without a qualm. The real man is fascinating; as a metaphor of self destruction he burns into one's memory. Go back to this book to see how deceit and illusion can fuel a massive disaster.


</review>
<review>

Seventeen years after publication, Sheehan's book, IMHO, remains the best single volume about the war. I won't heap even more praise upon it in light of what many others have already written, but I plead with the publisher to bring out an abridged volume.  I'd assign it to my college classes if it were half the length of its nearly 800 pages.

Gary Ostrower


</review>
<review>

If I were stranded on a desert island with only one book to read about the Vietnam War, Sheehan's "A Bright And Shining Lie" would undoubtedly be it.   The book is not a linear history of the Vietnam War but instead tells the tale from one of its most important players and critics, John Paul Vann, who served as an in different capacities from the "advisory" period under Kennedy in 1962 to just after the 1972 North Vienamese Easter offensive, when he was killed in a helicopter crash.

By focusing on a character study, we get a rare glimpse of the "feel" of the war, particularly its early experimental days in the Kennedy years when the most capable military graduates competed for a handful of advisory slots to see real combat. The book has the best description anywhere of the seminal 1963 battle of Ap Bac, in which a VC battalion stood its ground and bested a heavily armed and ponderous South Vietnamese regimental attack.  This battle foretold what would follow in other South Veitnamese and American engagements through the disasterous Lam Son campaign eight years later.

As Sheehan sets out his story, Vann was a perfect microcosm of the America's tragedy.  He was a hyperachiever and a true believer to the end, never questioning the Cold War premise that the United States had to prevent a Communist takeover of the South, that the war was not an indiginous conflict but agression from without, and that the South Vietnamese could sustain a viable indepdendent political existence.  Vann singled out loyal and capable South Vietnamese couterparts to work with, but he was, by the mid-1960s, an island bucking the massive influx of the American sledghammer, "defoliate, deploy and destroy" methods adopted by Westmoreland.

Vann was used and abused by his American superiors.  Like his good friend Daniel Ellsberg (whose recent autobiography, "Secrets", tells another angle to the story), Vann reported truth  and was ignored.  When Vietnamization began in 1969 -too late, too much (useless or unrepairable cast-off materiel), he still remained behind, and unlike the cynical Kissinger-Laird "realpolitik" crowd who were looking only to an exit with a breathing space before collpase (as occurred in 1975)("peace with honor"), Vann sincerely beleived to the end in the moral good of his mission.

Vietnam chewed up thousands of John Paul Vanns.  As Sheehan points out, the issue is not whether the war could be one or lost, but the immorality of a system which exploits the idealism and abilities of fine people and covers its tracks with deliberate lies.  While all wars depend upon a cerain degree of calculated deception, such deception cannot extend to fundamental  premises under which the conflict is being fought, whether one's name in Robert McNamara or Donald Rumsfeld.

</review>
<review>

Had it not been for the movie it was the basis for, I would never have learned a Big slice of the truth about Vietnam, and I'm thankful I found a softbound copy of this for just the equivalent of US$4.95 in Philippine pesos last year.

A Bright Shining Lie is the life story of John Paul Vann, one of the most controversial, yet indispensable, figures of the Vietnam War. What's more epic about this book is that the one person who knew him real well from Vietnam took SIXTEEN LONG YEARS to write, collated from a large collection of sources dating back to the war: taped interviews, printed materials (including the Pentagon Papers), and experience from being a UPI war correspondent.

Neil Sheehan did a commendable job by compiling all the facts about John Vann's early life: his being born out of wedlock, a literal SOB, and his experiences at Ferrum, to name a few were all good parts to read. He was also able to shed light on the stories about his relatives, and how they all connected with Vann's.

Aside from what I've read in other books about the Dien Bien Phu siege, Bao Dai and the rigged elections of 1956, I did not learn more about the early history of the Vietnam War until I read A Bright Shining Lie. Once again, in the chapter "Antecedents to a Confrontation", Sheehan's star shines as he detailed the history of Vietnam's struggle for independence and resistance to foreign domination (by taking note of some of Vietnam's early heroes such as Nguyen Hue), starting from the Chinese, all the way to the Japanese, French, and later the Americans. It was in this book that I first learned that the term "Viet Cong" was actually American-made, and Edward Lansdale, the man behind Ramon Magsaysay's success in the Philippines, had a role in placing Ngo Dinh Diem as South Vietnamese leader, thinking he could repeat what he did in the Philippines. The passages about the Denunciation of Communists campaign in 1955-56, the near-draconian rule of the Ngo Dinhs, plus the endemic corruption, and discrimination of other religions and people in the rural areas (no thanks to Diem's usage of his Catholic friends as administrators) further undermined Diem's ability as a leader for the Vietnamese people, and he was obviously ignorant of the signs.

The Battle of Ap Bac, the major skirmish that brought the Vietnam War to a whole new level, has an entire chapter devoted to it, and narrated in exquisite detail on both sides, and included a map Vann wanted to use in briefing the Joint Chiefs.

The battle, it's aftermath and the repercussions from it, gave Vann the ammunition he needed to confront the senior military leadership on how they ran the advisory effort in Vietnam. He knew what was wrong and made it his mission to make them understand, but the passion with which he pursued his goal was paid in full by a lot of frustration when, due to some politicking by officers who didn't like Vann, he was denied the chance to brief the Joint Chiefs just when he was already at their office, ready to go.

I would have loved to add more of my thoughts about such a riveting book as this, but I've ran out of things to say. Hopefully I can add more later..

Great book!

</review>
<review>

What an exciting and most interesting book!  Carol Oja takes us back to a transitional period in the cultural history of New York City (and America); the 1920s.  It isn't that book doesn't talk about anything outside of those years, but that the stuff before leads into that decade and the stuff after discusses how it flowed from those times.  Probably the best place to start reading this book is the fascinating Appendix that lists the programs of Modern Music Societies in New York from 1920-31.  It gives you a flavor for the decade and the material the book is going to cover.

There was a time when Europe treated all of the United States about like New York and Los Angeles treat even big mid-western cities now.  A place to come and make piles of money from the rubes (I am from Ann Arbor, MI - we get lots of great visits from orchestras and artists, but it is almost always the artists coming here to give us something rather than coming here to seek something).  In our age of instant communications and global simultaneous experience of cultural events, it is hard to remember or understand that it used to take months and years for cultural events in one part of the world to work there way to other cultural centers.

Awhile back I spoke with an elderly friend who was one of the founders of the Interlochen arts camp in northern Michigan and had been involved in the School of Music in the days of Earl V. Moore.  He told me that in the 1920s here in Ann Arbor, the new music was Dvorak and Tchaikowsky.  They did not get the stuff of Debussy, Ravel, and Stravinsky until later.  Now things had changed by the 1960s.  Another friend got a hold of the score and parts for Stravinsky's "Requiem Canticles" and gave the second performance of the work here in Ann Arbor immediately after the premier.

This book does a great job of showing us how the sense of growth and wonder of the burgeoning city whetted people's appetite for new ideas and wonders in drama, art, and music.  Edgard Varse brought his unique genius to the city and founded an orchestra to play new music.  He caused a sensation and created a demand for more of the new. This openness allowed local talent to flourish and the likes of Ornstein, Ruggles, Anthiel, and others prepared the way for the next generation of Copeland, Sessions, and others.  The author supplies us with great descriptions, generous portions of music samples, and well chosen pictures

For me, the most powerful idea that stays with me is how alive and searching everything was.  People did not wait to be subsidized, or for institutions to come to them and give them grants asking them for their art.  They just went and made it and created their own means for performance and presentation.  Of course, most of it was not art built to last.  But so what?  This weird demand we make that only art that is eternal is worth making or that only absolutely unique art deserves praise is utter nonsense.  I wish we encouraged more of this kind of energy in our young people today and encouraged them to make real and honest art that is true to themselves rather than the extremes of commercial sellout or political pose that we seem to require of them today.

Sadly, by the end of the decade, the winners began to stand apart from the mass of other artists and they became fashionable with the attending public support and accolades.  The commercialization and institutionalization of "serious art" was well under way; especially with the transformation of jazz elements into material for art music.  One group of people could pretend to jazz while maintaining respectability while others seriously explored what jazz could mean to art music, respectable or not.

What a time it was and what a book that documents it for us so well

</review>
<review>

This is the best selection to buy of Hawthorne's short stories because it is NOT a selection, it is complete and, if you believe the editor, it's actually more accurate in its assessment of what is and is not a Hawthorne story than some complete collections because he did not include here some stories that his co-editors on the Hawthorne Centenary Edition did want to include. (Hawthorne spent much of his career as an underpaid and unsung magazine writer and some of his work went with no byline and without reprinting at his own choice, so what he wrote is no easy matter to decide.) The stories are, you probably know if you're looking up this book, stark and wonderful. But some of them are also twee and a little fanciful and not so wonderful. That too is instructive. One very useful thing about this volume is that it includes a listing of when each story first saw print in magazine form and when in book form. In that way the reader can chart Hawthorne's development as a magazine writer and a professional which in every possible sense of the word he determined to become and despite some difficult odds finally was. Some of the most beautiful and terrifying stories in the language and a beautiful object to hold in your hand. Expensive, but if you can get it - this is the one to buy

</review>
<review>

I love the Womens Murder Club books I've read them all in the past month now, I can't wait for the 6th to come ou

</review>
<review>

Exciting and well written.  Easy to read.  Keeps your attention

</review>
<review>

"The Women's Murder Club", introduced to legions of new fans in "1st To Die" and continued to wonderful effect in "2nd Chance", is an intelligent, plausible, modern idea whose time has come. Lindsay Boxer, a police lieutenant in charge of San Francisco's homicide division, Cindy Thomas, lead crime reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, Jill Bernhardt, assistant DA and Claire Washburn, Chief Medical Examiner, are four sharp, rising professionals in the field of law enforcement who have broken the proverbial male glass ceiling and have discovered the synergy of brainstorming their way to a solution of their mutual problems.

In "3rd Degree", the high speed action starts from the very first page as our ladies are confronted with the brutal terrorist attacks of an out-of-time 60s fringe group of misguided Berkley radicals targeting what they would label stereotypical mega-rich corporate robber barons and their families - better known to the rest of the world as millionaires. With the puffed up rhetoric of the far, far left, they take credit for one of their attacks with a note signing themselves as "August Spies" - "We have declared war on the agents of greed and corruption in our society. No longer can we sit back and tolerate the powered class, whose only birthright is arrogance, as they enrich themselves on the oppressed, the weak, and the poor."

The thriller part of the novel is a well crafted and nicely paced police procedural that takes us through vignettes involving forensics, profiling, post mortems, cooperation between the LA municipal police force and the FBI, the plodding details of policing at street level, and even the moral dilemma posed by the tragic requirement to withhold details of an investigation when this action may place the public in harm's way! The solution is both satisfying and credible and even the bad guys are well-developed characters that come alive off the page with their twisted motivation and hatred of the world around them.

As he did so well in "2nd Chance", Patterson continues to lift his tale above the realm of ordinary thriller by realistically allowing the personal lives of the four ladies to intrude on their professional lives (or is that vice-versa?). Lindsay falls hard for a professional colleague whose base of operations is clear across the country and Jill struggles with the emotional roller coaster of a husband's abuse that has recently escalated into the physical after she lost her baby by miscarriage in "2nd Chance". (I was, however, more than a little miffed to discover that the church pastor Cindy fell in love with in "2nd Chance" and Lindsay's ex-cop father, both of whom seemed to hold out so much promise for future sub-plots and character development were simply ignored in "3rd Degree" - sigh!)

Well done! I'll be out looking for #4 in the series shortly!

Paul Weis

</review>
<review>

No one would argue that this thriller is great literature.  But if you are looking for something good to read on the beach or a long airplane flight, this is just the ticket (so to speak).

Patterson's plot draws you in, irrespective of the justifiable complaints by some other reviewers of its predictability.  It's true that there are a lot of handy coincidences that put the heroine in the right place at the right time, but so what?  It's entertaining.  There are a couple of good, unanticipated plot twists that liven up the narrative, plus enough action to move things right along and keep readers interested.

If you're looking for an easy read that does not present an embarassment to carry around in public, this is it.


</review>
<review>

I found this book collecting dust on a bookshelf at a friend's house.  I asked my friend if she'd read it and she said, "Not yet, but it's a Patterson, so it must be good..."  Wrong-er words were never spoken.

This is the first Patterson novel I have read.  I am glad that I borrowed it from someone rather than bought it myself.  I suggest that if you insist on reading this, than you would be wise to do the same.

Let me just say that I don't enjoy giving bad reviews, but this is perhaps one of the most poorly written novels I have ever read.  I feel compelled to warn others so they can be spared the disappointment I experienced.  Maybe because it was "co-written" by this Gross person, but it just seems that this book was written too quickly, with the characters and the plot as a mere afterthought.

I kept reading, hoping that the story would get better, but it siimply did not.  When one of the characters was in mortal danger, I found myself thinking "who cares?"

This boring read has an utterly predicitable love-story woven throughout, and again, it seems pointless and cheesy.  One reviewer put it best by saying that this book is more like an outline of a story rather than a comprehensive novel.

The plot twists are predictable and uninteresting, and you sort of want to root for the bad guys because the main characters are soooo boring and flat.  The sentence structure is so elementary that I was surprised that this was written by an accomplished author and not a sixth grade English student.

I am by no means a "book snob" but I cannot believe that someone would review this book with a 4 or 5 star rating.  It is just beyond me.  If you are looking at the writing alone, it is terrible, not to mention the unbelievable events that take place.  Main character Boxer is always in the right place at the right time and everything comes together so neatly that you just cannot believe any of the events could possibly take place.

I know that a lot of die-hard Patterson fans will probably give me bad ratings just because I didn't like this book, but I am trying to be as honest as possible.

Maybe some of his earlier works are better?  Well, I guess they couldn't be a whole lot worse in any case

</review>
<review>

This book reads like it was written at top speed by Patterson and Gross ON speed (just kidding, guys, don't sue me)and that's the way I read it, too...I don't think I drew a breath until the last page.

I'm not going to try to pretend this is great literature and brilliantly written. But it sure moves! And it has some surprises, ugly and otherwise.

The plot involves some leftover Berkeley radicals, and having grown up in that era, it was jolting for me to read about some initially peaceful hippie types who morphed into radical terrorists for the sake of the cause--whatever that cause might be. In this book, a similar leftover from the Sixties has a cause all his own--and a very modern, 21st-century way of expressing it. Think Twin Towers toned down to San Francisco.

It is vital that Lindsay Boxer and a handsome, sexy member of Homeland Security, along with just about everybody else in the larger law enforcement community, catch "August Spies," a dead-serious domestic terrorist cell that has already committed terrifying high-profile murders--using enough deadly poison to take out all of San Francisco, and bombs capable of the same thing.

Linsday enlists her pals in the Women's Murder Club--and one of them doesn't make it to the end of the book. I haven't even processed that yet, it went so fast. Along the way, Lindsay and the Homeland Security guy, Joe, start a serious romance. Have I left anything out? Oh yes, the kitchen sink...

This is nothing less than pure fun. It's not a book to analyze, just to enjoy

</review>
<review>

Once again James Patterson wrote a great book. I love this series with the Women's Murder Club. The character are great.  I read this one in one day.

</review>
<review>

When I first heard that a member of the Women's Murder Club was going to die, I knew it wouldn't be Lindsay.  But I always knew who it would be from the beginning of the book.  And no I am not going to tell you.  The story centers around a terrorist-like cell that is killing upstanding citizens, calling themselves August Spies.  With a few red herrings here and there, the Women's Murder Club has their work cut out.  Then Cindy starts recieving emails from one of the cell detailing when and where they will strike next.  Then in a twist one of the Club is killed leading the investigation in a whole new direction.  The end is sweet with love on the horizon for Lindsay.  All and all it is basic James Patterson fare.

</review>
<review>

In 3rd degree James patterson not only produces great thrills and fantastic characters he also provides a very profound message that is surprisngly scary. This book is fiction but something like this could very well happen one day considering the story focuses alot around protestors. The August Spies bomb this house in the first two chapters and as Lindasy and the Womens Murder Club delve deeper they realize a surprising motive which leads to sadly, one of the Women from the club to be murdered. Like with Pattersons last two murder club series there are those classic little twists and an even better ending that makes you feel satisifed. But unlike the last two this one delt more with politics and was very confusing at times. There was also more characters than usual and it was very confusing because alot of the characters had aliases which made it very confusing because you couldn't figure out which character from the August Spies was which. The way this book ends may for some people like me, send a chill down your back even though there is a typical happy ending but the message is very surprisng. Once again Patterson proves why he is one of the best if not the best at writng thrillers

</review>
<review>

Richard Middleton convincingly argues in this well written book that the influence of Pitt during the war has been hyped.  Pitt showed no system for winning the war and his descents on the French coast were political expedients to avoid sending troops to Germany.  Pitt was not Prime Minister as the office did not exist.  Instead he worked as one of two secretaries of state, who, along with the Treasury, made up the ministry.  The book focuses on the politics and administration of the war, and not on the battles and campaigns themselves.  Interestingly, the author shows how historians before the early 1900s were sloppy, and how modern historians often rely on their work without doing their own proper investigation.

</review>
<review>

I loved this book!  It was such a fast read.  I can't wait to get another one

</review>
<review>

Sparks must have had a momentary lapse of reason when he decided to take a stab at suspense by writing The Guardian. This book is awful. The storyline is weak and predictable, the dialogue is excruciatingly lame, and the characters are poorly developed and lack depth and chemistry. There is virtually no romance, which is the reason to read Sparks' books. I can't tell you how many times I rolled my eyes at the stupid things people said, the way the dog seems to be human, and the predictability of the plot. This book is so poorly written and so lame I have trouble believing Sparks wrote it. If you want a good plot with romance mixed in, read Message in a Bottle or A Walk to Remember. If you want suspense, read Mary Higgins Clark or Agatha Christie; they do a far better job with it than Sparks does.

</review>
<review>

I love Nicholas Sparks books.  I really love the Notebook because it reminds me of one of my loves.  The Guardian was great, like many others, I couldn't put the book down.  I hope he does a lot more  stories with mystery involved,  After reading one of the reviews, it just goes to show that you can not tell a book by its cover. Come on, Nicholas, MORE, More, More.  Keep up the good wor

</review>
<review>

I absolutely Love all of Nicholas Sparks' books. I have read them all and if want a great read with a touching story then he is the author for you. Get your kleenex's ready. You can't go wrong here.

And I always preorder his new ones..... I'm addicted

</review>
<review>

I really Love this story! I'm used to the romantic stories that he write but this one... Sparks included mistery... unresolved mistery ,,, Oh my I really can't put it down!

</review>
<review>

I have only read a few Nicholas Sparks books (The Notebook  and  The Wedding), so I was eagerly anticipating beginning The Guardian, which had been recommended by me. I absolutely love Sparks' style of writing, and he did not disappoint with The Guardian. From the very first chapter, I was captivated. I felt like I was right there with Julie and Singer during all that ensues throughout the book (I don't want to spoil anything!). I laughed, I cried - I think I went through every emotion by the time I finished this book. That, to me, is the mark of a great book! I definitely recommend this book - it's a quick read and a great story that will not disappoint

</review>
<review>

I loved Sparks book The Notebook and added most of his books to my must read list. I really liked this book, he kept it interesting, but The Notebook was much better

</review>
<review>

At the young age of 25 Julie Barenson loses her husband. Shortly after he dies, a great dane puppy is delivered to her home with a note from her late husband. This part will give you the chills ... nice touch.  She names him Singer, and despite her frustrations with his size and clumsy mannerisms they grow to love each other.   After a few years of trying to get her life back together after her tragic loss, Julie begins dating 2 men--Richard, a handsome charmer who wines  and  dines her, brings her lavish gifts and professes his undying love very early in the relationship. The other, Mike, is a simple down to earth country type whose idea of a date is a burger, Doritos  and  a couple beers at the local watering hole.  So who would you choose? Ouch! I'll stop there with the comment that this could have been such a compelling story.  Instead, we are faced with trite, boring, repetitive dialogue throughout, scatterings of viewpoint shifts and a very predictible plot.  I cannot believe this is the same author who wrote The Notebook, one of my all time favorite novels. I'll have to admit the ending brought on a gush of tears.  In conclusion, Singer not only saved his owner but the book as well.

</review>
<review>

This book has been passed around and passed around in my family between family memembers and friends. Everyone who I know that read this book fell in love with the characters especially the hereo in this book. You can't help but cry when reading it I am a Nicholas Sparks fan from all of his books. This is one of my favorite and would recommend anyone who has ever had a bet that was as close as a family member read this book you will fall in love

</review>
<review>

Only one other city is so steaped in architecture history than Chicago and this guide does a commendable job of highlighting the most important Chicago buildings, the synopsis on each building is susinct, the only qualm I have is that there are not more pictures, I also wish the authors had ventured more into the suburbs and commented on some of the great houses in Lake Forest and Highland Park, but that omission does not mar the overall enjoyment of this scholarly guide.  If you are interested in architecture at all, I recommend you pick up this book, Chicago is so steaped in architecture history and this is a good guide to the best examples.

</review>
<review>

I couldn't bring myself to give five stars to a book which is  and quot;just and quot; a review of fifty (plus)other books.  Review books seem like a great idea, but the problem with many of them is that they are, frankly, boring!  This one is different - whilst giving an accurate overview of each book, the author brings his own style and intelligent commentary into the review, such that the reader really does go away knowing which of the books he or she does want to make time to read from cover to cover.  We business executives are frantically busy trying to manage the new economy and few of us have time to get to all the background reading we know we should do.  Writing the New Economy gives us a genuine shortcut, and is the kind of easy read we can pick up on a train or plane trip, and gain real personal value (well, I did!). And it's bang up to date - at least it will be for a few months before the next tranche of  and quot;e and quot; books hits the streets!  This one is a  and quot;make time to save time and quot; book, and I for one am glad I made time for it

</review>
<review>

The content of the book was a great resource for me in developing advanced strategies as a Business Systems Analysis. It provides clear cut details that can be applied effectively and economically.

Time and cost are important factors in each project in order to get beyond the feasibility report, and the outlined process helps in creating this most important document.

If you use the SDLC and TQM methodology in your business practice, then this manual is a priceless asset

</review>
<review>

 and quot;Business Systems Engineering and quot; is an excellent resource for anyone interested in creating a world class organization.  The tools of business systems engineering allows you to transform a company into a  learning organization capable of strategic change and excellence.  The  emphasis on  and quot;adult learning theory and quot; and its role in reengineering  the work process is particularly refreshing.  Because strategic change and  leadership begins with learning, the emphasis on the work performed by  cross-functional teams of employees is essential to creating a learning  organization that can successfully respond to challenges in the  marketplace.  Case studies emphasize organizational learning and looking  outside the box, and demonstrate the use of benchmarking to identify the  best business practices and applying them to creating a competetive  advantage. Watson's holistic view of business systems as open systems that  are capable of improvement, easily promotes the integration of TQM  principles and the use of information technology.  The result of this  synthesis is the business system engineering model.  The model allows you  to transform your organization without sacrificing your focus on quality or  the customer, and is adaptable to any business.  It also helps you to  realize the value of employee training to support change initiatives for  profit.  If a change in your organization's culture is the prescription,  then Business Systems Engineering is the treatment

</review>
<review>

I found this book incredibly helpful as a novice pet owner of a stubborn new puppy.  The book is written with the necessary instructions for training, but also with humor to keep you interested and engaged. The book is so entertaining, I have even recommended it to friends who do not even own pets

</review>
<review>

We have the most adorable golden retriever, Jake. However, Jake is rambunctious and without Kathy Santo's Dog Sense, he would still be tackling kids behind the knees in over excited play.
Dog Sense makes sense...and is a MUST for any new dog owner or an owner of a new dog that has a mind of his/her own...thank you Kathy.
Lynne

</review>
<review>

Kathy Santo's book is sure to be a helpful aid to anyone with a dog and if you're considering adding that adorable puppy to your family, bring the book home first! The book is written clearly  and  with some humor and the child that says "Please can we have a dog,I'll take care of it" will gain much knowledge from this book as well.
I'm happy to say that we've taken some of Kathy's suggestions and applied them in training our Ragdoll cats and our ferret with great success too:)
I was fortunate enough to buy a few autographed books and these will be given as holiday gifts to a few friends with "unmannered dogs" along with some home made dog treats
Happy Reading..

</review>
<review>

This very informative book certainly helped me train my golden puppy--when all other attempts failed.  The book is concise, informative and written with a delightful sense of humor.  It would have been so much easier training over the years had I known about Kathy Santo's technique.  Everything she says makes so much sense--and is applicable to all dogs.  I'm giving the book to all my "dog loving" friends for an X-mas present this year.  Dog Sense certainly makes sense

</review>
<review>

I have 2 dogs who are SO different from one another. This is the first book that takes each dogs' personality into consideration when training your dog. The book is definitely the best I've read on dog training - and I've read alot on this topic!
I'm anxiously waiting another book by Kathy Santo. I hope she gets one out soon.
I highly recommend this book!

</review>
<review>

I bought Kathy Santo's Dog Sense at the same time I bought a Bernese Mountain Dog puppy. This puppy was my first large dog, and Kathy Santo's book gave me the confidence I needed to train her properly from day one. I had it by my side during the first months of my puppy's life, and, a year later, I still refer to it for useful advice and ideas. I highly recommend this book for anyone who needs a no-nonsense approach to establishing a lasting relationship with their dog

</review>
<review>

This book has great insight into understanding who your dog is and how to get your dog to behave in many situations.  The book is written clearly so you can easily train your dog on your own.  It has been a big help to me and both of my dogs

</review>
<review>



Finally. I've waited and dreamed of a creative method of dog training.
This book not only made sense but I found the information written in a very entertaining manner that encouraged me to want to continue reading and learn more.
The way Kathy Santo approaches her training, each dog as an individual gives our four-legged family members the benefit of their unique personalities.
I can only hope that Kathy decides to continue on her venue of writing more books about dogs.

</review>
<review>

Kathy may have been doing dog training for 20+ years but she isn't staying current with what's happening in dog training. Sure she implies that she is using positive training because she's using food, but she's also telling people how to correctly leash pop their dog. Even with the food training she's using 'okay' as a release word which means that anytime that your dog hears this word in a conversation around it, it is ok for it to break from whatever behavior it was currently doing.

If you want a New Jersey dog trainer check out Pamela Dennison and her great books - The Complete Idiot's Guide to Positive Dog Training, How to Right a Dog Gone Wrong, Bringing Light to Shadow: A Dog Trainer's Diary. I would also highly recommend Pat Miller's Positive Perspectives: Love Your Dog, Train Your Dog, or The Power of Positive Dog Training.

</review>
<review>

Kathy Santo gives good, well-thought-out advice for training dogs.  It would have been nice if she went into more depth on the subject of problem behaviors

</review>
<review>

The book was definitely interesting, and I learned many things about myself that I did not know.  However, the secret to happiness was not found in here.  Not sure if I went in looking for too much, but it seemed to me like just when he might have been going somewhere, it ended.

Very interesting facts about human nature and the brain though, and excellent quotes at the beginning of the chapters.  I'm definitely glad I read it though.  Had a very scientific feel to it, like there was proof for all the ideas.

He briefly touches on positive cognitive therapy (replacing unhappy thoughts with happy ones) as one of the ways to be happy, but doesn't go into too much detail.  I believe this is the most important.  The author Vernon Howard definetely helps out in this department.  Guy Finley's another one. All about awareness and enlightenment.

But it is worth reading

</review>
<review>

This book by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt is a great read even if there is nothing exactly new in it. Its strength lies in its breadth and consolidation of information.

It begins with information about the evolution of the brain and Haidt uses an apt metaphor of our conscious self being the rider of our much larger unconscious elephant self. Our conscious rider-self is both enabling us to live in very large social groups and acting on behalf of the interests of our instinctive elephant-self. The rider is like a lawyer fighting for the elephant in a public court.

Haidt says that reciprocity is the basic currency of social life. Reputation is also very important. Happiness is highly heritable but still requires good relationships and engaging work. He discusses the role of oxytocin in our development of attachment relationships and the role this may play in our sense of belonging and ultimately our religious or mystical experiences of merging with all life and the calmness it brings.

What it boils down to, as it so often does, is the individual in relation to the group. While we have evolved mechanisms to live in groups we also have problems either for some individuals within groups who feel poorly treated or conflict between groups. Haidt discusses the importance of the social inclusion of diverse groups but that this also needs a consensus regarding moral norms and values.

The author considers the costs of the inner chatter we live with as a consequence of the development of the rider-self which was crucial to the development of human society. Happiness comes from our rider-self working well with our elephant-self and with the (particularly social) environment. There are some suggestions on how to work towards this and positive psychology is making some useful contributions. Though Haidt touches on evolutionary psychology there is much more within this field that can raise our biological/evolutionary consciousness and shed further light on our 'elephant selves', our inner conflicts and our social conflicts.

As long as religion or mystical experience which Haidt discusses at some length does not blind us to the biological and evolutionary reality behind such experiences - and we face the facts of self-interest and 'us and them' consequences - then 'religious' experiences, with or without God(s), can be appreciated as a factor in human happiness. This is my main concern about the book but it is certainly worth reading

</review>
<review>

I have written three happiness books in Finnish. Thus I know how hard it is to write something which is not too simple or too difficult. There are many books that promise too much, but this is not one of them. What I especially like is the tight story. Everything hangs nicely together. I am able to compare the books written by academic psychologists, because I have all the major happiness books. This is really on top. It covers the major areas, is very well written and does not promise too much. I want to warn you about the books whose title is something like "Happiness now" or "How to be happy". It is extremely difficult to raise your happiness level

</review>
<review>

+++++

"This is a book about ten Great Ideas.  Each chapter is an attempt to savor one idea of [ancient wisdom] that has been discovered by several of the world's civilizations--to question it in light of what we now know from [modern psychological] research, and to extract from it the lessons that still apply to our modern lives."

The above is found in the introduction to this illuminating book by social psychologist and Associate Professor of Psychology Jonathan Haidt.

In order to appreciate this book, you have to understand the meaning of the word "hypothesis."  A hypothesis is any statement or assumption that serves as a tentative explanation of certain facts.  In this book's case, the facts are what the ancients have said about happiness and Haidt forms his hypothesis based on these ancient facts, then applies it to modern life.

I will give a general outline of the entire book.  Chapters (1 and 2) deal with how the mind works.  Chapters (3 and 4) are concerned with how we can get along with others.  Finding happiness is the theme of chapters (5 and 6).  The idea behind chapters (7 and 8) is how to grow psychologically and morally while chapters (9 and 10) deal with finding purpose and meaning in our lives.  The last chapter presents the author's surprisingly brief conclusion concerning happiness.

Haidt does a good job of showing that "the insights of ancient [wisdom] and of modern [psychology] are both needed to reach a full understanding of human nature and the conditions [for] human [happiness]."  Every page gives insight about the good life and where to look for it.

Finally, I did find some problems with this book, the main two being the following:

(1) The author advocates the use of the drug Prozac.  A conscientious doctor once stated that "every drug stresses and hurts your body in some way."  Thus, I would be very, very careful with this recommendation.

(2) Sometimes, Haidt uses absolute statements.  For example, "we are ultra-social creatures."  I found these statements somewhat irritating.

In conclusion, I found this book to be a good investigation into the psychology of understanding life and happiness!!

(first published 2006;  introduction;  11 chapters;  main narrative 245 pages;  notes;  references;  index)

+++++

</review>
<review>

A fantastic, wonderful book! As a journalist researching my own book at the moment, I read it with yellow hi-liter in hand. I practically drained the thing dry, highlighting illuminating paragraph upon paragraph. Dr. Haidt is a positively engaging writer, you have a sense of who he is personally in addition to what he has to teach you. And I noticed one of the earlier reviewers complaining that some of the research Haidt cited is 30 years old. Well, so what? Some of the research is even more ancient than that, if you count his quoting Buddha, John Donne and Confucius. The Happiness Hypothesis is fresh, it's smart, it sparkles. And it's right up there on my bookshelf along with Diane Ackerman's fantastic books (The Alchemy of Mind is a similar gem). The category: "Darn! Here's another book I wish I had written

</review>
<review>

This is a collection of often old studies that the author has collected (I learned about the Harlow monkey experiments in college 30 yaers ago). His earth shattering conclusions include that we should strike a middle way between spirituality and materialism, and that often after people have bought something that they always wanted they are dissappointed. At the climax of the book he states that in order to be happy we need loving meaningful relationships and a job that provides us with satisfaction. What a shocka!!!!
How we establish such relationships and find such jobs is our problem.
In short a collection of simplistic drivel. However I give it 2 stars instead of one because it flows along nicely

</review>
<review>

The Happiness Hypothesis is an extraordinary book.  I've read many books on happiness, and this is by far the best. It addresses ten issues concerning happiness (e.g., Does adversity make us stronger? Is a virtuous life likely to be a happy life?) in a lively, very readable style. Author Haidt gives just the right level of detail, and brings together a wonderfully entertaining combination of psychology and philosophy. He makes reference to most major religions, but the book can still be enjoyed regardless of one's personal beliefs (except for someone who doesn't want to read about any faith but his/her own).  Haidt's references to psychological research can be easily understood by laymen (like me) and seem to be quite up-to-date.  I highly recommend this book.



</review>
<review>

If ever you wanted to know what direction to take your life, you have found it.  It will keep you on the narrow path and give you all the data to weigh the important decisions you make in your life.  This book is now a staple gift I give.

It's not long either.  :-

</review>
<review>

Bits of wisdom fly at us constantly from fortune cookies and the like. Perhaps because of this, you may only rarely stop to savor a great idea and make it your own. Author Jonathan Haidt provides a remedy to modern habits of superficial thinking with this accessible update on 10 great ancient philosophical themes, examined within a scientific framework of positive psychology. He demonstrates that the questions of the ages are still worth kicking around. We recommend this book to those who want to know why change is so difficult and happiness so elusive. It will give you plenty to think about and possibly change your life. At the least, it will point you in a positive direction.

</review>
<review>

When I was diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis my rheumatologist told me that my "only" option was to go on heavy medication with way too many side effects. Being pretty much a health nut this news caused serious panic to say the least. After a year of searching for alternatives and taking this awful medication I found this book. I am so happy to see that there are other options that are successful. I am not better yet, but working closely with my naturopath and using this book as a resource I am making steps to my recovery. I encourage anyone going through any autoimmune disorder or anyone truly interested in what they are consuming and how it can effect one's health, to read this book.

</review>
<review>

I suffer from both RA and Ankylosing Spondolitis.  I found out through this program that I cannot eat wheat, milk or dairy products, eggs, sugar or coffee.  When I'm good at sticking to it, I'm almost in complete remission.  When I cheat, I pay for it. Within 20 minutes of consuming one of the above items, my fingers begin to swell and get stiff, and by the next morning I'm in a lot of pain. I have been able to stop taking the Methatrexate and Lodin which were very hard on the liver and destroyed my immune system.  This is a really great program and it works if you have the discipline and self motivation to go through it and stick it out. If you are completely lazy and looking for an easy fix, this may not be for you.  It's hard!  It has been hard for me to give up coffee, Lucky Charms for breakfast, hot chocolate, cookies and some other comfort foods. But in the end I have a lot of new favorites, my inflamation and pain have disappeared, I've lost weight and my skin looks fabulous to boot. God bless Barbara Allan! She's an angel

</review>
<review>

Maybe i'm being shortshighted, but i feel as if the many concessions i already have to make with this disease are hard enough to incorporate into my daily life, without also including such intense dietary changes.  I work full-time, including travel and client entertainment making it very difficult to always control every morsel i consume.  also, don't share the author's background and early diagnosis symptoms.  Mine are coming more slowly and i am entrusting my treatment and long-term care to my Rheumy.  Sort of wish I had spent the money on a good yoga or meditation tape instead

</review>
<review>

There are a number of books about Food Intolerances that are invaluable to people who have chronic health problems without knowing the cause of their problems.  Since physicians are often ignorant in the area of Type III or Delayed Onset Food Intolerance, these books are often the only hope for people to regain their good health and in many cases their lives.  Barbara Allen in her book Conquering Arthritis contributes detailed information to the topic that I have not seen in any other book.  Her own story is inspiring and her systematic approach to solving her personal health crisis mystery is a blueprint for others to find their personal way back to good health.  To her credit she did not only fight and win her own battle with ignorance, pain and deteriorating health but had the drive and compassion to get the message out there to help all of us with her excellent research and conclusions.  I was diagnosed with IBS and Fibromyalgia and Arthritis and Insomnia and Chronic Fatigue and CTS and was offered lots of prescription drugs, some of which I took for a while, but nothing helped like avoiding the foods to which I am allergic.  Barbara Allen made me aware of hidden additives in foods and vitamins that I needed to stop eating but that I would not have suspected.  Thanks for sharing, Barbara Allen!!

</review>
<review>

Fantastic book!  A must buy for anyone with any type of inflammation problem, food allergies, or anyone that just wants to be healthier and feel better.

I received the book from Amazon, read it, implemented the ideas and was pain free in 2 weeks.  Before the book I could not walk and would pass out due to severe pain and swelling in my ankles and knees when I tried to walk.

Miraculous

</review>
<review>

Outstanding. If you have Rheumatoid Arthritis ...get this book. Practice it and your life will change. Barbara has done an excellent job of combining personal experience, reviewing the scientific literature and inspiring the reader, to produce a life-changing book. She goes through extraordinary lengths to find answers to the disease that once haunted her and  comes up a winner. And you can get the benefit of her vast experiences and research for the cost of a book.

As a physician who treats Rheumtoid Arthritis I realized that modern medicine is very limited in what it can do for this disorder.This book will give you options beyond anything you dreamed possible ..and (from second hand experience) it works. I tell my RA patients - even if you do nothing else for now - just read this book!


</review>
<review>

What happened to the other 34 reviews of this book you used to have posted

</review>
<review>

I cannot express what a blessing this book is in our lives.  My husband's arthritis began at only 22 years of age and it was progressing fast.  No one in my family has this disease and I did not know where to turn except a specialist.  We saw a specialist for a few years, and I always asked was there nothing more we could do to cure the arthritis?  I could not believe that he would have to be on medication for the rest of his life.  Since he was in his early twenties, this would mean years and years of constant, daily medication.  Of course this would eventually mean problems with other parts of his body due to medication intake.  I still did not know where to go to find a cure rather than just an immune supressant.  Then, he came home one day after an appointment with his doctor involving a new set of x-rays.  He was now being told that his bones were starting to be eaten away and bones in his left hand had most likely fused together.  He was still only 27 at this point!  I could not imagine what permanent consequences would come over the next years and I could see him not being able to play with our little boy or do anything with his hands in the future.  This pushed me to stop at nothing to find the cure.  I knew it had to be out there, but where?  After tons of research and reading, I found the cure!!!  I cannot begin to express my thanks to the author and her research and her sharing with the world.  I just can't understand why the medical community does not know, or if they know, why they don't share the knowledge.  My husband is in college and this very night was studying Rheumatoid Arthritis in his anatomy class.  They have NO information on how diet and food sensitivities can cause RA and they state they know of no cure or really good medications.  It just blows me away that millions of people suffer when the cure is out there, available, and really not difficult.  If you or someone you know has RA, please get a hold of this book!  I was unsure about the cost, but boy am I glad I tried it out anyhow!  We found that corn is his sensitivity, which makes cooking a little more tricky at first, but once we figured out what he can and cannot eat, we are doing great!  It took a little effort in the beginning to find the ingredients that will work, and we had to adjust recipes, but he eats totally normal.  In fact, we all eat more healthy now.  And I don't mean bran and tasteless food.  We eat everything we ate before, but now it is fresh and from scratch.  He has been off ALL medication for almost 6 months now and we are on our way to complete recovery.  His right hand is totally normal now, and we are soon going to try the recommended trigger point method to fix his  and quot;fusion and quot;.  The info here WORKS!!!!!!  It takes dedication and a short lifestyle adjustment, but what a blessing everything in this book has been.  An answer to many prayers!  THANK YOU!!

</review>
<review>

Barbara Allan's story of how she regained her health is truly inspiring.  Every time I read it, I find another bit of information that I can try or pass on to my mother who has severe osteoarthritis.  We found the chapters on exercise and diet particularly helpful to us both. Ms. Allan has provided a well-researched and clearly written book that should be read by all those suffering from severe arthritis as well as those who are experiencing some of the early symptoms.  Thank you, Barbara

</review>
<review>

Like Catherine Maurice, I have two children that were diagnosed with autism at age two; one in 1994 and the other in 1996. I am a registered nurse and a long-time autism advocate. My kids are at opposite ends of the spectrum at this point but both were very severe at diagnosis. I cannot help but wonder what field Ms. Albert is in; perhaps a restaurant reviewer?  She appears to have so little basic knowledge of autism, its symptoms and effective evidence-based treatments. Do you have or know any children with autism Ms. Albert?  The Maurice kids displayed very classic signs of autism and the doctors that diagnosed them and later published a study detailing their descent into autism and recovery are some of the most respected autism experts in the country. To question their credibility and the reality of her children's diagnosis just makes Ms. Albert look foolish. And to actually endorse Martha Welch's holding therapy, which borders on child abuse, along with other useless or unproven treatments just adds to the absurdity of her claims.

Look, Catherine Maurice never offered anyone false or unrealistic hope, she just offered some hope and information back when there was none. It is true that sometimes parents can cling to someone's story and hope that their experience will be the same, but I for one was glad to know that autism was not necessarily a "nightmare without end."  She never claimed that ABA would recover all or even most kids, but study after study shows that some children make incredible gains, and some actually do lose their diagosis after years of intensive treatment. Catherine Maurice shared her journey into the world of autism, including her mistakes and doubts, very eloquently and truthfully.  How many could put themselves out there and detail this highly emotional experience?  Why would anyone bother with bullies like Melissa Albert?  While we are all entitled to an opinion, we should be responsible enough to check facts before discrediting an author's story. And lastly, slamming Catherine Maurice for being wealthy is just over-the-top and unfair. Autism strikes families from all socio-economic classes and her experience was as heart-wrenching as mine. So she found a therapy that worked for her kids but she should not take the time to tell parents about it because she is wealthy? How easy it would have been to dismiss autism from her life after her kids recovered, and just move on. She wanted to help other parents and write an honest account of her family's experience. And she did help. Today school districts and states are starting to offer funding for ABA, in major part because of her book and the published studies of many fine researchers and clinicians.  I feel blessed to have learned about ABA through Catherine Maurice's book "Let Me Hear Your Voice" and I will always be grateful to her for offering my family that light in the night to guide our way

</review>
<review>

As a special ed teacher of an autistic classroom, I found this book very interesting. It was written at a time when ABA treatment for autism was a little known and cutting edge treatment, whereas now you can barely Google the word 'autism' without countless ABA references. As a result, Ms. Maurice describes a journey through a world of therapy options that have fallen by the wayside in today's treatment world...play therapy, holding therapy, and the like. This book is famous because it helped, in part, to make ABA the widely used therapy it is today.

As others have noted, a part of me does wonder how much of the two recoveries in this book were attributable to ABA. I think it was a factor, but I think there were likely other factors at play as well. Many children receive 40+ hours of this therapy a week with widely varied levels of success...if I remember correctly, Anne-Marie was only getting about 10 hours a week (well below the  number of hours required for ABA to show effectiveness in controlled studies) and yet she fully recovered in less than two years. Autism is not an all or nothing proposition...I'm sure the therapy aided in their recovery but it seems likely that these children were also high functioning to begin with.

I did appreciate Ms. Maurice's take on some of the older treatments for autism that were in widespread use at the time. I think play therapy is fine if it's being used to teach skills...as in, let's hide the balls 'in', 'on', and 'under' the furniture to learn about prepositions. I disagree with the type of play therapy described in the book, however, which seems to operate on the idea that autistic children are emotionally disturbed and need psychological healing in order to recover. The same basic idea is used in holding therapy. I don't think it can be said enough...autism is NOT, I repeat NOT, a psychological problem. It is a neurological difference that is present from birth or develops soon thereafter. Unless a child is severely neglected or physically abused to the point of neurological injury, autism is NOT caused by bad parenting (or by any particular style of parenting at all, for that matter). So even if I don't agree with the super pro-Lovaas-style-ABA philosophy of this book, I thought Maurice made an important point there.

</review>
<review>

First the good points:

This book is quite well-written, and an excellent overview of many competing "therapies" for autistic children.  Both myself and my sister have worked extensively with autistic children, and we have family members who suffer from both autism and Asperger's syndrome.  But....

This book is EXTREMELY biased--and sadly, not altogether true.  The Lovaas method is praised as "recovering" children from autism, and though Mrs. Maurice repeatedly states that her children are "recovered," from the evidence she herself provides, it's fairly clear her children were not "autistic" to begin with.  It seems that while her daughter may have had some mild-to-moderate form of developmental disorder, she was obviously not autistic (and the idea that her daughter "recovered" in a matter of mere months is ludicrous).  Even sillier is the story of her youngest son, who does not seem to have developed any indications of autism beyond being a late talker.  It seems as if Mrs. Maurice found doctors who told her what she wanted to hear, and then became obssesed with "recovering" her children.  Clearly her daughter benefitted from the early intervention, but Maurice's story lacks credibility.  For those who have children with true autism, Mrs. Maurice's story of a "miracle cure" will prove more devastating than encouraging.  (A particularly tragic story of a woman named "Lucille" is appended to the book, who upended her family's life to enroll her autistic son in a Lovaas-based program--partly on Maurice's advice--and whose son has so far made little progress).  There are autistic children who do become very high-functioning, even mainstreamed, but deficits remain.  That Maurice's children "recovered" so fully and rapidly is proof that they were never autistic to begin with.  At her interview with her child's behavioral therapist, she states decisively, "Anne-Marie IS going to recover."  Of course--since she'd already decided in her mind that her daughter was autistic, it was easy enough to then declare her "recovered" a few months later.

Maurice seems not to understand that autism is a "spectrum" disorder, and she accepts as faith that it is a completely neurological disorder.  Much like depression, autism can have either biological or psychological causes, and the root cause is not always so clear.  At one point she notes "Failed bonding is a result of autism, not the cause"--but again, this isn't always true.

Even more biased is her presentation of the various alternative therapies for autism.  She rejects all medication therapy; various nutritional approaches (such as those for food allergies and Vitamin B) are briefly raised and then dismissed.  Her extreme prejudice towards holding therapy belies her own statement that she believe it to have some "real" if "limited" worth.  She paints Dr. Martha Welch as a dangerous flake, a gross libel.  Dr. Welch may well have been a bit New-Agey for her tastes, but I have seen children benefit enormously from it.

Even more dishonestly, she viciously pans Virginia Axline's seminal "play therapy," which has stood the test of time and which, again, I have personally seen the benefits of.  It is true that behavioral therapy has an excellent track record in terms of helping children become higher-functioning, but no one therapy is a "magic bullet."  In my experience, children benefit from an integrated program which includes behavioral, speech, play, and nutritional therapy (and very often also medication, though the author does not explain her animosity toward it.)

Lastly, though I am not indicting the author for being rich, she blithely ignores the fact that the average parents (not working on a Wall Street, not a nonworking wife who has a full-time nanny anyway, not living in a fancy Manhattan prewar co-op, etc.) cannot afford to have this type of intensive treatment brought into their homes, and must instead become advocates for their children within the local school system.  Maurice does supply some valuable information on the appeals process with schools  and HMOs.  But if you are the parent of an autistic child, think again before reading this book.  It will likely hurt your feelings, and what good information it provides is readily available elsewhere.

</review>
<review>

I'm a speech therapist and have given this book to families to encourage them to get intensive early intervention. It's been a great tool as far as that is concerned, in showing families an 'up close and personal' account of what intervention can do. I read the book myself a couple of years ago and really enjoyed it. Most of the reviews here are from people who have an autistic child in their lives, however, I would recommend it to anyone as an autobiography. It really flows and the emotional involvement you feel with the family is made stronger by knowing these are real people, not fictional characters.

I will say that when I first read this book, I saw ABA and intensive intervention as a kind of 'miracle drug' scenario. Having worked as a therapist for a few year now I have a more realistic view of these things. I still highly, highly recommend early intervention, early and intense being ideal. I've seen a lot of kids make a lot of great progress, and there are a few that may lose the autism label in the long run. I do think that the double rapid-recovery story portrayed in this book is not a typical thing, however. Looking back on it a couple of years later, I think that Mrs. Maurice's children might have been on the higher functioning end of the spectrum to begin with...for example, I remember now a scene where she describes going through a few speech therapists. The first few do nothing but follow her daughter around the house doing a lot of parallel talk about how she's pushing her doll in the carriage, while the last one actually gets her attention by presenting a toy sealed in a jar. Thinking of many of the kids I work with, spontaneous pretend play skills like pushing a baby doll in a carriage or interest in toys are way down the road. Also, both kids seem to develop a lot of verbal speech right away without going through a long nonverbal or echolalic period. I'm not saying this to detract from this family's miracle story, just to reiterate that autistic children develop along many different paths.

</review>
<review>

This book touched both my husband and me as parents of a little boy that is 2 1/2 and severly affected by ASD.  I emotionally connected with the author, and was so glad to hear a story of hope.  I know realistically that outcomes vary, but as a mom, it is therapeutic to hear an uplifting experience like the author's

</review>
<review>

A must have in this field for parents and professionals alike

</review>
<review>

This book is too biased and giving false hopes to desperate parents of children with ASD
I have a big question to the author.
Where are her children now?
Show the evidence they truely recovered

</review>
<review>

I've read some of the other reviews of this book and overall agree with some of the issues raised (hours of very strict ABA to make an autistic child 'normal' at all costs, dismissing special interests as 'perseverations', etc.) but I want to point out that this book was first written years ago. First published in 1993, and at that point the author is looking back in time by several years, so the actual events probably took place in the mid to late eighties. At that point in time there weren't the online support groups, the various autism organizations, the plethora of well-known therapies from Floortime to Affective Based Language to RDI, or in general much awareness of what autism was at all. Parents were left to their own devices to do the best they could and, even if I disagree on some points, who out there could start from square one like that and still manage to come up with every answer, something we still haven't managed today?

I will say that, having worked with dozens of autistic children, I find the recovery aspect of the story highly unusual. I've seen children that make tremendous progress in functioning, however, I've never witnessed a child going from totally autistic to totally not-autistic in the span of about two or three years. I'm not saying the diagnosis wasn't correct (although there do seem to be a subset of children who do some really classically autistic things as toddlers and yet do not end up being autistic,) just that I don't think this is typical, even with the best therapy programs.

Overall, I applaud this book as a touching story of a family's strength and as a breakthrough in people's thinking on autism treatment. Stories like this one helped more people to see that there are ways to work with and teach autistic children. We may have refined our approach since then, but this realization was an important moment in treatment history.

</review>
<review>

I thought this book was all over the place, but maybe that was because I only read it before I went to bed. There were flashbacks and flash forwards and I thought the author was trying to be overly clever.  None of the characters were really that interesting to me.  It was sad that Jean didn't really have any friends and to be so old and know practically no one.  Wow!  I hope I don't end up like that when I am her age.  How could a married couple go on for 30 or 40 years and never tell each other such basic things.  What a miserable life!  I am glad this book was short or I would have put it down sooner.

I am not sure if I would read any of her other books.  I do like the fact that it is set in North Carolina, which takes me back home.

I thought this was a boring book with little moral value for me.  It is probably because I couldn't relate to the characters because I just don't live my life in total isolation.  Others might get more out of it that have life experiences that mirror these characters

</review>
<review>

Once in a while a book comes along that just fits perfectly into one's life for that particular moment.  The Last Odd Day is certainly that book for me right now.  Even the clever title, which notes that the date 11-19-99 is the "last odd day" until the next millennium, leads the reader to be assured that he is in for an amazing journey navigated by a very brilliant mind.

The story tells of Jean, who is half Cherokee half white.  She notes the last days spent with her husband O.T. who is slipping through her fingers following a losing battle with a stroke.  Jean visits O.T. in the nursing home before he passes away and learns that a mysterious woman has been visiting him as well.  Jean finds out about a stunning secret her husband of 57 years has been hiding and while struggling to deal with the details of it, learns a lot about herself.  She begins to reevaluate her life and the marriage she was a part of.

Lynne Hinton makes usage of the most vivid imagery allowing the reader to actually see and smell the sights and foods she is describing.  From the house where she grew up in the woods to the apple pie with ice cream that she shares with a newfound friend.  Through detailed descriptions of the setting in which Jean grew up compared with the life she now leads, the reader is taken on a trip from her childhood home in the Smokies to a beach where she is able to allow herself some personal time. From words of wisdom passed to her by her Grandma Cedar to advice from her nosy neighbor, Maude, Jean discovers new friendships and answers about her life that she has been struggling with her whole life.

The characterization that Hinton brings to the story allows the reader to clearly see into and actual feel the emotional rollercoaster in which Jean is riding.  She gives so many detailed descriptions of people that were such a huge part of Jean's life including her family, her friends, and those who were of great importance that she lost along the way.

I would recommend this book for anyone who just wants to relax and enjoy a very special story.

</review>
<review>

I loved this sparse tale about letting go of that which really doesn't matter and grabbing hold of that which makes all the difference in our lives.

This book reminded me of MRS. DALLOWAY or THE HOURS with it's main character doing so much internalizing.  Her "interior" life was rich and full, even if her "outside" life was plain and simple.  I read the book in one sitting and was charmed.

I'd like to read more by this author.

Enjoy

</review>
<review>

I really enjoyed this book by Nora Roberts.  It is set in the Carribbean which makes it a good book to read in summer, IMHO.  It has romance, treasure hunting, and a little magic....really great!  I liked it alot

</review>
<review>

This has got to be my all time favorite book...I could not put it down....I read it several years ago...

The Scenery, mystery, romance all intertwined makes for a great novel.


</review>
<review>

This is one of my favorite books by Nora Roberts. Setting is her specialty. She really knows how to take the reader with her on every adventure. You really come to care about these characters, and it's great to escape with them to the sunny ocean setting and go deep-sea diving for the very first time in your life! This one earned its 5 stars!

</review>
<review>

I took this book to Hawaii with me and found out very quickly it was a perfect choice.  I loved the relationship between the two main characters.  I felt like the ending may have been a little rushed, maybe because I did not want it to end! Also, I felt a bit of a personality change in the leading male character towards the end of the story. Matthew Lassiter seemed to became a bit passive towards the end of the book.  Other than that I loved the book and still felt it was worth five stars

</review>
<review>

With the chilly season setting in here in Washington State, the thoughts of a tropical vacation keep me going all winter long.  I must admit that what attracted me first to this book was the palm tree, the blue-green water, the sand and the longing of wanting to be there.  This is the first of Nora Roberts I have read, however I am an avid JD Robb reader.
This book was so well written that you could just envision yourself in the sea diving for treasure or aboard the boat in the warm sun.  How exciting!  The plot was wonderful, the characters were likable, the villians were nasty.  This is one book that I am going to buy for myself as a guilty treat, and I will read it again when the cold starts setting in, so that it can take me away again for a warm exciting adventure.

</review>
<review>

I am fairly new to Nora Roberts.  But this book is not only my favorite by her, it's one my favorite books altogether.  It was so well written it made me feel like I were diving and hunting treasures myself!  And it has such a sweet, romantic storyline.  I was really sorry to see it end.  I hope there will be a sequel.  I recommend any woman to read this book, whether you like romance novels or not

</review>
<review>

First, let me say that while I have read many of Nora Roberts books, more often than not I am somewhat disappointed.  While she is always a reliable read, her stories tend to be very formulaic, and too often forgettable.  I picked up The Reef almost by accident at a friend's, for lack of anything else to read.  Having read a few of Nora's books before, my expectations weren't that high; I was pleasantly surprised.  Unlike the predictability of her other books, this one went against convention in many ways, while still developing a satisfying romance and mystery.  Generally Nora sacrifices an intriguing plot for the central relationship, but she balances the two beauifully here.  Not only did she create an intriguing villain, but the love story was touching.  As other readers have said, I liked how she spread it out over the years, which made it slightly more realistic, and somehow much sweeter at the end.  The development of secondary characters was also a welcome change from typical Nora.  In short, if you're not typically a Nora Roberts fan, give this one a try!  Not the best romantic suspsense I've ever encountered, but definetly worth the read

</review>
<review>

I can't say enough good things about THE REEF! It shows a strong female character in a field that used to be dominated by men, and a strong sensitive male that isn't afraid to dream.

This is a fantasy come true and involves marine archeologist Tate Beaumont and Matthew Lassiter and their families. The families run into each other while treasure-hunting for Angelique's Curse - a treasure that has eluded everyone, and many think it is only a myth. But this artifact is worth everything to some, even worth killing another.

As this joint expedition continues, it holds all of the elements needed for a great story: mystery, romance, secrets that can't be shared, deceptions and threats. There are so many angles that could have been pursued the reader isn't sure which avenue Nora Roberts will take until she delivers them to it. This always keeps you on the edge of your seat, and gives you a first hand "view" of the undersea world of beauty and intrigue.

I highly recommend THE REEF and only wish it would have continued - or at least had a sequel in the works! Great characters and fantastic plot will hook the reader from the beginning. One of Nora Roberts better works!

</review>
<review>

I realize this is an old title, I've not had a chance to get to all of the back list, I only first read Hiaasen a couple years ago.

Anyway, Hiaasen is a writer, pure and simple, but he also has a good idea of what goes on in the human mind and behind closed doors.  That kind of cynicism and satirical writing can be horrible if not handled well, but he pulls it off and I've enjoyed the several titles I've had a chance to read.

This one was funny and pointed out some of the absurd things we let happen in our houses of government.  While the story centers around a stripper, it is really a story about corruption and politics.

In any case, if you haven't had a chance to check out this author, this is a good a place as any I suppose and I give this one a strong recommendation

</review>
<review>

The mystery of why every single Carl Hiaasen book hasn't been made into a movie has finally been solved.  Suffice it to say that Mr. Hiaasen should be allowed to slap Demi Moore until her head falls off, and his readers should have the right to go Skink on anyone else who took part in the debacle that was "Strip Tease" the movie.

Unbeknownst to stripper Erin Grant, she is at the center of a big cover-up the night one drunk beats up another with a champagne bottle while she's onstage.  The bottle wielder is none other than US Congressman David Dilbeck, who heads the committee that keeps sugar prices artificially high and ensuring fat profits for corporate sugar farmers, who in turn pay their workers disgustingly low wages.   Dilbeck is recognized by one customer who is so infatuated with Erin he offers to blackmail the congressman into helping her get custody of her daughter, which she lost in the divorce because of the job she had to take in order to pay her attorney fees.  When the customer disappears, his body later found by Florida detective Al Garcia while on vacation in Montana, Garcia links the death to a missing attorney and his cousin, who happened to be the fiance of the man who was bludgeoned by Dilbeck with the champagne bottle.  At the same time, the bouncer at Erin's strip club, the Eager Beaver, had been attempting to earn a huge settlement by planting a roach in a carton of yogurt.  His attorney happened to be the same one who went missing.  Erin's ex also goes off the deep end, his drug habit and wheelchair stealing getting out of control as he gets closer and closer to losing it.  There's quite a cast of characters, between the bigshots behind the scenes keeping Dilbeck's career on track to the cast of dancers and crooked managers of both the Eager Beaver and its rival club, the Flesh Farm.  It's great entertainment all the way, which just makes me wonder how the unskilled moron who hacked this book into a screenplay managed to miss it all and come up with the script that made it to the big screen.

Maybe I was a little prejudiced because of that awful excuse for a movie, but it took me a few chapters to really get into this book.  Erin was a bit much of a powerless victim at the beginning, but once she gets mad enough to start taking some drastic action, things get going and this wound up being one of my favorite Hiaasen novels.  It's got everything we expect from him:  a convoluted plot full of off-the-wall characters and plenty of laughs.  It even managed to overcome the stigma of sharing a title with the worst movie I have ever seen.

</review>
<review>

I have read several of Hiaasen's books and loved them.  They were very funny.  This one is not.  It is an endless description of naked strippers.  I found the main character, Erin, to be very unappealing.  She is just so stupid.  Her problems are all of her own creation.  And she is not funny.  I think you have to be a man to like this book.  I, as a woman, just found it exceedingly boring.  I kept waiting for it to get funny.  It never did

</review>
<review>

Hiaasen and Dave Barry in the same office...how did anything ever get done at the Miami Herald?
Another in a series of entertaining off beat adventures where the quasi anti-social "good guy" triumphs over an insensitive self absorbed, environmentally destructive no good-nick

</review>
<review>

I just finished reading Strip Tease by Carl Hiaasen. I found his writing to be typical Hiaasen which is to say it is unexpected, sarcastic and witty. In this book he tackles some of the issues that he has been known to expose in the past.

In this book his protagonist is a young woman, Erin, who loses her job at the FBI because of her husbands felonious past. She then loses her daughter when her husbands past is hidden by the very people sworn to protect her when he is 'hired' as a confidential informant.

Erin ends up turning to exotic dancing as it is the only way for her to make the money she needs to fight for her daughters' custody. I found this commentary on society, in particular our views on women's jobs and pay, to very poignant. The only way Erin can make thousands of dollars  is to expose herself to the very men who are judging her to be an unfit mother.

Following the theme of previous Hiaasen novels, the antagonists are corrupt and oblivious to the harm they cause to both the environment and their constituents. The descriptions of the misconduct is both intriguing and scary.

Hiaasen continues to impress with his sarcastic and witty style. If dark humor is what you fancy, you won't be dissapointed in this outing from one of the best writers in the genre

</review>
<review>

I would give it an 11 if I could. This book is flawless. From the first page, I was hooked. The characters were the best I had ever read in a novel. Hiaasen's humor was incredible-I found myself laughing often. Even though the movie didn't cover as much ground as the book, I think the movie was much better than most people have let on. READ THIS BOOK-you will love it. I have gone through 3 copies, I've read it so much.
[...

</review>
<review>

I, too, have complained in this forum about the constant delays in the publication dates of this book. But when it finally came out, I decided to get it and I'm glad I did.

The book is not written expressly for one type of Photoshop user anymore than Photoshop is designed for just one type of user. It runs the gamut from photographers and retouchers of all levels of expertise; web designers (primarily of entry and intermediate level); designers working in different types of media and others who use text and text effects for their work; artists who use PS to create original work or modify photos to simulate artistic effects--to name just a few.

Obviously, there are some parts of the book that do not relate to me, but that is to be expected in an almost 800 page book. But the parts that do apply to me and that I have scanned through today are exceptionally clear, well-written and well-illustrated. Not just with the before and after photo, but with the sequence of steps in between.

Each tool, filter, palette, dialog, setting,and process is explained in a way that the new user will understand and the old user will still find informative and helpful. I've learned things I didn't know, realized things I should have known (but didn't), have been reminded of things I once knew and forgot, and have been shown to use alternate or easier methods than those I've been using.

Another common complaint of persons who, like me, keep up with tutorials, read books and magazines on the subject, and are otherwise submerged in the subject of PS, is the repetition and recycling of lessons and illustrations. I am happy to say that an unusually high percentage of this book is un-recycled material (there are a few familiar illustrations in it, but VERY few).

A quick glance at the cd reveals that it contains an assortment of actions, presets, and styles that many people will find useful in addition to chapter-by-chapter supplemental material for those who are using the book to study or practice techniques. From this assortment, I am likely to be interested in the brushes and one or two presets, but the point is that there is something there for everyone and it comes free with the book, so why not enjoy it.

At first glance, the index seems adequate. Every broad subject seems to be well covered. However, I'm a little weary because, in a book of this length and with such a broad scope, a 16-page index seems a bit short. I haven't tried to find the solution to one of those strange PS issues that sometimes confound me. But, if its not in the index, this is a pretty big book to try to plod your way through looking for some obscure detail you know is there somewhere.

While, a large part of the book does not apply to me, I would have bought it simply for the colorizing black and white photos section. I have purchased several books on the subject of "hand-painted" photographs and all of them put together have not provided the photoshop-specific scope and detail that this book provides in just a few pages.

I have to give this book 5 stars because it has achieved its stated purpose perfectly: it will take any PS project from mediocre or average to WOW while, at the same time, helping you to understand what you are doing and why.

I hate to admit it, but it was worth the wait

</review>
<review>

Friends, allow me to eat a little crow. Some of you may recognize me as one of the smart-alecks in the Amazon discussions forums below. Many of us were extremely annoyed that this book (which had been pre-purchased over a year ago), failed to materialize, even after several postponed publication dates by the publisher. Some of us grew so disgusted with the delays, we canceled our pre-orders. I was one of those people. But today, guess what the Book Fairy brought me? To make a long story short, I'd forgotten that months ago, in my zeal, I had pre-ordered this book from two different places to see which would ship it first, and I only remembered to cancel one of those orders. I'm actually very glad I did because in my opinion, this book was worth the wait. Should you buy it? Read on...

First of all, I'm coming at this from the perspective of a repeat customer. I've been a Photoshop user since version 4, and as such, I'm more than familiar with Adobe's aggravating tactic of providing sub-standard user manuals for their products. This, combined with the fact that Photoshop is one of the most complex, unwieldy, and irritatingly wonderful programs on the market makes it necessary for Adobe customers to buy expensive after-market books to learn how to use the software they just paid an arm and a leg for. (Sorry about that preposition; I've got a lot to say and little time.) Over the years, Peachpit books in general have always been among my favorites and the Wow! Series in particular. The folks at Peachpit seem to put a lot of care into their products: the paper is always bright, slick, and of good quality -- which you will really come to appreciate if your eyes are already tired from a long day or you have poor vision and don't need the added hassle of trying to wade through a 500 page tome written in blurry 6 pt Times New Roman like some other books. Peachpit's text is always wonderfully legible and the images are always clean and colorful and well-balanced. The Wow books have the fantastic ability of combining a ton of very dry, but useful information into a colorful, well-organized interface. The Photoshop CS/CS2 Wow book is no exception.

The chapters of this book are organized in such a way that you can start right at the beginning and methodically work your way through, or you can flip through the pages until you find a photo that inspires you and dive right in. Skill level does not matter here: beginners can follow the well-written step by step tutorials and more experienced users can get the gist of the subject just by glancing at the  screenshots.

The book starts right off with a bang: What's new in CS/CS2 gives a nice rundown of the changes that were made in the various versions of Photoshop alongside colorful images which show you the features and tool palettes being discussed. The authors have also used a clever technique of separating the features of PSCS from PSCS2 by using a different colored font (typeface for you nit-pickers) throughout the book. You may think this would be distracting, but it actually works quite well - the flow of the text is still maintained and I imagine that it would be quite handy for people who are still on the fence about upgrading to CS2. Browsing through the book for specific examples of CS2 features is really easy because of the different colored text and may help one decide if the upgrade is worth it.  Other useful features are the Troubleshooting Tips, which are scattered throughout the book, like the one of page 33 about the History Tool; these tips describe annoying dialogue errors that you may run across while using a particular tool in PS and ways to fix them.

Other excellent features are the "Exercising" and "Anatomy of ..." sections which are more in-depth tutorials that take you deep into the bowels of some of Photoshop's more intimidating tools like Smart Objects and Masks. My personal favorites are the sections titled "Secrets of the Universe Revealed" in which inspirational images from guest artists are dissected layer by layer so that you can see the techniques used and try them on your own images. Chapter 5 is particularly exceptional - if you have only a limited time to learn Photoshop, I'd advise you to work through this chapter first: it is chock full of yummy tutorial goodness. Among my favorites in this chapter are:

p. 320 - Ron Deutschmann demonstrates an invaluable technique for eliminating lens flare that's so simple, you'll kick yourself for not having thought of it yourself. When I think of all the hours I've wasted doing it the hard way...

p. 321 - "Bringing Out Detail" tackles digital noise, chromatic aberration, and the Shadow/Highlight command in one fell swoop.

p. 338 - Shows you one of the better ways to hand tint a photo. (Alternately, you could buy a program like Recolored which does most of the work for you, but hand-tinting using the method described in this book gives superior results, in my opinion).

p. 344 - A wonderful tutorial by co-author Cristen Gillespie on how to change a daytime image into night, complete with dramatically glowing light from windows.

p. 348 - Katrin Eismann contributes two beautifully evocative images and shares her techniques on how they were crafted.

p. 349 - Alexis Deutschmann, a young girl, aptly demonstrates her skills as a photographer and Photoshop user by transforming a pretty, but boring image into a dramatic, gorgeous, and frame-worthy picture. If the sight of a young photographer like Alexis producing quality work like this using just her camera, imagination, and Photoshop doesn't inspire you, then I don't know what will.

p. 352 Loren Haury shows how to combine three separate images utilizing the HDR technique.

p. 354 Christine Zalewski contributes a lovely "botanical portrait" that brings to mind the gorgeous, moody orchid photos in the film 'Adaptation'.

p. 359 Begins a section on painting in Photoshop; nothing much new if you own previous PS Wow books, but very enlightening if you don't, or thought you could only achieve these types of apinterly effects and brush strokes in Corel Painter. I've seen many of these images before in previous versions of the Wow series (which is a shame, since, in my opinion, painting and animation are two of Photoshop's  hidden treasures), but the images that are new are top-notch.

With few exceptions, Chapter 7 which covers type and vector graphics, is disappointing. Many of the "F/X" look particularly outdated and old to me. Maybe back in 1998 those neon, metallic, and jellybean-colored text effects looked cool for about five minutes, but nowadays there are so many fresh styles being used, it's hard to keep up with them. If you were hoping for fresh text and logo ideas, look elsewhere. Instead, I recommend you keep a scrap book (or dvd collection) of your favorite, most awe-inspiring stuff. You can grab short clips from movie titling (you know the credits that run at the beginning of the film) or from tv, magazine ads, cd covers, snapshots of cool building signs, etc. Still, if you are new to Photoshop or never really explorer the text and vector features, then this chapter will give you plenty to chew on.

Similarly, Chapters 8, 9, and 10 don't have much to offer advanced users or previous owners of a Photoshop Wow book. If you're big into web design, prepare for disappointment. Website building and animation are given short shrift in this book, which is a shame since, like Photoshop's painting tools, these areas are the unmined gems of Photoshop and not given anywhere near the attention they deserve in most books. Especially now that Adobe own's Flash and Dreamweaver! You'd think at least one chapter would pay homage to the amazing, cutting edge websites that are being produced with these programs and Photoshop. Unfortunately, most of the example webpages look flat, old, and uninteresting - nothing like the dazzling array of sites you'll run across in your average day of surfing - and, strangely enough, there's not a single mention of the word "blog", nor any tutorials on how to compose items for one. This really is a giant oversight on the part of the authors, one that I hope will be amended in future editions. There's a lot going on with the web right now and people are very interested in how to make their own photoblogs, or banners, sigs/avatars for forums or chat clients, podcasts and downloadable content for musicians, etc.  What a wasted opportunity. In all fairness, this might be beyond the scope of this book; it is after all, nearly 800 pages of densely packed information. Nonetheless, a few mini-tutorials addressing these subjects would have made for a more complete book.

Pros:

Exceedingly well written: manages to explain complex subjects without resorting to tired attempts at humor nor condescending to the reader.

Well-organized with clear text and sharp images.

Chock-full of both bite-sized and full-sized tutorials.

Outstanding photographic contributions from a wide variety of sources that will both inspire you and teach you how to achieve these fascinating results on your own images.

Huge! Covers nearly every conceivable situation the beginner and intermediate Photoshop user will likely need to tackle at some point.

Companion dvd is loaded with excellent practice images from the lessons, brushes, styles, tools, patterns, gradients and actions.

Cons:

Chapters covering Type and the Web leave a lot to be desired.

Many advanced subjects like scripting, animation, masking, photo retouching and lighting are given short shrift.
Readers hoping for more in-depth information should look elsewhere.

Occasional annoying cross-marketing for other books or software. (Please ignore p.228 which advises you to buy Dan Margulis' Photoshop LAB Color book unless you are a masochist of the highest order. Read the negative reviews on Amazon to see what I mean. Check it out from the library if you must, but don't waste your money on it. You can also safely ignore the advice to buy Corel's KnockOut; it hasn't been updated in years. There are much better products on the market now that give both superior results and customer support. I recommend Vertus' Fluid Mask. Google it; there may still be discount codes floating around.)

So, again: should you buy the book? If you are new to Photoshop, new to CS or CS2, or even an intermediate user, I can, without hesitation say "Yes!". This book is an outstanding value. If you are a person who needs one book - one great book to introduce you to Photoshop and pack almost every conceivable subject into a single, giant volume: buy this book. If you are an advanced user who appreciates having an excellent reference book on hand rather than scouring the web for techniques you may have forgotten or never bothered to learn, then buy this book. However, if you are a person who is interested in learning in-depth techniques covering any of the subjects I've listed in my "Cons" section, sorry, keep looking. This book is not for you. For everyone else, this book is money well spent.

4.5 out of 5 stars.



</review>
<review>

Wendy Wasserstein's untimely death in the winter of 2006, at the young age of 55, robs us of what should have been decades more of her witty, generous-spirited but sharp, wise feminst humor.  These essays are a delight, giving us much over which to ponder and chuckle, even in our sadness, knowing as we do that  the mind and spirit creating them have left us.   Read them to savor baby boom feminism in mid-life, and to honor the memory of a great woman of letters.

</review>
<review>

Wendy Wasserstein has won Pulitzer prizes and it shows in this book!  Of course it's "just chick lit" but still very well written, well thought out chick lit that's a cut above the rest in my opinion.  It's not as good as the Sex and the City series - on tv, that is - but heading in that direction!

</review>
<review>

Wendy Wasserstein, the acerbic, often-hilarious Pulitzer-Prize winning playwright, brings her trademark dry humor to this sweet collection of essays. Ms. Wasserstein writes what she knows about-theatre, New York City, looking for love, trying to lose weight, friends, and making the decision to have her first child at the age of 48.

Many of these essays are magical, but could be an acquired taste. For those of you who love biting autobiographical satire can look no further.

</review>
<review>

Quick read that's interesting and informative about the damage disfunctional families can do to their children, and how that impacts the adult lives of those children.

Iles has quickly become a favorite author of mine, with Turning Angel being the first book I read, and this being the second.  I look forward to reading his other works

</review>
<review>

Would you stand in line at an Applebee's for three hours in order to eat a hamburger when you could get a hamburger just as good---maybe better---at a dozen other nearby places where the wait was only fifteen minutes?  Of course not!  Why, then, would you spend countless hours plowing through this 760 page monstrosity when you could spend the same amount of time reading two James Patterson books, or a Patterson and a Connelly, or two Thomas Harris books...my apologies, Greg Iles, but for a simple, formulaic serial killer book, Blood Memory was just WAY too long.  The book has two co-plots; one involves a serial killer who murders older men, the second involves the mysterious childhood abuse suffered by the female lead.  The serial killer plot is actually the more interesting, but at least two-thirds of the novel dwells on the abuse instead and unfortunately the "secret" is painfully obvious to any seasoned reader from the first few pages of the book.  All in all this would have been a halfway decent novel if Iles---or his editor---had chopped out about 300 pages of unneccesary text.  Iles just LOVES to have two characters sit and talk for 3o, 40 or even 50 pages, but since most of his dialogue is what I call "soap opera" speak, meaning you know what the characters will say before the words are even out of their mouths, these chapters dragged on and on and on.  Iles also wastes pages by writing lengthy descriptions of people eating ice cream, taking showers, and doing other mundane things that should have been glossed over or chopped out entirely.  Come on, Greg; why describe a character savoring the taste of vanilla ice cream as if it's some strange, exotic treat that no one's ever heard of before?  Just as some people love to hear themselves talk, I think Iles loves to see himself write...and although some of his books have been quite good, Blood Memory misses the mark by a long shot

</review>
<review>

If you're interested in forensics, chances are you'll like this book.  The book also manages to tie in sexual abuse, repressed memories, Miss., Vietnam, PTSD, and a little romance.  It even broaches the topic of multiple personality disorder but does not linger there long.  I was impressed by the breadth of knowledge that made this book's plot and discussions as intricate as they are

</review>
<review>

Based on the recomendation of a reader friend who believes Iles is a better writer than Grisham, I picked up this book.  I don't know if Iles can outwrite Grisham, but he is definitely a contender.  I found Blood Memory to be a page turner with a lot of unexpected plot twists. But, it is on the grim side.  The main character pursues solving two mysteries, one a serial killer on the loose, and the other a personal mystery related to childhood sex abuse that is a doozie.  In the end the two mysteries are related, though I think the author had to stretch things a bit to make it happen.

As an aside, I remain amazed and impressed that Iles can so effectively write a  novel in the first person in which the character speaking is a female sufferring from the effects of  sexual abuse.


Not a five star, but a solid four.



</review>
<review>

Turning Angel was a page turner for me so I bought BLood Memory. WOW! It did not disappoint me

</review>
<review>

This was a very good book.  I just kept turning the pages.  This is the first I have read by this author and I was very impressed. After about the first 100 pages it really takes off.  I am glad a friend loaned it to me.  To bad it tok me over a year before I opened it.

</review>
<review>

I guess it's high praise for Mr. Iles that he managed to get me screaming at our heroine at all her dumb exploits that had the potential to harm or kill her unborn child:  free-diving, drinking, Valium, baths in scalding water.

This was a thoroughly gripping book that at 764 pages long, I was sad to see come to an end.  Greg Iles doesn't shy from the sensitive subject of pedophilia and tackles it with unflinching honesty.

There is no way to guess the NOMURS "bad guy" in this book til the very end (I don't care what the Australian said who apparently solved the mystery in the first chapter) but I'm disappointed that the author did not interweave the Natchez and New Orleans crimes better.

It does get repetitive like some said, but I still highly recommend this book if you're looking for a taut, atmospheric suspense mystery.  Very well-written and fresh

</review>
<review>

one of the boldest of the bold.  kudos to mr. iles for having the guts to take on the sexual apologists.  nambla has been put on notice.  this is work of pure satisfaction, from the death of every pedophile to the resurrection of our hero, cat.  another worthy pile of words from mr. iles, despite his ignorance regarding black people.  the dialog is downright embarrassing, but keep trying mr. iles.  if you hang out with african-americans rather than watch them on tv, perhaps you'll get 5 stars next time

</review>
<review>

This is the first book I've read by Greg Iles. However, it will not be the last! This book handled some very complicated issues along with all the tangents that come with those issues.
After reading this book I better understand my mother, who was sexually abused, and her response to my sexual abuse. She was able to sheild me from parental sexual abuse, but not from my (then) boyfriend.
I found it very helpful that Mr. Iles gave contact numbers and information at the end of the book regarding sexual abuse. This book will help you to see the tell-tale signs of abuse if you, like Cat Ferry, are willing and able to open your mind to the truth of what you witness

</review>
<review>

As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse I found this book to be very accurate in its description of the affects which it has on a person.  This book will stick with me a long time and I hope even though it is long, readers will give it the chance it deserves. I thought this work by Mr. Iles to be very insightful.

</review>
<review>

A pretty decent book and a good read. While I do not agree with all of the topics in the book,(some are a little out of date) there are some very interesting topics, I especially like the piece about the illusion of free third level education and what the authors purpose instead. Overall I see the book as an attack on central government and the vast amounts of money they consume in promoting so called good ideas

</review>
<review>

for any kid graduation from a public high school in America today

</review>
<review>

Freedman is the best economist of the 20th century, and this book is the most important book of the last 100 years. It is impossible to exaggerate the influence this book has had (it kick-started the free market revolution under Reagan and Thatcher). I re-read it often. I wish all college students read this book, we would have to hear a lot less rubbish, if they did.

</review>
<review>

As time goes by, I have less and less respect for anything Milton Friedman has to say.

We should all remember that Enron is the desired Republican result of Friedman's "Structured Finance" - what others would call Organized Crime-style bust-outs and other scams. And we should all remember that the freedom to choose among consumer goods is NOT something the Founders considered important enough to enshrine in the Bill of Rights.

It is also important to note, as does Barry Schwartz, in his "The Paradox of Choice", that "constantly being asked to make choices, even about the simplest things, forces us to 'invest time, energy, and no small amount of self-doubt, and dread.' There comes a point, he contends, at which choice becomes debilitating rather than liberating. Did I make the right choice? Can I ever make the right choice?"  We normally assume in America that more options ("easy fit" or "relaxed fit"?) will make us happier, but Schwartz shows the opposite is true, arguing that having all these choices actually goes so far as to erode our psychological well-being.

Many of Friedman's "suggestions for reform" are GOP platform line-items that serve the hidden agenda of gutting America's national security interests. This is especially true of his "school voucher" program that will deprive America the Nation of millions of intelligent citizens of the Republic who are qualified to vote based on an understanding of national issues that goes beyond the superficial jingoism doled out at "voucher schools", which are, in reality, nothing more than the segregation academies of the Massive Resisters.

So, as globalization (i.e. transnational corporatism) subsumes democracy, it becomes clear that Friedman is more of an apologist for profiteers and criminals than a major economic thinker

</review>
<review>

I've read a handful of books that have changed how I think about the world. This book is at the top of that small stack

</review>
<review>

Twenty-five years after its original publication as the book companion to a PBS series, Milton and Rose Friedman's "Free to Choose" (FTC) remains a highly relevant, easy to read, classic tome expounding the virtues of free market capitalism and the flaws and dangers of socialism and government control of the economy.

The Friedman's brilliance in FTC is to continually demonstrate how government control inhibits personal freedom, whereas free market capitalism is what results when individuals have the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness".  The roots of the Friedman's arguments go all the way back to the Jeffersonian concept of liberty as defined in the Declaration of Independence.  Modern-day liberalism, which still believes in the "right to choose" in many social arenas (in fact, these exact words are used by abortion rights supporters), does not believe in an individual's right to choose in economic manners (e.g. liberalism would say a woman can choose to have an abortion, but it should be provided by a doctor working in the government run healthcare system).  When the Friedman's describe their ideal economic system and practices, they are describing the principles of classical liberalism, or libertarianism.  In FTC, the Friedmans present the basic arguments of libertarianism in engaging, persuasive language using layman's terms.

The Friedmans have obviously won many converts.  Milton Friedman was one of the intellectual forces behind the Reagan revolution, and showed how to boost the U.S. economy by lowering marginal tax rates and reducing government regulation.  He is the father of school vouchers, to give poor Americans the opportunity to choose the schools their children attend (this is described in FTC chapter six).  He won a Nobel Prize for his monetary theories, and FTC includes an analysis of the monetary failures that Friedman claims both led to and prolonged the Great Depression.

FTC covers many other important economic topics.  The Friedmans present strong arguments in favor of free trade, which is constantly under attack in the halls of Congress.  They describe the downsides of government regulation, and show how it can lead to the opposite of the intended effects.  An entire chapter is devoted to the cause and cure for inflation, a problem that bedeviled the U.S. in the 1970s and that gave rise to the Reagan revolution.  But I would cite chapter five, entitled "Created Equal", as the single most important chapter in the book.  The Friedmans show how the concept of equality has changed since the country's founding, and show the dangers of "equality of outcome", which many misguided politicians and other leaders appear to want, although not individuals (else why do so few choose to live in communes?).

I've heard it said that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger hands out copies of this book as gifts.  If so, he should be careful about passing out copies to his Kennedy in-laws, as this book just might cause Ted Kennedy's mind to blow if he ever bothered to read it.  Someday, the last of the old guard socialists such as Castro and Ted Kennedy will pass on, thereby providing more opportunity for the "turning tide" towards economic freedom that the Friedmans describe in the last chapter of FTC to become even more prevalent

</review>
<review>

I was a Democrat before I read this book. I now lean Libertarian. This book cannot but change at least some of your views on public policy.
Having said that, Friedman and the Libertarian party overestimate the wisdom and knowledge of the public. There is no shortage of stupid people out there who need the state to tell them what they can or cannot do. Freedom is great but is subordinate to personal well-being

</review>
<review>

The authors, Dr. Freidman and wife Rose, marvelled that the free market price system marries buyers and sellers without central
direction. This is done by transmitting only the important information consumers must know without the burden of government interference or excessive record-keeping. In the USA, the major
productive resource is personal productive capacity which is
human capacity. This human capital takes the form of compensation to employees in the form of wages, salaries and supplements.

The authors believe that common ownership will not provide the requisite incentives to maintain and improve property on an ongoing basis. For this reason,many structures in the old Soviet Union require extensive repair within a year or so of being built.

The book points to Hong Kong as the modern exemplar of the free market devoid of excessive government control. Accordingly, free trade (by the authors) should be offered everywhere. The book discusses the advent of growing underemployment and unemployment in the welfare states. In education, the authors prefer a voucher system to preserve freedom of choice in the inner city schools. The current mayor of NYC is attempting to provide free choice by opening a series of competitive "small schools" with admission by formal examination or prior scholastic excellence.

At the Agency level, the authors have called for deregulation to
simplify business operations and recordkeeping. The remaining
question involves the mechanism for doing this without losing
total control. Too much free market has created some problems
with Enron and other corporate entities. Clearly, exclusive
self-monitoring does not operate to make every corporation
do the right thing by the stockholders and the general public.
The current challenge is how to have less Agency oversight
without endangering the public's need for consumer protection
on an ongoing basis. In addition, some readers seem to be
looking for a perfect economic system or philosophy. In
implementation, such a business utopia does not exist. There
will be imperfections in every system due to the nature of
human beings and behavior.

The work draws heavily upon Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations
which combined the best of political freedoms with the individual
right to pursue the extensive collaboration necessary to exchange
food, clothing, services and housing voluntarily. Even in the
old Soviet Union-Gosplan , voluntary cooperation was needed to resolve intractable central planning problems and rigidities, according to the authors.

In the People's Republic of China, the neighborhood work leagues have slowly absorbed some of the free-market organizational superstructures.  When H. Ross Perot visited China,
he noted brand new factories and facilities on a 30-mile
industrial highway . The challenge for the People's Republic is
to incorporate the western management organizational designs and
theories without losing the rigid governmental superstructure.
These two goals are at considerable odds. Ultimately, Chinese
consumers will come to demand greater freedoms, as more information becomes available from the World-Wide-Web and
cultural exchanges with Western universities, global professional
organizations, customers and consulting think-tanks.

Overall, the work is a classic. The contents are tempered by
the consumer's need for protection against corporate greed
and the stockholders' interest in enforcing accountability
from management and the Board of Directors. In addition,
consumers need the environmental protection against the
excesses of industrial pollution. The authors provide a service
in calling for the abolition of unnecessary regulations which
interfere with the operational throughput of business transactions. No-one is saying that all regulation should be
abolished.

Some reviewers have criticized Dr. Friedman's call for a freer
market in the implementation of business systems. These criticisms should be placed in a practical context. The author
is not calling for a total abolition of the quasi-governmental
structures of the Federal Reserve and other governmental agencies. He is calling for a more meaningful regulation.
Clearly, the reviewers' criticisms must be counterbalanced
against the excesses of Goshplan and the large unemployment or
underemployment in some socialist systems.

On the other hand, capitalism needs rigorous oversight by the private and public sector to forestall the conditions which brought about the Great Depression, sweat shops, child labor exploitation and fiduciary malfeasance in the investment community. The private sector cannot monitor itself exclusively due to client opinion-shopping and the non-cooperation of some managements with internal auditing. There is still a need for an independent Board of Directors with a powerful and independent audit oversight function. The existence of government agencies will complement this effort by the private sector. Recently,
the Securities Exchange Commission has strengthened controls
in favor of protecting investors.

The Quasi-Reorganization in Bankruptcy provides an independent
mechanism for a company to start over . In this situation,
the retained earnings is dated- usually for a period of a decade.
In addition, there is a fair financial disclosure of the
events which precipitated the bankrupt condition. During the
period of a re-start, the company can examine both profitable
and unprofitable operations. This dispassionate self-analysis
should lead to the company emphasizing strength areas and
shedding the less profitable ventures.

The volume should be read by a wide constituency of business
people and academic researchers-everywhere. Clearly, Dr.Friedman
has produced a considerable scholarship even after winning the
Nobel Prize in Economics. A strength of the presentation is that
it is understandable to the average American consumer. The overall gist of the book is that the free market is color-blind
in the conduct of economic transactions across the USA and the
world. Since the free market is color-blind, it is a good
forum for conducting business transactions

</review>
<review>

With "Free to Choose", Milton Friedman has achieved an easy to understand and common sense guide to understanding economics. Mr. Friedman answers questions such as: What is price and how does price convey information in a free vs. socialist market? What are the implications of legislation artificially controlling price? What drives commodity prices such as oil? How do economic and political freedoms coincide? What alternatives are there to a better public education? What should be the role of government in a free society? Mr. Friedman provides lucid answers and alternatives to issues that are commonly attacked by an appeal to the emotions of the masses. To really understand the concepts, this book must be studied. Taking time to understand Mr. Friedman's concepts can help clear many misconceptions and confusion about the economy as well as our day-to-day lives. The knowledge gained from this book is invaluable and may forever change the way you think.

</review>
<review>

The absolute best thing about this economics book is that it is easy to read.  If you ever wanted to know the conservative (or classic liberal) point of view on the topics of the day (social security, welfare, minimum wage, etc.), but did not feel like trudging through "The Wealth of Nations", this is the book for you.  Whether you agree or disagree with the arguments, they are proposed in easily accessible language.

I think that the most important chapter is the one which gave the history of bank runs and the creation of the Federal Reserve.  I knew about what the Fed did/did not do up until the crash, but did not know about all of the prior bank runs.  If you do not know this history, learn about it here or from other sources because it will change the way you view the Fed and their ability to manipulate the economy.

This book is dated so be forewarned.  However, the overall approach of synthesizing policy, thesis and antithesis is a fantastic.  For those without any background in this area, it will be an "Atlas Shrugged" kind of reading

</review>
<review>

I am among those who describe J. D. Salinger as America's least-heard-from, most-missed-author.

I don't know why he stopped writing.  Maybe he thought he had said all he had to say.  And in these "Nine Stories," he certainly said it all, and so eloquently.

My favorite three stories are (in descending order):  "A Perfect Day for Bananafish"; "After the War with the Eskimos"; and "Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes."

"Bananafish" speaks for itself.  After reading "Franny and Zooey" (certainly the most brilliant treatise on Christianity ever written, my apologies to C. S. Lewis) and "Raise High the Roofbeams, Carpenters", I understood why certain people (like Seymour Glass) are just too beautiful for this world.

"After the War with the Eskimos" can't help but touch the heart of anyone who ever loved Holden Caulfield.

"Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes" inspired me to write a story which, I fear, is terribly derivitive.  My characters sound a lot more like "The Sopranos" than J. D.'s upper-crusty New Yorkers, but the pathos is the same.  Salinger understands the human heart.  Maybe that's why he is so silent

</review>
<review>

To be truthful, I had never been a big fan of Salinger's before I read this book. Personally, I found Catcher in the Rye to be overly dramatic and very cold. Two story-killing traits that are not found in Nine Stories.

What is so appealing about Nine Stories is the way Salinger weaves a fantastic story, sometimes without even coming out and saying it. Whereas other authors would fill you in on the precursors to the events discussed in a story, Salinger would rather pick up at a certain point in a conflict, and allow the reader to draw his/her own conclusions from there. One prime example of this is found in "Pretty Mouth and Green my Eyes", where the main characters discuss a court case--keeping in mind that Salinger has not said the two were lawyers. This type of "fill yourself in" reading is very appealing and allows for a more incompassing and involved reading experience.

The book features a fantastic line-up of wonderfully written tales, filled with everyday people and everyday problems. It is Salingers way of making these stories so applicaple to the reader's life that makes the stories so fascinating.

Yet one of the most appealing aspects of these short stories is Salinger's ability to keep his down to earth writing stile in a yin and yang balance with Light, airy banter between his characters. These stories allow the reader to really delve into a character's depth through their dialogue alone--a detail that is very rare inthe literature realm.

Every story is simply fantastic. This is truely a gratifying read

</review>
<review>

Before he became a curmudgeonly hermit on the level of a B. Traven or a Thomas Pynchon, Salinger was a close and sympathetic observer of youth and life amongst the New York upper-middle classes.  The short stories he wrote from the early 40s through the late 50s placed him among the ranks of the best practitioners of the art.  In all, Salinger wrote approximately two dozen short stories, most of which appeared within the pages of "The NewYorker," along with those of his contemporary John Cheever, who was exploring the same territory but with a different emphasis.  Salinger specialized in quirky, high-quality tales spiced with equal amounts humor, philosophy, yearning, and sadness, and the far-too-few stories in this volume are a good representative of his work.  The emotional trauma of WWII - something which affected him personally and perhaps contributed to the man he is now - is depicted in differing ways in such stories as "Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut", "For Esme - With Love and Squalor," and "A Perfect Day for Bananafish."  "Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes" is written almost entirely as dialogue, "The Laughing Man" takes as its theme the magic of story-telling, while "Down at the Dinghy" and "Teddy" illustrate Salinger's famous empathy with children.  It's a pity and a mystery that Salinger only included nine of his many wonderful stories in this volume.  Apparently, to this day he refuses to allow any of his stories to be reprinted in anthologies, and has withdrawn permission to keep his stories in new editions of such older anthologies as "Short Story Masterpieces" or "Fifty Great Short Stories."  It's as if Salinger the artist for the last forty years has practiced a type of Zen self-abnegation, erasing not just his present but his past.  Why write if you don't want to be read?  What purpose, other than self-therapy, does art serve without an audience?  (But don't despair.  If you surf the samizdat of the net carefully, you'll find other stories by Salinger.)


</review>
<review>


It seems silly to talk about the literary merits of this book of Salinger's short stories. He's a master writer with complex characters and fantastic dialogue. These stories are populated with vintage Salinger characters: high society intellectuals who have everything in the world but happiness. Although I didn't enjoy NINE STORIES as much as I liked CATCHER IN THE RYE and didn't love most of the characters as much as I loved the characters in FRANNY  and  ZOOEY, there are a few gems. "The Laughing Man," in which the narrator recalls his Comanche Chief (like a Boy Scout leader) and the way he enchanted the troop with his magnificent stories until his adult world crashed the party, seemed particularly relatable for some reason. And "For Esm�--With Love and Squalor," a story written by a traumatized soldier to a young girl he met on leave, is a charming and disturbing story. Overall, a very fine collection.

</review>
<review>

One of the books I've returned to several times, often to just one or two of the stories that I know I can count for a good time. Despite having such a limited output, I can say without hesitation that Salinger is one of my favorites. I especially appreciate the Glass family stories. I love the way the mundane becomes so real and interesting,and often funny. Check it out!, even if you're not a fan of short stories.

</review>
<review>

I absolutely love Salinger's work. This collection of short stories is definitely one of the best I know of. It shows you the deeply spiritual side of Salinger with stories like "Teddy"; other stories are so touching I can't say enough about them

</review>
<review>

Classic J.D. Salinger at his cynical, crass, sarcastic best.  Loved it

</review>
<review>

If one would look up the definition of "page turner" in the dictionary they would not find J.D. Salinger's 9 short stories among those listed. However, if one looked up the definition of a true modern classic (yes, an oxymoron if ever there was one) Salinger's collection of short stories would be at the top of the list in bold.

Salinger has an incredible ability to cut to the core essence of characters in a concise and clear manner and among the 9 stories are a vast collection of unique personalities, each suffering from his or her own flaws.  The stories are far from fairy tales--often the endings are unpleasant and can be quite jarring at times.

Overall, this is an absolute must read for anyone wishing to be aroused intellectually and emotionally and that can be read in short doses for those who don't have as much time for leisurely pursuits as they would like. A warning for those looking for a trashy novel should steer clear from this book. Enjoy!

</review>
<review>

Salinger was obviously a great storyteller, but the endings to most of his stories are too glamorously shocking to be shocking at all. A much better book of short stories would be Nine Stories minus all the endings. Despite the ending, "Teddy" is perhaps the best short story I have ever read.

</review>
<review>

"Nine Stories" is a collection of stories written by J.D. Salinger, that were published in other media before he made his mark in literature.  Collected in this popular book, we see hints of what makes Salinger's writing an American treasure.

Of the stories, "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" is the most celebrated.  The imagery used in the stories of using an over-gorging fish to compare to a womanizer is fascinating.  Many of the other stories are unspectacular, though I also enjoyed the story of the child existentialist "Teddy" a great deal.  Other stories I wondered what point the author was leading the reader to explore.

One of the qualities I most amdire in Salinger is that he does not tell the reader what to think is happening.  He allows an intelligent reader to fill in the blanks.  For this reason, "Nine Stories" is worth a look to see Salinger polishing his craft

</review>
<review>

History at its most compelling, a well written account that both illuminates the past and provides lessons for the future.  In the spirit of Rick Atkinson's "An Army at Dawn," it ennobles the participants even while exposing their human flaws and foibles. I've read quite a bit of Pacific War Naval history, and this book does a singularly impressive job of exploring and explaining the Japanese mindset to a Western reader (and vice versa, I'd imagine.)

</review>
<review>

Evan Thomas presents an outstanding, extraordinarily researched, and easy to read narrative of one of the Pacific's greatest sea battles in `Sea of Thunder: Four Commanders and the Last Great Naval Campaign 1941-1945'.  Uniquely, and most interesting is the balanced research it is clear Thomas completed in order to share a vivid picture of the mind-set of the combatants at sear: The U.S. Navy appeared to have a view that the Japanese Navy was not up to their combat ready level, and the Japanese Navy viewed the U.S. Navy as being made of individuals not willing to sacrifice for their beliefs. Obviously both perspectives were wrong; Thomas gives understanding of actions based upon these perspectives in a manner never told before.



The Battle of Leyte Gulf, the focus of Thomas' work, is history's largest and most compelling naval battle. Writing from the perspectives of four officers: William Halsey, who commanded the U.S. 3rd Fleet; and Cdr. Ernest Evans, captain of a lowly destroyer, the U.S.S. Johnston; Adm. Takeo Kurita; Adm. Matome Ugaki, readers and historians alike are about to embark on a breath-taking journey onto the high seas of the Pacific where brave men sacrificed in the name of their country.

</review>
<review>

Tony Hillerman once again created a fresh and involving entry in his long-running series about the Navajo Tribal Police. Leaphorn has retired in this one, at loose ends after the death of his beloved wife Emma. Chee is the acting Lieutinent but may not want it to become permanent. There is a little less of the Navajo mysticism in this one but the vast territory covered by the Navajo Tribal Police is given its due as always.

Hillerman dedicated this book to the six officers who had given their lives in defense of their people from the time he wrote his first book until this one. It is only fitting that while keeping true to the Navajo atmosphere always present in this series, good police work, and the very real dangers involved for the Tribal Police are brought to the forefront.

Leaphorn is asked to look for the missing Catherine Pollard, and his unofficial case will intersect with Chee's investigation into an officer's death, that while seemingly all wrapped up, may indeed be more complex that it first appears. Chee is chagrined to discover he is still a little intimidated by Leaphorn, but as the two cases cross paths they will once again peel back a little more of the veneer and come closer to understanding each other.

This one has everything from the poaching of eagles to a very real possibility of the bubonic plague being spread all across the Navajo landscape. Why a pack of praire dogs are unaffected by the virus is only one of the clues to solving the mystery. An old Navajo woman who claims to have seen a skinwalker will also figure greatly into an exciting ending.

The conclusion to this one is heartfelt for Chee, as his relationship with the pretty lawyer Janet begins to flame out. Janet, it seems, returning to New Mexico after her time in Washington, may  be Navajo in name only.

This is one of the best in the series as Hillerman once again paints the Navajo and the territory they inhabit with the colorful hues of the southwest, and explores the many mystical aspects of the American Indian

</review>
<review>

The disappearance of a scientist and the murder of a Navajo Tribal Police Officer coincide, and a Hopi is blamed for the murder.  Meanwhile, several Navajo have died from Bubonic Plague (something they still die from, seriously).  Is there a connection? Yes.  In this one, Leaphorn is now a private citizen and Chee is acting Lieutenant.  Their roles almost seem reversed but they're still the same old characters.  I don't think they had to have Janet Pete in this one again, I think he should just dump the b****

</review>
<review>

I love the southwest having grown up in Salt Lake City, California, and visiting my grandparents in Mesa, Arizona. Hillerman has created his own unique genre...because there is no one who deals with Native americans and their own problems. This book especially was good because a few years ago they had many young people die from the Hantavirus (Hillerman adds the bubonic plague...but the Hantavirus is the main concern down there. With too much water, the pinion trees produce too muchand encourages the population growth of mice and rats who live under the homes of the Native Americans. When their fecal matter dries out, it aerosolizes and exposes the lungs to the virus in the fecal matter. the Center for Disease control had their hands full with that one.

Leaphorn and Chee are two diverse characters...each with their own flaws. Trying to be a cop down in that area must be very stressfull since they have to patrol large distances with huge problems, including being careful of the many diverse tribes with differnt religious beliefs and the need to honor those beliefs.

Hillerman knows the four corners area (Utah, arizona, colorado, and New Mexico) well. This particular story had to do with illegal poaching of eagles in that area, as well as people dying from exposure to a resistant strain of plague virusl. These guys are expected to be and do impossible things including deal with bodies that may have infectious disease in them and trying to get tribal permission to do autopsies, since most of the Navaho and Arapahos and Utes do not believe in desecrating the body of the deceased.

Interesting topic and a good read.
karen Sadle

</review>
<review>

I've read a lot of the books in the series, and Hillerman is one of my favorite mystery writers, but I have to say this one fell way short of his other mysteries.  My main complaint is the presence of several plot gaps and inconsistencies not characteristic of the author--his well-crafted mysteries almost always hold water, but not this one.  I whole-heartedly recommend most of Hillerman's other Jim Chee/Joe Leaphorn novels, but if you want a good entrance into his captivating style and skill, this is not the book to pick up.

</review>
<review>

My mother is Japanese and moved to the U.S. fifty or more years ago. She read this book and savored it, rereading passages over and over.  She delighted in recalling the symbolism and rituals of long forgotten traditions that were explained in this book.  After hearing her delight in the story and its characters, I could not wait to read it. She gave the book to me with the promise that I would return it so she could continue to re-read it.  It was a quick and captivating read for me. My only disappointment was reaching the end of the novel and wanting more.

</review>
<review>

I cannot say enough about this book. I fell in love with the characters. I'm not sure if it's because my mother is Japanese and being stationed in Japan that I felt a connection.
She made us know the characters on an intimate level. I couldn't put the book down. I cried for their losses, disappointments and like a baby at the end.
I would highly recommend it!

</review>
<review>

I loved this book! I became a fan of Gail Tsukiyama after reading Women of the Silk and I continue to be a fan at the end of this book. It is so purely and sweetly written. There is not a character that I didnt enjoy. The customs of old Japan was fascinating too. She really captured the aches and the longing of these long suffering people, but it wasn't written with sadness, but hope. This would make a great book club selection

</review>
<review>

I think I would have liked this book if I had read it when I was 14 or 15. Sweet, dreamy, simplistic. But I am much older and I was struck by the inconsistencies: The young man with turberculosis who hikes around kissing people; the garden 'destroyed by the storm and swamped by the waves' that was completely restored and in full bloom a couple of months later - I lost track of how many black pines these people planted in that garden but it must have looked like a forest; the empty beach with an abandoned plastic shovel (in 1938??). Then there was the secretive, silent, and very private gardener who suddenly talked and talked.

I was disappointed in this book.

</review>
<review>

This is one of the most beautifully written books I have ever read. It's a little too slow paced but the quiet elegance with which Tsukiyama describes the characters and their respective love stories is breathtaking

</review>
<review>

I really loved this book.  I loved it so much that I bought copies for family members to read.  I was really touched by the theme of inner strength and hidden strength.  The devolopment of the characters has grace and beauty to it.  The idea that beauty is not on the outside, but on the inside is an important theme in literature.  I would recommend this book to any person who wants to think about the meaning of life and the values we place on beauty and accomplishment in the world

</review>
<review>

One of my favorite epithets is "the child is father to the man," referring not to the obvious persistence of personality, but to the profound impact of child-rearing on adult character.  This is the theme of Gail Tsukiyama's wonderful novel, "The Samurai's Garden."

The novel tells the story of the relationship that develops between Matsu, a Japanese gardener, and his young Chinese ward, Stephen.  Tsukiyama skillfully presents both sides of the story through Stephen's first-person narration.

As a bonus, Tsukiyama gives us a beautiful introduction to Japanese culture.  From the narrator's Chinese perspective, Japanese ways are at once fascinating and accessible.

This is the best novel that I have read in a long while.  On every level, it delivers much more than it promises.  In its afterglow, I would vote for Gail Tsukiyama as the best author writing in America today.

</review>
<review>

This book was written at a different time.  A time when segregation for illnesses was the vogue. I find that we embrace the same things today.  It had charm and interest as other cultures attend to their daily lives.  A charming read

</review>
<review>

I really enjoy reading historical fiction. My librarian reccomended The Samurai's Garden to me and I really liked it. I didn't like it as much as some books I read on Japan but I think it is a worthwhile read. I prefer this one to Women of the Silk, also by Gail Tsukiyama

</review>
<review>

I agree with Nancy Katz's review, I thought The Samurai's Garden was a book to be savored.  It was such a delightful read, it was powerful, yet at the same time slow moving.

It was really everyhting all of the other reviewers said it was and more.  Read it and discuss it

</review>
<review>

I love Christiane Northrup's holistic view of our bodies, minds and spirits.  As someone who has felt alone and crazy at 47, I am grateful to feel validated and reassured. Not all things in the book apply to me at this time, but were very interesting and I am glad to learn new information about what is coming. This book is great for anyone who is ready to believe in the power they have to manage thier own health

</review>
<review>

Do not buy this book unless you have a very high tolerance for new age gibberish.  There is factual information here, but it is buried in gushy self-absorption.  I bought it for psychotherapy patients who are going through menopause, but I'd be embarrassed to lend it out

</review>
<review>

The Wisdom of Menopause provides an accurate description of what happens to a woman's body during and after ovarian failure (menopause). This book describes in detail the negative effects of menopause (ovarian failure) while still describing it as a natural and normal process to embrace. I don't believe we should be so willing to allow our ovaries to fail, instead we should look for ways to help them work better and for longer.

</review>
<review>

Dr. Northrup gives us a lot of not only emotional insight; but, more importantly and why I bought her book, she gives so much factual information that doctors are too busy to give their patients (it would take hours to relay half of this information!) The information is even more valuable with all of the references and notes she has printed in the back of the book.  I have ordered the saliva and urine tests she suggested and will see if I learn anything new; but, even if I don't, I feel better about taking responsibility in educating myself about my own health!  A TREMENDOUS EDUCATION - even if you want to supplement it with other informational sources

</review>
<review>

This is the first time I have read something so enlightening concerning menopause.  Dr. Northrup has a way with words.  I love the way she writes. I thought i knew all there was to know about menopause, and some how she makes me feel more normal

</review>
<review>

I was shocked by the level of neediness and desire to blame others expressed by Christiane Northrup in this jumble of a book. At a time when I needed medical advice to decipher the overwhelming physical changes happening to my body; I turned to Christian Northrup as a wise healer who has had the privilege of medical training and a mature woman with the actual experience of menopause. A wonderful combination if Northrup had chosen to focus on menopause. Instead she is all over the map, taking swipes at everyone who has disappointed her in her life. If I wanted to hear my gal pals whine about the mothers, husbands, and daughters I could have shared a meal with any group of women struggling through the ups and downs of life. Instead, I sought the help of a respected physician and got quite a shock, as she rehashes all the real and imagined slights of her life. If you are a middle aged woman who has "stuffed your feelings" all your life, and need help speaking up for your youself; this book may be a big help to you in finding your voice. But if you are a woman who has stood up for herself while you matured, this book will shock you with its pettiness. I am quite New Age and believe in all the woo-woo stuff mentioned in this book; but when I turn to a physician for medical advice on a medical issue; that's what I expect. I can only hope that Northrup will re-read this book as some point in her life and decide to take it out of publication. I was embarrassed for her and returned it. I just don't buy it in more ways then one.

</review>
<review>

I admit, I haven't finished this book.  A friend recommended it to me as I have been having problems with insomnia.  I was interested in reading a book about women's health issues and this one sounded intriguing UNTIL she started in with her tarot cards, interest in astrology and angels.  Granted, I am not a firm believer in just "the hard facts" but its really hard to believe anything this woman writes after it is clear that common sense isn't alternative enough for her!

</review>
<review>

Some of the medical information is very helpful.  My recommendation is that this is not a book for someone under 35, it is not a book for someone who has already had a hysterectomy, nor is it for someone who has young children at home.  Her hormonal theory, that menopause is the time in life when we look beyond nurturing our families, and look to nurturing ourselves instead is slightly flawed.  Many women have hysterectomies or other forms of induced menopause at a very early age.  Do I think that my total hysterectomy at 34 (and the obvious onset of menopause) changed my ability or desire to nurture my children?  Of course not.  That's ridiculous, and if I think about it too much, it's actually offensive.

Her comments about marriage are questionable, as well.  Marriages sustain many changes, and menopause is just one of them.  Open lines of communication, deep love and commitment are certainly enough to weather the "hormonal storm."  How sad that it seems as if one point of the book is that menopause is the time to assess your marriage.  Shouldn't we be doing that every day, and re-committing ourselves to growing together?

Many reviewers have commented on some of her more non-traditional methods.  I am not a fan of tarot cards, and I'm not sure how I feel about taking medical advice from someone who diagnosed herself on several occassions, by using them.  That's just my own opinion.  I tried to look beyond that.

I just think this is another book written for people older than I am.  That's okay, but it still leaves me looking for something I can truly relate to

</review>
<review>

When You Think You're Falling Apart, by Dr. Kathleen Wilson was loaded with current information I could use about myself.  I think it will be as important as The Wisdom of Menopause in teaching women how their bodies work, how to keep themselves healthy, how to reduce stress, and how to manage in the medical system

</review>
<review>

If ever there was a book that belongs in the waiting room of doctors across the nation, this is it! I am a yoga teacher whose classes are filled with women who begin yoga at a time when they are experiencing the symptoms of menopause. I keep this book in plain view and tell my students that one of the most empowering things they can do for themselves is to be familiar with the information in this book. To me, Christiane Northrup is the Goddess of Menopause, giving all us women in transition a Wake-Up Call! She reminds us that, "At midlife our job is to learn how to take care of ourselves instead of everybody else. If we don't learn how to do this, we soon learn that no one will do this for us." Thank you, Dr. Northrup, for helping us celebrate this liberating, crowning, glorious stage of life!

--Suza Francina, author, Yoga and the Wisdom of Menopause and The New Yoga for People Over 5

</review>
<review>


This book will give you some good understanding how Carly Fiorina got the top job at HP and how she reingineered the company before falling into disgrace after the merger with Compaq

</review>
<review>

This book contained a lot of good material concerning the interaction of Carly Fiorina and her highest-level executives.  However, Burrows' coverage of her impact on lower level managers in critical positions was inadequate.  The failures of such managers can have major impacts on HP for potentially decades and thus deserve scrutiny.  A good example prior to the Fiorina era was when HP lost over 60 points of market share in the technical workstation market in the 1980s which also led over time to a weakened server market position, due to lost technical and financial leverage.  The current value of this loss may be as high as 10 billion dollars in revenue yearly.

The keynote address by her Vice President for Linux at LinuxWorld yesterday illustrated well the huge risks HP is taking by having lower level executives like this VP adopt her approach.  While this area is currently too small to register on the Board of Director's radar, critical market battles are currently being fought that will strongly influence HP financials for a long time.  Carly Fiorina's bad influence was evident in VP Martin Fink's keynote address.  This speech spent a lot of time promoting Linux, which customers can buy from many vendors, and virtually no time promoting HP's value-added.  HP makes money whether it sells Linux or Windows-based machines.  There is no real incentive to for HP to sell an HP-Linux machine instead of an HP-Windows machine, or vice versa.
Why is HP's Martin Fink wasting valuable time in front of a huge audience promoting one side of an issue that is a don't care situation (with respect to Windows) and potentially a losing proposition (with respect to HP_UX) to HP financially?   Note that HP has no time to waste in this market, the market leader at present, due to earlier HP missteps, is Dell Computer, not HP.

What Martin Fink should have been promoting is why customers should buy HP Linux systems as opposed to IBM or Dell Linux systems, instead of arguing customers should buy Linux instead of other alternatives that HP also makes.  Martin Fink's mistake yesterday is a typical Carly mistake, to get caught up in promoting what is fashionable, rather than what is best for HP.   The lack of loyalty to HP implicit in his address has also been a familiar issue to Carly observers - that she is promoting herself far more than she promotes HP.

The central theme of this example, the appalling deviation from business basics that Carly inspires in her team, is one that was deserving of much more attention in Burrows book.  Corporate marketing resources need to be focussed on beating the competition, not on taking market share from one HP division and transferring it to another, or promoting the next job for some executive, whether that executive is Fink or Fiorina.  It seemed yesterday that Martin Fink was promoting himself for some more senior Linux position at some other firm, which would explain his lack of HP advocacy, something Fiorina is thought to do in promoting herself for political office using her HP soapbox.  It is also a good demonstration why the point of view prevalent on some unengaged Boards, that a CEO as just a public relations representative is adequate, is so misguided.


</review>
<review>

Peter Burrows offers insights into high level business, where personality matters more than economics, as he explores the mammoth HP-Compaq merger. Most mergers fail to make money or to produce the promised "synergies" so, he asks, why - other than ego - do CEOs pursue them? Though stylistically somewhat trite, this book successfully explores the HP Board's decision to approve the merger, with Walter B. Hewlett's vote in favor, and his subsequent lonely, ultimately quixotic battle against it. The most contentious issues in contemporary business are all here: shareholder rights and value vs. CEO power; employee-oriented cultures vs. "re-engineering;" corporate integrity vs. sharp practice; and the interesting spectacle of a ruthless, hard-headed female CEO pitted against a sensitive, cello-playing man. The author says Hewlett-Packard executives were told not to speak with him after he quoted merger critics in Business Week, so there is an inevitable Walter Hewlett bias. We found this to be a very good read, even a must read, for corporate warriors

</review>
<review>

Jean I. Young's translation of selections from "The Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson: Tales from Norse Mythology," with an Introduction by the distinguished Icelandic scholar Sigurdhur Nordal, was originally issued in 1954 by Bowes  and  Bowes Publishers Ltd., Cambridge, with an American edition from the University of California Press; I have a 1964 hardcover printing of the latter version.

UC Press has been reprinting it as a trade paperback for decades. It currently has a new cover (an apparently Victorian vision of Thor in his thunder-chariot, wielding his hammer against the Giants), but Amazon's "Look Inside" function has the old green cover showing a giant eagle carrying off Loki, from an older edition. Not a very good representation of the scene as described inside -- besides Loki's clichd horned helmet, the hapless trickster should be dragging on the ground, not soaring over the mountains -- but it is a dramatic composition. (The digital version looks much nicer than the cover of my faded and crumbling 1971 printing of the paperback!)

The "Prose Edda" is the main source for a great deal of what we know (or think we know) about the myths and legends of pre-Christian Scandinavia; and often has guided, not always for the better, the interpretation of other, less entertaining or more opaque sources. Leaving aside challenges to Snorri's veracity about his sources, Wagner's "Twilight of the Gods," for example, follows what seems to be a mis-reading or mis-hearing of a word on Snorri's part. (I would follow those who accept Snorri as mainly very reliable, but sometimes in error about what was already in the twelfth century a fading pagan past.)

Young's translation of substantial excerpts was by far the most readily available English version of the material for several decades; and, even with two new competitors, has some merits. Except in a few places, for reasons I can understand in a 1950s context, it seems quite accurate. Some may prefer its prose style (others won't), and it has been used by half a century of secondary sources, including quotations in quite scholarly works.

From the whole Icelandic original, it includes the best-known material; the historicizing "Prologue," the main exposition of Norse mythology, as "The Deluding of Gylfi," and the narrative sections of the "Poetic Diction" (Skaldskaparmal), omitting the long lists of vocabulary and metaphors. As is the case with every English translation but one, the "Hattatal," a poem by Snorri in a hundred-plus meters with his own commentary on each stanza, itself both a virtuoso performance and pedagogical tour-de-force, is omitted.

The Young version had no real competition in the market until the Everyman translation by Anthony Faulkes (1987), as "Edda" the first English rendering to contain the whole body of material, both prose and verse, as found in the original (with the verses in Hattatal given in Icelandic as well as translation, without which the commentary is unintelligible). This is a solid work of scholarship, but it is probably more accessible, as well as more valuable, to serious inquirers than it is to beginners.

Young's version had supplanted for most readers -- and apparently in the minds of publishers -- the excellent 1916 American-Scandinavian Society version by Arthur G. Brodeur, which is long out of print (although available on-line at several sites). Brodeur's translation now seems a bit stilted, is not quite complete (minus "Hattatal," as usual) and in some places is just antiquated, but it is still worth consulting. Young's version really wasn't designed to compete with it as a resource for scholarship, but seems to have done so in practice. In terms of approach and ambitions, Brodeur's version is really the immediate predecessor of the Faulkes even more extensive translation. (Faulkes also edited the Icelandic text.)

Although Young or his publishers felt obliged the soften the relatively blunt language about some body parts and functions, and otherwise render it acceptable to nervous parents, schools, and librarians, I have always found it an enjoyable translation to read. Nordal's introduction, reflecting a consensus half-a-century old, which he had himself championed, is a bit more problematic, but what it has to say is worth considering, too.

A close match in contents to Young's selection is a new Penguin Classics volume from Jesse Byock, "The Prose Edda: Norse Mythology" (2005) to which Young's translation was briefly linked by Amazon. It omits the same large blocks of material (with a few samples offered), and is somewhat closer in style to Young's simple modern English; but the scholarship is considerably more up to date, and my first impression is that it is a much more attractive version. However, those worried about offending the prudish may still prefer Young's slightly bowdlerized rendering, which is by no means a bad translation. (The really interested will want all three; and have a web version of Brodeur bookmarked, too.)

(I can't honestly recommend any of the nineteenth-century versions, such Rasmus B. Anderson's 1869 version, also available on-line, or George Webbe Dasent's rather mannered 1842 translation, which doesn't seem to be available in digital form. Some may find these older translations readable, but at any point they may be seriously antiquated in textual or linguistic scholarship.)

I have discussed at some length the author (named as such in medieval sources), the name of the work, and the confusing existence of a "Poetic" or "Elder" Edda, and other complications, in a review of the Byock translation; to which I would direct the curious; and anyone pondering which version to buy.

I would point out, for those who don't bother with it, that the "About the Author" description for the Young translation, based on that used by the UC Press itself, flatly adopts as true Nordal's tentative suggestion that Snorri was the author of "Egil's Saga." This is a modern idea with no period support, and which has not met with overwhelming approval. ("Egil's Saga" is one of the greatest of the Sagas of the Icelanders, and I wish I could accept the attribution.)

The description also confuses both "Egil's Saga" and "Saint Olaf's Saga" with "Heimskringla," Snorri's compilation of biographies of the Kings of Norway (mostly his own work), in which his distinctive adaptations of the Sagas of Olaf Trygvasson and Olaf the Holy are incorporated. This is worth noting, since two in-print modern translations of "Heimskringla" silently include the two Olaf Sagas, while an Everyman's Library edition in two volumes treated the saga of "King Olaf Trygvesson" and "King Olaf the Saint" separately, and out of chronological order. There should be no need to look for both titles, unless you want that revision of the somewhat creaky nineteenth-century Samuel Laing translation

</review>
<review>

I was required to read this text for a college class that I was taking.  I found the text to be very informative, but confusing to understand at time.  I still reference this text for the mythology classes I teach, and occasionally I will read parts of it to my students.  Newer translations of this work are easier to understand and a much better read, but this is still one of the orginal texts for Norse mythology

</review>
<review>

TKaM is not the finest piece of prose -- though it does have some terrific (sometimes humorous, sometimes heartbreaking) stretches.  Nor is it the most compelling story.  But it is a story well told, well voiced (by its very young narrator), and well paced.  Above all, it is a story whose themes -- addressed to the best and the worst in human nature -- endure, themes that (one alternately hopes and is greatly saddened to think) will endure forever.  For this reason, in spite of its quaint anachronistic feel, TKaM is a novel for the ages, and a particularly important read for children.  I had the special pleasure of listening to TKaM narrated by Sissy Spacek, the perfect voice for Scout.

</review>
<review>

I never was required to read this book in school and only picked it up 20 years later at the continued insistance of a friend.  I hesitated to read it, not thinking I would like it, and to my surprise I loved the book.  Not only is it a great read but Harper Lee is a masterful storyteller whose prose and craft are exceptional.  I think I may need to reread it in the future

</review>
<review>

Read, re-read and re-read.  If you've read this book more than 10 years ago, you'll be amazed at its artistry and timeliness if you read it now.

I've read most every contemporary novelist who have renown for being among the best.  While quite a few of them deserve such encomium, quite a few of them do not.  To compare style, content, artistry, - then pure enjoyment with "To Kill a Mockingbird", none truly equal the work of Harper Lee.

It certainly should be on the required reading list of every high school in this country

</review>
<review>

I think I was suppsoed to read this book in High School and I either didn't or i watched the movie instead. Either way, I am glad I finally did.  This book is one of the best ever written.  It makes me sad to think that so many people have not and will not read it.  Harper Lee was ahead of her time in so many ways.  Buy this book. Read it now. Go

</review>
<review>

This book was simply wonderful and a must read.

I was amazed at the presentation of the story and the way Harper Lee draws you in.  The narrator is an 8 year old girl named Scout who is both innocent about the world and its social norms; while at the same time curious enough to be engaged and question "why does it have to be this way?"   It is from Scout's perspective that you are able to see the silliness and real injustice that we (adults) create by continually abiding by these destructive social norms that we consider "the way it has to be".

On the surface, many readers will read this book and say that it is about "race relations".  But upon taking a deeper examination into the book, you will find that "race" is just the example used in order to convey an even bigger message on the importance of being both open minded and aware of oneself and the world around you.  Harper Lee, through the innocent eyes of Scout, challenges us to think outside the box, to accept people for who they are, to be open-minded, to challenge social norms and to start thinking for oneself.

I have rarely identified with or have been more inspired by a fictional character as I have with Atticus.  He embodies every characteristic I wish to have from having compassion and love for everyone (even when it is undeserved), to his ability to critically think through issues, to his capacity of fairness, open-mindedness, and knack for remaining calm and peaceful in times of hostility and high stress.  What an amazing character.

To Kill a Mockingbird is not just revolutionary in its day for implying that blacks should be equal to whites; but is revolutionary even now because the underlying themes and messages it states still need heard and practiced today.  This book will impact you and challenge you, and should make you a better person.

</review>
<review>

This is another of those books that everyone tells you how wonderful and incredible it is. I read it, and... okay. It's a book. And a not-bad one at that. But is it amazing? Is it the greatest, most thought-provoking book of all times? Is it truly just overrated?

We have a story where it's almost as though the narrarator is not the main charactor, but rather, her father is. The story seems much more about Atticus than Scout, but that is a matter of interpertation. It's a story about racism, injustice, and thinking about all of that. Atticus is a man who goes against what the rest believes, and though he "fails", he knows that he has succeeded by making people think about the issues they are facing.

So we've covered the topic. It's an interesting topic. And the book itself has some wonderful parts, but for the most part it drags on and on.

I rate this a four because I feel that it's something everyone should read (if for some odd reason you didn't read it in high school). Whether you like it like so many others, dislike it as many teenagers who are forced to read it do, or merely feel that's it's okay, but overrated, like myself, it's worth reading, not just to find out where you fit, but also to try to see and understand why it is much loved. I myself have only just realized that everyone loves this for the fact that it tackled such social issues. It's worth reading, but not everyone should expect to find it a brilliant classic, but rather, just a good old book

</review>
<review>

this book is really good on many levels.theres really 2 stories going on.1 is how these 3 kids spent thier summer this one time,which is its more endearing side and the other story about this chick that got raped and how a racist town wants to pin it on this black dude.then theres this creepy boo radley guy and all in all its a great book.one of those you have to have read to call yourself educated about literature

</review>
<review>

I highly recommend this book. He starts out examining old societies that failed and why they failed, then slowly moves to modern times. However, reading the environmental issues of the day one comes to quickly realize we are not much different from those collapsed societies of the past. There is hope, in that by realizing and learning from man's past mistakes we may be able to protect our world for future generations to enjoy. 5 stars

</review>
<review>

I liked this book although I suspect it will get very mixed reviews.  Diamond gives examples from history of different societies' reactions to environmental problems, including societies that have succeeded and those that have failed.  Then he makes comparisons to contemporary society.

Then book is intriguing in how it takes societies we all know something about (the Vikings, the people of Easter Island, the Rwandans) and examines them from a different vantage point.

I suspect many reviewers will criticize this book as having a liberal agenda.  Diamond is certainly communicating a viewpoint, that others may not agree with.  It is his interpretation of cause.  Opinion is fair game.  It doesn't make a book "bad".

Diamond's writing is well-crafted, although perhaps a bit unimaginative at times.  He certainly had no trouble keeping my attention.

My only qualm with the book is that I think he may, at times, be looking at events through a soda straw.  In particular, although overpopulation and poor resource management in Rwanda was certainly a big factor in its collapse, I find it odd that he actually downplays the roles of tribal tensions and residual effects of colonialism.

Nonetheless, I recommend this book.  Most people have never considered the possibility of societal collapse, but it has certainly happened in the past

</review>
<review>

Another great book by Jared Diamond. He discusses the rise and fall of civilizations including: Mayans, Aztecs, Easter Islanders, Anasazi, etc. The environmental, social and cultural factors responsible for the demise of mass civilizations are discussed and integrated. This is a fascinating book that will change your view of history and ancient civilizations. Actually, it's pretty scary when JD compares the parallels between ancient civilizations that crumbled and our own contemporary civilizations. Very enlightening and stimulating material!!

</review>
<review>

This book shows the various reasons for societies' collapse or success.
Mainly attributed to individual and group choices...choices which are based on economic and belief systems...choices which are limited due to geography, climate and resources.

Since we cannot manipulate our climate and we are constrained by our location and resources...this book is a reminder for examining our economic and belief systems

</review>
<review>

In his magnum opus, 1984, George Orwell famously wrote,  "Who controls the past, controls the future and who controls the present controls the past". This is a lesson that Jared Diamond has obviously learned well.

In his latest book "Collapse" Jared Diamond" continues to push the Europhobic liberal agenda. Hiding behind the facade of environmentalism Diamond crafts a sub-text that calls for Europeans to embrace the values of failed third-world cultures and abandon the pursuit of technological advancement that has created global European cultural hegemony. Unfortunately for Diamond, genuine scientific research is revealing much of his work to be based on nothing more than wishful thinking and an overactive imagination.

Diamond makes the assertion that Easter Island experienced a cultural collapse due to depletion of natural resources and overpopulation. This may conflate well with the tenets of liberalism but unfortunately for Mr Diamond, it does not conflate well with the factual findings of the latest archaeological investigations. Radiocarbon dating of soil samples, by Carl Lipo and Terry Hunt, indicate that Easter Island was not inhabited until two to eight hundred years after the occupation time that Diamond's theory would require. Quite simply, the new evidence uncovered by Lipo and Hunt indicates that the period of human habitation of Easter Island was far too short for Diamond's putative collapse to have been the result of overpopulation. To quote Carl Lipo,

"It fits our 21st century view of us as ecological monsters. There's no doubt that we do terrible things ecologically, but we're passing that on to the past, which may not have been actually the case, to stick our plight on to them is unfair"

It is difficult to over-emphasise just how badly compromised Diamond is by this evidence. The Easter Island chapter is a major plank in his argument, the fact that Diamond is rank ignorant of the latest archeological research reveals him to be an amateur polemicist rather than a scientific authority figure.

Those who may think that Diamond's Easter Island fantasy is simply an abberation might want to introduce some hard science into their analysis of Diamond's version of the history of Greenland. The extinction of Greenland's Viking colony is used by Diamond to enforce the ideology of modern liberalism. Diamond claims that the Vikings perished because a racist contempt for the Inuit prevented them from assimilating ideas that would have prevented their slow starvation. A cultural superiority complex caused the Viking colonists to cling to an unviable agricultural lifestyle and, in Diamonds words, "The Greenland colonists starved to death surrounded by oceans teeming with fish". This is an analysis that neatly dovetails with modern pro-immigrant, liberal cultural relativism and the dogma of multiculturalism. The major flaw in Diamond's argument is that the latest historical research shows that by the time of the colony's extinction the Greenland Vikings had, in point of fact, switched from a diet that was 80% farm food to a diet that was 80% marine food.  In otherwords, the Viking colonists proved to be perfectly capable of adapting to environmental change without having to learn lessons from stone age primitives. To present the Vikings as beloning to a soley agrarian culture in the first place would be the cause for much derisive laughter among genuine historians. The Vikings are well known (unless you are Diamond) to have exploited a rich variety of marine life as a food resource.

The alternative explanation for the Vikings demise is that the mini-ice age that caused the Vikings to switch diets also witnessed a mass immigration of Alaskan Inuit who competed with the Vikings for food and finally massacred them in an unrecorded genocide. We know about the mini ice-age from the evidence of core samples and tree rings. We know about the Innuit peregrinations through archeology and folk record. In the face of genuine science and history I'm afraid Mr Diamond is left up a certain creek without means of conveyance. Historians tend not to write about evolutionary biology, perhaps evolutionary biologists might in future restrain their urge to embarrass themselves by writing about history?

</review>
<review>

Arrived on time and in terrific shape! Thanks

</review>
<review>

The book was a very good book.  I wounder if the high gas prices in parts of Europe like Holland and other places have anything to do with their chances of seeing December 31, 2100?  It makes you realize that the peoples who have at least 10% chance of not seeing 2100 as an intact people are not all primative hunters and gathers, some of such peoples have reached the post industrial level of sophication.  Some of those peoples could easily be the finaciers of all threatened peoples including themselves.  Some examples of state socities that might not be around in 2100 are Beglium, the Neatherlands, and the small island nations as well as others.  It just to shows you that maybe we need include the Dutch and some others on the list of threatened peoples, which inludes the tribes of the Amazon and others, to wake people up on global warming.

</review>
<review>

This is an important book about why societies, ancient and modern, collapse.  Given Professor Diamond's background in the environmental movement, it's no surprise that he sees the reasons as ultimately environmental.  That is, people in a culture have to choose how they will respond to their environment, and it they choose poorly, they may pay with their lives-- and the lives of everyone else.

The one thing that I see as missing in Prof. Diamond's analysis is the role of human fallibility (plain stupidity, greed, etc.) in the collapse of cultures.  When he does consider, for example, poorly conceived warfare, he sees the causes of the wars as environmental.  That's not always the way it is.

Prof. Diamond acknowledges that he used much of the material in the book in classes he taught at UCLA, and the book shows it.  That is, in many places it reads like the transcript of a lecture, complete with the signposting and internal summaries that good lecturers employ.  This, in part, is responsible for the one thing I really didn't like about the book.  An absolutely outstanding 350 page book is hiding somewhere in these 575 pages (hardback edition) of text, shouting to be set free.

In short, the book is valuable, but reading it can be a chore.

</review>
<review>

Jameson Thottam with a raising review of Collapse

Overview
The book, "Collapse," by Jared Diamond is a sort of sequel to his Pulitzer-prize-winner "Guns, Germs, and Steel," his very popular explanation of why Western civilizations developed technological, societal, and political strategies that enabled their world dominance. In "Collapse," he attempts to explain why some societies flourished for a time, but then failed and vanished, and the lessons we can learn from their mistakes. Jared Diamond is an acknowledged expert in evolutionary biology who teaches at the University of California, and is highly influential in informing public discourse on environmental and social issues through more than 200 articles in science magazines. .


Science is a body of knowledge gained by performing controlled and replicable experiments----but for some fields controlled experiments cannot be performed, and other methods must be used. Diamond's solution is to compare past situations, which differ with respect to a variable of interest, then use statistical techniques to approximate the contribution of specific variables to success or failure.

Examples (Jameson Thottam)
In "Collapse," Diamond examines the stories of several past failures, including the following:

--Easter Island, where iconic stone heads are all that remain of a once great civilization on a Pacific island.

--Anasazi societies in New Mexico that built some of the largest and tallest buildings in North America then abandoned them and disappeared.

--Mayan cities that were once the hub of advanced Native American civilization then collapsed more than a thousand years ago leaving only ruins and some written history.

--The Norse colony on Greenland that survived for about 450 years, and then disappeared.

In all these cases, Diamond notes a similar pattern of environmental damage, climate change, shifting trade patterns, and shortsighted or greedy leadership. He sees these same problems becoming globally critical within a few decades. Diamond does not foresee an apocalyptic collapse, but more likely significantly lower living standards, disease, wars, all triggered by scarcity of resources.

The Patter [Jameson Thottam]
The typical pattern starts with population growth, leading to intensified agricultural production and ecological damage. The agricultural practices become unsustainable, leading to shortages and starvation, wars and civil unrest, and ultimately to collapse.

Where it all leads to? ?jameson Thottam?
Diamond sees "ecological suicide" as replacing nuclear holocaust as the biggest threat to global civilization. He sees several small-scale catastrophes as small instances of the coming global collapse. Events in Somalia and Rwanda, for example, are similar to those that precipitated collapse in earlier societies, and study of these situations and how they were handled is essential to avert a similar global disaster.

Diamond presents a wealth of lucid and interesting details about these and many other cultures, and the methods used by scientists and historians to trace their rise and fall. He also offers an interesting perspective on current environmental issues in Australia, China, and the United States.

Conclusions +Jameson Thottam
Diamond concludes with a summary and generalization of why some societies undermine themselves, make disastrous decisions, and even commit suicide. He defines four kinds of categories:

--Failure to anticipate a problem.

--Failure to perceive a problem already present.

--Failure to attempt to solve an identified problem.

--Failure to find a viable solution to a problem.

I didn't find this book anywhere near as compelling as his excellent work in "Guns, Germs and Steel." It's an interesting collection of case studies, together with a LOT of speculation and analogy. It seems questionable how relevant these past examples are to present-day situations, the most significant difference being the existence of today's technology, which can accelerate environmental damage, but can also provide solutions for that damage.

Summarizing with Jameson Thottam
The present global economy has linked the fates of greatly distant and differing societies, and Diamond must be admired for this attempt to learn from the fates of earlier failed cultures, and how it happened. As Diamond says, we have the ability to learn from past mistakes, share information, and respond to challenges in ways that past civilizations never could. So there is hope for the future!

Enjoy these excerpts of reviews

Jameson Thotta

</review>
<review>

best case book around.  sixteen stories that are short enough to keep you interested without weighing you down in medical jargon.  Great stories that scan the world, proving that murder and stupid criminals are everywhere

</review>
<review>

The book was very interesting (especailly since I am currently studying criminal justice and forensic science).  I found the short stories to be very convenient in allowing me to pick up the book and put it down again with my busy schedule.  However, I must admit the numerous spelling errors did get on my nerves.  Overall the content was good and I would say the book was worth the read

</review>
<review>

I read another book by this author, Friendship Cake, which I really enjoyed and passed around to several friends. So I picked this one up thinking it would be worth a read. Luckily, it only took me about an hour and a half to read it, since that's about as long as I'll remember it.

I guess I never really cared about the characters too much. It's not a thick enough book that there's a lot of room for exploring and exposing the characters, which is too bad, because they could be interesting. And I know Hinton's capable of it from her last book. I also read that the author thinks race relations is so important to this story ... I never got the whole emphasis on race relations thing. The story happens to characters who happen to be interracial friends/lovers, but I never get that it's important to the plot.

Not to mention that the "big secret" is telegraphed so blatantly it's hard not to know what it is almost immediately.

In spite of its faults, I think it would be OK for a quick beach read or if you just don't care for much depth at the moment

</review>
<review>

This book really fell flat.  Lynne Hinton's first book Friendship Cake what such a good read.  I was sincerely disappointed in her second work.  She had a good beginning, but after you read awhile the characters begin to become redundant, and a little dull.  There was some hope of a good plot, but something was definitly missing.  Try again Lynne, you have talent.  Maybe try a sequel to Friendship Cake.  The characters that you developed in that book are really good

</review>
<review>

This is not the sort of novel I usually read, but I bought it because Malachy McCourt recommended it, and I wasn't disappointed. It is, indeed, a beautifully written, sweet, sad coming-of-age story, with a lot of local color. Thank you, Malachy, for recommending this delightful tale

</review>
<review>

Lynne Hinton's The Things I Know Best is set in North Carolina, where a home which has housed generations of the Ivy women is affected by a special gift which sparks changes and tragedy. A twin sister's experiences and predictions spark conflict and love

</review>
<review>

It is interesting that out of the many books that I have read this one does not hit me across the head. However with that said, I re-looked at the book before writing this note and I did mark a lot of text that I found highly useful. I particularly liked the solid recommendations for implementing personal and community change at the end of each chapter. Maybe the fact that the authors do not try wow you with their brilliance but provide solid and easy to follow recommendations is why this book is so valuable. The structure also lends itself to a study group within your management team helping to drive implementation of the principles introduced.

If you are more interested in solid principles to implement rather than the "my way is the best way" often presented, I highly recommend that this book be part of your arsenal to improve personal and community performance. A must for your library.

</review>
<review>

In this wonderful book, Quinn challenges us to confront our own hypocrisy and make a choice between deep change or slow death -- that is to say between commitment or disengagement. It's actually not an easy choice to make. Most of us have taken the easy path and chosen not to speak out when w've known what needed to be changed. Or, we've run from a difficult work situation, leaving the problems behind for someone else to clean up, not admitting our part in the failure or taking responsibility for changing ourselves.

Quinn instructs us by modeling the behavior we need to follow. Particularly striking, for me, is his personal account of finding himself crying while writing a short story called "The Prophecy." This is a version of the story his mother had told him about his father, who, knowing that he was soon going to die, and seeing his newborn son for the first time, had said, "I think our boy is going to make his mark on the world."

Quinn explains that this true story about his father was etched in his consciousness and had great meaning for him.  "In retelling the story I was retelling one of my core myths...I had always heard the story from the perspective of the woman. Now I was telling it from the point of view of a 38-year old man who was dying. The man was asking himself what his life had meant. There was no money, no house, no insurance policy, no signs of worldly success, no legacy to mark his passage."

"Years later, facing a midlife crisis, I was asking myself the very same questions about the meaning of my own life. Without even realizing it, I was trying to deal with the issues of impact and legacy," says Quinn, reflecting on the emotional impact of the story. "As all this become clear, I began to clarify what I wanted to do differently in my life. At work, for example, I took on a different perspective. I became more focused on my research. In my teaching and consulting, I became more caring yet more demanding. The resulting impact, in terms of outcome, was dramatic. I had a new perspective, and my life was changed. I became more empowered and more empowering."

This empowerment is demonstrated by Quinn's role in one intervention he made at one troubled company. In this intervention, Quinn conducted interviews, identified the core issues, and put his insights into writing, calling the resulting document the "Inner Voice of the Organization." This document was structured around eight questions and eight answers -- each answer describing a key issue facing the company and illustrated by a concrete example. Each of the eight issues had previously been "undiscussable," and each issue represented a weakness or need within the company. Quinn listed these issues as follows:

1. "The company is characterized by loyalty and considerable unused human potential
2. The organization must make deep change in order to become more viable and thus to be able to survive in a rapidly evolving world
3. The company is hampered by an unconscious conspiracy of silence and an inability to confront issues and identify needed adjustments
4. "Groupthink" is widespread, and models for constructive conflict are lacking
5. Certain key figures have favored individual good and self-interest over the collective good, and they have been reinforced
6. Everyone would like to believe that certain transparent issues are successfully kept secret. Individuals try to save face by pretending that no one knows what everyone knows--and the process works as long as no one listens to the organization's inner voice
7. A cohesive leadership team is lacking
8. The company has no clear, believable, and motivating vision"

Quinn sent the document to the CEO. He explained that it would be a useful tool to introduce at the outset of the program -- and proposed breaking the participants into five subgroups to discuss the five most important undiscussable issues honestly. He expected the CEO to reject the plan. Instead the CEO made a few factual corrections and agreed to it.

Most striking about this story, apart from the courage and honesty of the approach, is that it seems this identical list of eight issues could be applied to all companies, whether they're in trouble or not. It seems that the issues are universal, grounded in human nature, and that every company faces them to different degrees depending on their specific circumstances.

As Quinn puts it, there is often an "inner voice" in a company that everyone knows but dares not discuss. People know that if they do bring up these issues they will be marginalized and may be fired. It is a risky business to be a change agent, and Quinn does not underplay this. Speaking of one intervention at Ford, Quinn states that "Change means taking risks and facing the possibility of failure. Unfortunately, risk taking sometimes has a negative outcome...approximately 3 percent of participants reported being disciplined for taking initiative, and their anger was apparent. They told us, 'Your program is a fraud. The company doesn't want leaders; it wants conformists.'"

It doesn't take long for people in companies to learn that management cannot be trusted. In this light, it is amazing that around 12 percent in this same program at Ford were willing to engage in the riskiest form of change. The risk-takers were the people who reported higher scores on health, job satisfaction and personal relationships. Surprisingly, they were also usually the oldest participants. "We believe that they had reached a career plateau yet had maintained a positive outlook. They were loyal to Ford and eager to make a positive contribution. Their perception of the "risk-reward ratio" was different...They were willing to confront the pressures of conformity and pay the price of deep change."

So, even in the most jaded of organizations, there are always people able and willing to take a risk to improve the organization for themselves and others -- a finding which is as encouraging as it is surprising.

This is a compelling and useful book. It's written in a poetic way with a deep level of commitment and personal revelation. On the other hand, it's not for those looking for a quick fix. People who assume that the problem is with others and that they can be changed by instruction and coercion will not find it useful. Also, I found the exercises for reflection and discussion were valuable, but hard to use. What's needed, instead, I believe, is a daily practice regimen for personal reflection, and a more carefully designed, more usable set of exercises for use in management teams -- exercises that do not require all participants to have read the book.

However, these are minor criticisms. What differentiates this from the vast majority of other books by business school professors -- and what saves it from irrelevancy -- is the depth of the passion it conveys. Also, the real-life examples. Quinn epitomizes deep change.

If you are a change agent, or intend to become one you should read this book. It has the power to change your life. It could, in fact, be the only book you need. However, I think it will work best when read alongside others. I recommend starting with "Dance of Change," by Peter Senge and some of his colleagues from the Society for Organizational Learning. This will provide an additional perspective, including a wealth of examples of both successful and unsuccessful change efforts and a list of the key impediments to change, consolidating the message that many of the barriers to change are within ourselves.

If you read this book, you are sure to come away with a few ideas you can use or insights that will be of value. I, for one, will not easily forget that I do indeed need to make the choice every day between the slow death of apathy, and the deep change of personal growth. In the end -- hard as it may be -- the choice of reflection and deep change is the only one that makes sense.

Graham Lawe

</review>
<review>

This is probably the best book I have seen that tackles the theory behind how groups or corporations grow and change over time.  I found it particularly helpful in seeing our church from an organic point of view.  The writing is more metaphysical than I like at the beginning, but by working through it, I was better able to understand the remainder of the book.

I strongly recommend this book.  I also recommend that you take the time to do the exercises at the end of each chapter.  They are invaluable for self-analysis and application.  They also help to make the chapters more understandable if you are struggling with something the writer says.

I probably learned more about leading an organization through change from this book than from any other source I have seen.

Excellent

</review>
<review>

This book is for readers who are ready to look inside themselves in order to change their organizations. It isn't a book for novices. You need a fair amount of business experience to have the perspective to understand author Robert E. Quinn's message. Likewise, you need to have enough invested in your current organization to care if it changes. Quinn offers some theoretical analysis, but leavens it with ample practical examples and exercises. If you have a job, rather than a career, or if you are committed to staying in a narrow, technical field or just waiting for your retirement, skip this book. However, if you're willing to engage in extended self-examination, we suggest this to you. However, be warned that that many of Quinn's drills are emotionally challenging, such as identifying how you resist change or pegging which elements of your organization are more committed to the status quo than to success. But, then, whoever said change was easy

</review>
<review>

I had read this book at the office (after reading the newer one Building the Bridge) and had to get my own copy. I've begun to do the exercises at the end of the chapter and find that it offers an opportunity for profound reflection on personal and workplace issues. This book has challenged me to read my own "integrity meter" and do the work to move in the right direction

</review>
<review>

This is one of perhaps four or five of the best books I own that deal with personal/business improvement and growth.  It is obvious that Quinn has spent years developing his approach.  His personal concern for helping organizations/businesses/individuals change is also evident.  I would recommend this book to anyone interested in fresh ideas and clear thinking

</review>
<review>

Somehow in ordering the book on your system, I wound up ordering two books - one from Amazon and one from a "used" book supplier. I was able to resell the second book but very confused how I mistakenly ordered the two copies.

Any ideas how to prevent this in the futur

</review>
<review>

While this book has been around for a while, it is a good treament of a valuable concept.  How we interact with our colleagues depends in many respects on how we and they see the world.  Deep Change gives a simple, yet effective framework for that understanding and builds from there.  The Federal Emergency Management Agency uses this book in one of their leadership courses, and I imagine numerous private organizations also use it

</review>
<review>

The lilting prose and alternating black-and-white and colorful illustrations make this one of my favorite books to read to my little one.  There is a reason this book is a classic

</review>
<review>

This, with Goodnight Moon by the same authors, is a classic children's book, and with good reason. It's a nice story with a repeating structure and pattern that children enjoy and beautiful, colorful, two-page spread pictures that catch even the eyes of my 5-week-old son

</review>
<review>

This book brought tears to my eyes the first time I read it.  It is warm and comforting.  A wonderful message for children that their mama will always be there no matter what..

</review>
<review>

I love the runaway bunny and my kids love the runaway bunny. It makes us laugh, brings us closer together, and helps reinforce the most important lesson my children can learn "A Mother's Love has no limits." We laughed at the young bunny's frustration, marveled at the mother bunny's persistence, and discussed the love and commitment that strengthens our own family. The Runaway Bunny has been a useful tool in reinforcing my dedication to my children.As young children enjoyed the pictures.It's small and simple, but the lesson is profound

</review>
<review>

This book is probably one of my all time favorites.
Its about a baby bunny who wants to run away from his mother and each time he imagines what he would do when gone his mother is always near him.
The thought is the most wonderful thing.
A MUST FOR ANYONE

</review>
<review>

Classic book is great in dribble-proof format with good reproductions of the original illustrations.  Lots of squirming and hugging while reading this one

</review>
<review>

I wept the first time I read this to my infant daughter. Now she's a toddler and we read it together several times a day. It's a sweet book with wonderful illustrations. Look for the picture that's of the same room featured in "Goodnight Moon.

</review>
<review>

I liked it, but I got this with several other books as a set for a very low price.  So for me, it's worth the money.   I think kids would love to read this out loud.

</review>
<review>

I bought this book this weekend as we're doing the pre-five in a Row w/our preschooler and I don't much like it. I've got a mother w/borderline personality disorder and who doesn't observe personal boundaries of other's what-so-ever (if I need a break away, she hunts down my poor husband, all my relatives and friends- ugh) and so this book just kind of made my stomach turn as I could see her reading this to me and justifying her 'stalker mom' mentality.

In the end, I think if a person is from a semi-normal household w/proper respect for a child's boundaries and need for space away from their parents, then this book is okay. I just find some moms are too smoothering- even ones w/o personality disorders- and this book doesn't send a message about love as much as 'I own you'. I like 'Mama Do You Love Me?' better for explaining to a child a parent's unconditional love.

'Good-Night Moon' by Margaret Wise Brown, however, is by far my children's all time favorite book. I was reading that one to them ineutero and still every night before they go to bed. They love it and so do we as parents. But this one even creeped my hubby out and he's from a fairly 'normal' family.
Take it w/a grain of salt

</review>
<review>

I had never read any of Dr. Schlessinger's books until about a month ago when I read her book "The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands". It was a magnificent read and prompted me to pick up this one, 10 STUPID THINGS COUPLES DO TO MESS UP THEIR RELATIONSHIPS. The problem is, I should have read this book first, and here is why; Proper Care was such a masterpiece that I expected as much from this one, and though it is a wonderful dissertation and full of valuable advice, it doesn't come close to being in the same category as Proper Care. Had I read this book first, my expectations would not have been as high and I probably would have rated this one higher.

With this book, you get much of the same valuable perspectives on marriage, but this one is rather discombobulated in its' outlay and at times does not seem to fit the intended structure. There is also considerably more content devoted here to listener comments than from the Doctor herself, making this more of a compilation of letters, emails and interviews and less of a seasoned and highly competent professional lending her expertise on the subject matter.

Couples and individuals alike will certainly garner critical information on selecting the right individual for a mate. However, if you have an expectation of finding marriage building type information here, you might also be disappointed as this is geared more towards how not to mess up a relationship than it is toward building one. As with Proper Care, you will glean bits and pieces of profound information here that will certainly make you think about your relationship and yourself as a part of that relationship.

Overall, this is a good book, well worth reading. My only recommendation is, if you are new to Dr. Laura and seeking to strengthen your marriage, read this book before you read Proper Care. Though Proper Care is focused more on a female audience and this one is for either gender, you will have more an appreciation for this book if you read it first.

Pastor Monty Raine

</review>
<review>

Dr Laura gives some good advice but it is mixed with absolutely stupid advice such as when she says that a person should stay in an unhappy marriage because of their commitment.
It is unfortunate that she chose to use this relationship book as her soapbox to promote her own religous beliefs. If you dont believe in God and as Dr Laura, you can never be happy is the moral of her story.
Laura makes a number of irresponsbile and misleading statements such as calling daycare, modern child abandonment.
She talks about chastity until marriage several times and about 'shacking up' to use her term but never once does she explain why monogomy is important in a healthy relationship and she absolutely never mentions that a relationship has a natural progression part of which is physical. She moves the step of marriage up to be much sooner than it should be in a relationship while at the same time saying people should wait 'through the 4 seasons' or a year before being married.
Actually says 'it is dangerous to pursue a physical relationship without the promise of marriage'. Is she saying men should promise marriage before they are ready?

She would have produced a much better book if she had given more examples of callers to her radio show or letters and given less malformed advice. Her rants and raves are actually entertaining, too bad that along with examples were cut short with her religious promotions and poorly thought advice snippets.

I listened to the whole thing(audio book cd) and I couldnt list the 10 stupid things implied in the title. I guess they are there and maybe under chapters 1-10 in the book. I could call out several stupid things but I didnt see 10 that stood out. Lots of it was common sense and phsychologically off callers made it obvious.

It is fun to listen to but make sure it is not the only book you use as a source. There are other better sources for relationship info.

</review>
<review>

Self proclamation does not a doctor make.  Dr Laura's credential's are not within the field of psychotherapy-she who preaches so loudly from her pulpit about family ties and togetherness, has been estranged from her own family for years.  She who points the finger---has also had the finger pointed at her.  Posing nude, living with a man without the benefit of marriage, having an affair, becoming pregnant without the benefit of marriage, have all been written about Dr. Laura Schlessinger and made public.  Noone willingly takes the advice of a hypocrite, unless of course, they hide behind a syndicated radio show and a willing agent

</review>
<review>

Like most reviewers, I found this brief book to be a highly believable warning of the coming huge depression. How can you argue with a thesis that accounts for the US economy's ups and downs in detail for nearly a century!! Unlike the few, (like Special K below), who completely miss the key message, IT IS DEMOGRAPHICS that controls everything. Any economist will tell you that 70% of GDP is simply us (we are the demographics) spending our paychecks and, as Arnold points out, it's more like 90% when we add the government's spending of our taxes which they take from our paychecks. Arnold's thesis is a better developed version of noted economist Dent's theory that specific demographics always control where the economy is going. It's not really theory anymore - it's plain commonsense, which is what comes out in Arnold's book. Dent also predicts a massive "Mother of all Depressions" starting around 2010. Special K and his ilk, who are quite happy I'm sure to (correctly) attribute the coming Social Security crisis solely to demographics but want to insist that the economy in general cannot possibly be, are the ones that are going to lose everything in what's coming. Go read Arnold to understand (concisely WITHOUT 200 extra pages of added irrelevant "fluff") that demographics is really all that counts - and why. My God, he even shows how the Japanese near depression from 1990 to 2003 was caused by exactly the same demographic data within Japan. What more do you want? Read it

</review>
<review>

I was skeptical when I saw the length of the book at just over 50 pages, and with good cause.  If you are going to present an argument for a depression in the works, you should at least present detail of all of the main issues and present sufficient data to back up your claims. Merely using demographics as the main argument is not only insufficient, but irresponsible.  Something as major as a depression is very complex and is only triggered from the right sequence of economic, financial and social consequences falling into place.  Finally, this book is outdated and does not address the effects of free trade, the healthcare crisis, Social Security, underfunded pensions, and many other issues.  Although its under $10, you would be better off spending more and getting a whole lot more rather than something that should be more appropriately submited as a high school essay.



</review>
<review>

Very Short, (55 pages), and to the point, yet, with all of the information packed into the book, it should still take a couple of nights to read if you can put it down. Mr. Arnold has a message to get out, and he gets it said.

It's a really good wake-up call for the Boomer Generation.

Grab your hi-liter or your note pad, he tells you what to do to plan, what to do when the economic crash arrives in 3 years, and what to do if you didn't plan.

It's like the Scout Manual for the Depression

</review>
<review>

Although I agree with Mr. Arnold's ultimate conclusion and found his demographic research useful, it should be apparent now that the increase in the DJIA, which the author asserted "must happen," has not materialized.

Where has all the money gone?  Another new bubble has been created- this time in real estate.

I suggest digging your financial foxhole now

</review>
<review>

While I was expecting to hear a complex tale of economic indicators, the author, Daniel Arnold, instead took a very simple argument -- that GDP is driven primarily by 49-54 year olds (with regards to consumer spending) -- and backs this argument up with the day-to-day DJIA (Dow Jones Industrial Average) and population data. It is unclear just how accurate his data really is, especially with regards to turn-of-the-century data, but he does go in depth to explain how he obtained it, and how he made it as accurate as he possibly could.

Inaccuracies that might also abound for current times are with respect to illegal immigration (primarily from Mexico) to the US, which has been on the rise (sometimes exponentially) since the early 80s and before. His data does not seem to have a way of accounting for this factor. Accounting for time, some of these Latino men would be hitting the 49-54 age range during Arnold's mentioned period, and thus would have a profound mitigatory impact on the next "Great Bust".

Still, it was a very cohesive theory and argument. I was amazed at just how short it was, and believe that more could have been added to back up the assertion that investing overseas would not be sufficient for mitigating financial risk, especially in overseas currencies (specifically Asian and Pacific Island countries).

This is where Arnold's lack of an degree in Economics really stands out, as it is clear that while he draws a connection between the US and Japanese economies, he clearly does not understand that US businesses' stakes in the Japanese economy is not what it was in say, the 80s. Japan would likely be unaffected by a US economic bust.

If anything, the book compounded my fear that the US is a dying economy and/or nation, and that the triadic markets of India, Korea, and Japan will eventually overtake the triadic markets of the US, Canada, and Great Britain. I think that any book that gets you thinking is a great one, and while short, this one is certainly worth a read in two night's time.

(I decided to place my name on this review so that those doing Google searches for my name could find out that I'm interested in economics

</review>
<review>

This "book", if you can call it that, is a waste of money.  It would better be described as a pamphlet with a cover on it.  Instead, I would recommend Harry S. Dent Jr.'s book, "The Next Great Bubble Boom."  Both come to the same conclusion that 2009 is the beginning of a bad economic downturn, but the Dent book provides much more rational detail as to what to do about it

</review>
<review>

This book is short and to the point.  Mr. Arnold states his theory and then backs it up with research. He describes the problem that is comming then he tells you what you should do

</review>
<review>

The General Theory is the main work of Keynes and his theory, which is was written to distinguish himself from the classical theory. The style is fairly hard to read, as the language is not easy and the contents obviously very advanced. Nevertheless, reading this book is worth the efforts, as the theory (so often very badly taught at schools and universities) becomes crystal clear. At the same time, it is a book that should ideally be read by someone who has at least got some basics in Economics, as otherwise the book may seem too hard.

When reading this book, we further gain direct insight into the mind of a beautiful mind. The style, although difficult, is that of a current of thoughts, which shows us how profoundly this man was able to think about very complex matters. It is truly one of the most important writings in the fields of Economics, but also a show case of pure genious.

</review>
<review>

Sitting here is Baghdad, one hears often a simple solution to the counter insurgency problem.  Usually it's some combination of winning hearts and minds and killing terrorists.  The solution may be closer to burying money in the sand.  That idea came from John Maynard Keynes who faced far larger problems than the war in Iraq.  It's been 21 years since I read Keynes' General Theory, eighty years since it was first published.  (My Econ department believed in teaching both major economic choices of the day:  Capitalism and Communism.  So I got some look at both.)  What sold me on Keynes was his General Theory.  What turned me against Marxism were my visits to Eastern Block countries where I could see its effect...on the economy and on humanity.  There is a heart inside Keynes book, the General Theory, the same heart that wrote The Economic Consequences of the Peace. Keynes does get blamed for failed economic policies of those Keynesians of the sixties and seventies who believed they could tinker the economy into perfection.  Mistrust developed in Keynes General Theory.  But when I read his book, from start to finish, I came to the conclusion that people just didn't finish the book.  They must have skipped over the second half to believe you could just spend your way to prosperity or reverse bad times with clever monetary policy.  His theory has worked for 80 years.  The book may not be for you, but it is a masterpiece, something to be savored as the seminal work which transformed Classical Economics at a time when the world needed saving, when the alternative, Marxism, which stole the heart of half the globe, but would prove capable only of impoverishing and dehumanizing. The world owes more the Keynes than it acknowledges.  If you love the history of ideas, it's a must read or at least it adds a credibility to your library which a select few can appreciate

</review>
<review>

You can waste your time reading this book, sure. Go ahead. Or, you can pick up Henry Hazlitt's "The Failure of the New Economics: An Analysis of the Keynesian Fallacies" and watch as an infinitely more talented writer debunks and destroys Keynes and his faulty logic. Not only does he translate the thoroughly unreadable Keynes, he shows the reader multiple instances where Keynes simply contradicts himself, yet keeps right on chuggin' (savings = investments; somehow in his General Theory, Keynes manages to both prove and disprove this). He explains in lucid terms that Keynes "General Theory" isn't "General" at all; in fact, it can only be applied correctly in static situations. In most cases it can't account at all for dynamics. Don't waste your time on this piece of socialist garbage

</review>
<review>

There is no doubt that John Maynard Keynes's "The General Theory..." was the most important book about economics of the 20th Century.  Hayek and Friedman (and maybe Ludwig von Mises) may be thought of as the great minds among academics and professional economists, but when the economy heads southward and these academics and professionals have to advise politicians, they all mysteriously become Keynesians - Reagan and George W. being the two greatest examples of this hypocrisy, as both presidents and their economic advisors were Keynes-bashers, yet both have been the most Keynesian presidents in American history.

Indeed, nothing makes a person's point better than watching his or her detractors quietly subscribe to the new principles.

The book is almost unbearable to read.  There is not a lot of mathematics - a basic algebra course and the ability to think deeply and critically will suffice.  But, as some other reviewers have pointed out, the sentence structures are quite frightening, and the ability to follow along with what Lord Keynes explains can seem almost impossible at times.  You will end up reading the book several times, as some pages, paragraphs, and even chapters require rereading to understand - Keynes, shockingly, is no Paul Krugman in terms of being able to write for the masses.

But, if you can work beyond all of that, it is a worthwhile read.  (If you want a Keynes book that is easy to read and structured more to the casual reader, I recommend "The Economics Consequences of the Peace" - and don't let the title scare you.)

Conservatives call him a Marxist; Marxists call him a Conservative; Liberals can't decide if he's the Second Coming of Christ or a Plague to be avoided; and Libertarians think he's Satan.  And anyone who can stir up such an ideological mess deserves his place in history

</review>
<review>

Most of the reviews above are political diatribes against Keynes and his central conclusion that expanded government involvement is necessary in the economy for stabilization purposes. The key to understanding Keynes is the notion that at particular times in the business cycle, an economy can become over-productive (or under-consumptive) and thus, a vicious spiral is begun that results in massive layoffs and cuts in production as businesses attempt to equilibrate aggregate supply and demand. Thus, full employment is only one of many or multiple macro equilibria. If an economy reaches an underemployment equilibrium, something is necessary to boost or stimulate demand to produce full employment. This something COULD be business investment but because of the logic and individualist nature of investment decisions, it is unlikely to rapidly restore full employment. Keynes logically seizes upon the public budget and gov't. expenditures as the quickest way to restore full employment. Borrowing the money to finance the deficit from private households and businesses is a quick, direct way to restore full employment while at the same time, redirecting or siphoning off the funds from the private sector which caused the over-production in the first place. Although difficult to read, this book is essential to our understanding of modern economics. Far from being destructive, it alone has been responsible for nearly 60 years of growth without a major depression as we experienced worldwide in the 1930's. I recommend you read this book

</review>
<review>

First,let's write down the core of the classical and/or neoclassical theory Keynes criticized in the General Theory.Let  p equal the price level,w equal the money wage,MPL equal the marginal product of labor,mpc equal the marginal propensity to spend on consumption goods,mpi equal the marginal propensity to spend on investment goods(capital or producer goods like machinery,equipment or factories)and mps equal the marginal propensity to save .For the classical- neoclassical theory,the economy is at an optimal state on the boundary of both the static and dynamic production possibilities frontiers if the following equilibrium condition holds for the aggregate labor market:w/p=MPL.For Keynes the condition is w/p=MPL/(mpc+mpi).neoclassical theory is a special case where mpc+mpi=1.Keynes's GT is mpc+mpi and lt;or=1[mpc+mpi is  and lt;or= to mpc+mps=1].neoclassical theory is the special case of an econony always operating on the boundaries of both PPF's under resource scarcity so that there is an inverse relationship between consumption goods and investment goods.Only in this special case will classical/neoclassical theory be operational.In a statistical sense,classical/neo. theory assumes that on average the economy is on its boundary.The business cycle would consist of minor inflationary/deflationary gaps which would be self correcting through business inventory adjustment alone.None of this is operational if the economy is operating in the interior of either PPF's.Given the stability of the consumption function, Keynes came to the conclusion that the problem was insufficient long run investment due to a highly volatile and unstable mpi in the private sector.The result is an investment gap.Keynes's solution is not deficit finance but having the public sector borrow the inactive private financial funds at existing very low rates of interest to spend as a special capital account on a continuing series of infrastructure projects which will more than pay for themselves over time.If this policy is opposed then Keynes would be willing to copy the wasteful policy of the Egyptian pharaohs and build a series of pyramids over time.Although wasteful,such a policy would close the investment gap and lead back to the boundary of the static and/or dynamic production possibilities frontier.classical/neo. theory would then be operational as long as the mpi's unstable behavior was continually offset by increased public sector/public goods/infrastructure spending

</review>
<review>

Keynes was no doubt an influential economist.  His theories and 'expertise' on economics influenced the post-New Deal economic policies of the United States and the internationalist wealth redistribution schemes like IMF.  However, his ideas on economics failed miserably and it was application of Keynesian ideas that wrecked so much havoc on the U.S. particularly in the 1970s with the stagflation (an inflationary recession with unemployment which was theoretically impossible accordingly to Keynesism.)  We have Keynes to thank for budget deficits and the nebulous idea that we can spend ourselves into prosperity through the largesse of the federal government.  Read Planning for Freedom or Socialism by Ludwig von Mises instead

</review>
<review>

Master of the Senate is the payoff for the previous two volumes, just as Johnson's Senate career is his payoff for almost 30 years of politicking. We see him in a political institution whose potential has gone unexploited. We see him understand the structure of the place better than anyone alive at the time or, possibly, alive before him. We see him take the job of majority whip when no one wanted it, because no one understood the power that was available from that position, and watch him mercilessly exercise that power on those around him. It is, I suggest, impossible for anyone -- or at least any male -- to read Caro's books and root against Johnson. It's the story of a man harnessing power, spiced up every now and again by stories about the sex that that power bought him -- in particular with Alice Glass, whom many people in the books describe as the most beautiful woman they have ever seen. Which male could resist smiling and feeling envious? (An exception: I think it would be very hard for anyone, male or female, to support Johnson against Coke Stevenson while reading Means of Ascent.)

But these books aren't just the story of one man; if that wasn't clear in the first two books, it's certainly clear in Master of the Senate. This is an institution that had, for nearly 150 years, been a joke: old, doddering men arguing endlessly and deciding on nothing, stalling all forward progress on civil rights as the South dominated, and occasionally calling into question the entire basis of our republican system of government; if the Executive Branch is the branch that does all the work, and a bunch of sleepy octogenarians kill all progress, then perhaps we've got this democracy thing all wrong. I now understand that the Senate's label of the "World's Greatest Deliberative Body" was probably not intended as a compliment.

The basis of this (intentional) slowness in governance, Caro notes, is its tradition of unlimited debate. The Framers intended the Senate to be a check on the passions of the grimy masses, with all the positive and negative connotations that go along with that. Caro's pervasive fairness brings out both the benefits and the harms that this endless deliberation delivers. The tradition of filibustering -- only possible in the Senate, and only then possible because unlimited debate is allowed -- killed civil-rights legislation for 100 years. But unlimited debate also cooled the public's desire for blood when Douglas MacArthur returned from Korea. And it's here that Caro delivers his best punches.

Through careful, plodding deliberation, the Senate managed to convince the American people that even their hero MacArthur may not have understood the dangers he was getting into by provoking the Chinese. MacArthur attacked President Truman quite publicly for following a policy of "appeasement" in Korea, but prolonged questioning revealed that MacArthur -- by his own admission -- wasn't thinking outside of the immediate theatre of war in which he was fighting. When asked whether intervention in China would lead to Russian advances on Europe, or a Russian invasion of Japan, MacArthur gave no satisfactory answer. Into this vacuum moved George Marshall and Dean Acheson to present the Truman Administration's case that they were thinking of the wider world, and MacArthur simply wasn't. They won the battle of ideas, and Caro makes the case brilliantly that this battle could only have been fought in the U.S. Senate. For all its failings, it's filling a role that the House could never hope to fill.

Caro's understanding of legislative power fills a vacuum, as he points out: everyone understands viscerally how executive power works (this is the power of guns, and of individual men pounding out policies), but few have studied legislative processes. Caro's study is brilliant, and should be required reading for anyone who wants to understand American history or power politics

</review>
<review>

I took up "Master Of The Senate" on the recommendation of a state senate majority leader.  I began the book with some skepticism because I did not like Johnson when he was president and I feel that his reputation has deteriorated since then.  Long before completing this book I was very grateful for the recommendation.  In it, author Robert A. Caro treats the reader to a work equally great as biography and history.  He does an excellent job in revealing Johnson's character and accomplishments in the context of the history in which he lived.

"Master Of The Senate" is the third volume in Caro's biography of LBJ.  It deals primarily with his years in the Senate from his election to elevation (if that is the proper term) to the vice-presidency.  It portrays a man who was repulsive and clever, ill but indefatigable, obsequious and ruthless, loved and hated, respected and feared, but always successful.

Caro gives the reader an eye opening history of the Senate leading to the condition in which Lyndon Johnson found it in 1949.  Although primarily covered in earlier volumes, Caro gives the reader an insight into the ups and downs LBJ endured on his way to the Senate.  On a personal basis he portrays Johnson as an incredibly crude man, an open womanizer who demeaned Lady Bird while playing on the loneliness and vanity of The Powers of the Congress.  After wondering how Johnson had any success in politics, the reader is summoned to awe inspiring admiration of his accomplishments.

Assimilating himself into the Southern caucus, LBJ ingratiated himself to Sam Rayburn and Sen. Richard Russell, two single, lonely men longing for a son figure to take make their lives whole.  They were to be his powerful patrons who would advance his career to heights not open to them.

Just as the quest for the presidency was Johnson's sole goal during his Senate career, so the reporting of this quest is Caro's theme throughout the book.  The pursuit of the presidency presented Johnson with his greatest challenge.  A Son of the South, he had to build on his Southern base while distancing himself from it.  While doing the bidding of the Southern caucus he had to destroy its power by changing Senate seniority rules and passing the first Civil Rights bill in over 80 years.  Sections of the book detail how he put together a coalition which stripped the bill of its significance and then obtained its passage.  His use and abuse of both Southern sponsors, like Russell, and Northern liberals, such as Hubert Humphrey, demonstrate a skilled and ruthless operator.

One test I apply in assessing a book is whether it leads me to want to read more.  "Master Of The Senate" aces this test.  I now want to read the rest of the series as well as other books about Johnson and other national political actors who shared his stage.  Even more than before, I know, "In my heart", that Barry was right, but Robert A. Caro has made me want to know more about Lyndon B. Johnson.

</review>
<review>

Robert Caro is just flat out a great writer.  I marvelled at half page paragraphs in which he would paint the most intricate and vivid picture about some minor point.  Such economy and elegance.  I loved it.  Overall, his work on LBJ is just awesome.

The one thing that comes through, for me anyway, is what a complete jerk LBJ was--like one of the biggest jerks of all time.  Liar, cheater, thief, backstabbing, without any ethics or morals.  He cheated on his wife in what appears to be a more or less complete (though unsuccessful) effort to destroy her in every way.  He humuliated her, he berated her, he belittled her, he yelled at her...just awful to read, really.  He was mean to everyone who did not stand to benefit him in some way.  Just an ugly stain on the human race.

But through it all you are fascinated by this hollow and empty man, driven by a pointless ambition (since he had no real sincere beliefs) to acquire power.  Like so many narcissists, he had that charm that he could use to manipulate others, which he used brilliantly.  In reading Caro's compelling tale, it is amazing that such a person could rise to such heights without some act of dishonesty or criminality derailing his efforts.  He makes political misadventures of more recent years look like slap fights in Sunday School.  He was a bad man.

Notwithstanding his badness, however, Caro engages you intensely as he follows LBJ's travels through his years in the Senate and it is hard not to be impressed with the sheer audacity that LBJ displayed in everything he did.  Notwithstanding the impressive audacity, however, when you combine all of the deaths in Vietnam that LBJ could have prevented as President, the horrible way he treated his family and staff and all of the lying, trickery, conniving, and general black soulery he carried with him through life, it just leaves you dazed.  If there is a Hell, LBJ must surely have arrived there on an expedited basis when he died.

No amount of civil rights legislation or Great Society accomplishments with which LBJ is credited can mitigate the tactics he used throughout his life to get what he wanted.

With all that said, the one person in his whole life that LBJ may have had some respect for was John Connolly.  For those who think that LBJ may have had something to do with JFK's untimely death, consider that Connolly was riding directly in front of JFK when he was shot and Connolly was wounded by the "magic bullet."

If Hell has a legislature, I am certain that LBJ is jockeying right now for position, trying to avoid pitchfork pokes and endure the endless heat wave

</review>
<review>

Absolutely one of the best biographies I have ever read.  Fascinating, insightful and brilliantly written!  As I finished reading it, I found myself longing for the next installment about the vice presidency and the presidency.  I will be reading it as soon as it comes out

</review>
<review>

Robert Caro has produced another, long masterpiece with the continuation of his biography of Lyndon B. Johnson. This is the second Caro book I have read and the first LBJ book (the other book was The Power Broker, his epic about Robert Moses).

The book is actually two separate books. The main part of the book is about LBJ's ascent to power in the Senate and the instrumental role he played in getting the Civil Rights Act of 1957 though the Senate, making it the first such bill to pass the Senate since the Reconstruction Era.

Caro describes LBJ's deep desire to do something about civil rights, but his even greater desire to have power and eventually become president. As a Texas senator in a senate dominated by southerners opposed to civil rights, this meant that LBJ helped stop civil rights from getting through the Senate. This continued when he became Senate Majority Leader, when he led the fight to ensure that civil rights bills did not make it through by thwarting attempts to change procedural rules and using other tricks.

Caro then explains how LBJ's political aspirations became aligned with the cause of civil rights by 1957, but also how, in order to pass a civil rights bill, he had to water down or eliminate important parts, such as ones that would have ended segregation across the South.

Throughout, LBJ comes across as sympathetic but tragic. He is like a Shakespearean or Greek character who is capable of greatness but has a tragic flaw (in this case, like Macbeth's, it is ambition). But that ambition is also, paradoxically, what makes it possible for the Senate to pass a civil rights bill at all.

Caro has promised to continue his Years of Lyndon Johnson series through the 1960 campaign, where he swallows his pride and accepts the job of Vice President. Presumably, as the series continues, we will learn how LBJ's tragic flaw allows him to pass the great civil rights bills of the 1960s but leads him to become a vilified president over Vietnam.

One does get the sense that Caro tries to shoehorn all evidence into his view of LBJ as compassionate but flawed. But the book is well-researched and an amazing read, so the fact that Caro's biases likely distort small parts of the historical record is not overly important.

There is another earlier part of the book that is also amazing, but clearly even more flawed. The book begins with a hundred-or-so page epigraph about the Senate, its role in our republic and it's high and low points from the founding through the 1920s. Caro's writing is eloquent in this section to match the grand upper house of Congress. But he is not as meticulous in this section as in others. For instance, in his drive to pigeonhole senators as conservative (and therefore obstructionist of progress) or liberal (and therefore pro-progress), he categorizes Senator Robert La Follete as conservative because he opposed the League of Nations. La Follete was one of the champions of the early Twentieth Century progressive movement and it is clearly sloppiness to lump La Follete in with conservatives.

But again, the section is so eloquently written, and the overall history about the greatness and terribleness of the Senate is so clearly true, that this does not detract overmuch for the book.

To conclude this rambling review, Caro is at least as tragically flawed as the men he has chronicled (well that's unfair, no one can be as flawed as Robert Moses, but it is true for LBJ). But the history he writes about is so compelling, and the story so important that his books, including this one, are treasures despite their flaws

</review>
<review>

Masterful story of the Master of the Senate.  Make sure you read vol.s one and two - they are as good.  Having no interest in LBJ before I started the series - I can't get enough!  Look forward to the final chapter.  This book covers his years in the senate - and wow what an interesting man - he was a horrible individual who was blind with ambition - truely an American legend

</review>
<review>

I think our current Senate would do themselves some good by taking turns reading Robert A. Caro's "Master of the Senate" into the Senate record a few times. This book is not only a great history of the Senate but also of the man who largely shaped the Senate into what it is today, Lyndon B. Johnson. After reading this book, I must say that Johnson is probably one of the best politicians of the 20th century in terms of power, influence, counting votes, and his grasp of the issues. Johnson is still the youngest majority leader to date and largely defined what being "majority leader" meant (before him the position had no power). After reading this book I can't help but laugh at our current Senate: they seem like a bunch of spineless jellyfish in comparison to the people profiled in this book be it Richard Russell (who was definitely wrong on civil rights), Paul Douglas, or Johnson himself. This book definitely provides a behind-the-scenes glimpse of Senatorial power struggles and back door Senate deal making. As Caro points out amply, Johnson truly was a master parlimentarian. Overall, great prose, great read, and filled with lots of manageable information. Easy to see how this book won the Pulitzer! And as a side note, the Senate freshman of 1948 truly shaped 20th century politics (Johnson, Kennedy, and Nixon)

</review>
<review>

...Boy is my brain stuffed.

To begin with, this is an intimidating, thick book about the US legislative system, Senators, policy and process. It took me a couple of months to get up the courage to crack it open and then almost a year to complete its 1000 pages. I found it to be a really good read.

If you are looking a good US history book, a reference for civil rights history, interested in entering politics or want to understand how our US legislative process works READ THIS BOOK. It is an incredibly detailed text, only slightly repetitive (for those with the time to read excerpts), and is written in such a way that elicits an emotional response from the reader.

Caro spent a great number of years researching LBJ. This is very evident from the numerous quotations. He has also gone beyond his subject matter and brings the reader to an understanding of the surrounding events that brought about a historical state of affairs. The cleaver maneuvers Johnson uses in his political career are explained in layman's terms by the author for the novice political wonk. His treatment of legal semantics also assists in understanding the impact of various bills.

(...). The Caro writing style is such that first he tells you all the bad things that LBJ did, said, or believed. Then, just when the reader begins to think LBJ is an appalling human being, the author turns the tables and explains how something positive came out of all the negativity. Though, I was still left with the feeling that LBJ was a selfish, narcissistic, egomaniac that was as far from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington as could be imagined, though this may be par for the course in the halls of the capital.

Stick with it, the book is a worthy read

</review>
<review>

There is no way around it - this book requires a very real investment of time. But what a payoff! In addition to having a really thick book to put on your shelf to impress your friends, this is one of the greatest biographies over written.

Caro makes the point early in this masterpiece that power does something far more interesting than corrupt... power reveals.  Caro is fascinated with power's ability to pull back the curtain on the true nature of an individual.  In this case, Caro selects Lyndon Johnson as his subject and introduces the reader to the man revealed by power: he is fascinating.

The book starts with a short history of the purpose and design of the Senate, which would make a terrific book on its own.  This background proves critical to understanding the magnitude of Johnson's accomplishments in the Senate.  Once the Senate is properly introduced, Caro begins to tell the story of Johnson's journey through his years in the Senate.  The story is told in great detail, but Caro's storytelling is so good and so relevant that it never wanders towards being tedious or dull.  Instead, you get one fascinating story after another that introduces you to the different facets of Johnson's personality.

As the story unfolds, you come to know a man with morals, but a man who is always willing to subvert his morals unless they align with his personal ambition.  Johnson's ambition and talent are both so great that they lead him to accomplish things in a few short years that had never been done before in 150 years of Senate life.

In the end, Johnson finds a cause on which his morals and ambition align and the Senator from Texas becomes the unlikely champion of Civil Rights, a cause that saw no new legislation successfully pass through the U.S. Senate for 83 years.

It's hard to explain how good this book is, how easy it is to read and yet how much you learn.  Highly recommended for fans of biography, history and politics.  Spectacular

</review>
<review>

Flowery. Verbose. Rambling. Compound sentence upon compound sentence. This book was unreadable for me. I quit

</review>
<review>

A Great Improvisation is an involving take on Franklin's years in France during America's Revolutionary-era. Schiff meticulously sets the stage of 18th century Paris, a political free-for-all run on gossip and intrigue, and onto it drops ersatz diplomat and international superstar Benjamin Franklin.
From the first pages, the author's research is clearly voluminous if not exhaustive. The reader slaloms through minute detail about the causes and ramifications of decisions made by Franklin, Adams, Vergennes, and a host of others, ranging from the eminent to the absurd. The minutiae frequently spill out of the prose and into footnotes that sometimes remind the reader of a favorite professor's pithy, humorous asides, but are often of a dry complexity more at home in a textbook.
The narrative manages to draw the reader into the humanity and drama of history and politics. The reader becomes acquainted with a flawed and harried Franklin, whose fame and personal relationships can confound him as much as help him. The man is sympathetic as he struggles to be understood in language and culture substantially alien to him, but remains luminous in his ability to engineer an alliance between a superpower and a fractious band of provinces. The interpersonal conflict and diplomatic near-misses create genuine suspense over a series of events already known to the reader.
When marshaled correctly, the historical detail and insight into the lives and character of the players is magical. But at times, the prose trips over the ponderous detail to yield paragraphs that remind the reader of Franklin's gout. Revolutionary-history aficionados will have a strong opinion (one way or the other) about its treatment of Franklin in Paris, but should bear in mind that this solid work is not a casual read

</review>
<review>

Ben Franklin is my hero, I have 12 biographies on him, this was the worst. I first started collecting Franklin biographies forty years ago, Van Doren, Fay, Issacson, Brands, Wood and a half a dozen others. At first glance, and after reading the rave reviews it looked like here was something new and different... a new take that concentrated on France. Well it was new, and very different - it put me to sleep in my chair several times. I eventually gave up and shelved it with the others. What a shame. Boring.

</review>
<review>

I'm giving up on this book.  It reads like a first draft.  Sentences like the following on page 71 abound: "When you hear not so often as you wish, remember, our silence means our safety," the Committee of Secret Correspondence  - now doing business as the Committee for Foreign Affairs, although Franklin, who had never mastered the original name, was not to know for months - soothed the envoys, whom they understood to be starved for news.
Schiff needed a good editor but didn't get one.  This certainly isn't Pulitzer grade material.  I wonder if the publisher rushed this book into print in time for the 300th anniversary of Franklin's birth.
Van Doren in his biography gives a better account of Franklin's years in Paris.

</review>
<review>

In her book, A Great Improvisation, Pulitzer Prize biographer Stacy Schiff once again sets the standard by which all biographies should be measured in our times.  Somehow, and this is the magic, she combines research and accuracy worthy of the term scholarship with a novelist's ability to create a world into which readers completely lose themselves. As you read, you magically fall into another era, to a time before ubiquitous technology, and when information (did this word even have the same meaning then?) was delayed, imperfect, and unverifiable (no Google).  I could actually feel the noise of all the technology to which we have become accustomed fall away to create a stillness that is then filled with personalities.  And, Benjamin Franklin is personality that could fill a room, span an ocean, and make a country

</review>
<review>

The brilliantly insightful Stacy Schiff proves yet again that she is, without a doubt, one of America's most gifted biographers. Benjamin Franklin springs to life here in all his complexity: Schiff's elegant prose renders his seven-year stay in France utterly fascinating. The nuanced portrait of Franklin that emerges in these pages will be of great interest to anyone at all intrigued by this endlessly complicated figure and his role in American history. I would venture to say that A GREAT IMPROVISATION is as compelling as the very best novels--the sort that once you've begun, you simply can't put down. And this, I believe, is in no small part due to Schiff's prose, which is as lucid as it is graceful--qualities much sought-after but not often found by discriminating readers. One would expect nothing less from this Pulitzer Prize-winning author

</review>
<review>

Schiff's understanding of the French is the key to this book -- that plus her lively writing style, wonderful wit, and the sheer craftsmanship of her phrasing and her story-telling. The book is a romp, through a trying and tedious time in the life of one of America's and the 18th century's most trying but least tedious characters.

Ben Franklin is presented here tenderly and fairly: warts and all, as Ben would have preferred, but with even the warts dressed up in their own special way, as Ben also would have specified. And the ladies of Passy and the Paris salons would have laughed...

America needed the French, and the French needed Franklin: Schiff's thesis is that Ben might not have been a man for all seasons, but that he definitely was the man for this particular occasion. Not John Jay, not Silas Deane, not even Thomas Jefferson and above all not John Adams: the French of this particular time and place, pre-Revolutionary Paris, required one American and only one, Franklin, to amuse them and tease them into parting with money and guns and international detente with the British and the Spanish -- all of which guaranteed America its revolution, while arguably bringing its own revolution upon France.

The Parisian whirlwind into which he stepped -- "In December 1776, a small boat delivered an old man to France...", as Schiff says -- devoured others, such as Adams, or rejected them outright. But Paris welcomed and delighted in and eventually canonized Ben. Why this is, others who have tried to achieve acceptance among the always-difficult French can appreciate: sometimes it works, although very often it doesn't, and just why Franklin was accepted and not the others is delicately and superbly outlined in this book.

Diplomacy is personal, also statesmanship, and jealous intrigue, and most of politics: Schiff's book is about all of this, a case study. Such subjects can be the driest of the dry -- "American foreign relations in France in the late 1700s..." -- but Schiff's personalizing of them, through Franklin, renders them approachable and entertaining and exciting. By the end of the book one feels for the man -- this great renewal at the end of a long life, his great strengths, his foibles and errors, his many weaknesses -- and for the situation, in which Franklin was the man of the hour and no other could have achieved what he did.

It's just as Wellington described Waterloo: American independence, too, was nothing inevitable but in fact a "damned near-run thing". Schiff's book shows just how dependent upon real people and their personalities this sort of thing can be

</review>
<review>

This book provides a fascinating look at the gay and lesbian movement through the lens of politics and society.  I was intrigued by the quality of the work, the research, and the practicality of the content.  A must read

</review>
<review>

THIS GUY SURE KNOWS WHAT HE IS TALKING ABOUT AND EVERYONE SHOULD READ THIS BOOK.. THREE CHEERS TO THE AUTHOR. THANK YOU  STEPHEN FOR AN HONEST LOOK AT THIS TIME PERIO

</review>
<review>

I LOVE this book! Being the only vegetarian in my family (and also being a 'kid')makes it really hard to find things to eat that are healthy that I still like. The Teen's Vegetarian Cookbook is the best cookbook I've ever used. The format is fantastic, the instructions are really simple to follow, the recipes don't usually include strange things or anything that no one would actually eat. If you're vegan, there are lots of really good recipes that don't contain any animal products at all. This book isn't just for vegetarians, though! I got my whole family eating some of it. They added meat to theirs, but they still love the pizza dough. I even make the Chocolate Coma Pie for a party and everyone ate it and enjoyed it. Whether you're a teen, a parent, someone hoping to eat more healthy but still delicious food, or you were just dared to be vegetarian for a week, this book is the ULTIMATE!

</review>
<review>

I got this book for my eleven year old daughter.  Ever since we have been enjoying great meals, such as Thai Coconut Curry, on Sunday nights when it's her turn to cook.  The recipes are easy enough for her to follow without much help, yet hard enough for a challange.  She is sure to grow up to be a great cook and not someone who is afraid of any recipe with more than five ingrediants

</review>
<review>

I received this book when I first became a vegetarian as a young teenager. I loved it then for its easy to make recipes and easy to find ingredients. I love it now because the recipes actually taste better than my fancy veggie cookbooks. I recommend this book for vegetarians (and non-vegetarians!) of all ages.

</review>
<review>

The Teen's Vegetarian Cookbook is a wealth of recipes and tips for new vegetarians.  The recipes are split into chapters by meals - breakfast, lunch and dinner - and there are also chapters for soups, desserts and college cuisine.  The recipes can all be made vegan or vegetarian depending on the Teens choice.  The recipes include new and different things letting teens explore Thai and Indian cuisine, but the cookbook also includes classic favorites like vegetarian egg salad and vegetarian BLT's.  Interspersed throughout the recipes is information about vegetarianism and vegans and tips for teens , for example telling them to add ingredients to their parents shopping list and choose a Saturday or Sunday to make dinner for the family.  The book also stresses that teens should respect others lifestyle choices and understand that not all vegetarians have the same level of commitment.
When I became a vegetarian at age 14 I ate grilled cheese sandwiches.  I continued to eat grilled cheese sandwiches for the next year until I started making new friends who were vegan and vegetarian.   That group of friends helped each other find recipes and cook together - but none of us ever dreamed a cool resource like this might have existed.  I would have loved to have this book as a teen - and it's worth owning for adults too

</review>
<review>

I chose to get this book because alot of vegetarian books make being vegetarian a complicated thing. I'm not a teen but I just wanted to get to the point. And this book does. Great reciepes!!
Simple, fun and edible. Vegetarian made easy

</review>
<review>

This is not just a cookbook!  It is excellent for a teen,or anyone staring out as a vegetarian in a nonvegetarian society.  It gives great advice on foods, their prices and easy preparation tips. There is also great incite included throughout from experienced vegetarian teens. Almost all of the recipes can be done very quickly and the ingredients are flavorful and common.

</review>
<review>

I bought this for my teenage daughter after she borrowed it from the library time after time.  She is the only vegetarian in our home.  She loves this book.  It inspires her and helps her stay aware of balancing her diet

</review>
<review>

The Teens Vegetarian Cookbook,arranged by Judy Krizmanic, includes commentaries from dozens of vegetarian and vegan teens on how they like to prepare their food and little tips like that applesauce tastes good with french toast, or what kinds of toppings taste good on a cheese-less pizza. There are even detailed instructions on how to cook spaghetti... for neophytes of the kitchen! I particularly like the section in the back on vegetarian survival in college as I will be heading off there myself in a couple years. There are handy lists and charts too, like how to mix and match to make a variety of pasta salads... or a sort of shopping list on the kinds of foods a vegetarian might want to stock their pantry with.

The Teens Vegetarian Cookbook applies not only to vegetarians, but to vegans as well. If there's a recipe that has some form of dairy product in it: cheese or milk, there is always an alternative listed. Crumbled tofu instead of feta cheese or soymilk instead or milk from cows. As far as recipes themselves, there are the classics, like pasta primavera, Mighty Minestrone soup, and traditional picnic potato salad, but there are also  more CULTURAL selections such as Tabouli, Baba Ganouj, and mango salsa! Vegetarian cooking itself is a whole new world to explore, and this book can help you get a handel on it, in an easy-to-read, simple format.

It's a common misconception among the carnivores of our world that vegetarians eat only vegetables. That seems so silly when you think about it, but I've been asked dozens of times myself, questions like, "What on earth do you eat for dinner?" These kind of questions make me laugh inside because quite frankly, the folks who ask them have no idea what they're missing. Besides, we vegetarians still eat junk food once in a while just like the rest of the world! There's bread and pasta... I've even heard of vegan cookies (and tasted them too-- they're really good!) When I stopped relying on meat to be the center of the dinner plate, I ate my way into the delicious world that one can find outlined in a cookbook just like this one here, which I thouroughly enjoy cooking from.

</review>
<review>

Everything in this cookbook is easy, practical, good, and creative. It gives helpful tips, and a big variety of vegetarian recipes. The recipes also appeal to my non- vegetarian family. This is definetly my favorite cookbook

</review>
<review>

I really enjoyed this one as I do most of Patterson's work

</review>
<review>

I greatly enjoyed this book -- it is not the best one written by James Patterson but it was very good.  I would recommend it

</review>
<review>

It was an easy read and went quick.  I liked the big font and short chapters.

</review>
<review>

I enjoy reading James Patterson's books, and this one was no different. I highly recommend it

</review>
<review>

James comes through again. A real page turner. Andrew Gross picked a winner to collab with

</review>
<review>

I wont go over plot or characters because you can get that in other reviews, what I will say is this book is a great read. I finished this one in about 5hrs,I did not want to put it down.Patterson has a great knack for characters and real dialogue between the characters.Nothing is too overtop or unreal in this story.

If you are loooking for a great book and a one that is a real page turner than pick this one up. I guarntee that you wont be disappointed

</review>
<review>

Palm Beach lifeguard Ned Kelly has the perfect life. Then he meets seductive and very beautiful Tess McAuliffe. They go out and she's the one as far as he's concerned, however she's tres classy and lives way above his lifestyle. So he decides to throw in with four childhood friends, Mickey, Bobby, Dee and Barney, who have come up with a nice little score that will set them up for life.

For five million dollars they're going to heist three paintings. That's a cool million each and all Ned has to do for his share is to create a diversion by setting off the alarms at some of the other wealthy homes in the area. However when his pals break into the house where the paintings are, they discover them gone. Has somebody beat them to that art? Are they being set up?

While his friends are puzzling this out, Ned hears sirens and panics. He hotfoots it to where Tess was staying, only to see her body being taken out on a stretcher. He goes back to where his friends are staying, only to find cops and four body bags being taken out. Ned doesn't have to be a genius to realize he's in a spot of trouble.

And there you have the beginning of a non-stop thriller that will have reading like you've never read before. If you're not a speed reader, you will be by the time you're finished with this. Ned is in trouble deep. They FBI is after him. He has to find out what's going on before they catch him, lock him up and throw away the key. I just loved this book and I know you will too. Oh yes, I should point out, you'll never ever, not in a million years, figure out the surprise ending

</review>
<review>

I listen to books on tape constantly and when you get a reader and a story that can take you away, it is a find!  Nothing annoys me more than a poor or monotoned reader or one who places inflections in inappropriate places, like news readers.  I loved the sound effects coupled with an excellent reader and the two added to the experience of listening to this book.  I also liked that the story was partly done in first person.  The main character initially doesn't seem to have much to offer the world.....

Anyway, there are others who have diagramed the story, I just wanted to say, I enjoyed it and the way it was presented in audio version.

</review>
<review>

I really liked this book, it was a great fast read.  The only thing was the main character was very emotional, a little more than I'm used to in a male character, he seemed to cried a lot.  Other than that I thoroughly enjoyed it

</review>
<review>

"Life Guard" satisfied my desire to be entertained as well as to stimulate my intellect.  This novel really does cover the gamut:  exhilarating action, stunning twists, genuine love, beautiful settings, ethical dilemmas, desire for riches, mysterious murders, detective investigations, false accusations, and self vindication.  Yet somehow, it emerges as neither contrived nor unbelievable.

This would make an excellent movie; however, a movie would lack the unique perspectives used in the narration, which help make the hero endearing.

</review>
<review>

Contrary to popular opinion on this website, I found this book to be boring, repetitive and badly written. It was so boring I struggled to finish it during a journey where I had little else to do. This book summarizes a few events that were significant to Intel and offers advice on how similar business changes should be handled. Being an engineer, and not a manager, I found this to be vague and rambling. However I do agree with the book's title - Only the Paranoid survive. I think this outlook is useful for everyone, and not just business types

</review>
<review>

I picked up this book after seeing some good reviews about it.
The whole book is about "Strategic Reflection Point".
I was disappointed that Andy Grove didn't try to explain SRP in a more concrete manner. After finishing the book, I still have very vague  and  abstract knowledge on SRP.
Nevertheless, Andy Grove is still one of the best CEOs I admired

</review>
<review>

This a good book based on facts. Andrew Grove goes on describing how Intel managed to shift from a semiconductor to the microprocessor company while he was the CEO... (now it is shifting again under Paul Otellini).
Although the example a bit outdated since it was written in 1996, the same principles still apply. A must read if you want to understand why some great and big companies suddenly go down while others emerge quickly.
You always need to learn the history to understand the future

</review>
<review>

Intel was one of the pioneers of Silicon Valley, one of a handful of household brand name companies that helped to create, and constantly reshape, the information technology landscape in the US, and the rest of the high-tech world.  Andrew Grove was at the center of this company from its inception, and this is his story in his own words.

The information-economy industry, unlike the giant manufacturers such as GM that faced more stable markets, was singularly brutal and fast-changing. Roughly every eighteen months, newly minted microprocessor chips arrived with double the circuit density of the preceding generation, increasing both their capacity and speed. For decades, Intel had been an exemplar of success, assessed in 1998 as the third most valuable company in the world by market capitalization. Known for their loyalty and hard work, virtually all Intel employees shared in the ownership of the company via stock options.

Nonetheless, the company's success was constantly portrayed internally as tenuous and hard-won: in the mid-1980s, facing ferocious Japanese competition in the memory chip market segment, Intel re-engineered itself, focusing instead on the emerging microprocessor market segment.  This is the core of Grove's book, and is a remarkable achievement - I vividly still recall how, in the late 1980s, we thought Japan was going to take over the PC industry - and it was Grove and his team that did it.

To do so, Grove engineered Intel's corporate culture so that it melded "control-freak management" with creative chaos:  anyone could compete in an open, yet authoritarian "culture of innovation."  As a symbol of this, Intel Chairman Grove continued to work in a cubicle alongside everyone else, but he reveled in challenging employees down to the smallest detail, which included the correction of grammar in the memos sent to him. To promote equality of access as well as economies of scale, Intel's offices and chip-manufacturing facilities ("fabs" in the industry jargon) were virtually indistinguishable world-wide; all the walls were one color, cubicles identical in size, even the same vocabulary permeated company meetings from Taiwan to the U.S. This "copy exact" uniformity provided security for customers and helped in problem solving; should the defect rate appear high at one facility, it allowed the engineers to call any of the other facilities for advice; in effect, they could discuss identical processes with great precision, which was a key to the quality and reliability of Intel chips.  Another aspect of the company's culture was its "paranoia," that is, its obsessive attention to the demands of the market and to the actions of competitors.

If this sounds like a tough place to work, it certainly was.  I interviewed several employees there, who emphasized the "sink or swim" nature of the place:  you either found a way to create value, or soon you were out.  One of them described it like his stint in the Green Berets, when they are "plunked down in the middle of the chaos of war...You have an overall strategic goal...with near-complete freedom to find whatever works best to push towards that goal.  It's like we accept the rules of the game and the parameters within which we communicate and compete. But inside the circle, virtually anything goes." It was a competitive meritocracy per excellence.

Not only can this culture (paranoid, chaotic yet authoritarian, and ultra-competitive) serve as a paradigm - I know, that word is over-used - for other industries, but it is a key to the astounding creativitiy that has emerged in some American companies since the days of the "Japanese challenge".  And Grove's company not only symbolized many of these innovations but drove them.

Warmly recommended as a must for all students of business

</review>
<review>

This book could have been ONE chapter, but I guess that's hard to sell! I have no idea why this has such a high rating. It's repetitive, internally inconsistent, and so vague as to basically be a bunch of handwaving. If you want a hopelessly out-of-date book about a CEO patting himself on the back, go for it. Bonus- tons of boring anecdotes! (Gotta fill up the pages somehow!

</review>
<review>

Andy Grove helped to build Intel into the behemoth it has become. On the other hand, he didn't sell IBM on the X86 which was the critical moment nor resolve all the manufacturing processes they had in different fabs (Craig B's watch did that).

This is a relatively short book and could be a lot shorter.  Inflection points... yeah, I get it. Now, please move on Andy.

If you are a high-tech sales or marketing executive and read books like this and are awed by them, you are the probably not the sharpest tool in the drawer

</review>
<review>



This is not just another business book

"Foresight is not a gift--it's learned.  You must see the future in your head first before doing it"

The author is giving us clarity, writing another page in the instruction book of life--we have no manuals to guide us through it at the outset.  Other reviewers are missing the point here, it's not only regarding business, but as one reviewer saw it--sound and practical advice.  And if you follow a simple paradigm of rules in life and set goals with continued awareness your purpose here will be solidified.  My discernment reading other reviews is typical of academic intelligence and the breeding of what to think and not how to think.  Our whole life is a business, and people like Andy Grove are very unselfish, adducing as evidence tools to cultivate continually our growth.  Andy is apostolic providing such humanistic qualities that can quickly shift the constellation of power in all of us.  The only thing that holds any of us down from growing is our lack of candor to life's recipes with our constancy of pessimism.  Any person that wants to understand the purpose here and relationships in their life--whatever they are, should read this other brilliant passage that we didn't receive at birth.  These are the kinds of books that need to be read. It provides you with an understanding that acquiescing in our mistakes is the acumen necessary to be successful in life, and that the impetus for growth is found in our volitions. This opens up another window, and this freshet of wisdom will stretch your mind and brighten your outlook--a necessary, acknowledging, and absolutely uplifting read.

</review>
<review>

A book which has been conceptualized well and organized well.  The author brought up some good experiences to justify his points.  The experiences are a well mix of good and bad.  It has been very well described on how one can steer clear even when there is enough obstruction.  Particularly, the chapters where he described how Intel has evolved to a microprocessor company from a memory company; how the RISC/CISC confusion resolved; are superb.  The author also nicely explained his inidividual take on how to intercept the right message from the noise.

Guess the term I coined from this book?  It's "Strategic Reflection Point".  It would be good for a while to use this (or may be a cozy one - SRP) to show off a know-it-all face till people start rubbishing it.  It's certainly a good book, a thought provoking one, but comes handy for use only when you are a Chief --something-- Officer.  Till then, read it to get a ring-side view.


</review>
<review>

______________________________________________

Andy Grove, CEO of the phenomenally successful Intel Corp, is clearly
worth listening to on the subject of management.  The "Wintel"
success story is well known.  More harrowing was Intel's earlier self-
transformation from making memory chips to making
microprocessors.

How to steer an enterprise thru a major change in its business, per
Mr. Grove:

1)  Figure out if a major change is imminent.  If so, you're about to
enter what Grove calls "the valley of death".

2)  Figure out how to deal with it.  Largely (for CEOs), this involves
listening to your employees  and  doing your homework.

3)  Set a new course, sell it to your company, and stick to it.

The "secret" to success here is identifying the oncoming crisis early  and 
reacting sensibly.  He relates the story of Apple, a company with clearly
superior products - the Mac operating system, the first good laser
printer - completely missing the shift from proprietary to open
PC standards, and ending up as a niche player.  John Sculley, then
Apple's CEO, acknowledged this crucial mistake years later.  Groves
thinks Sculley knew this shift was happening , but wasn't able to
overcome Apple's "inertia of success".   Curiously, this was pretty
much the same problem IBM had when PCs began displacing
mainframes.  It's very hard for an organization to give up a strategy
that has been richly rewarded in the past.

In management, as in engineering, we often learn more from failures
than successes.  Grove's case histories will make informative reading
for anyone in business.  Not many of us are CEOs, but we'll all go thru
Grove's "strategic inflection points" in our careers.

Review copyright 1998 by Peter D. Tillman
--
Dumb cover blurb dept - "This terrific book is a dangerous book. . ."     --  Peter Drucker.

</review>
<review>

Complacency is one of the biggest enemies of any organization, but especially for successful ones like Intel. ONLY THE PARANOID SURVIVE provides two powerful observations that will help anyone who reads this book: (1) That changes are lurking out there that need immediate attention inside your organization and (2) That you must be constantly vigilant for large discontinuous changes (such as those driven by microprocessors, Intel's main product). Having the perspective of someone who has been both the beneficiary and the target of discontinuous change, Dr. Grove's lessons become all the more real. At first, I thought this book was a little overdone; but upon reflection, I feel that complacency is probably best overcome by paranoia in the absence of the management process to locate, anticipate, create and adapt to externally-driven discontinuous changes. I often cite this book in our writings about how to be more successful, because I believe it is an important work. Please read this book, and take its lessons seriously. But have fun while you are being paranoid

</review>
<review>

One of the most confusing things about logic and reason is that it all necessarily depends on what you mean by the words you use, which is to say... it all depends.   I note for example, in the introductory chaper, page 1, "Overgeneralization", there are a couple major overgeneralizations.  That's why they needed to invent math and science, where nothing is real except precise definitions, and logic works wonderfully.  Using reason with actual real things takes more than logic

</review>
<review>

Despite the typographical errors, I think this book is absolutely wonderful. The author is informative and funny enough to make me smile and want to continue reading.

Definitely a great book for people who are just starting to dab their fingers into stuffy critical thinking and self improvement. Very fun

</review>
<review>

Bernard Patten has done it again.  He has written another compelling book, "Truth, Knowledge, or Just Plain Bull: How to Tell The Difference".  It is not only a pleasure to read, but an excellent manual for life's daily challenges.  He has a sense of humor that is and always has been superb.  It is no wonder that his courses at Rice University are always a sellout.  His advice is valuable and regularly usable, and one should place this paperback in one's must read list.  In cinematic terms, I give it a "Two Thumbs Up"

</review>
<review>

Intellectually challenging content. My thinking was engrossed and put to the test at its maximum limits.
I can not think of another book that has had the same effect.
The writing style has an unusual charm that cuts right thru the boring task of learning logic. I had no idea that logic could be so powerful but by God it is, more so than prayer or a lethal weapon. I highly recommend Truth, Knowledge or Just Plain Bull to those that seek to empower their thinking abilities. This is the book for those want to be thinkers, pseudo-thinkers, confused thinkers, anonomys thinkers, thinkers of the present and future. This is the book of the century

</review>
<review>

Since Eve took the first bite of the apple from the tree of knowledge "truth" in its purity has become a weapon through distortions and promises costing those seeking promised peace great expense and in some cases even the highest prices of all ... the lives of our loved ones.

Anyone who is seeking truth ... not just a quick fix or a patch job ... will find Dr. Patten's book, Truth, Knowledge, or Just Plain Bull, a valuable tool in their arsenal of discernment as we are constantly being bombarded with lies and promises to fix your every woe if you will just buy this product, belong to this church or political party, follow this guideline, live here or there, etc.  It is not a book for the faint of heart because I found myself caught in many of the traps hoping to find truth and the peace it promises in so many of the wrong ideas, feelings, places, and products.

From what I understand from Patten, the search for truth is an honorable one.  Truth does exist.  But truth is free and its fruit is peace ...  Not war, anarchy, chaos, hatred, or distain for others.  Hard to imagine something so valuable costing nothing and you don`t even have to "drink Jones' Kool-Aid!"   The issue raised is the cost of trust was a heavy one ... it is just that the bill has already been "paid in full" almost 2000 years ago.

</review>
<review>

This book has to be a classic because everytime I reread it I get more out of it. And I should know, I have reread it at least ten times. Not only is it right on target on how to improve your modes of thinking, it is fun and funny! Just the right thing for the up coming Presidential election where separating fact from fiction seems to be the major issue

</review>
<review>

I have to say I agree with most of the other reviews.. Kay Hooper is one of a verrrry few authors I buy in hardback.. I was dissapionted in the book.. Where were the agents with their psychic abilities.. It was hard to follow where Riley was going. The ending seems a bit thrown together.. I mean her and Ash were talking one min and the next she was off in a Hummer..I like what she tried to do with the book but I think she fell short.. It seems to me Kay Hooper was not able to write the amnesia well into the story at all.. I sure hope the next book is better I think I will wait for it in paperback

</review>
<review>

Kay Hooper writes a series featuring different operatives in Noah Bishop's Special Crimes Unit. What sets this unit apart from others is that the operatives all have some form of paranormal powers including Bishop and his wife (who were featured earlier in the series). This story features former army officer, Riley Crane who is blessed with spidy powers. Unfortunately, she wakes up in bed, covered in blood with most of her short-term memory missing along with her paranormal powers. She had been helping on an occult case on tiny Opal Island. The case takes a nasty turn with what seems like an occult related death. Riley warily navigates the waters with a spotty memory and evil stalking her.

I'm not really a believer in the paranormal, but I always enjoy Kay Hooper's books. I think it is partly because the characters are always so likable. Sometimes, the paranormal is used as a device to tidy up details that cannot realistically happen, but since so much of these stories are unbelievable anyhow, it really doesn't detract. SLEEPING WITH FEAR was an engaging light read perfect for a lazy afternoon

</review>
<review>

The newest release in the Fear trilogy by Hooper, with the psychic FBI Special Force `unofficially' investigating a series of supposed black magic/Satanist rituals, until the agent, Riley Cane, awakens covered in blood and no memory of how she got where she is - for the past three weeks.  Even more disturbing, she can use her psychic abilities - something she's never had happen before.  Relying on her instincts she wades back in to the situation to find out what happened to her, and to the decapitated body found in the nearby woods - in an apparent Satanic ritual.  While Riley doesn't know who to trust, she treads carefully through the clues and crime scenes to find out what happened. I was frustrated with unanswered questions, though, after I finished reading

</review>
<review>

Great addition to the SCU series.  New and old characters.  Great story keeps you guessing until she is ready to reveal who done it.

</review>
<review>

I did like this story - the amnesia angle was written perfectly.  I enjoyed how the story played out very much.  I was learning things at the same time as Riley and found it to be very interesting.  I thought that was fun and refreshing and Hooper did a fantastic job with that aspect.

I think the problem I had was the same as another reviewer.  I didn't really like Riley very much.  There wasn't enough about her that drew me in and made me like her and care about her and her relationship with Asher.

I also didn't like the fact that Riley lost her powers for such an extended length of time.  I like the paranormal aspect of Hooper's novels and that wasn't present for most of the book.

So, 4 stars.  I liked the book and would recommend it but didn't love it.  Not a 5 star effort.


</review>
<review>

I'm actually quite surprised over the negative comments SLEEPING WITH FEAR has garnered.  I, for one, love the Bishop/FBI SCU stories, and thought this book was an excellent addition to the series.

Riley Crane wakes up in bed at her rental cottage in Opal Island, only to realize she's covered in dried blood and has no memories of the last three weeks.  Apparently, she was on the island to investigate supposed black magic/occult activities while claiming she was on vacation--but she has no recollection of that fact.  She also doesn't remember that she's become romantically involved with Ash Prescott, Hazard County District Attorney.

Bishop and the rest of his agents are spread thinly across the United States working on their own investigations, so Riley is on her own, without a partner or any back-up.  As situations turn deadly and a body is found tortured and mutilated in a small woods, Riley knows that she must uncover what has been happening to her the last three weeks, and uncover it quickly.

As her mind plays tricks on her, even leading to blackouts where she loses hours of her day (besides the very important memories she's already lost), Riley knows that something evil is happening on Opal Island.  It is up to her, and her blind trust in Ash, to figure out what that evil is, and stop it before it ends up killing her.

SLEEPING WITH FEAR is an excellent addition to the SCU series, and I, for one, am glad I picked up a copy of the book.  I can't wait to see what Ms. Hooper has in store for Bishop and his team next

</review>
<review>

I'm a big fan of Hooper's paranormal mysteries and was eagerly awaiting this latest in the series.  However, a FBI agent who is missing her psychic abilities throughout most of the book is not what I was expecting from a Kay Hooper book.  It was hard to get involved with the main characters when so little information was provided, and I found the Satan cult slant boring.   I think the book would have benefited from bringing in one of the agents from her previous books.

</review>
<review>

This book is unfortunately not up to par for Kay Hooper.  Her normal suspense is missing and you would have to be psychic to know who the murderer is (there isn't a single clue at any point in time).  The heroine keeps loosing her memory, so you don't even have the usual good characterizations of hero  and  heroine (since she can't even remember much about herself, much less him).  If you like Kay go ahead and read it, but I hope the next one is back up to her usual high standard

</review>
<review>

In Kay Hooper's latest novel of romantic suspense, "Sleeping with Fear," the heroine is thirty-two year old Riley Crane, an ex-army officer and federal agent assigned to the Special Crimes Unit. She is an expert on the occult as well as a clairvoyant with psychic abilities that come in handy in her line of work. As the novel opens, Riley is vacationing in a beachfront cottage on Opal Island, South Carolina. One afternoon, she wakes up covered in dried blood, with no memory of the last three weeks of her life. In addition, her psychic powers appear to be out of commission. Her boss, Noah Bishop, Chief of the FBI Special Crimes Unit, wants Riley to return to Quantico immediately. However, she convinces Bishop to allow her to stay on the island in order reconstruct her memory and figure out who messed with her mind and why.

The plot thickens when the headless body of a man is found hanging over a tree in what appears to have been a satanic ritual. Sheriff Jake Ballard reluctantly asks Riley for her help in solving the case, although he is furious that she dumped him for Ash Prescott, the local district attorney. Riley confides in her old army buddy, Gordon Skinner, that her mind is playing tricks on her, but she tells no one else about the gaps in her memory. She is even reluctant to be honest with her lover, Ash, especially since she barely remembers how their relationship began. The only certainty in Riley's mind is that someone close to her has targeted her for death. As the weeks pass, Riley senses that she is missing something important, but in spite of her best efforts, she cannot get a handle on the case.

"Sleeping with Fear" is a suspenseful and engrossing page-turner.  Riley is a courageous, tough, and tenacious protagonist, and her torrid relationship with Ash heats up the pages. Although the dialogue is a bit stilted and the conclusion somewhat implausible, books of this nature are meant to be escapist entertainment. Judged by this standard, "Sleeping with Fear" delivers the goods, skillfully combining romance, elements of the supernatural, and crime in a neat enough package to keep Hooper's fans coming back for more.

</review>
<review>

This concept has great truth and power in it. If we could remember the basic concept we would make better choices and therefore our lives would be better. We are what we think, no new idea, but we must be reminded. Dyer is one of the great teachers, no doubt.
Trish New, author of The Thrill of Hope and South State Street Journal

</review>
<review>


HEY CATS,

I AM 75 YEARS OLD AND HAVE ALWAYS BEEN INTO LEARNING ABOUT MY WORLD AND WHAT ITS ALL ABOUT. ALL I CAN TELL YOU IS THAT I LEARNED MORE FROM THIS BOOK THAN ANY OTHER SORCE THAT I HAVE LOOKED AT IN ALL THOSE YEARS.

GENE ADDINGTO

</review>
<review>

I read this a few years back when I thought I had reached the 'zenith' of Spiritual development...I don't know why I felt this way, I guess I just thought I was 'pretty hot stuff' and I didn't think I needed to know anything else...very naive on my part...but this book blew open the doors to new levels of spiritual awareness...it made me realize at an even deeper level that nothing in our lives is ever by accident...EVERYTHING has a meaning and a purpose and a reason no matter what it looks like. Is this always easy to put into practice? Of course not, but like everything that requires some degree of effort, it is well worth it.

I used to be one of those people that dismissed things. I just saw life as random and chaotic. Once in awhile there would be a small glimmer of "something more" but it was quickly swallowed up by the mundane and the ordinary and then one day I received a magnificent "sign" that this was no ordinary world I was a part of. I got a message that this Universe was alive and beautiful and overflowing with Light if I would just open myself up to it AND the universe didn't care if I opened up myself a little or a lot.  It wasn't the degree that I opened to it, it was the WILLINGNESS I had to open myself up in the first place that made all the difference. And that's where a lot of get stuck. We don't open ourselves up because we don't want to get hurt or used or frustrated or overly excited about things because what if we get let down or disappointed or we fail? The only way we ever fail is when we see ourselves as merely human.

We are Spiritual Beings now and this book reinforces this Truth. That every thread of our lives is interconnected with all that is seen as well as all that is unseen. We will never fully know on a human level of things the result of our actions good or bad. This is why we must learn to work on being more and more conscious of what we say, what we think, what we do because in the grand scheme of it all, EVERYTHING counts.

This isn't a new way to make us feel bad or guilty, this is an opportunity to rejoice in the glorious Truth that we are ONE with everything and everyone. Whatever we are experiencing in life is a reflection of what we believe. What are we willing to believe? What are willing to reflect? What are we willing to attract into our lives from this moment forward?

I know that this book is calling you...

Answer the call.

Peace  and  Blessings

</review>
<review>

It is an excellent book. My husband really enjoyed it and is starting all over again because it is so full of new ideas.  I am also reading it and find it exceedling worthwhile

</review>
<review>

"Wayne Dyer shares a way of seeing life that is self-empowering. The way you experience life is indeed a reflection of the way you look at life. It took me years to see the truth of this in my own life and although, I share this same message with others in my book, I praise the depth of Wayne's clarity and eloquence." ----One Path

</review>
<review>

I bought this book in 1990.  I carried it around in my purse for over a year reading and re-reading it.  It helped launch me in the career of my dreams.  Whenever I felt afraid, I would read this book.  Whenever I felt I wouldn't make it, I read this book.  I will give my daughter a copy when she graduates high school.  Dr. Dyer shares personal experiences and practical examples to help guide you.  He has been ahead on the road of happy transformation and he shares insights that are rock solid.  If I was stranded on a desert island, I'd take this book.  I have the audio cassette version as well, and am buying the CD version, too

</review>
<review>

This book is abound with breathtaking insights, i had a look at it and liked the title as i was beginning a study on prosperity, because in my life there was a lot of financial uncertainties and believed a lot of rubbish about succeding, from this book i learned to affirm myself and the world around me, as i realised that prosperity is not about who raised you, what your career and level is, but upon the level of faith and spiritual savvy which is easily obtainable if one only asked for it.

There are a lot of other sub-topics cavered in the book with a view for readers to gain transformation which is a requisite to achieving it, some of the exercises are kinder troublesome, like forgiveness, which is almost impossible for a majority of us people, but as we learn in the book, lack of forgivenss is one of the final blocks that can curb transformation.

I also gained a little bit of understanding of some of the concepts introduced in the Matrix movies in this book

</review>
<review>

Dr. Wayne Dyer has crafted yet another amazing book on personal transformation.  In 'You'll See It When You Believe It' he gives a detailed account of how to change not only the way you perceive reality, but reality itself. He shows how to bring your reality to a higher and more enlightened level which will necessarily include manifesting good, being internally driven, heightening the power of coincidence and connection, getting in the flow of the universe, achieving a greater sense of serenity, being in the moment, and being free of negative and fruitless emotions.  It's the sort of book that makes you want to highlight passages and ideas.  The text is filled with personal stories, examples and anecdotes to teach and inspire.  It's ideal for those needing a little nudge (or a big jolt) in life.  And it's ideal fuel for change.

</review>
<review>

Series of Unfortunate Events Book #2 the Reptile Room
By: Lemony Snicket
The Book Series of Unfortunate Events Book 2 the Reptile Room By: Lemony Snicket, was about 3 orphans called the Baudelaire's. The oldest is called Violet she loves to invent things. The middle child was Klaus, he loved to read books, and Sunny was the youngest she was teething so biting was her favorite thing to do. Their parents had died in a terrible fire and they had gone to live with count Olaf who was after their enormous fortune. They realized he was evil. So they went to live with there uncle, his name was Montgomery Montgomery yes his first name was the same as his last. The person who was managing them and their money was Mr. Poe. He dropped them off and said he'd be back with the bags in a few days. Uncle Monty had a love for snakes, he wanted to take the Baudelaire's to Peru, so he hired an assistant named Stephano, He looked a lot like Count Olaf. After a week or so there they realized they did not totally like Stephano so the ripped up his ticket. A few days later they found uncle Monty dead, Stephano aka. Count Olaf grabbed the kids and were on there way to Peru when they bumped into Mr. Poe, and realized Stephano was count Olaf, and were taken away by Mr. Poe.
This book was very exiting to read there was always something going on, right as you thought it was going to be boring it got interesting. Around the middle of the book I felt like I was actually in the book because there was so much interesting things I got very attached.The conflict in this book was different than most other books, It was stephano and the orphans both hated eachother, so there was always tons of action going on and I liked it. Lemony snicket was very descriptive about his charcters it is very easy to picture them in your head and they seemed very realistic because they had traits just like a regular person. The books ending was alittle satisfying and unsatifying because the ending was the same as all the other books Ive read in this series but it was satisfying because the orphans got away safely.
The authors voice is very good he describes things very clearly and very well, they are also very easy to understand. The author uses vocabulary in an interesting way because, he will pause the story for a second and define the word, that makes the words easy to understand and easier to follow. Some characteristics about the author arehow he defines words like I said already, and something bad always happens that you can never figure out. The author always uses dialogue, description and tone on almost every page. Overall he writes very different than all other authors.
I would rate this on a scale of 10, a 7. Because even though it was very good I thought this one was a little more boring than than others in the series because I am not a huge reptile fan. If you like reptiles this is your book. I would definitely recommend this book to reptile lovers and anyone that just wants a good mystery.
This book can be very interesting or it may not. Even though I'm not a huge reptile fan I still thought it was pretty good and anyone would probably like it. This book is worth it.

</review>
<review>

In the Series of Unfortunate Events there are three regular children:

Violet, who loves to invent
Klaus, who loves to read
and Sunny who loves to bite

Violet is the oldest, Claus the middle child, Sunny is the youngest.  The Reptile Room continues where Lemony Snicket's The Bad Beginning ends. The siblings are living with their new guardian professor Montgomery. He is a reptile scientist. In a room with many different reptiles, there's a newly discovered reptile that he called a deadly, dangerous snake. But it's not really dangerous at all.

Later Montes get a new assistant and it is Count Olaf in disguise. Of course something terrible happens to Uncle Morty after that and Count Olaf again tries to kidnap the children. To find out what happens next, you'll have to read the book

</review>
<review>

I've only read books 1 through 3 at this point--'point' being a word which here means 'until now,' and by 'now' I of course mean 'then,' at which point I wrote this review, but then I remember that anything written is suspended in present tense, so I suppose my point is moot.

This book is more like a work of literature than a good story told well.  That's not to say it's a bad book or that readers wont enjoy it.  If anything it shows that Lemony Snicket is a skilled writer worthy of emulation by developing writers (in the general sense that everyone is some kind of writer) in addition to being very witty.

I found myself wanting to smack the kids in the story over the head with a newspaper sometimes though.  The pace at which they figure it all out is really specifically aimed at a child readership so it's a bit frustrating.  The other two books in this series I read didn't have such glowingly obvious answers to figuring out Count Olaf's plan.

Still, good read, good book, just not as good as books 1 and 3

</review>
<review>

I like this book because the author has obvious connected with Dragon. They have been much maligned in historical fiction what with stories of captured maidens and stealing gold and so forth. One might wonder why Dragon, with no use for such things, would go to the bother of stealing them. But of course, people tend to not wonder, do they? Those stories are entirely fictional and, of course, do not really represent Dragon at all. What are Dragons, then? They are highly spiritually evolved beings who chose not to continue to incarnate on this earth in order to help us and guide us from the spirit world. They are some people who are lucky enough to be born especially dear to a Dragon, and they have a lifelong Dragon guide from birth. For others it happens differently. Regardless, an actual Dragon spirit is not common as they were earth beings and so, obviously, limited in number. And whether we learn to connect with Dragon energy or we become able to connect with an actual Dragon spirit, Dragon is a loving, fiercly protective energy and being and should always be treated with respect and honor. D.J. Conway understands that, and so I recommend this book. It is a beginners' book, but there is always something for the "advanced" to learn in these books. No one person knows it all

</review>
<review>

This book has several problems which keep me from recommending it to anyone. It book presents most, if not all, dragons as wise and helpful to humans. It is we humans (especially Christians) who make dragons into evil monsters. Many of the "facts" about dragons presented are sugar-coated, if not outright wrong. I have to wonder how wise this is if you are planning to go summoning otherworldly entities in ritual. For example, Fafnir is supposeldey the "Ruler of Dragons of the South", roughly analogous to the guardian of the watchtowers of the south. There is also a description of Fafnir's mythology, which describes how Fafnir is slain by the Germanic hero Sigurd. Fafnir, while dying, warns Sigurd that Sigurd's treacherous "friend" Regin is about to kill him. However, any other book of Germanic or European mythology will tell you a more complete version of the story: Fafnir and Regin were human brothers, who killed their father for his hoard of treasure, among it the cursed ring Andvarinaut. Fafnir then took all of the treasure for himself, changing himself into a dragon to protect his twice stolen hoard. Not exactly the sugar 'n' spice version of dragons presented in this book, and somthing to seriously consider before you invite him to be invoved with your rituals. Come to think of it, many of the "dragons" presented here are not. Many are simply large serpents or other mythical beings labelled as dragons. The illustration of "The Goddess Tiamat" clearly has a [...], and is called in Mesopotamian Mythology books an Imdugud, or Lion-eagle.

If what you want to do is have Draconic Wicca, if you feel a deep and true connection to dragons and dragon imagery, this is fine, more power to you. As someone with friends who are dragon people, I get this. However, I would encourage you to read actual mythology concerning them; captured maidens, stolen hoards, patricide and all. Look at the original myths and the cultures that knew of these beings, and don't take medieval accounts at literal face value. These are the same people who believed that bloodletting cured disease, after all. I'm sure your rituals will be much more powerful for it. I will say that this book would be useful for its tables and dragon-flavored Wiccan imagery. Just don't take it too seriously.

</review>
<review>

Just this last fall my guardian dragon was revealed to me through meditation, before I found this book.  This book has helped me to understand and connect with my guardian better.  It is the only one I have seen that deals with dragons as  real beings, able to manifest in our world they want to, or when they are needed.  I am very grateful to D.J.Conway for having the guts to write and publish this book.  It has been a revelation for me.

</review>
<review>

An excellent introduction to the astral realm of dragons. This book includes many powerful and effective rituals and spells. Magickal coresspondences are all accurate. Descriptions of various dragons are very descriptive and interesting (mountains, desert, dark and light etc.). This book takes the practitioner and seeker by the hand and guides them step-by-step through the dragon realms. The only thing this book lacked were creative visualizations. I also did not like how Conway required so many tools that were unattainable for rituals (ie. sword, staff, wand), although it may help to focus energy and create the 'mood'. You do not really need all these tools, for dragon magick, they can be easily substituted. In addition, just a reminder that you do not earn a dragon's trust with fancy tools.

</review>
<review>

Take basic baby Wicca. Add dragon images. Stir it all together like paint or a bad mocha. End of book.

Dungeons  and  Dragons literally has a better draconic cosmology. Any skilled practitioner of an established occult system could cast better spells with a D and D book and their pre-existing discipline.

Avoid this book, unless you simply wish to add to your established collection of "all books that include dragons". The second star is because it does have some cute pictures, and details that could be added to a fantasy roleplaying game

</review>
<review>

Terrible, absolutely terrible! "Dancing With Dragons" is more like a Dungeons  and  Dragons manuel with magickal references to the King Arthur move "Excalibur".  All you need to do is add some cultural references, info on elements and various eclectic Wicca rituals and Voila you have a fluffy book with little substance and relation to occult studies or magical workings.  Oh my goodness I think I will write a poofty Wicca book! I think I could absolutely do it!... Seriously though students and seekers and those experienced in magickal systems, paganisim, wicca or what ever my advice is: Run away just run away...unless of course you desire a good chuckle....

</review>
<review>

I loved the book! Lots of information provided, historical, background, contact info, how to info , ceremonial info, benefits, dangers, and everything between

</review>
<review>

If I had the option to, I would permanently ban Conway from ever writing another book. She gleefully displays her lack of knowledge on a plethora of topics, from basic Wicca to Ceremonial Magick, to history and mythology, and the list goes on and on. If this book were shelved under fiction, it would be better, but it purports to knowledge that is obviously made up on the spot, with no historical references cited.

In short, buy the book for a chuckle. Serious practitioners of the Craft and the Art should look elsewhere for instruction

</review>
<review>

There is certainly some good stuff in this book, but it wasn't as good as I hoped

</review>
<review>

No surprise that Orhan Pamuk won the Nobel Prize.  My Name is Red is an amazing tale, told by multiple characters (and inanimate illustrations as well), and deals with love, loss, envy, hatred, and the intracacies of art and its creators.  Breathtaking prose is alive on every page due to the author's magnificent imagination.  I intend to read more of Pamuk's work, and hope it has the same effect

</review>
<review>

The plot for this is quite similar to Pamuk's Snow, though they are set in different times.  A man returns to Turkey and visits a former teacher who asks him to create the text for an illuminated book being created in the western style to impress Venice with the power of the Ottoman Sultan.  Just before his return, a gilder who works on the project is killed, and soon after he returns, his former teacher is killed.  All this is different from Snow.  The similarity is that he visits his former teacher in order to catch a glimpse of the teacher's daughter, an old flame who he has heard has been widowed.  She says she will marry him if he can find out who the killer is. And another, dangerous man wants her too.  So the love story is similar to Snow's.  How much you like this will depend on how much you prefer contemporary over historical fiction.  I felt this one was slowed down too much by long debates over the value of western vs. islamic painting. Rather than creating suspense these delays left me yawning despite their tangential relevance to the recent Danish cartoon controversy

</review>
<review>

I read the book in its original language and it was fun. I was in the 16th century Istanbul for about a week (well, of course the author's perception of 16th century Istanbul), while reading this book. I don't recall what the details were, but it was interesting in the sense that objects like colors etc. were telling the story in each chapter. I had never seen that in a novel before.

</review>
<review>

One of the best I have ever read. Also red his other book "snow" but this one is I think is one of the best reads I had. Highly recomended..

</review>
<review>

This is not a review but a congratulory salutation to Mr. Pamuk for being
awarded the Nobel prize !!! My name is Red is one of those books that make
you feel sad after you have finished reading because you know that a book as glorious as this will not come along in quite a while. So read it slowly and it will reveal its hidden mystery, symmetry and ecstasy

</review>
<review>

A murder mystery set in 1500s Istanbul, one of the most exotic cities in the world.  Each chapter is a first person narrative from a different character, the very first from the man who has just been killed, catching your attention immediately.  The murderer has 2 voices, one his real identity not revealed as the culprit, and one as the killer.  Dogs, trees, paintings and the devil all have a chapter or two as well making the story move along in a strong quick fascinating way, like going down a path of stepping stones towards the finish.  There is a love story, and a story of the forces of traditional Islamic art facing the beginning of an invasion of Western art ideals (the angst and reactions of the characters is insight into some aspects of the depth and manner of the religion of Islam).  This book is operating on many levels, all of them great.  A unusual style and a great multi-level story, as if the dense intricate beautiful tile-work of the Ottomans became literature.  Highest recommendations.

</review>
<review>

I learned so much about Islamic art from this book and the different techniques that are applied and valued in eastern versus western art. Learning about 16th century Istanbul was fascinating and entertaining, especially because of Esther, the clothier. Wonderful mystery/romance and mini-history lesson in one.

</review>
<review>

MY NAME IS RED is a huge and densely-composed novel set in late-16th-century Istanbul among the small closed circle of miniature painters, who work their whole lives until (and even after) they go blind, illustrating books which may never been seen again by any other than their rich patrons. Though clearly a masterpiece (there has been talk about Pamuk as a potential Nobelist), it is by no means an easy read.

I came to this after reading Pamuk's later novel, SNOW. What the two have in common is a concern with Islam and an examination of its place in a secularized world; they also share a large scale and a certain sense of fantasy. But whereas SNOW is set in the modern world (albeit a distant outpost of it) and is told from a single perspective, MY NAME IS RED takes the reader back to 1591 and proceeds in a kaleidoscope of short chapters written by different characters in the story -- including Satan, a corpse, a dog, a tree, and (as in the title) a pot of red ink! Even the covers of the two books show their differences: SNOW almost monochromatic, MY NAME IS RED a collage of brilliantly colored panels and borders from miniatures such as those described in the book. The color, lightness, and even sense of fun draw the reader easily into the book until he is either held or repelled by the intensity of its philosophical argument.

There are two main plot strands: the mystery of a master miniaturist murdered by one of his colleagues, and a love story. The latter, actually, is not dissimilar to the situation in SNOW: an exile returning after many years, hoping to be reunited with a former sweetheart who has since married another man. But, as in much medieval and renaissance literature, the point is less the story than the many digressions within the story: lists, legends, historical precedents, parables and counterparables, and above all disquisitions on the nature and purpose of figurative art within a culture whose religion forbids it. Pamuk's handling of these sections is virtuosic, and they become the verbal equivalent of the miniatures and decorations in an illuminated manuscript, and the main reason why one opens the book.

I would have to say that Pamuk does not seem to put much emphasis on the delineation of character, or perhaps that he is not always successful at it. The major figures in the love story come over quite clearly: the writer Black, his beloved Shekure, her children Shevket and Orhan, and (to a lesser extent) her father Enishte. But the miniaturists -- nicknamed Olive, Butterfly, and Stork -- one of whom must be the murderer, are distinguished more by subtle differences in their attitude to their art than by qualities of character. So the reader has little alternative but to go along with the author in solving the mystery more as a theorem in aesthetics and religion than as an outcome of human nature.

The book's color and brilliance of linguistic invention reminds me a little of Salman Rushdie, though Pamuk is a much cooler writer. But the closest parallel that comes to mind (although it is a long time since I read the book) is Umberto Eco's THE NAME OF THE ROSE -- another murder mystery used to frame historical, religious, and philosophical disquisitions in the old manner. Readers who enjoyed Eco should certainly try Pamuk

</review>
<review>

I started reading Orhan Pamuk's My Name is Red in 2003 when a friend lent to me while abroad.  It was right after I had taken a course in Islamic art so a lot of the information about the popularity of Persian painting was fresh in my mind.  When I finally got around to reading the whole book it was several years later, the art history information was less fresh in my brain, but that did not diminish the perfect wonder that is in this book.

I may have been reluctant to pick up this book as it would be another in the subgenre of art history narratives like Girl with a Peal Earring or The Agony and the Ecstasy which I do not like.   A large part of the problem with those is that they are celebrations of people you already no are great, and they take a canonized view of western art history which each old master's genius is inevitably going to come to fruition despite the melodrama surrounding it.  The past is finished and isolated.  Fortunately this is not the case in Turkey.

The narrative describes the complicated relationship between Christianity and Islam in the day-to-day practices of art and life.  To present this debate Pamuk employs a many narratives, some of whom are hiding their true identities from the reader.  Though the novel is narrated by many different voices which take different sides of the debate they all sound similar in a way that both helps keep the secrets of the story.  It also makes the text of the novel part of the debate of "true style" versus "personal style" debate that informs the book.  The debate is so much part of the story that the actual murder mystery just gives the form for these ideas to be expressed and changed.

It is a wonderfully complex tale filled with complicated characters that keeps you guessing and works as an exploration of interpreting any form of representation

</review>
<review>

I finished Orhan Pamuk's _My name is Red_ just over an hour ago, and the pleasant euphoria of having finished a truly great book is just beginning to wear off. In short - read it.

I have to take issue with the marketing for this book, though, and I have some symapathy for those who picked up this book expecting a good murder mystery and were disappointed. I have to blame the publishers and the booksellers for this one - I bought it looking for something fun. Two of the three reviews on the cover, as well as the back blurb describe it was "sinful" and the blurb calls it "a kaleidoscopic journey into the intersection of art, religion, love, sex, and power." All of these descriptions are misleading.

_My name is Red_ is a book about art - in general, and the differences between Eastern and Western art in particular. Before reading, I had never thought about the causes or consequences of style, perspective, and composition in art, and the cultural and religious causes of differences in these components. I think that after reading _My name is Red_, I feel like I will have a much greater appreciation and understanding of these things - and a few more wrinkles in my brain. : ) .

A few have commented on the translation - I don't know any Turkish, but I didn't notice any glaring or awkward phrasing that poorly translated books can have - (Murakami's novels spring to mind).

All in all, this was a fantastic read. Highly recommended.

</review>
<review>

This book is a great, fun to read biography on Diane France. It would be a very good book to read if you are intrested in science. It is very well written and it explains Diane France's life, her career, and what a forensic anthropologist is.

</review>
<review>

As an adult, I have relished many well-written biographies. As a veteran middle school teacher, I have a bone to pick with the counteless boring, repetative children's biographies my students and I have endured. Finally, a biography that is engaging, interesting, human and educational. Bone Detective is a breath of fresh air in my classroom. Students love the photos that give the book a "scrapbook" feel. Sidebar photos and diagrams clearly explain complicated science concepts. The writing style has grabed my 6th students' attention and held it - suspenseful, humorous and thought-provoking. The forensics topic couldn't be more timely. Diane France is presented as a real human, in a real science job in a way that my students are really relating to

</review>
<review>

This book is a must for anyone who loves dogs.  The book is a permanent reminder of beautiful animals that are put to death everyday across the US.  The pictures in this book will move you to tears.  The stories of these beautiful animals will tear at your heart.  Well written but you can only wish the book was double it's size because it leaves you wanting to see and read more

</review>
<review>

This is a great book with many wonderful pictures along with many happy and sad outcomes.  A must have for a dog lover

</review>
<review>

This book was really touching.  The photos are beautiful and most of the dogs you can just feel their soul and personality right through the pages.
(Buyer beware, not all the dogs are rescued and live happily ever after.  I didn't realize this when I bought the book so my heart leaped when reading their stories and I got to the ones that had been euthanized.  It's very heartbreaking to see such a beautiful living (when the photo was taken) being and know they are gone.)
I wish this book was in every library, school, store in the country, it would make a difference.  I got my pooch from the humane shelter 5 1/2 years ago as a 2 month old puppy that had been tossed out on a freeway to die.  She is my best little buddy and better than any human friend I've ever had.
Thank you for such a beautiful book

</review>
<review>

This is such a beautiful book about the sad state of 'disposal pets'.

These wonderful, intelligent, affectionate creatures imprisoned for the mere fact that no one wants them

</review>
<review>

This is a beautiful book for both the animal lover or photographer, if you are both than this is a must have.  Traer Scott's photos are amazing portraits of some of the unlucky dogs that make it into shelters each year.  Some find new homes and some do not.  This book makes me proud to say I am a shelter dog owner and always will be

</review>
<review>

The photography in this book is beautiful.  Ms. Scott captures the innate beauty and emotions of every dog she photographs.  Just by looking at these dog faces, one can get a sense of the hardship, the longing, and the hope of these canines.  The stories behind each dog gives them such depth and character.  Of course, these stories leave the reader/viewer filled with emotions including sadness and joy, but most importantly, they provide a reminder of just how precious shelter dogs are and just how much they want and deserve to be loved.

--John

</review>
<review>

This is a collection of photographs of dogs from various shelters, each with a short description of their situation. These dogs are the unlucky and unwanted, sometimes abondoned by their "best friend", and some are picked up as strays. The photos capture the character of these dogs, and some have such sad looks. It is heartbreaking to read that some of these dogs in this book were euthanized, sometimes simply due to the lack of space in shelters. In those cases, these photos are the only remaining evidence of their short existance. Recommended for anyone who loves dogs. A percentage of proceeds from sales go to shelters.

</review>
<review>

Traer Scott has done an extraordinary job.  The photos of these dogs are mesmerizing. A must have for dog lovers, and especially those of us who have walked into a shelter and fallen in love with a furry stranger who then becomes our best friend on the ride home.

</review>
<review>

For a long, long time, I was afraid that we would never hear from Briar, Sandry, Daja, and Tris again.  I thought we would, but the time lag between _Shatterglass_ and _Will of the Empress_ deadened the expectation.  Or so I thought.
And then, one day a friend and I were browsing through a bookstore.  I missed the stack of this wonderful book, and was continuing on when my friend said in a reverential tone, "My God...look at this!" I turned around, read just the three phrases on the back cover ("Four mages, One destiny, No turning back") and time seemed to stop.  I know my heart did.  I then snatched the book from my startled friend, and retreated to a quiet corner of the bookstore.
_Will of the Empress_ lived up to my expectations in every way, and was a thoroughly enjoyable read.  The Circle of Magic books has always been one of my favorite series, and this is just one more perfect continuation.  I have to say that I think the book would be dulled slightly if the reader hasn't read the previous eight, or at least the original quartet.  But to an old fan like myself, reading about the four young mages fighting was *truly* agonizing.  Nearly a physical pain.  And, equally, reading about their reunion was wonderfully heartwarming.  All of the mages have been altered slightly from what we saw previously, and that created some brilliant surprises and entertaining stories.  But, at the bottom, we can always return to the mages we know and love with their core personalities intact.
One thing about this book that I particularly liked was Pierce's way of leaving us hanging at the end.  Perhaps other readers haven't noticed, but I think I can smell parts of the plots for Briar's and Tris's books in the Circle Reforged Quartet.  And so now I'm desperate to get to those as well!
The only downer in this entire book was that we didn't see any more of Evvy from _Street Magic_, one of my favorite fantasy characters.  However, since it does at least mention her and a "mysterious friend," I'm going to keep hoping for an appearance later in the quartet.
Superb

</review>
<review>

The four young mages are grown...but their time apart seems to have created a rift between them.  Each one has a secret they are unwilling to tell the others.  One fears letting the others see the true horrors of a fruitless war.  Another fears being rejected out of jealousy for powers they do not all share.  The betrayal of a hero and his death torments one mages soul.  And finally, the last mage does not want to share the memory of a violent execution.  These secrets kept them from each others minds.
Word from Sandry's lands up north compel her to journey there to settle matters.  Her siblings go along as court/guards/and councel.  Though they fought often the dangers of the imperial court forced them to unite and to look at their hearts.  By pairs did they re-unite.  Their reforged link helped them outmanuver the immovable Empress, escape kidnapping, chastise idiots, and break powerful shields.  Happily, with their minds once more as one, they journey home

</review>
<review>

I've read alot of books, Harry Potter Series, THe Hobbit, LOTR, Series of unfortunate events, Flyte  and  Magik, His Golden Materials...the list goes on.  I LOVE the Circle series, and The Will of the Empress is it's best addition yet.  I can't wait for more additions to the Circle reforged.  This book shows more of the characters personalities and how they are growing up.  How they thought they lost one another at childhood only to find a stonger bond.  I would recommend this book to anyone that likes magic, Comedy, friendship and adventure

</review>
<review>

The Will of the Empress (2005) is the ninth volume in the Circle series.  These novels relate the stories of four young ambient mages:  Sandrilene fa Toren, Daja Kisubo, Trisana Chandler and Briar Moss.  In the Circle of Magic quartet, these youngsters were rescued from distressing situations by the great mage Niklaren Goldeye, who recognized their talents and arranged for them to be trained at Winding Circle.  Living together in Discipline Cottage, they learned to control and apply their inherent magics and developed very close relationships.  These mages were granted their Medallions at the most unusual age of thirteen.

In the Circle Opens quartet,  three mages -- Briar, Daja and Tris -- accompanied their mentors on separate wanderings while Sandry remained behind at the Citadel to help her uncle the Duke.  All of them encountered both good and bad circumstances, but they also improved their magical abilities and social skills.  After several delays, the three travelers returned to Summersea.

In this novel, Sandry impatiently awaits the return of the wandering mages.  They have been out of range of her mental communications for some time and are very much overdue.  The Duke is also awaiting their return.

As the wandering mages gradually come back to Summersea, they gather at Number 6 Cheeseman Street, where Daja has rented a house with attached forge.  After all have returned, the Duke visits to ask that one or more of them accompany Sandry to Namorn to visit her estates.  She has been under increasing pressure by the Empress of Namorn to visit there, but she should not take too many guardsmen with her lest the Empress be angered by the apparent lack of trust.  However, her fellow mages could provide sufficient protection.

All volunteer to go with her and they travel with a Trader caravan to Dancruan, the capital of Namorn.  Despite her lack of entourage, Sandry soon settles into the formalities of the court.  But the Empress completely ignores Sandry's desire to return to Emelan at the end of the summer.  Sandry gradually becomes aware that the Empress wants all three of them to remain in service to Namorn.  The Empress has a strong will, but she badly underestimates these four mages.

In this novel, the three wanderers fail to resume mental communications with Sandry or each other.  They all have reasons to keep their thoughts private, but this mental silence precludes the merging of their talents.  The Empress is aware of their mental solitude and counts on it to further her plans for acquiring their services.

Briar has bad dreams of the war in Gyongxe and doesn't want to spread the horrible images (and smells) to his mates;  he also resists the idea of consulting mind healers.  Daja has bad images of her own that she doesn't want to share with her siblings.  Tris just doesn't want them to know that she can see visions on the wind.  Even Sandry has had some bad experiences.  Each is afraid of rejection by the others, though such withheld images and thoughts are only significant to their fellows for the hurt they cause the possessor.

While these young mages retain their basic personalities, they also display some positive growth in self-esteem and social behavior.  Even Tris shows some consideration of others.  But only Briar has developed any skill at intersexual relations.

Although actions taken against these young mages are foreshadowed, the details of their reactions are often surprising and usually overwhelms the Empress.  Even Ishabal Ladyhammer, the archmage, tries to tell the Empress that they may have overreached themselves.  Yet hubris makes the Empress continue to work against Sandry and her magical siblings.

Highly recommended to Pierce fans and to anyone else who enjoys tales of court intrigues and magical talents.

-Arthur W. Jordi

</review>
<review>

I have read all of the circle books, actually all of Tamora Pierce's books. This is defintely a good one. It is for an older audience which was excellent for me. (I started reading these books when I was 12 and am now 19) With this book you find out so many new things about the 4 of them. You really get to know their personalities more and who they are as adults. You now see them grow from children to young adults and all they have seen in their short life. It is amusing how they can show up the most experienced mages in the world. All because they work together, so this also is a good lesson for children, even though this book has more adult content in it than the other ones. But if you have read the other 8 books in the series you will love this book. The only frusterating part is how they won't let the other ones in their lives in the begining but of course everything works out. All in all read this book, you will love it! I only hope she writes more about the 4 mages

</review>
<review>

You can pretend that I wrote 4 1/2 stars.

As it was said before, this is a continuation of the series The Cirle of Magic and The Circle Opens.

The first thing that I wish to say is yes, the plot was a little poor-key word: LITTLE. It was predictable, but I never wanted to put the book down! I wanted to find out how they did it.

I thought that this book was a great next step for the four. It starts out with the four coming back together after their seperation. They were too different, and saw too many horrors to reopen their minds to each other. Daja buys a house, with space for Briar and Tris to live their too (Sandry lives with Duke Vedris). When Empress Berenene, Sandry's cousin, "asks" that Sandry come to visit her. Duke Vedris, scared for his neice, inlists the help of her old friends to be bodyguards, and watch over Sandry while she's there. The four set out to Namorn in grumpy moods with each other. Hiding secrets, and keeping each other out of their minds, they become vulnerable to her Imperial Majesty's evil wishes. In order to escape Namorn they four need to come together to save themselves, and return home.

In an adventure that tests their friendship, hearts, bravery, and their magical power, the four go out to discover the truth

</review>
<review>

As others have indicated, this book features the reunion between the four young mages previously seen in the "Circle of Magic" and "The Circle Opens" books.  It deals with how the four friends have grown apart, and Sandry's required trip to visit her cousin, the Empress of Namorn.

Unfortunately, I just didn't buy it.  The fights seemed contrived, their conflicts weren't very realistic and I just didn't enjoy reading the book.  As for the "danger plot," I have to say, I thought it was idiotic.  The Sandry of the previous books would not have stinted her duty for ANY reason - her sense of justice was so strong, she would have stayed and fought the system, not fled it.  Renouncing a heritage because of a single custom was ridiculous.  Frankly, it felt as though Ms. Pierce just wanted to get Sandry back to her great-uncle's court and came up with this plot contrivance to do so.  Daja's character and romance were the only things that made this book even remotely bearable.

I used to be an incredible fan of Ms. Pierce's books, but they have really been falling off lately.  I hope she spends a bit more time and thought constructing stronger plots in the future

</review>
<review>

The late Laurie Colwin was masterful at creating stories about relationships. Never sentimental but always deeply moving,  and quot;Shine On.. and quot; is the story of a young widow and her brother-in-law. You'll  never forget this story or Olive and Patrick. A beautifully romantic story

</review>
<review>

I ordered my calendar and the company I recieved it from was prompt in

its delivery and I would order from them again

</review>
<review>

This is a great book for anyone interested in personal development.  I wish I would have read it long ago.

</review>
<review>

This book is worth to read. You will find plenty of interesting ideas and things u can use in u life, even if u are not manager and is not planning to be. U can advance to some level by reviewing and using some clear techniques.
I have put four stars for the follows reasons. First is obvious this book is advertisement regardless of intended or not and it is more fiction then science. Most of the time u should read between lines that still have a lot of information. Second In this book most of the time leader means manager and there is bunch of correction u should make uself. Then u should adjust on political correctness and American mentality. This is ideal explanation because not all the managers what to achieve great results. Most managers want to achieve highest visibility, career grow-up and safety future (Means safe their "careers" in case of any trouble) or simple desire not to be responsible of any thing while maintaining increasing income. (For samples look in investor management problems.) There is nothing wrong with The next problem they are using classical pair leader (manager) - subordinate. What about cases when subordinate has great skills and abilities or bigger mental emphasis? What is about interaction between leader and not his team like customer that inspire the vendor company to deliver? No research is here. Ask any person that familiar with statistic about the sampling problem. People who open the successful company are already natural leaders. By statistic 60% of all companies failed. Even bad companies have advantage they alive. It is obvious 150% bias.  Let me rephrase on of the idea in this book in the other words: If you keep training, you will beat Tiger Woods in golf. Good luck here. When everybody knows something, it stops successfully works. It is a well-known problem in the world that when everybody knows something it stops successfully works. You know that u boss let say "democratic"
Plenty of management methods was not included like "The favorite" method of management.
A last world is strictly my opinion: The most important thing that all leaders should do is decision-making regardless of how. If u read any example in this book, you will notice it.  The primal leadership is more about execution advices

</review>
<review>

In modern times perhaps no one has clarified the distinction between leadership (an influence relationship) and management (an authority relationship) better than the seminal work of the University of San Diego's Joseph C. Rost. With both fresh perspective and renewed vigor, though, Daniel Goleman and his colleagues have once again put a "face" on leadership... as if it actually has something to do with human relations!

Unlike with so much of the existing commentary in "leadership" literature... most of which is really management memoranda... the entire concept of "Primal" or Emotional Intelligence (EI) deals with the "open loop" of interpersonal actions, reactions and influence.

The authors' capable elucidation of the various and potential leadership styles of EI-- Visionary, Coaching, Affiliative, Democratic, Pacesetting, Commanding-- is refreshing and transformative. This is an important and inspiring work to be read again and again by those endeavoring to become authentic leaders. But therein, perhaps, lies the problem: it is erudite, often esoteric and too long to be readily digested, applied or utilized as a functional handbook for change. Additionally, there is offered no heuristic model or firm schematic for application of the concepts in personal functioning as a would-be leader.

Coke Newell, MSPR, consultant and author, "Journey to Edaphica

</review>
<review>

Best selling author Daniel Goleman, who popularized a theory of emotional intelligence (EI) via his 1995 bestseller Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, has teamed up with colleague EI researchers, Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee to advance a new leadership concept - Primal Leadership.  The authors focus on the four EI domains (self awareness, self management, social awareness, and relationship management), and link them to leadership success that affected several organizations' bottom lines positively by bringing out the best in people, a concept called "resonance".  It is revealed that EI domains or competencies create leadership styles that reinforce resonance as well as those that create dissonance.  Drawing from a decade of the authors' collective research and the real life experience of leaders in the trenches, a connection is made where leadership demands more than conventionally recognized intelligence, but emotional intelligence as well.  The key to this is to use emotion to balance the reality of work and organization demands without unduly upsetting people to impact staff results.  In a twist, the authors find that the encouragement to use EI originates internally.  Furthermore, they offer a learning plan as a mechanism to sustain transformation rather than a performance outcome model.  In the end, the book correlates its concepts to the organization as a whole to create the desired outcome of an organization with resonance that favorably influences the bottom line of the organization

</review>
<review>

The authors of this clearly written book draw on deep research and numerous studies of psychology and neurology to show that great leadership is primarily and essentially a matter of emotional intelligence. Notwithstanding the extensive support and the documentation from academic literature, Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee have written an intelligent, lucid, easily accessible presentation. They contend that, with practice, you can develop the critical leadership competencies of self-awareness, self-management and social/relationship skills. Although the authors may understate the difficulty of developing these abilities, we find their arguments reasonable, persuasive and useful

</review>
<review>

This is a book about Emotional Intelligence which does not consider the reader's emotions. It's very insipid and lacks the depth. If you have already read the Emotional Intelligence by the same author, I wouldn't suggest this book

</review>
<review>

With the goal of helping people become more effective leaders, Primal Leadership authors Goleman, Boyatzis and McKee identify six styles of leadership, four domains of Emotional Intelligence, and five steps towards learning leadership skills.

Based in part on research data from 3,871 executives, the authors distill all leadership roles into six distinct styles--which effective leaders switch between depending upon circumstances--then explain the role of EI resonance within each style.

Skillful listening, the linchpin of resonance, is the crux of the first four styles.

Six Styles of Leadership.

Style 1, Visionary, describes leadership that inspires people by focusing on long-term goals. Style 3, Affiliative, describes leadership that creates a warm, people-focused working atmosphere. An affiliative leader listens to discover employees' emotional needs, and strives to honor and accommodate those needs in the workplace. Style 4, Democratic, describes leadership that obtains input and commitments from everyone in the group. The authors describe Styles 1-4 as "resonance builders" and contrast these to Styles 5 and 6, which they call "dissonant" styles because 5 and 6 don't emphasize listening. Style 5, Pacesetting, describes leadership that sets ambitious goals and continually monitors progress toward those goals.

</review>
<review>

This book is much more useful than his first two books on EI. It does a nice job of defining and describing the various leadership styles

</review>
<review>

In many ways this audio CD is better than the book it is based on. Goleman's writing style can be stodgy, but his audio presentation is very good and it is great to hear the author emphasising the lessons that he thinks are important. Buy this if you use EI in business

</review>
<review>

This Dolf de Roos book is no different from his other books, owning one is the same as owning all. Writes about same topics and ideas. Good author, trying to sell more books by using different titles.

If you don't own any of his books, worth the $20 or so for the book. However, if you do...don't waste your money/positive cash flow


Happy investin

</review>
<review>

Making Money in Real Estate, by Dolf De Roos  and  Diane Kennedy

Between 2000 and 2004 my partner and I purchased over 30 buildings. I remember clearly it was around the end of 2000 and I went to see Dolf in NYC, and it just so happened that I was meeting a prospective silent partner who would be putting up all the money for our 5th building. As luck would have it I had a P and L to show our prospective partner and during the seminar, Dolf asked if anyone could share some numbers on a prospective deal they are looking at. I did one better, I pulled the P and L out and Dolf went over the numbers in front of the several hundred attendees. His response was, "You guys would have to nuts not to do this deal". I am also the author of a real estate book, "A 20,000% Gain in Real Estate" (and this particular deal is explained in detail in it).

(Dolf was very informative and motivational by the way)

In the first chapter of Dolf's book are three concepts that jumped out at me; and if you can always remember them I'd say you have a great shot at making some real money in real estate. They are:

-Life is about priorities.
-Investing in real estate is all about the numbers.
-"Just Do It"

This one is so true, I just never heard it put like this:
"Every property has cash flow. The question really is, "Which way is the flowing?"

While discussing the concept delegating or hiring other people to do some of the tasks that would free you up to do deals he says, "...the three most expensive words in the English language are (Do it yourself)."

By Kevin Kingston, author of: A 20,000% Gain in Real Estate

</review>
<review>

I first learned of Dolf De Roos a few years ago from reading one of his first books that was released through the Rich Dad, Poor Dad series. I have read every one of his books and find his comments about real estate to be "right on the money". He shows you why real estate is the best place to invest and also how you can increase your profits by looking for unique situations. Very valid advice and a very good read. I highly recommend this book.

By Lex Levinrad, author of "What I Learned On Wall Street:Why Real Estate Is the Best Investment"

</review>
<review>

I purchased both this title and "The Insider's Guide to Real Estate Investing Loopholes" (same authors).

I have two primary complaints.  The authors talk down to the reader, constantly making snarky comments that imply that if one doesn't act NOW, the reader is lazy, or paralyzed, or is somehow inept when it comes to business.  That's not just annoying -- it's weird, and it made me suspicious of the authors' motives.

That brings me to my second complaint.  The book lacks balance.  I'm not saying that all of the strategies can't work -- just that it requires an ideal set of market conditions for them to work.  We need to see low or declining interest rates, quickly rising tenant incomes, improving neighborhoods, distressed or at least disinterested sellers, few other investors, low insurance costs, and a plethora of service providers (such as roofers) who do great work at a low price very quickly.  I can tell you that we don't have any of those factors at work now.

What we do have, at least in areas like mine, where appreciation has outpaced incomes, is a market turned on its head.  Sellers will not sell because they are sitting on huge profits for the most part, and don't have to sell.  Or, they believe that prices will appreciate at the same ridiculous rate that they did from 2001-2005.  Numerous Dolf-inspired investors have flooded the market and bid prices up beyond all reason.  Workers are in debt and don't have much money for rent.  Neighborhoods where deals are affordable aren't improving, so the idea of refinancing because you painted and put up a new mailbox won't help you.  Easy mortgage money has gotten anyone with a pulse into homes.  Interest rates are rising, not falling.  Insurance is costly and the coverage stinks.  And most importantly, rents do not provide positive cash flow for most small real estate investors.  I know several who actually consider themselves to be successful and the news is not good.  They are carrying their properties, their properties are not carrying them!  I know, it's hard to believe that this is success.  But in the past few years, appreciation has bailed them out.  Put that kind of leverage into effect and you are leveraging a negative, which only means you go broke faster.

A few observations:  First, if making untold riches were this simple and this obvious, then so many people would attempt to do so that it would suck the potential profit from such deals down until the actual profit is more equivalent to the amount of work involved.  (More about this in a moment -- because I believe that this is actually occuring in part due to all of the real estate evangelism going on.)

As they say on Wall Street:  "When enough people find the key to the market, someone changes the lock!"  I believe that most people reading this review are smart enough to know that markets are dynamic.  Outrageous profits bring in a flood of new entrants, dramatically reducing the profit potential.  If a whole bunch of new wannabe real estate tycoons start lining up to bid on properties, then the prices for those properties will rise, as will the price for the money (the financing charges in the form of interest rates).  Even without a lot of new entrants, if enough people start using the same financial techniques of leverage, cost-benefit analysis, or tax strategies, then the advantages to be gained will be reduced commensurately.  Common sense and basic real-world economics dictate that costs will rise and potential profits will fall.  And so it is in the real estate world.

Economies of scale and technological advancements have changed many industries and wiped out others.  The ability for a small business person to get a competitive bid on anything is severely limited, whether you are talking about insurance, waste collection, land, communication services, landscaping, or anything else.  Big players have the advantage in negotiations and will consistently be able to lower their costs below that a single investor.  They can offer their tenants more amenities and constantly remodel and update their units at a far lower cost than you or me.  I can't start a profitable shipbuilding company or TV network, nor can I jump into owning large buidings over which I can spread my costs enough to justify what is increasingly becoming break-even or negative cash flow from tenants.

I am not saying that there will never again be opportunities for small real estate investors to use leverage and tax advantages to make decent money.  Just that, with so many of your fellow investors looking to do the same thing, you are not going to find (DEEP BREATH HERE!): underpriced positive cash-flowing properties in undervalued neighborhoods with great potential on which you can quickly close at a dynamite interest rate that result in quickly-rented units with stable, high-earning tenants who are happy to stick around so you can quickly refinance at "massively increased property valuation" (Dolf's expression) so you can pay yourself and your investors back, raise rents even higher and go on to the next property with similar ideal parameters, plunk 10% down and do the same thing.

And no, I'm not an unmotivated individual who works harder than I have to, doesn't understand the value of money, or doesn't want financial freedom.  We all want that.  In Dolf's world, there are numerous individuals who can't wait to to sell you $100 for $50.  My question is, if he knows how to get people to do that, why he is telling us about it?  I think we all know the answer to this question.

Don't get me wrong:  Eventually, the property marketplace will right itself and investment properties will come up that offer opportunity to even small investors, even with the odds stacked against you.  However, it won't unlock some kind of magical door to riches.  It will simply be one of many investments that helps you build LONG-TERM wealth.  Real estate is just another business that goes through cycles and isn't necessarily any more of a path to fabulous riches than owning a chain of gas stations or making molded plastic products.

By the way, the most successful real estate investment firms in America have had a total return about 23% annually for the past five years through March 31, 2006.  That includes dividends and share price appreciation.  If that's the BEST they can do, (and I'm not saying it's bad...it's actually an amazing performance!), it's  because that's the BEST anyone can hope to do, including you and me.  Remember, these firms use all the leverage they can muster and have tremendous economies of scale, and the smartest tax accountants and attorneys working on their behalf.  We are highly unlikely to see this performance repeated in real estate for the next five years or possibly, ever.

Footnote:  I recently studied single family homes in Broward County and Palm Beach County, Florida.  Over the past thirty-five years, not including taxes of any kind, residential properties have enjoyed an average annual return of 9.25% per year.  Short-run performance tends to regress towards the mean.  Therefore, we are virtually assured that real estate will come nowhere close to its recent performance over the next several years, particularly in a higher-interest rate environment with lots of new supply.  Buyer beware

</review>
<review>

I was a little disappointed in this book.  There isn't much new information that I didn't know already.  The information presented wasn't in-depth enough.  It's good for people who are getting introduced to real estate

</review>
<review>

Of all the real estate books that I have read or checked out and of all the real estate gurus that I have checked out, Dolf is the best.

This book goes beyond Real Estate Riches. Dolf explains h ow to purchase commercial property. He also explains  how to spot property with a below-value "twist."

And there is more, like:

* No-fail mortgage application

* Purchase and sale clauses that work

* Make offers with seller appeal

* The offer; yield a bit or stand your ground?

* Settlement and possession structure

* Proposals for finance

* Ensuring that tradespeople do your jobs first

* Cutting non-performing tenants loose

My business has been primarily network marketing. Using Dolf de Ross real estate strategies has provided me with an additional stream of income as well as reducing my tax bill.

Real estate is somewhat like  network marketing in that you can start with very little money, use leverage and create exponential growth.

Great book. A must read

</review>
<review>

I loved her first book, Through A Glass Darkly, I read it at least four more times!!  Her sequel, Now Face to Face, was closure to the first, but not as exciting or sad.  I cried every time I read the first one!  Dark Angels deals with the young Alice, the grand old grandmother in Through A Glass Darkly.  She's just as feisy and clever in this prequel, but I still liked Through A Glass Darkly the best out of the three.  If you want to read any of the books by this author, I suggest you start with that one

</review>
<review>

Finally another book by in Koen's 17th Century Europe series, worth the wait.  I loved this preque

</review>
<review>

Of late there seems to be quite a few books being released about Charles II of England and Restoration England. This I don't mind at all, since I'm always on the look-out for a good read, fiction or otherwise. And author Karleen Koen certainly knows how to craft a good story, filled with plenty of details, dark deeds, and romance. Having written two previous novels, Through a Mirror Darkly and Now Face to Face, she takes one of the major characters from the previous works, and gives new depth and understandstanding to Alice Verney in Dark Angels.

Alice Verney is a tough young survivor, serving the King of England's sister, Henriette-Anne, as one of her maids-of-honour. Married at a young age to Louis XIV's brother, Monsieur, Madame is coming to England to visit her beloved brother, Charles II, and Alice is coming with her. Of course, for stubborn Alice, it's also going to be a chance to see her machinating father, Sir Thomas, and the man who jilted her for one of her best friends. It's a rare chance to serve up a dish of cold revenge, and Alice is more than ready to do so with a plan that will not only catapult her into the heights of the king's court, but also enable her to snap her fingers at any future trouble as well.

But that is going to take some patience and skill, as Alice's target is rather unaware of her scheme. The Duke of Balmoral is elderly, and the uncle of Lord Colefax, the man who spurned Alice years earlier. Cole, married to the stuttering Caro, is still hot for Alice, so she is not only dodging her former suitor, but others who are interested in her as well. Finally, there are Alice's fellow maids-of-honour, her friend Barbara, shy and loving a man who has little to recommend him and Renee, a beautiful French girl of good birth and little money.

But Madame, as Princess Henriette is known, isn't just on a homey visit with family, for she is on a mission to bring England and France closer together, forging an alliance between the two kings, and an even bolder plan underneath. But when the princess returns to France, she is taken ill and dies suddenly, quite possibly at the hands of her own husband, the jealous Monsieur. And Alice suddenly finds herself returned to England, up against a poisoner, and a young soldier who is more than she thinks, and the prize of the Duke of Balmoral is hovering just beyond her grasp.

It's quite a tale, moving beyond the typical historical romance, and spinning a tale that blends plenty of plotting and actual history. It's that last touch that made the book very enjoyable for me, with the author able to keep the balance between what really happened and the author's own creations. The characters of the Verneys, Balmoral, and Richard Saylor are all fictional, but they would have easily lived in Restoration England. It may be interesting to other readers that Queen Catherine, Charles II's wife, was pretty much as she is portrayed here, struggling to be Catholic in a very protestant England, and always living under the threat of being divorced and sent away. She was also able to openly tolerate her husband's many mistresses, and the open distrust that the courtiers had for her. So too are the varied mistresses, from actress Nell Gwynn, the greedy Barbara Villiers, and his chase of other women.

But there are a few drawbacks as well. Some might find the use of homosexuality  and sex to be a bit disturbing -- Monsieur was well-known for his fondness for handsome young men, and the character of Mistress Neddie is far from an oddity of the times. As for the sinister Henry Angel/Henri Ange, history has always been arguing over what caused Madame's sudden and painful death that so horrified people at the time, and there is the famous 'Affair of the Poisons' that shook the French court a few years after her death. Both Balmoral and Alice are a touch more ruthless than what we usually see in historical novels, but I found them to be a refreshing change. One other aspect that I found a bit tiresome was the character of Jerusalem Saylor, Richard's mother, who is the 'white witch' of the novel -- despite the fondness of modern authors who keep thrusting such folk into their novels, the idea of the modern 'good' witch who uses her powers for healing and magick is a fairly recent idea, and although folk rememdies were certainly well-documented from the time, there is very little to actually be seen in the surviving histories. But it makes for a clever touch, and at least Koen doesn't go overboard with it as say, Philippa Gregory does in her work. So it's a forgiveable sin.

For those who like their novels full of details, and what might have been, this is an enjoyable read. It was enough to make me want to reread both of Koen's previous novels, and rediscover Alice Verney and her family.

</review>
<review>

It has intrigue, suspense, love, betrayal, and twists on every hand, everything that makes a good book great; starting with a princess coming home accompanied by her entourage, welcomed by a king and HIS entourage, and the welcome home party that soon ensued. I absolutely could not put it down. The only drawback was the lifestyle of some of the players and their unnatural affections toward others. This played a minor role, however, and although it made me a bit squeamish to read, it was quickly passed over and the story progressed. Thus the less than perfect rating.

</review>
<review>

Although I loved Through a Glass Darkly and Now Face to Face, I wasn't aware of Dark Angels until I happened upon it in an airport bookshop. It is one of those rare books that is so engaging I was able to tune out all the miseries of flying and just read. And in this case, reading was pure joy. I loved the depth of the characters and details of the setting. Koen's characters are flawed, but in ways that make them seem real. This book is an example of how historical fiction should be done

</review>
<review>

I pre-ordered this book, and could hardly stand the wait.  How much I had loved the first book by this author "Thru a glass..." and the 2nd was almost as good "Now face to ....".  Ms Koen has taken her story writing skills to a new and even better peak.  This is the best of the 3.  Now, I have to reread the other two since it has been so long.  I just hope she will not wait this long for a 4th book.  Or, maybe, even do a book on something else.  Don't do a "Jean Auel"

</review>
<review>

This prequel to Through a Glass Darkly does not disappoint.  If you like Charles II and the period of The Restoration, you'll love this book.  The character of Alice Verney is intelligent, charming, controlling, manipulative and sympathetic.  She is fiercely loyal to those she loves and unforgiving to many.  Through her story the reader learns a great deal about the personal and political history of King Charles - the tragedy, the whimsy and the fascinating people that orbit his sphere.  Great book.  Highly recommended.

</review>
<review>

I say it fell short only because when I got this book I hoped it would delve further into Alice's life, and beyond that, into Diana's life. After reading TAGD, which is one of my all-time favorite novels, Ms. Koen hinted strongly at an interesting history for Alice and Diana, and I just knew that a prequel had to come at some point. YEARS later, it is here, and while I loved the book, I was dissapointed in that it only spanned a couple of years (if that)and then ended abruptly at the most interesting time (I won't divulge so that non-readers won't be spoiled). And not one hint of Diana - so I am wondering if there is such a thing as a "second prequel"?? Ms. Koen simply MUST go further into Alice's life after this book ended and definitely introduce us to Diana when she was younger!! I want more!!

</review>
<review>

What a read!  Like Miss Koen's other historical novels, I couldn't put Dark Angels down 'til I reached page 530. I was so totally immersed in the court life of Charles II and the story of Alice,his Portuguese Queen Catherine's lady-in-waiting, I barely came up for air. Trying to speed read was impossible because every paragraph was filled with details and action that was not to be missed. Court life was so different from our lives today, the book makes for fascinating reading and not a little history in the passing, fictional or non. But I might say that at the last, it's as though the author got tired of writing her novel and decided to zip it up. The story came to a sudden and predictable ending, leaving many questions of "what happened to". Could this have been Koen's way of setting up for a sequel? Let's hope so

</review>
<review>

Congo by Michael Chrichton further shows what a great author Chrichton really is. The story is fast paced, scientifically accurate, and well researched. The only drawback to this story is that it is not as close to home as some of his other stories (excluding Eaters of the Dead).

The story revolves around a company called ERTS trying to find blue boron diamonds in a lost city in the African wilderness. An 8 man crew of geologists have already been filmed brutally murdered by some unknown cause (some researchers believe an unknown species of gorilla). A new team is sent out that involves two PhDs, a guide, a few porters, and of course a talking gorilla neamed Amy. Well she uses sign language. After a dangerous journey to the site, the crew discovers that the lost city if filled with nocternal gorillas that were trained as killers.

Crichton does an excellant job making a story as odd as this, believeable and even enjoyable.

This book was written in 1980 and some of the technology is a little dated. However this does not take anything from the book. The author does make a couple of predictions that are considered off the wall today, but how would he know.

I would suggest this book to anyone who wants to be entertained by a "techno-thriller" such as this. Although this book is not quite as "tech-y" as some of Chrichton's other books

</review>
<review>

This was another great novel by Michael Crichton. This book starts out quick with the killing of the eight group members, then it slows down to introduce the characters including a gorilla that understands sign language. The gorilla will help them out in the end... They will find some other stuff that they didn't expect to come across including diamonds and the terror that took the lives of the first group of members.

Once the story gets going though, you can't stop reading it, you'll never want to put it down. There is a lots of twist and turns that will suprise you. If you enjoy a good science fiction then you will enjoy both the technology and the story. If you don't enjoy science fiction, if you can see past the hubble in the beginning with the systems, you will still enjoy this story. It's a good book for everyone

</review>
<review>

Since I loved Jurassic Park and The Andromeda Strain (way back in high school) I happily picked up Congo at the airport. What an enormous disappointment - the book has the feel of having been written in an hour and a half. Nonsensical details are never explained (what's with the gray gorillas and the paddles? The gorillas were trained by the Zing-ites, back in the day, to execute people with the paddles and they sort of got into it? This is never made clear), the dramatic arc is entirely hosed up, and the characters are ridiculously one-dimensional. This is one of these books where you get to the last 30 pages and you realize that you're SOL - the plot is not going to come together, and you're not going to be satisfied. That, plus the obsessive detail about boring 1980 technology, left me entirely cold - this book hit the airport trash can the minute I debarked

</review>
<review>

Like "Jurassic Park", this book starts out promisingly but runs out of steam within just a few chapters.
My reasons for such an accusation:
1. Crichton overloads the reader with scientific facts. And while these can be quite interesting, they often obstruct the action and progress of the storyline (Dan Brown, for instance, is a writer who can properly balance compelling action with factual sensitivity). As a result, the book comes off as slow and stumbling.
2. The plot isn't all that interesting to begin with. (Vengeful gorillas? Talking gorillas? Misanthropic gorillas? Come on.)
3. The book's ending is utterly terrible.
4. Cricton's writing is weak, and the characters are inconsistent and unconvincing.

Sorry, Michael, but this book just didn't do it for me

</review>
<review>

Diamonds have held man's fascination from antiquity. Though its brilliance and hardness are widely known, its electrical properties are not. Michael Crichton uses a quest for blue diamonds to unleash an action-packed piece.
In Crichton's Congo, Earth Resources Technology Services, sends an expedition team to search for elusive diamonds in a war-torn and ape-infested central Africa. This first team ends up dead, and another is sent to reprise the mission.
Karen Ross, a computer programmer; Peter Eliott, a primatologist; Amy, a gorilla; and Munro, a mercenary non grata, make the trip into the jungle, hoping to defeat a similar conquest by a rival consortium. When Ross reaches the mysterious Zinj and meets the custodians of this lost city, she realizes that though diamonds are a woman's best friend, with some friend's there are no need for enemies.

This is a suspense-filled novel with a tight plot driven by science. Crichton cannot be accused of shoddy research. Congo is replete with technical jargon and scientific explanations, ranging from Primatology and Language Functions to Computer Programming and animal mistreatment. His digression on laboratory animals was enlightening (I was introduced to 'Taxonomic discrimination'); RSPCA and ASPCA closely resemble the modern-day PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
In some respect, the science is a bit ambitious and dated, nonetheless, this is a book worth reading with a movie worth watching

</review>
<review>

This was the book that got me to enjoy reading back in the day.  This was also my first Crichton, and I have to say I enjoyed it to the fullest.  Easy to read adventure novel

</review>
<review>

This is the story of Paul Vincent Galvin, who at the time of his death in 1959 was Chairman of the Board of Motorola, Inc. and one of the most dynamic leaders on the American business scene. The Founders Touch is also the exciting account af a vast business buit from scratch, and the story of a man whose life reflected the changing world of the twentieth century.
--- excerpt from book's back cove

</review>
<review>

I found it inspiring and at the same time intimidating to contemplate the brilliant, hardworking people who inhabit this book.  All of them committed their lives, talents, and fortunes to tackle seemingly endemic and chronic social problems, starting small and eventually spreading their good works throughout their nations and even globally.  I recommend the book for anyone trying to improve their communities' health and welfare

</review>
<review>

This account of one man's efforts to revise the defintion of "entrepreneur" demonstrates the capacity of what can be achieved from small beginnings.  Bill Drayton has created a "consulting" firm that girdles the world.  Creator and promoter of Ashoka, a foundation dedicated to social change, Drayton uses a highly selective arrangement to locate and encourage people desiring social change.  Their efforts, rarely, if ever, depicted in either mainstream media or even specialty publications, are here explained and endorsed.  As is Drayton's unorthodox methods.  Yet those methods, and the people adapting them to local conditions, have been demonstrably successful.  They need further study and application.

Drayton, through Bornstein's depiction, has redefined the term "entrepreneur" from its narrow economic framework into a broader and more flexible environment.  Money "profit" is no longer the basis for evaluation.  Instead, how widely can a new idea and its promoter[s] affect betterment of the people shunted aside by pure capitalism?  Is the multinational the sole or even the major means for offering employment and economic gain?  Must the values implied by major infusions of capital, often with restraints tied to the investment, be limited to what firms successful in developed countries decide?  Drayton argues that instead of "top-down" economic structures, change for the better should come about by local initiative.  How far this idea has spread is exemplified by the map opening the book.  From Brazil to Bangladesh, people with drive, patience and talent have made, and are making substantive changes within their communities, regions and entire nations.

The book provides real examples of people who identified a problem, then set about to improve  conditions that had come to be accepted by social inertia.  His opening example, that of Fabio Ruiz of Palmares, demonstrates how effective one person can be.  Ruiz, living in a depressed area in Brazil, discovered how greatly something most of us take for granted, electrical power, could influence a local economy.  Ruiz observed the condition of the rice farmers in the state.  A steady supply of water would allow growth of successful crops.  Erratic natural supplies, often interdicted by highland farmers, meant turning to groundwater supplies.  Groundwater means pumps and petrol-driven pumps were expensive.  Ruiz instituted an inexpensive method of distributing electricity throughout the area.  The farmers provided the minimal investment and performed much of the labour.  As electrification spread, farmers produced steady crop returns, reaching a level that led to marketing co-ops and economic independence.  The programme meant dealing with banks, bureaucracy and competiton.  Ruiz and his associates doggedly promoted their success, finally seeing it adapted to other regions.  It's an object lesson for many rural farmers in the developing world.

Drayton's methods require a draconian approach to assessing ideas, programmes and the people behind them.  Once an idea is presented, the obstacles and restraints must be planned for.  A good suggestion isn't enough.  The people seeking Ashoka's support must demonstrate they can follow through and adapt to changing conditions or outright opposition.  From Brazil, through Africa, into the Subcontinent of India and its neighbours, back through Europe and North America, his evalution teams are constantly assessing, inquiring, and selecting those individuals and their plans for improvement.  Money, of course, must be stretched to the limit.  Government funding is a bane to most NGOs, since too many conditions are generally tied to resource allocation.  Drayton's entrepreneurs must demonstrate their proposals are good enough to use with local resources.  Only that way can they be launched into a project with Ashoka support.  These projects aren't limited to developing countries alone.  Bornstein shows how these examples may be applied to any community feeling their social advancement is under restraint.  The models are clearly spelled out in detail.  The only thing lacking in your community is the individual who can clearly identify the problems and find innovative ways of implementing the solutions.  Is that you?  [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada

</review>
<review>

This book has 15 or so case studies on how people, all Ashoka fellows, made significant social impacts on their part of the world.  It also spends a significant numbers of pages describing the Ashoka program itself; It is kind of a "cheerleader" for Ashoka which is less interesting than the case studies.  The case studies are very detailed and give uninformed readers like me an understanding of how other people have created successful social programs that benefitted their society.  If that is what you are looking for, I highly recommend this book

</review>
<review>

This book has a great title, but somewhat lackluster content. The book is really not so much about changing the world, and more about one organization in particular. In addition to focusing on an organization, I find that the stories of the people *in* the organization take up as much of the book as actual stories about people they've found who have made or are making a difference in the world.  It's not necessarily bad-there are plenty of inspiring people and stories to motivate you. It just takes the book a long time to get to them and seems to deviate often

</review>
<review>

David Bornstein captures the spirit, determination and passion of social entrepreneurs from all around the globe.

I was especially delighted to read about my friend and mentor Bill Drayton, of the Ashoka Foundation. I met Bill in Rio de Janeiro in 1989.  During our meeting Bill introduced me to Ashoka, and the stories of the social entrepreneurs they supported. It was my introduction to this wonderful world of committed people.

Bill Drayton encouraged me to create my own foundation, and for many years it supported Ashoka Fellows world wide. David Bornstein has encapsulated for me the world of Social Entrepreneurs and their "Power of New Ideas" in a vivid and dramatic manner -- more so even than my personal visits to my Ashoka Fellows ever did.

This is a powerful read!

Joe Miller
The Joseph F Miller Foundation
http://jfmillerfoundation.org

</review>
<review>

This book is an easy read.  Great book with stories about people who are having a major impact in the world.  Unfortunately we don't read about them often enough in the newspaper and periodicals.  Very inspiring.  Enjoy

</review>
<review>

Is there hope?  Can we change the world?  Is globalization a benefit to the world or a curse?  The western world look at globalization as a curse (the loss of wealth and power status) while the rest of the world looks at it as hope for life and quality of life.  Social Entrepreneurs have these and many other issues to contend with.  This a good book and highly recommended.  Also, Stop Working by Rohan Hall which deals with globalization and entrepreneurship is an excellent companion book that also deals with these challenges

</review>
<review>

The "How to" in the title is deceptive. This isn't yet another book that advises you to conserve electricity in your home, or to donate to charities, or to volunteer at local homeless shelters. This is effectively a collection of short nonfiction stories telling about many personal accounts of social entrepreneurs: the sort of people who devote their entire lives to actually *go out there* to make changes happen, who create organizations, not people who just support organizations. These are stories about people who actually went out and helped construct solar panels to bring electricity to rural Brazil, people who actually run a street-youth safety hotline in India. These are in a very different league from things like conserving water by turning off the faucet when you brush your teeth. These aren't things that anybody can just do in their spare time. A lot of the cases of social entrepreneurship described in this book are things I haven't even heard of before. There are grayscale photos of the people and events. There's a lot of statistics. Both defeats and victories are described. This seems to be a college textbook, not light reading. At the back are extensive lists of reference websites.

Suggestions: if possible, get it from the library before buying it, to decide if you're ready for owning this heavy of reading. Expect to read a few chapters at a time, not in a single sitting. You probably don't need to take notes to keep track of it. This would be an excellent book to have a friend read also, so that you can discuss the significance of the anecdotes told in it.

</review>
<review>

How to Change the World... is a fantastic book! I founded Projectchild.net and this book has provided me so so so much insight and excitement.  David, has out done himself, thank you Harry for gifting me this book! I will gift this book to all my social entrepreneurial friends.

A must read for people who desire to change the world.

Bravo,  Ar

</review>
<review>

This book is great! There are some parts in the book that had me crying I was laughing so hard! My dog even came over to see what was wrong with me! :) So I definately recommend this book.

</review>
<review>

Another funny girly story from Sophie Kinsella.  The heroine is a work-obsessed, intelligent, perfectionist, go-getter career gal -- a female archetype that I could totally relate to (smile!)  She makes an (apparently) fatal mistake which sends her into a tailspin.  She lands herself in a bizarre and funny predicament.  I liked this book because it shows how we women can transform ourselves into whatever we set our minds to

</review>
<review>

The author of the Shopaholic series features a workaholic in this hysterically funny book.

High-powered London attorney Samantha Sweeting has just learned she has been made partner in the prestigious firm of Carter Spink, when she discovers a form on her desk that was to be filed with the court weeks ago. How could she have missed this deadline?

The results are disastrous. She notifies that bank and the firms concerned, realizes that nothing can avert the loss of 50 million pounds. In shock, she staggers out of the building and walks until she discovers she is at Paddington Station, where she boards a train and ends up in a tiny bucolic village--after imbibing several drinks on the train.

There she approaches a mansion intending to ask for water and some aspirin, when the homeowners take her for an applicant for the housekeeper position of. She stays on, thinking "what the heck," she can do this. However, Samantha did not know that vacuum cleaners have bags, or how to operate her oven or washing machine, and quickly she is in over her head.

Hunky gardener Nathanial enlists the help of his mother to teach Sam the basics of cooking and cleaning, and he tries hard not to laugh at her attempts. Eventually Sam uncovers the truth about the mislaid document and the firms involved, and when she informs her bosses at Carter Spink, they decide they want her back.

Read the book to find out if she wants that life back--the 7-day-a-week, 12-hour-a-day-work schedule, with no time for friends or family--or what happens.

Armchair Interviews says: Good story for fun reading

</review>
<review>

Fantastic, fantastic, fantastic. I bought this book to read on a flight from the UK to Australia and it had me laughing so loud I was quite an embarrassment! I'm not a 'chick lit' kind of girl but this was a real exception. As an author myself I really admire the talent it takes to write a book where almost every line makes you smile or laugh. Pure escapism, very charming and such good fun, and somehow it also manages to be a book which makes you take stock of what really counts in life. This should be compulsory reading for every workaholic - and certainly every lawyer. Enjoy

</review>
<review>

I love every book that Sophie Kinsella has written. Her books are entertaining and engaging. Her character development in this book (as well as all of her other books) is excellent - I feel like the main character is a good friend of mine becasue I know her so well. I HIGHLY recommend this book

</review>
<review>

I never thought that I would read a book with a title like this. But after I started reading it, I just couldn't put it down! I laughed out loud a lot when reading this. I would recommed this book to any woman I know

</review>
<review>

Samantha seems a lot like Becky.  A young woman whose life is very out of balance and doesn't know how to face up to the consequences of her decisions.  Instead of staying at the firm and working out her "mistake," she runs away.  This is just like Becky hiding her bills.  And then she gets a totally implausible job, because she can't tell the truth - again like Becky.  Samantha doesn't tell the truth until the very end when the media coverage forces her to.

I agree that the firm would never have taken her back; they probably would have viewed her as a former lawyer who had a nervous breakdown and was in need of psychiatric care.  Samatha, like Becky at times, seems somewhat manic, in that she's frantic somtimes and makes major life decisions on impulse in a state of agitation.  just like Becky when she rushes after her sister on a hike for which she is totally unprepared.  Lithium, anyone?

I don't have an opinion on the housewife/lawyer "controversy," but I do think Kinsella's protagonists need to grow up

</review>
<review>

I picked this off the new nonfiction shelf at the library to see what a writer might have to say about the stage of life I'm in too. As others have said Atlas remains, I think, too wrapped up in the expectations of his privileged class--envying classmates who made more money, while living in Manhattan, sending his kids to private schools and maintaining a home in Vermont--methinks he doth kvetch too much.

Just because you have enough skill to make a living as a writer doesn't mean you have anything interesting to say. Honesty alone is not enough if your story is not compelling. Atlas does well with biographies but as autobiography, other than the chapter about his father, this is too self-pitying and more irritating to me at least, simply too mundane.

He has an opportunity for adventure--he mentions going to Tibet for example but derides it as trendy "Jewddhism"--too "commonplace" to consider. Commonplace?! How about staying home and crabbing about your life--that's commonplace. His age doesn't stop him from seeking excitement and engaging the world in new ways, but he'd rather stay on his familiar turf and ponder his limitations. And even a good writer can't make that choice a compelling read. Like reviewer "ts" I was reminded of Woody Allen. Both rarely stray from their Manhattan comfort zone. Which, fair enough as a personal choice, but any work produced as a result is unlikely to tell us much new. We all have these stories, many more interesting than his.

Take some risks James. Learn to scuba dive. Visit the Taj Mahal and Angkor Wat. Ride a bicycle around Mexico. Move to New Zealand. Seek some passion. Get outside yourself and your cocoon. Rage a little bit. Then write a book!

</review>
<review>


In one of the central chapters of this work James Atlas writes about the concept of 'life-failure'. He describes the moment of his at the age of fifty being fired, and being forced to consider himself as someone who has not made it in life. He then goes on , somewhat more interestingly, to talk about failures in Literature and comes to what may be the greatest modern literay example of all, Willy Loman, the failure in Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman." He considers how great literature provides a kind of recognition and understanding of our own situation that moves in the deepest way. At the closing of the first performance of 'Death of a Salesman' the audience did not applaud. It sat stunned. Grown men bent over in their seats , many of them weeping. They recognized in the failure of Willy Loman failures that they had known, perhaps their own, perhaps their fathers'.
Atlas tells in this work of keeping a kind of score-card in which he would follow the professional lives of his classmates, and see who had gotten where in the ' wealth' and 'fame 'derby. A self- confessed child of the lower- middle class( His grandfather was a multi-lingual druggist, and his father a physician in Chicago).It becomes clear to him in his middle -age, the age of closing possibilities and horizons, that he will not get to to the top of the greasy pole. And in this sense be a failure, or perhaps what he regards many to be a 'thwarted life'.
Yet looking from outside at the life and career of Atlas' one could conceivably paint a very different picture. He is a very well-known biographer who has written what to this point is the definitive work on his literary - hero Saul Bellow.He wrote an earlier much praised biography of Delmore Schwartz. He has worked for and written for major literary venues - 'The New York Times Book Review', 'The Atlantic', 'The New Yorker'. He has founded his own publishing line of 'literary biography' supported by Wall Street maven Thomas Lipper. He has thus in the eyes of most achieved a career success well beyond the average.
But if his dream was the dream Harold Bloom says is characteristic of literary inheritors, to somehow overcome the great inspiring predecessor , of course , he has not done that. Bellow, however his life and character whittled down a bit in Atlas' biography is a literary giant of the American twentieth- century. Bellow's kind of success, even in portraying ' failure' as in his depiction of Atlas'most beloved Bellow character , Herzog , is another level of emotional intensity in his work. Bellow in fact with Tommy Wilhem in 'Seize the Day' makes a kind of intense universal cry of pain in 'failure' which certainly has few literary equals anywhere.
Atlas is an insightful , often moving and interesting writer about his own life. He appears to be a decent commendable son, husband, father and human being. He has produced literary work of very high quality. But very very few are true giants, and the bell tolls even for them.
This is a very good book, but it is doubtful that it will provide the answer to his heart's deepest need.



</review>
<review>

Having been a contemporary of Atlas's at Harvard nearly 40 years ago, I was pulled back to that time when we spent hours in the womblike campus setting --priviliged to fantasize about where we were headed. In the blink of an eye, here we are, still trying to make sense of our lives -- but now dealing with all these losses of opportunities, loved ones, energy, dreams and illusions.  Atlas hits all the big issues -- death of parents, loss of job, stiffening joints, anxieties about money and marriage and status amongst peers.  It's poignant and provocative and, as Atlas has himself done many times, I, too, teared up -- facing up to the reality that there's likely a lot more living behind me than ahead.  All in all, a wonderful collection of thoughtful, poignant, sweet, and revealing musings on the beginning of the endgame from a guy who writes about the kind of stuff we'd prefer to ignore, but know we need to reflect on

</review>
<review>

I enjoyed this book.  It is well-written, literate in its allusions, sometimes amusing and always modest.  Yet it disappoints because ultimately it is no more nourishing or exciting than "comfort food" for those of us who are mired in middle age and welcome any reassurance that on issues of money, sex, health, and personal loss we are little different from others in our feelings of insecurity and diminished expectations.  There is little drama or development in this book.  It also would have been improved had the author been willing to delve deeper, to be less coy and a little more concrete.  Thus, by way of small example, Atlas might have informed the reader that he went to college at Harvard and not forced the reader to deduce it from his many references to Cambridge and the 25th Reunion Report.  This might have begun to explain some of his initial delusions of grandeur and his subsequent disappointments

</review>
<review>

Sharp,and witty while at the same time casting a warm and gentle gaze at the daily trials and tribulations of our baby-boomer generation, James Atlas captures the essence of what it means to reach that defining decade. His chapters speak to those of us whose parents are aging and whose children have left the nest; those of us who think of ourselves as successful until we face the reality of the New York real estate market as we attempt to downsize and divest ourselves of the "suburban" mini-estates where we raised our children. I laughed out loud,while calling out to my husband "He's talking about us.

</review>
<review>

For any boomer who admits to being middle aged, James Atlas' book is a must-read.  Atlas is an ace at capturing feelings, painting relevant flashbacks, describing current emotions and perspectives -- all of which makes this "writer's writer" a pleasure to read.  But most of all, the book is a gem because of Atlas' frankness and candor: he lays bare his feelings and emotions which only serves to comfort those who have reached that point when, as Bill Clinton said on a recent birthday, there are more yesterdays than tomorrows.

This may sound like a downer of a book but, ironically, it's actually one of the best "handbooks" you'll find on coping with what can be a immensely challenging period of life

</review>
<review>

An insightful look into a life, with lots of universal truths to be had.  While some of the essays threatened to lapse into tedium from time to time, they were all ultimately rescued with honest insights into life.   Especially poignant were the chapters on the death of the author's father and on failure.  There was much in these essays that spoke to me.  I'd recommend this book to a friend

</review>
<review>


Age isn't any barrier to finding enjoyment and information in listening to "My Life In The Middle Ages" as read by the author.  Former editor for the New York Times Book Review, Atlas has an impressive resume', which includes founding Atlas Books and writing for The New Yorker and The Atlantic.

If you're still enjoying your salad days, Atlas will share a few secrets with you that the years may bring.  Those in mid life will find much with which to identify in the experiences the author has remembered in his own life and in the lives of  others.

Give a listen as Atlas evaluates himself at this point in time.  He is honest about his accomplishments and sometimes poignantly candid about his disappointments - what he has not done and what he now knows he will never do.  Has he done as he might have wished as a young man, as a husband, a father?

The death of Atlas's  father had an enormous impact upon him, perhaps a glimpse of what the future held.  Whatever the case, "My Life In The Middle Ages" is a compilation of what some have gleaned from their life journeys - well worth hearing.

- Gail Cooke






</review>
<review>

One of the best books I've read on Iraq by someone with firsthand knowledge of the country, especially the Kurds, and an excellent writing style.  Galbraith worked for the U.S. government for 25 years and knows many of the players and issues well

</review>
<review>

I think that Ritter has it about right about what is going on in Iraq at the present time.  If I have a critisism about the contents of this book it would be thast the author seems to be biased in favor of the Kurds.

</review>
<review>

Peter Galbraith has written a compelling account of what went wrong in Iraq. I would have given him 5 stars but he defends Chalabi too much and he is an advocate of the Kurds.  I too admire the Kurds but they also have their faults.  Right now they speak with one voice but they have to prove that this will last.
Also, I detect some sour grapes because he has been left out in the cold by the Bush Administration.  Having been left out of course speaks for him!
Everything else in the book is right on target.  He certaionly would have done a better job than the Yahoos we sent to Iraq.  I fully agree with his assessment of Wolfowitz and his ilk.  His recommendation to in effect partition Iraq into three parts is probably the only viable alternative to  utter chaos.  That solution too has risks but probably is the best bet.
Reinhard Schuman

</review>
<review>

Not only a complete history of the area and the country, but Galbraith suggests the most rational way out for the U.S. and the peoples living in Iraq

</review>
<review>

This book sets out the failed itelligence and the failed policy that have lead to end of the US moral leadership in the world.  Hard hitting and full of stuff that I wish we knew at the time the decisions were made.  In future years this will be a resouce on how we were lead to do so many things that were wrong

</review>
<review>

Peter Galbraith offers his own professional diplomatic experience as insight into a way out of the quagmire of Iraq.  He has been there, mainly in the Kurdish region to the north, and has spoken with and dealt with Kurd leaders.  The Kurds suffered terribly under Saddam Hussein, but they also seem to have the vision of a cohesive way forward.  Break Iraq into separate federal regions, share the oil, and forget about a strong central government in Baghdad.  Not a solution much shared by the U.S. government, but then, the Bush administration paid no attention to the different histories and cultures of the Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis (not to mention other minorities) of Iraq before they invaded in March 2003.  At this distance in time, in November 2006, it's pretty obvious that a unified Iraq in the same mold as before the war is now out of the question.  It could be too late for anything but more chaos, but we should listen to the Kurds, as Galbraith suggests.  It could be the only way out for us, and for the Iraqis

</review>
<review>

This is an outstanding book that gives the history and context to the Iraq war by a person who has extensive experience in the region. This book is easy to read and is a must read for every voter before Nov 7

</review>
<review>

Peter Galbraith considers it is time to break up a country which he describes as 'destabilised by efforts to hold it together.'

Firstly, he reminds us that Iraq's current form reflects borders drawn by the British when the Ottoman Empire was carved up after World War I.  This is important in order to try to understand both the history of the disparate groups of people who inhabit Iraq, and the current situation in that country.

Secondly, Peter Galbraith is very critical of the Bush Administration's flawed invasion plans. This will probably polarise readers.  I'd suggest that readers try to look beyond their own views about whether the invasion of Iraq was justified to whether the objectives articulated as a consequence of the invasion were ever realistic.

The real value of this book, though, is its interpretation of events in Iraq since the end of 2003. Those of us interested in the future of this part of the world need to try to understand the history of the peoples and the dynamics of power in the region.

Recommended as a good and accessible starting point for those interested in both the past and the future of this troubled region.

Jennifer Cameron-Smit

</review>
<review>

I gave this book 2 stars because the first 2 fifths of it were good.The rest stunk.
As more eloquent reviewers have mentioned Galbraith refers to himself and his accomplishments almost as much as he takes cheap shots at Republican administrations. Innuendo, nitpicking minutiae drip from the pages - his rant about the inappropriateness of some administration speech writer (without input from the State Department - oh no!) referring to an "axis of evil" incorrectly because an axis must be a straight line is one example. The pages ooze with Galbraith's liberalism and elitist arrogance as he hypocritically spotlights the arrogance of others.
He writes continuously about himself. He acknowledges he feels the overthrow of Saddam is justified and then complains about the way it was done. All the while acknowledging most people are better off in Iraq today.
He actually has the balls to say that the nuclear developments in N. Korea and Iran are somehow the fault of the invasion of Iraq.
In the acknowledgements it becomes clear that Galbraith is writing homage to his dad who wrote a "little book" called "How to Get Out of Vietnam." He even admits his lecture series was called "How to get out of Iraq."
Armchair Generals and Presidents abound in the printed page. Unless you are looking to reconfirm your own administration-bashing prejudices, I recommend you save your money and check it out of the library; it will ease the pain of your wasted time.

</review>
<review>


Peter Galbraith, the first US Ambassador to Croatia, has written a scorching indictment of the US/British war in Iraq. He describes "an Administration too arrogant to listen to experts, so at war with its own State Department as to ignore its professional guidance, and ignorant or indifferent to international law."

He writes of Bush, "It isn't that he failed to consider some possible adverse consequences of the war, but rather that he missed all of them. ... Insurgency, civil war, Iranian strategic triumph, the breakup of Iraq, an independent Kurdistan, military quagmire."

The unfortunate British and American troops are not doing any good there. The occupation is not succeeding. As Galbraith notes, "The Iraq War has failed to serve a single major U.S. foreign policy objective. It has not made the United States safer; it has not advanced the war on terror; it has not made Iraq a stable state; it has not spread democracy to the Middle East; and it has not enhanced U.S. access to oil. ... A war undertaken in part to undermine Iran's Islamic republic has given Tehran its greatest strategic gain in four centuries."

Galbraith concludes, "No purpose is served by a prolonged American presence anywhere in Arab Iraq." As Dick Cheney rightly warned in 1993, "Now you can say, well, you should have gone to Baghdad and gotten Saddam, I don't think so. I think if we had done that we would have been bogged down there for a very long period of time with the real possibility we might not have succeeded." The occupation's presence is worsening the Iraqi people's suffering: it is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

So what should we do? Galbraith suggests that Britain and the USA should stop pretending that they can create a unified and democratic Iraq. He urges them to withdraw their troops and hand over control of Kurdistan to the Kurds, of the Sunni governorates to the Sunnis and of the Shia governorates to the Shia.

</review>
<review>

Knowledge Workers are those people whose main professional output is Knowledge. Because all work requires some knowledge, the boundary can be arbitrary. So, depending on where you draw the line, Knowledge Workers represent � to 1/3 of the labor force in the developed world. Doctors, lawyers, researchers, consultants, and computer programmers all share this trait.
We saw (in Corporate Longitude by Leif Edvinsson and Intangibles by Baruch Lev) that the market value of all publicly traded companies exceeded the market value of their tangible assets sometime in the early 90's. This gap has grown ever since. We assume that Knowledge accumulated inside a company is responsible for a good part of this difference. Ergo, our Knowledge Workers represent a very important, if mostly intangible, asset.
Because their main output is Knowledge, you can't quite measure what they are doing. If one of your best Knowledge Workers says she has her best ideas in the shower, you have no choice but to take her word for it. Knowledge Workers resist most controls on their quality and productivity. Sometimes this resistance is built into the rules of their professional associations (check out the rules and regulations of any legal or medical association and you'll witness this). Most Knowledge Workers hate bureaucracy and hierarchy. Some Knowledge Workers do not run on money: they prefer to be compensated with, for example, easier access to Knowledge.
Trouble is, our management models have changed little since the Industrial Revolution, so they're uniquely inadequate for managing Knowledge Workers. In fact, because the person who manages Knowledge Workers is in most cases a Knowledge Worker him/herself, this suggests that the ideal management model for Knowledge Workers must contain a "Player/Coach" flavor.
Enter Prof. Davenport, who has dedicated the past several years to the study of Knowledge Workers. This book distills most of what he has learned, and has a wealth of references to those who need more detail.
Knowledge Workers cannot easily be grouped into one category. One important lesson throughout the book is that, when coming to grips with the Knowledge Workers inside your company, you must segment them into different groups. After all, because Knowledge can be invented, discovered, packaged, distributed, or consumed, each Knowledge Worker you deal with will be active in one or more, but rarely all, of these activities. Prof Davenport proposes a basic taxonomy for this, with two dimensions: the level of interdependence among Knowledge Workers, and the level of Complexity of the work itself. This in turn spawns four basic models:
*	Transaction Model (low interdependence, low complexity): The Knowledge Worker is essentially by him/herself and most of the situations he/she faces are repetitive. This is the only segment where "scripting" (ie, standard, pre-rehearsed speeches covering the most common situations) is effective. A good example of this is the 0800 customer-support people in a software company.
*	Integration Model (high interdependence, low complexity): The task is repeatable but integration is critical, both intra-team and across disciplines. In this segment, the key is to establish tight process routines and standards. The best example of this is geologist/geophysicist/drilling engineer teams in oil and gas exploration.
*	Expert Model (high complexity, low interdependence): Performance here is highly reliant on a person who contains most if not all the necessary Knowledge. Still, these people might profit from easy access to databases containing similar situations that took place in the past. Trial attorneys, systems analysts, and some types of medical doctors are excellent examples of this model.
*	Collaboration Model (high complexity, high interdependence):  People in these teams feel they're improvising all the time, when in fact there's an enormous degree of judgement in every decision made. This is the most difficult type of Knowledge-Worker team to improve in any organized way. Structured-deals teams in Investment Banks are probably the best example of this.
He is the first to admit that the above model is only a very basic first approach. When you do this in your company, you may find two or three of the above. Also, look out for hybrid situations. For example, a neurosurgeon fits the Expert model (without him, there's no surgery), but his supporting team (nurses, anesthesiologists, etc) fits the Collaboration model.
Prof. Davenport strongly encourages people to quickly move beyond the above models and develop their own Knowledge Worker segmentation models, and then to develop and use different management, performance-metrics, office-space, recruitment, remuneration, retention, succession, and IT-support strategies for each segment.
One set of research findings described in the book will not surprise most of us: business-process reengineering, a consulting buzzword in the past decade, has probably done more harm than good to the Knowledge Worker community.
The book also dispels some myths about Knowledge Workers with some hard research performed by Prof. Davenport and colleagues: for example, surprisingly few of them prefer to tele-commute (explanation: interaction among Knowledge Workers is critical to their success). Another interesting example is that they're not as much into electronic gadgets as we, coming from a geek stereotype, all thought.
Because it summarizes the author's past publications and research, the writing can be of variable quality, and progress from one chapter to the next is not exactly seamless, but neither of these foibles is enough to detract from the overall impact of a very timely and important book.
Some people may be offended by the summary at the end of each chapter; they didn't bother me, knowing there are so many print-challenged executives around us.
Highly recommended. Executive coaches dealing with technical teams may find this book invaluable.


</review>
<review>

I was able to go cover to cover in about 5 minutes.  If you manage people that use their brains to do their work and you have no idea how to understand, manage and motivate them then this book might help you out a bit.  I found it to be off-topic for me as I was hoping that it was going to be written for the people who Think for a Living rather than their managers.

</review>
<review>

This is a fine, occasionally frustrating book. It is frustrating for the same reason that it is so badly needed: business is just starting to figure out what it means to compete in a knowledge-based economy. Knowledge work is tremendously important, but only partially understood. This volume, which mixes practical advice with worksite studies, is a good stepping stone toward comprehending knowledge work and the people who accomplish it. Author Thomas H. Davenport is honest enough to admit what isn't known, however he delivers what is known clearly. He explains various organizational schema that are applicable, but not rigid. He provides examples, sharing personal and organizational stories that illustrate both success and failure in knowledge work. We warmly recommend this book to knowledge workers, those who manage knowledge workers and business leaders who are planning for the future.

</review>
<review>

Knowledge workers are innovators and often driving forces of a company's product line and services: they are IT specialists and planners and you rely on them in your business: but are they delivering as much as they can? Knowledge management expert Thomas Davenport argues many companies don't maximize their productivity because they apply rigid management formulas to their workforce. His Thinking For A Living: How To Get Better Performance And Results From Knowledge Workers identifies four major categories of knowledge workers and provides a format for matching each category with management strategies which encourage optimum performance.

</review>
<review>

In a sense, everyone must "think for a living" in response to questions, problems, opportunities, etc. Davenport focuses his attention on "how to get better performance and results from knowledge workers" and I presume to suggest that everyone involved in an organization's operations should be or helped to become  productive "knowledge workers," whatever their specific duties and responsibilities may be. Those who have read any of Davenport's previous books -- notably Working Knowledge and Information Ecology co-authored with Laurence Prusak, The Attention Economy co-authored with John Beck, What's the Big Idea?, Mission Critical -- already know that Davenport is among the most perceptive and eloquent business thinkers on the subject of knowledge management. In my opinion, Thinking for a Living is his most valuable contribution to that subject thus far.

He carefully organizes his material within nine chapters. Throughout his lively and informative narrative, he responds to questions such as these:

* "What's a knowledge worker, anyway?"

*  How do knowledge workers differ from others?

*  So what?

*  Which interventions, measures, and experiments in "knowledge work" are most effective?

*  Which are the most important knowledge work processes?

*  Which organizational technology is most appropriate to knowledge workers?

*  How to develop their individual capabilities?

*  What must be invested in knowledge workers' networks and learning?

*  Which physical work environment will help to maximize knowledge worker performance?

*  How best to manage knowledge workers?

Of special interest to me is the matrix of four knowledge work types (illustrated in figure 2-1 on page 27) which Davenport identified during a research project on knowledge management in which he was involved with Jeanne Harris and Leigh Donaghue. He offers a classification structure for knowledge-intensive processes which range from individual actors to collaborative groups: Integration Model (e.g. systematic, repeatable work), Collaboration Model (e.g. improvisational work), Expert Model (e.g. Judgment-oriented work), and Transaction Model (e.g. routine work). Of course, different kinds of knowledge work require different kinds of knowledge workers. Effective managers are those who get the most appropriate worker in alignment with each task.

As Davenport explains, "A job in which knowledge is created should be treated very differently from one in which it is applied." For example, "Those who find existing knowledge need to understand knowledge requirements, search for it among multiple sources, and pass it along to the requester or user." Other workers create new knowledge. Still others ("packagers") put together knowledge created by others. Knowledge workers can also be distinguished by the types of ideas with which they deal. "My view, however, is that the organizations that will be most successful in the future will be those in which it's everyone's job to be creating and using both big and small ideas."

With regard to high-performance knowledge workers, they tend to be more effective and efficient experiential learners, seeming "to get more learning out of a single experience and continually updated their skills, expertise, and social awareness as a natural part of their work." Also, many high-performers attributed problem-solving abilities to the acquisition of a broad base of knowledge. Moreover, the high-performers Davenport and his associates studied "often had unusual, and often somewhat illogical, career paths. However, they repeatedly told us in various ways that these different jobs provided them with unique perspectives and expertise in solving problems." They characterized themselves as "calculated" risk takers but "when they do make a decision to pursue a given area of expertise, the high performers invest heavily, and seem to have a `compass' for personal learning. They often described themselves as highly focused on the domains they decided to pursue." High performers retain knowledge in domains already mastered while "screening out" irrelevant information.

Obviously, high performers are the most valuable of all knowledge workers. Therefore, the highest priorities for knowledge managers is to hire and then develop those who are either high performers or seem most likely to become one. How? Recognize and accommodate their needs for (a) important personal relationships, (b) accomplishing worthwhile tasks in a timely manner, and (c) proactive reciprocity re information and opportunities. According to Davenport, "perhaps the most important point to consider is the interrelated nature of these practices of high performers." Davenport agrees with Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Warren Bennis that the most desirable, knowledge-oriented culture is characterized by "the Five Fs": fast, flexible, focused, friendly, and fun. To establish and then sustain what Davenport describes as "Good Managerial Hygiene in the Knowledge Age,"offers a list of eight traits that apply to all kinds of workers and organizations. (These are discussed on pages 204-206.) It is imperative that managers understand these and other performance-related factors and how they interact with each other in the real world.

This review is somewhat longer than others I have composed recently because I have found so much of great value in Davenport's book. Also, because I agree with him and Peter Drucker (among others) that the fate of advanced economies depends on making knowledge workers more productive. Davenport concludes, "There is no business or economic issue that is more important to our long-term competitiveness and standard of living."

Decades ago, Drucker said something to the effect "If you don't have customers, you don't have a business." I presume to paraphrase that, suggesting that "If you don't have productive knowledge workers, you don't have a chance."

</review>
<review>

Thomas H. Davenport holds the President's Chair in Information Technology and Management at Babson College. He is Director of Research for Babson Executive Education and an Accenture Fellow. He is the author/co-author/editor of ten books, including `Working Knowledge: How Organization Manage What They Know' (1997). This book was published in 2005 and consists of 9 chapters.

The first chapter provides the backbone for the remainder of the book. Davenport provides a definition: "Knowledge workers have high degrees of expertise, education, or experience, and the primary purpose of their jobs involves the creation, distribution, or application of knowledge." Most of us are knowledge workers, who think for a living. In the second chapter, the author argues that not all knowledge workers are alike. "Therefore, an approach to classifying knowledge workers may help organizations determine how best to manage, measure, and improve their work." Although Davenport has come to the conclusion that the perfect matrix does not exist, understanding the distinctions among knowledge workers begins to provide a basis for choosing among them. The third chapter describes the subject of improvement or interventions in general. "The dominant approach has been to rely on their individual brains alone, rather than on any approach to improving work." In the fourth chapter, Davenport talks about the roles of process and measurement. The process-based approach to improving performance "is an obvious candidate for improving knowledge work activities... knowledge workers have not often been the subject to this sort of analysis." The fifth chapter describes technology as a means of improving knowledge work. Chapter 6 focuses on technology, information, and knowledge management at the personal level. The seventh chapter describes the social networks of high-performing knowledge workers. Chapter 8 focuses on one of the least understood factors that affect knowledge worker performance, which is the physical work environment. The final chapter focuses on how to be an effective manager of knowledge work and workers. "I'd argue that the growth of knowledge work is the single most important factor driving the future of management."

Yes, this is a good book. It discusses the essential attributes in knowledge work in detail and provides a useful addition to his 1997-bestseller `Working Knowledge', which served as an introduction into knowledge work. The author provides handy summaries of the recommendations at the end of each chapter. Just one complaint, it does not cover much in relation to knowledge workers' financial compensation. Highly recommended to people interested in knowledge management, whereby we need to keep in mind that most of us are knowledge workers who think for a living

</review>
<review>

I've been thinking for my living for 30 years so I found it useful to get the perspective of a leading management consultant and thinker. Davenport has lived through business reengineering, been part of a large consulting organization and seen inside many corporations, so he knows the subject. His book is written in a conversational style, so it's easy to read. Its content is useful and it contains some valuable insights. In particular, it builds on and fully acknowledges the work of Peter Drucker, who coined the term "knowledge worker," as well as other thought leaders, which is refreshing, since so many authors do not acknowledge that they "stand on the shoulders of giants" and thereby deprive their readers of valuable context and background to their work.

Davenport's book doesn't, in fact, contain as much actionable advice as Drucker's, but it does have some important new findings and new ideas, and brings Drucker's advice up to date. The main conclusion is the same: if we don't improve the effectiveness of our management of people and knowledge, we will find our jobs going to low-cost competitors overseas. However the focus is different. Davenport focuses on knowledge management and particularly personal information management. The substance of his work is based on his consulting experience and particularly on a number of surveys, including one evaluating how 400 people in four types of organization found information and learned to do their work -- and another looking at how 400 individuals managed their personal information. In both cases, a smaller number of highly effective individuals were interviewed to understand in detail how they achieved their results.

From these studies and Davenport's consulting experience come the following conclusions:
- Knowledge work is extremely diverse and it's necessary to classify the various types of knowledge work and manage them differently
- There is no universal measure of output, but any measure needs to include both the quantity and quality of work -- in other words, billable hours is not a sufficient measure in itself
- To improve work it is important to take more account of current practice ("as-is" model) than is generally done, in addition to focusing on designed process ("to-be" model)
- Individual information management is poised to take off, but technology to support it is unproven (other than email and spreadsheets)
- Highly effective workers get most of their valuable information from their social networks
- The work environment is important to productivity, and people should be given some choices, but there are no easy answers. For example, people prefer closed offices but communicate better in open offices

These conclusions should be considered by any manager or individual who wants to be effective and improve productivity, but they don't constitute actionable advice. In fact, all the pieces of advice in the book are more guiding principles than actionable programs. For example, here is Davenport's advice for improving work process:
- Involve the knowledge workers in the design of the new process.
- Watch them do their work...Devote as much attention to the "as is" as the "to be."
- Talk to knowledge workers about why they do the things they do.
- Enlist analysts who have actually done the work in question.
- Exercise some deference. Treat experienced workers as real experts.
- Use the Golden Rule of Process Management. Ask yourself, "Would I want to have my job analyzed and redesigned in the fashion that I'm doing it to others?"
As someone who has managed process reengineering efforts, I'm sure  that these recommendations were hard-won and embody considerable thought as well as pain. Davenport's recommendations make as good a checklist as any, but the job of designing productivity improvement program is left squarely to the reader. This is as it should be, because surely knowledge work is too diverse for any universal improvement process or measure to be applicable.

Overall, Davenport does a good job of capturing his knowledge and passing it on. The book is thought-provoking and contains some useful ideas. It makes a good case for the need to get better performance at work and provides recommendations at the end of each chapter that are a useful summary of the content. However, the book is lacking in specific, actionable recommendations and ends inconclusively without tying all the information together. Its conversational style is easy to read, but it makes the book too long and repetitive and actually obscures some of the thinking. I'd recommend the book, but if you can only read one book, I suggest you first read Drucker's timeless work, "The Effective Executive," on the art of effective management, which I found just as relevant and more inspiring.

Graham Lawes

</review>
<review>

It's a business book...don't have such high expectations.  Mr. Davenport has put together a well-edited survey of knowledge workers, technology-based knowledge management and management of technology workers.  It is not terriby detailed and is not a boring academic text and it does not give you lots of program suggestions and checklists and most importantly you can come away from this with  at least a few new notions of how to manage corporate and personal knowledge and perhaps a better-based perspective of managing yourself and your subordinates.

On the really positive side Mr. Davenport includes only one or two cartoons or charts and avoids the standard business book lead-in of telling your that his is new and revolutionary perspective.  It's worthwhile

</review>
<review>

If you manage in a high-intensity service industry and are looking for tips on how to evoke higher performance from your knowledge workers, keep searching for another book.  Take 5 minutes and read the summary at the end of the chapters; you'll quickly see that there is little practical information or depth here

</review>
<review>

As an organizational learning consultant and author myself, I found this book, Thinking for a Living, to be very helpful. Thomas Davenport has been a leader in the field of organizational learning (OL) for many years. I think this is his best contribution to the field since his co-authored book, Working Knowledge, in 1996.

Everybody knows the U.S. is now a knowledge-based economy and that the future of most companies rests upon their knowledge workers. Dr. Davenport suggests a different management style for this new breed of workers. The Industrial Age management style is no longer effective.

Davenport's work, as always, is based upon solid research. For this book, his research included one hundred companies and more than 600 knowledge workers.

Chapter 1 sets the context and offers practical definitions.

Chapter 2 looks at how knowledge workers are different from other workers. Davenport also offers his model of four types of knowledge work: transaction, integration, expert, and collaboartion. This is a very helpful chapter.

Chapter 3 offers suggestions on how to motivate knowledge workers, and how to measure their work.

Chapter 4 looks at knowledge work processes. Davenport comments about knowledge workers and re-engineering are especially relevant to today's companies.

Chapter 5 discusses the technological tools needed by knowledge workers.

Chapter 6 looks at the behaviors and attitudes of effective knowledge workers.

Chapter 7 covers development of knowledge workers. How to us personal and professional networks was especially interesting.

Chapter 8 discusses physical space in a very pramatic way. Some of Davenport's insight here are quite valuable.

Chapter 9 ties togther multiple issues that all knowledge workers and managers must consider. Davenport's insights into redesigning, improving, and the boundary expanding nature of knowledge work are important considerations for all practitioners.

This book is an outstanding contribution to the field. I recommend it in addition to my own book.

Michael Beitler, Ph.D.
Author of "Strategic Organizational Learning

</review>
<review>

Based on the advertisement at Amazon this was the book "In Search of Excellence.  It was not the book but an interview about the book.  I was very disapointed.  I still want the book on CD but feel it futal to try ordering it again on Amazon as it is a nusance to order and return.  If you can help, I would love to purchase the actual book on CD.  Thank you.
Steve Kiewit
2543 770 623

</review>
<review>

Tom Peters is a gift to this generation.  He has taken subjects that have been blown out of proportion and brought them to manageable levels.  By doing this, he has created an environment where the common business person can provide and take advantage of exceptional products and services.

The concepts he develops are easily tracked to texts developed across the years.  The illustrations and examples of these are straight from every day life and are a part of what everyone has seen.  After placing normal activities into the text book complexity and removing the shackles of academia, he is able to ask, "why doesn't everyone do this?"  There are no answers to that question, only actions to be performed

</review>
<review>

"In Search of Excellence" is an interesting book to read which was an international bestseller when it was first published in 1982. The book was written for the general public in simple and easy to understand language and explores the art and science of management used by leading companies with records of long-term profitability and continuing innovation. However, the information presented was not based on hard data (or based on faked data), which was its main weakness.

This controversial book had a widespread impact on Wall Street analysts and corporate management at its time of publication. The word Excellence appeared on many American corporate strategy statements.

However, some few years later, a significant number of the companies highlighted in this book as fine examples of Excellence, particularly high technology companies including Atari, Data General, DEC, IBM, Lanier, NCR, Wang, Xerox and others failed to produce excellent results. The book "In search of Stupidity by Merrill Chapman" chronicles some of the fallacies propounded in the book especially with respect to the high technology companies profiled in the book.

The book is divided into eight chapters which correspond with the main themes which Peters and Waterman argued were responsible for the success of the cited corporations, as follows:

* A bias for action: active decision making or getting on with the job.
* Close to the customer: learning from the people served by the business.
* Autonomy and entrepreneurship: entails nurturing innovation and promoting champions.
* Productivity through people: treating ordinary employees as a source of quality.
* Hands-on, value-driven: a management philosophy that guides everyday practice - management showing its commitment.
* Stick to the knitting: settle for the business that you know.
* Simple form, lean staff: some of the best companies have minimal overhead personnel particularly at head office.
* Simultaneous loose-tight properties: giving autonomy in shop-floor activities whilst maintaining centralised values.

The book has some interesting features as can be seen from the themes highlighted above that it is still worth buying.

</review>
<review>

A little bit on the dry side, but well worth it if you have the time. I read this one a while back and had to flip through it again to refresh my memory... and I'm glad I did. Consider this book to be the Consumer Reports/JD Power for companies back in the early 80's. It is still studied at some business schools.

The premise.

In 1982 Tom Peters and Robert Waterman released a study of 43 firms that had been rated excellent by passing a series of "business tests" they had devised. They concluded in In Search of Excellence that there were 8 keys to excellence that were shared by all 43 firms.

The 8 Keys to Excellence:

1. A bias for action
Do it. Try it. Don't waste time studying it with multiple reports and committees.

2. Customer focus
Get close to the customer. Know your customer.

3. Entrepreneurship
Even big companies act and think small by giving people the authority to take initiatives.

4. Productivity through people
Treat your people with respect and they will reward you with productivity.

5. Value oriented CEOs
The CEO should actively propagate corporate values throughout the organization.

6. Stick to the knitting
Do what you know well.

7. Keep things simple and lean
Complexity encourages waste and confusion.

8. Simultaneously centralized and decentralized
Have tight centralized control while also allowing maximum individual autonomy.

All managers / directors / CEO CTO CFO's should re-read this one

</review>
<review>

Like many groundbreaking works, this one must be seen as important when it was written for what it said then, and important now for what it has led to. Inspired, without doubt, by the monumental Drucker study of IBM, it took case analysis a step further. Its seminal ideas are found in many contemporary studies and schools or management thinking which have taken these principles yet further.

That doesn't mean it should no longer be read. But, after reading it, and to get the most from reading it, other contemporary works should be included in your reading list. For example, Jim Collins' "Built to Last" and "Good to Great", and John Roberts' "The Modern Firm" take Peters and Watermans' original insights many steps further. "In Search of Excellence" however, is unlikely to lose its status as a classic, and the broad strokes of its conclusions will continue to be recognized as timeless principles.

</review>
<review>

It's amazing how many people have read this classic Peters and Waterman book. It's even more amazing then how most companies have simply ignored the lessons illustrated within, only to continue on their dismal path of mediocrity. The basic lesson to be learned is that if your company religiously follows the core tenets outlined in the book, then your company will be the leader in your industry, because you will be the only company to do so. So why is this circa 1980's book still relevant? Because the principles apply just as much today, and they apply equally well to business of any nature. If you read this book, absorb all of the lessons, and practice them in your daily activities, then you will have learned the most important lesson in your business life

</review>
<review>

First at all, this book is not an additional well intentioned book in search of the promised land. It is rather, a kind conversation between a friendly group, where Tom Peters one of the most respectable authorities in the Management, makes an incisive analysis around a set of enrooted paradigms and fixed mental maps. Peters illuminates and allows himself to remark certain half truths we usually assume as holy word. The Managers are manacled by politicians who hinder them to display the take of decision process. On the other hand there is an exacerbated and almost blind faith in what strict and Apollonian planning, that somehow restricts the adequate flexibility in order to react to a competitive environment. There is a hidden fear for bet in favor of the innovation and experimentation. In this sense, this text was one the pioneers in what reengineering and systemic thinking would propose ten years after.

The author makes an impressive tour de force, meandering by the intersection points of several disciplines, which we tend to underrate. This reduced vision does not permit an effective response deriving in lack of competitiveness. Those were very hard years for many industries in expansion; the Japanese avalanche began to show.

This excess of trust permeated the muscular and nervous system of the American Industry and Europe learned the lesson and reacted faster, through a set of legal restrictions and imposing measures to try to reduce the silent invasion.
Of very special interest is the chapter related with the rational model. This mental rigidity plus the multiple bureaucratic gap generated since the very recent rise of prizes in 1973, froze in some way the innovative potentialities in many areas. The politic reaction worked out as a true waterfall in subsequent levels and bridled many brilliants projects.

This book is an admirable synthesis of very important age in the recent past but it maintains a prodigious modernity in despite the fact the elapsed time.

I recommend sincerely its acquiring. Fundamental reading to explore many issues in the complexity and interweaved bounds of  beating actuality.

</review>
<review>

This decades old book will probably go down as one of the most successful books ever. The ideas contained within are certainly valid for any age.

This book is about sensitivity, not sensitivity to the weeping child, but the sensitivity required to maintain a successful business. This books speaks about being not only sensitive to your customers, but being sensitive to your employees, a major problem with many companies finding it difficult to survive.

Actions speak louder than words, everyone knows it, hardly anybody does it. Empowerment, give people the means and freedom to shine. Listen, quit trying to teach the world, let the world teach you. Keep things simple, simplicity allows for focus and leads to success. Easy concepts to understand, not so easy to apply. This book is about principles.

It could certainly be argued that most of the advice given in this book is anecdotal, but this fact is also why it has lasted this long as a viable text. Those that want to argue this point are usually the same individuals that don't understand the principals and don't apply them, hence why they need this the most. Sure, most people intuitively know these principles, but how many need reminded?

People are moved more by general concepts that are flexible enough to be applied to most situations. This book provides just that

</review>
<review>

This is the second book I've read on debt management. Each had different areas of focus. Scott's here is debt portfolio management and the fundamentals of how loans work. He wants you to develop good financial habits and know exactly what's coming in and where it's going out, and he wants you to understand how interest rates add up, so you can cut through all the offers and pick the deal that's best for you. Consequently, there are worksheets to help you analyze your current position, and there's a lot of drilling on real-life examples of loans and what their true costs are. He gives you tables in the back of the book that make analysis fairly easy, but if you can handle a spreadsheet program that's a better way to go.

My view is that it only takes one good tip from a book like this to make it worthwhile reading. Mine was the bit about taking a longer lower-rate loan and then paying it off using higher installments, providing there are no prepayment penalties. In doing this you'll save a lot over a shorter-term higher-rate loan. The book also encouraged me to learn more about the financial functions in OpenOffice.

The book doesn't go much into credit repair, per se. Not much about how to deal with credit companies, details on how to clean up your credit reports, etc. That's why I think several books are the best way to get sharp on this stuff. But if you're in the credit ICU, this is not the first book you should read; perhaps the second.

Taking control of credit is no less than a survival skill in our economy. Even if one is not in crisis he should read books such as these occasionally. And if one is in crisis they can be a lifesaver

</review>
<review>

The book itself is not bad, information is good, somewhat dated in parts, but good.  The problem is, nothing new is in the book.  All of the information can be found at one of several websites like quicken.com, or bankrate.com, etc.  Most of the information is pretty common sense.  If you have to get the book or don't want to look on the internet for the information, then at least go to the library and check it out and save your money

</review>
<review>

Scott Bilker is a financial expert that turns the tables around to save money with credit.  It is hands down advice on taking a radical approach as a consumer that is in charge of your money, not credit in charge of your money.  Scott's book goes beyond  traditional ideas in fianance and offers functional finance ideas that will move you ahead in your goal to be financially independent.  It is a step in the right direction no matter where you are in your budgeting skills. Scott Bilker also provides an exciting free DebtFree email newsletter that is full of information that is understandable and realistic in pracitically to obtain fianancial freedom!  Thank you Scott

</review>
<review>

What a refreshing,knowledgeable and easy to understand book.  Many others have failed to teach us about debt and credit card management in a language we could relate to.  This book not only teaches but guides you along the way.  Intimidation of debt management and saving money is not a factor anymore, thanks to the author. It opened my eyes to many things I didn't know, or should already have knowledge of but could never understand. This book has encouraged me to take charge of my financial management and I now subscribe to the Debtsmart Newsletter, to keep the educational process going. I enjoyed the book tremendously and highly recommend it

</review>
<review>

 and quot;Credit Card and Debt Management and quot; is without a doubt the TOP OF THE LINE in its class.  After having read through several debt management books, this one assisted me the most in debt reduction and managing personal finances.  It's clear, concise and practical, with real world examples to learn from.  As a member of the U.S. military who has had to relocate every few years, the use of credit cards has been essential in maintaining an enjoyable quality of life.  This book has greatly assisted in balancing it all. Investing in  and quot;Credit Card and Debt Management and quot; is money well spent

</review>
<review>

This book is excellent! It tells you the ins and outs of how credit cards work and how to use them to your advantage. It explains how to use them wisely and dispells many of the myths that so many people still believe about credit. It gives you in very simple terms the ability to compare different credit offers. The easy to use tables in the back of the book help you figure out if an offer will help or hurt you in the long run and how long it will take to pay off accounts. I also took the advice of getting a credit report. So much on there from the past that didn't need to be there that wasn't helping my rating

</review>
<review>

CREDIT CARD AND DEBT MANAGEMENT PROVIDES A PRACTICAL STEP BY STEP EASY MANNER OF KEEPING YOUR DEBT UNDER CONTROL. THE AUTHOR APPEARS TO HAVE BEEN THERE AND GIVES YOU THE EASY WAYS TO CONSOLIDATE AND MANAGE YOUR DEBT AS WELL AS THE WAYS TO SAVE MONEY FROM CREDIT CARD MANAGEMENT TO SAVINGS WHEN PURCHASING AN AUTOMOBILE. IT'S ALL HERE FROR THE READING

</review>
<review>

I have looked around for a book with simple and candid explanations on how to use credit cards.  Bilker's format is great.  The examples can easily be applied to your next credit purchase so you can save money.  I am going to  buy a few copies for some of my relatives and friends

</review>
<review>

Buying Scott's book can help anyone. A wise choice and well thought out and written

</review>
<review>

Written like a novel, this is the true story of Charles Ponzi, the most famous con man using the "rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul" scam. I found the book to be entertaining without a dull spot. After several unsuccessful cons, he started with a small stake and took people's money and paid them 50% in 45 days. When other people heard, the number of investors mushroomed. He finally made about $8,000,000 (in the 1920's) in this pyramid scheme before he was caught

</review>
<review>

?Ponzi? chronicles the life of Charles Ponzi who is synonymous with the scam of paying off new investors with old investors money. This entertaining character would promise a 50% return on investment in 90 days.

To recruit investors Ponzi would hire people on a freelance basis, whereby they would earn 10% of new investors money. For example, if they located someone willing to invest $1000 they would earn $100. These recruiters would target both the poor and the wealthy. This caused such a surge in demand that Ponzi could afford paying off old investors with the new money that was constantly pouring in.

Each major city eventually had someone working for him, and eventually there would be thousands of investors lined up, waiting patiently for hours for the privilege of investing.

At one point major banks had to shut down because most account holders were withdrawing all of their funds to invest with Ponzi. Ponzi of course had enough money to rescue some banks from bankruptcy and became a majority shareholder.

These investments were based on a bogus business of buying and selling International Reply Coupons.

This is thrilling to read and at times what happens sounds too unbelievable to be. Other scenes are hilarious as the story moves around from one con to another. My only complaint with this book is that at times the author ?Donald Dunn? dictates what Ponzi is thinking, when there is no actual way for him to know.

This is a great addition to the ?Broadway Books Library of Larceny?. You might also want to read another book in this series titled ?Where?s the Money?, which is the autobiography of Willie Sutton, a famous bank robber.

</review>
<review>

Like a great crime drama,  and quot;Ponzi and quot; takes you down the amazing road of a simple huckster, and how close he came to making it big. I knocked it out in under 3 days; it's impossible to put down

</review>
<review>

To understand the Ponzi scheme, is to understand the basic root of all types of [cheating].  This book gives a wonderful overview of the life and times of Charles Ponzi.  It is written as a historical novel, but seems to be very well researched!  The epilogue alone is full of details concerning an important subject about whom little has been written.  I only wish the book was footnoted as to references.  Donald Dunn has done history a great service by documenting the life of Mr. Ponzi.  THIS BOOK IS A "FUN READ" ABOUT A SERIOUS HISTORICAL EVENT

</review>
<review>

Ciardi was a mind-bogglingly brilliant man.  This comes across in this book.  When I want to learn about any subject, I start with the words and their etymologies.  I use this book as one of my references.  Example:  Albania - why is it called that?  I find that 'alb' means 'white', so it tells me that the country has snow covered mountains.  Then, no wonder the white of the egg is called 'albumen', the alps are called such, and the word 'album' means 'white tablet', or an albino is an albino. I guess an albatross must be white.  Looking into word histories tells you about all sorts of things.  Ciardi must have been working indefatigably on this subject, like Pliny and some of those other guys who did so much work for all of us

</review>
<review>

I come across this book just by pure luck. During my recent trip to Singapore, someone suggested that I should read it.

Well, I have done it, and to be sure i do not regret it at all.

The book provides an easy to understand introduction into the various fields of biobusiness. As someone with a non-scientific background, I really appreciate the clarity of the information given.

Subsequently, Gurinder Shahi gives an excellent overview about the development of the different countries in the Asia-Pacific region. Particularly interesting are his thoughts about different cultural perceptions that have to be overcome.

In conclusion, I highly recommend this book to everyone interested in BioBusiness in general as well as in Asia-Pacific developments more specifically.

</review>
<review>

I first came across Dr. Shahi's interesting ideas on biobusiness when I heard him speak at a conference a few months ago. His presentation created a bit of a buzz. In subsequent discussions, several attendees strongly recommended this book.

I found "BioBusiness in Asia" to be very readable and well-structured to engage the general reader even though it is clearly organized for educational use (each chapter starts with a Summary and ends with Key Points).

At the same time, the book is quite original with sometimes quirky anecdotes, memorable analyses, and intriguing insights. These include, among many others, the so-called "BioBusiness Landscape" and Dr. Shahi's perspective on the "Innovation Development Pipeline".

A good read for both the novice and the industry savvy, as well as those who want to understand how we might go about translating the potential of biobusiness into practical reality.



</review>
<review>

This is easily the best book on the life sciences and biotechnology that I have read in a long time.

Written by an author who has played a central and leading role in catalyzing interest and investment in the sector in Asia, the book provides a strategic framework for action that is clearly universally applicable.

A great read with thought-provoking ideas that challenge conventional wisdom and many sacred cows!

</review>
<review>

ANy Controller will benefit from this well written, very comprehensive guide

</review>
<review>

Flax for Life has some great ordinary recipes for you to get into the habit of incorporating flax oil and flax seed into your daily diet. It gives some good basic information about the benefits of flax oil, such as getting the essential fatty acids to maintain optimum health. Flax oil is one of the best oils to ingest daily, it also helps to lower cholesterol, help with heart disease and numerous other benefits, too many to mention here. The recipes include such things as Middle Eastern Bean Dip, Barlean Butter, Fresh Fruit Breakfast Muesli, Creamy Garlic Dressing and over 95 more recipes. The book is "a good price" and is a gem in my opinion

</review>
<review>

Carter is a master of framing and providing a context for complex issues like integrity. This is NOT a preachy book with platitudes about the need for integrity. It IS about defining integrity, the situations where it will be tested, and ways to think about integrity as you make your own decisions. In the end, it is a powerfully enabling book that I have referred to and recommended to friends and colleagues repeatedly for many years

</review>
<review>

Carter's attempt to trace the disingenuous way in which many Americans have forsaken their moral compass in favor of political labels and bumper-sticker-grade philosophy is just about on target.  His prescribed fixes, however, are little more than just the sort of swell-sounding but essentially empty rhetoric which he is skewering.
While Carter promises a new approach to integrity in American life, all he seems to have on tap is a lot of quotations and circular logic.  "We can learn to do right by doing the right thing, or listening to the right people," he seems to say, without ever providing a really supportable definition of those terms.  Instead, he depends on his own, completely subjective, ideas of right and wrong, which don't convince.  His appeals to group ethics are slightly more useful, but fall prey to the same critiques he is leveling at what he calls "media culture" and other left-wing "evils."
Political hackwork.

</review>
<review>

It is about time that someone has had the courage to stand up and say what he believes about integrity in the world today.  Stephen Carter does a good job of posing questions that provoke thought upon a subject that is generally avoided because people like to fool themselves into thinking that they are living a life of integrity.  Carter points out how often, in everyday situations, people show that they have not sat down and contemplated their actions before they do something that could make them look bad later.  He shows have many people  and quot;shoot first and ask questions later and quot;  rather than thinking about what is important enough to stand behind and what isn't.  A word of warning though, don't read this book unless you are prepared to look at your own life of  and quot;integrity. and quot

</review>
<review>

It was after reading the authors Culture of Disbelief that made me want to read INTEGRITY. For weeks I had been searching for a book that would best sum up my belief that there are to many hypocrites. People who say one  thing but act the opposite. I knew there was a word or theory that would  best describe how I felt and then I saw this book and it was like a  lightbulb going on. INTEGRITY. It is all about having the gutts to be the  person you project yourself to be. Prof Carter has this gift for opening  your eyes and you find yourself going  and quot;That's Right! and quot;  and quot;Yes  that's true and quot;  and quot;Oh my god that's right and quot; or simply   and quot;YES! and quot;  Then I got to page 31 and he mentions Commitment. Then  begins to describe how we as Americans want reliability, and how we each  admire the rare soul who has the integrity to do what is right while all  the naysayers mock. How we love it when someone keeps a promise. He then  discusses being Forthright, Steadfastness. This is a must read in this  election year. A great book for reminding that ethical little person inside  all of us that sometimes all it takes to renew anothers faith in humanity  is for one man or woman to walk their talk

</review>
<review>

Carter is gifted.  I am a cerified member of the Vast Right Wing Conspirasy and I love this book. Carter is not a leftist. and he is not a Right winger. he is a gifted author who writes the truth and makes the  reader think.  Great book

</review>
<review>

While some might fault Mr. Carter for missing some of the deeper philosophical ambiguities of the integrity and ethics questions, at the same time, he also misses a large segment of elitist abstract and obstruse  arguments that make no impression on the normal people who are the American  democracy.  Mr. Carter does the nation a great service by stating the  obvious (which if it was really obvious, wouldn't need stating in book  length) in language that is sufficient but not difficult and using  examples, that, while some might decry the close historical distance, are  examples of things that are still close enough to be common knowledge, and  thus, readily understandable without long explanation

</review>
<review>

Prof. Carter has engaged upon one of the most ambitious, and socially  important, projects of the decade: writing a series of books outlining and  explaining the essential elements of good character. Integrity is the first  in the series, and it is an eye-opening examination of what integrity is  and why it matters. This book should be required reading for everyone --  especially professionals, politicians and parents

</review>
<review>

I bought this book after I had purchased the magnificent book of kites. This book has great big kites which are more complicated than the magnificent book of kites. So, if you have experience building kites this is the book you need

</review>
<review>

Listening to David Sedaris is much better than reading him.  So much of his humor is in his voice, inflection and timing.  If you like his books this is worth picking up.  If you've heard some of these monologues on the radio, it's nice to be able to listen to them whenever you want

</review>
<review>

I thought this man was SO funny, defently worth the money to get him.  Just beware, people will think your crazy if you laugh alone

</review>
<review>

David Sedaris is the only man I LOVE to listen to ...that voice...the perfect pacing...the droll humor...His stories are a compelling listen with a large drop of "I need to see this man on a book tour" thrown in.  The Carnegie Hall reading is another classic that even someone not familiar with him can fully enjoy. The audience is not as distracting as you would think and he plays to them well without a lot of big pauses for all the applause. I've given this as a gift with not a complaint!  A Good Listen

</review>
<review>

If you're a fan of his books, you'll really enjoy this cd.  I still listen to it after owning it for a couple of years, and it still makes me laugh out loud.  His deadpan delivery makes the material even funnier than reading it.  I had the pleasure of seeing him in person in Champaign, Illinois, and I can't tell you how much I enjoyed it

</review>
<review>

I made the mistake of listening to this at 1 in the morning while my roommate was asleep. By far the hardest thing I've had to do in my life was keep from waking her up with my laughing. Sedaris' performance is simply hilarious. I daresay, this might be even better than the boxed set. His interaction with the audience is what makes this disc outstanding; there's a chemistry that is missing in the solo recordings.

I played "Six to Eight Black Men" for my roommate, and found that it is truly a worthwhile buy, even if you've never read anything by him. (She was unfamiliar with the work of Sedaris until that night that prompted this review.)

</review>
<review>

If you've started a paperback version of one of David Sedaris's books without really getting into it I urge you to buy one of his audio books instead. Listening to David Sedaris read his own works is an entirely different experience. Over the past three years I have accumulated all of his audio books and personally, "Live at Carnegie Hall" is the best bang for your buck. Hearing him read his stories live--and being able to hear the audience's reaction--really make you feel like you're right there, in the room, with him. Also, his inflections are better when he is playing off the audience! The best reason to buy the Live at Carnegie Hall CD, however, is because it contains some of his absolute BEST stories including "Six to Eight Black Men," "Repeat After Me," "Who's the Chef" and "Hejira." The only thing missing is "Rooster at the Hitching Post" from "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim." (A live version of "Rooster at the Hitching Post" is on  the aforementioned CD. "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim" is also a worthy purchase. I teach a writing workshop and I can't tell you how many of his stories I have used to help students improve their writing. David Sedaris would undoubtedly find that ironic. If you've read "Me Talk Pretty One Day" you know why.) Finally, let me offer this last selling point: if you are looking for an audio cd to listen to on your commute to and from work you can't go wrong with this or any of his other audio books. His stories generally range from ten to thirty minutes and, no matter how bad your day was, you can always trust that David Sedaris has experienced something worse. I find him to be the perfect travel companion. Do buy his CDs. Now. Today

</review>
<review>

I am a huge fan of David Sedaris' writings. When I saw he had an audio CD, I was more curious than anything to buy it. The comedic timing of Sedaris is something you don't get just by reading. To hear the stories as the author intended them for you to read them is insight to the stories on another level.I also enjoyed the Q and A section of the disc, even though it is brief.  All of the tracks can be found in his books, so there is nothing really new on the CD for the devoted fans. Still, funny as anything and a great thing to listen to in the car.

</review>
<review>

If you are familar with Sedaris and are looking for something new this isn't it. Though I've read most of his books I've never have heard him on public radio, probably because they don't appeal to my political bent. That being said, the only thing about the CD is you get to hear him read the short stories aloud. There isn't much insight into Sedaris himself. I find that once I read something I rarely read it again and the same goes for hearing something after I've read it. Very funny the first time. Not nearly as funny or entertaining the second time. Add to that his nasal annoying voice and, well, you get my drift.

So, If you've heard Sedaris on the radio and haven't read his books this is probably for you. On the other hand if you've read his books this is like a refresher only not nearly as funny.

I'm awaiting his next book and will give this CD to one of my friends unfamiliar with Sedaris

</review>
<review>

I've read all of David Sedaris' books and plays -- I think he's simply the best comic writer working today.  Unfortunately, I haven't had the opportunity very often to hear his readings, making me very pleased when Sedaris released this audio collection in 2003.  Recorded at Carnegie Hall in October 2002, he's in fine form.

Most of the stories feature his family and partner (Hugh) who provide perfect fodder for his dry humor.  "Repeat After Me" is the longest and funniest section and features his sister, Lisa, and her parrot.  In this selection, Sedaris discusses the developing plans for a movie about his life; this movie has been in discussions for quite a few years and one can only hope that it will come to fruition.  Another funny story is "Who's the Chef," which involves Sedaris' attempts to find a volunteer job in France; he ultimately works with a rubber-handed chef.

Several of the stories have appeared elsewhere previously, such as "Six to Eight Black Men" -- a brilliant compendium of bizarre Christmas customs from around the world.  However, hearing these old stories read in Sedaris' nasal whine makes them sound fresh again.  The collection ends with Sedaris taking some questions from the audience -- the questions are rather uninteresting, but Sedaris proves his wit by handily providing impromptu laughs.  This collection doesn't give hardcore fans much new material but is still likely to please those hungry for more Sedaris

</review>
<review>

Sure, this CD is laugh-out-loud hilarious, as is many of his books.  But how many authors can actually read their stories out loud in front of a rapt and eager audience at Carnegie Hall?  Not many, I think.

Mr. Sedaris displays a talent for describing excruciatingly humorous situations, but also can convey moments of warmth and tenderness.  "Repeat After Me" is a good example, and I particularly love the ending.  "Six to Eight Black Men" is another incredibly funny tale.  Like a Seinfeld episode, the story line veers off to multiple ludicrous tangents, only to return neatly, full circle, back to the original starting point.  Despite his self-deprecation, Mr. Sedaris is obviously a very skilled writer and perfomer, and I look forward to his upcoming works.



</review>
<review>

As a stand-alone story (not a "prequel"), this book is relatively fun - if you can ignore the countless glaring grammatical errors and typos. I can't believe this made it past editing!

As far as being a prequel to Barrie's Peter Pan, this book misses the mark. There are too many blatant inconsistencies for this to be anything but a shallower "re-telling" of Barrie's richly woven classic. These are not the characters we knew and loved; this is not the Never Land we dreamed about at night. Pixie dust is now nothing more than "space dust" which causes strange and unpredictable genetic mutations on contact. Need I say more

</review>
<review>

This is a jam packed, full of adventure, page turning, funny, mysterious, story of how Peter Pan came to be. I found myself reading this book over a weekend because I could not put it down. I was anxious to see which adventures would take place throughout the chapters!! I'm not normally a fantasy reader but with this years YRCA (Young Reader Choice Award) I'm beginning to take a liking for this type of writing.

</review>
<review>

I really wanted to like this book. I bought it to read with my 9-year old because she and I are so interested in Pirate stories. I am also a fan of Dave Barry and so thought this would be fun for both her and I.

However, like many parents, I decided to read some of it alone to make sure that it was appropriate for her age and her sensibility. My husband and I are not prudish by any means. But we do feel a need to preserve childhood for our kids as much as possible and shelter them from that which they do not know or need to know at such young ages.

And I am so glad that I read a few chapters before sharing this book with her as it is HIGHLY inappropriate.

For example, there is a Captain Slank in this book that at one point is flirting with a governess named Mrs. Bumbrake. It is innocent enough at first. He meerly gets excited at seeing a flash of her naked ankle. But later Peter (Pan) hears the two engaged in the following:

"Oh, Mr. Slank!" she was saying. "You are the devil!"
"That I am, Mrs. Bumbrake!" boomed Slank. "And you know what they say!"
"WHat do they say, Mr.Slank?"
"They say," roared Slank, "the devil take the hindmost!"
Then Peter heard Mrs. Bumbrake emit a very un-governess-like squeal, followed by what sounded like a slap, followed by some thumping, then more squealing, then more thumping, and then much laughing. From the sound of it, Peter figured they wouldn't be breaking up the party any time soon.

OH MY! I don't think they were playing checkers! And I am certainly not going to put myself in a position of having to explain this to a 9-year old ...(which is the suggested audience age for this book, by the way)... nor do I think it is appropriate or necessary for a book like this. It is published by Disney for crying out loud!

So, for parents who are pro-active in securing a nurturing, peaceful, unsexualized childhood for your kids, stay clear of this book. It was only on page 55 that I found this inappropriate scene. I imagine there are more

</review>
<review>

This really cool "prequel" answers once and for all the burning questions you have been harboring about the man-child who lives in Neverland with other little boys.  No, no - not THAT one, I'm talking about Peter Pan, the fairy-loving, pirate-hating leader of the Lost Boys. (Same thing, you say - but that's a different story altogether)

It seems that Peter Pan was an orphan, who was put aboard a ship with other orphaned boys, en route to a shortened life of serving the evil King Zarboff the Third, when a chance meeting with a little girl and a mysterious crate leads to a wonderful adventure beyond his wildest dreams.

The answers to the following questions are just 480 well-spaced quick-turning pages away:

1.	How did Peter Pan get to Neverland?
2.	Where the heck is it anyway?
3.	Where does pixie dust come from and why is it addictive?
4.	Tinkerbell - fairy who looks like Julia Roberts or bird brain?
5.	Mermaids - fish or just plain foul?
6.	What made the natives restless?
7.	Should you ever give a crocodile a hand?

An often funny, action-packed piratical yarn that's sure to delight most young readers.


Amanda Richards, October 19, 2006

</review>
<review>

This book is okay. It never really immerses you in the world--instead you just sort of skim along the top of it, half-caring about what happens next. Everyone feels like a stock characters: the "bad guys" are bumbling idiots, and the good guys (even Peter) are self-sacrificing and far-seeing. We barely even see the task force which calls itself the Starcatchers, and the book really could have survived without them. Tinkerbell doesn't show up till the last page or so (I spent most of the book wishing for the fairy to come breathe some complexity and life into the cast), and the croc never eats the clock.

As an avid Dave Barry fan, I could literally pick out which lines had been written by him. Not to say that the book was funny (because, unfortunately, it was not)--his style just flashes off the page in neon colors.

A few innuendoes will raise eyebrows--they really shouldn't have been in a book so geared toward children.

There are better books out there. Buy them instead

</review>
<review>

This is an excellent book that is so well written you can't put it down.  My 7 year old daughter, who has loved the story of "Peter Pan" since she was little, was completely enthralled chosing to read over any other activity just to find out what happens next.  Each chapter leaves you hanging just enough that you can't wait to read on...and on...and on!  The descriptions are great, too.  I teach writing to third graders and there are excellent descriptive paragraphs that I would love to share with them to show them just how descriptive and creative you can be!  I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a wonderful adventure. The fact that it's a story about Peter Pan and the founding of Never Land is almost secondary to the action.

</review>
<review>

I read this to my 8 and 6 year old at bed time.  It was so enjoyable for all of us that we couldn't wait to get back to it each night.  The story does such a great job of explaining how Peter became who he is.  The kids were both crying last night when we finished it - appropriately sad that Peter, having to remain a boy forever, would miss out on the same life his aging friends would have.  I thought it was great that they both got the emotion of the goodbyes.

We are anxious to read the Shadow Thieves and hope they just keep coming

</review>
<review>

This book is great for people who aren't gourmet chefs or for people who want to learn how to switch over to a healthier lifestyle and eat more vegetarian food.  The recipies are very easy to follow.  However, if you are used to a high salt, high fat diet you will find the food bland.  You'll need to adjust the seasoning and decrease it over time to acheive the full health benefits.  This cookbook gives great ideas on some surprising vegetarian meals.  It also tells you the nutritional content of each recipe

</review>
<review>

Wow! This was exactly what I was looking for. I read Eat To Live by Joel Fuhrman and was looking for a true vegen cookbook with recipes that you could like.

It has things in there like vegetarian meat loaf, meatless chili, veggie burgers, lasagna, cheesless enchiladas, soups, rice flour muffins, pie, oat flour oatmeal cookies,  falafel, dressings, sauces, wheat-free bars, beans, stuffed peppers, potato salad, and even cookies... plus lots more.
And no meat, dairy, eggs with very little (if any) sugar (uses fruit) or grains.

There's a recipe planner where basically if you eat meals from this cookbook, you are going to lose weight and get some extreme nutrition all with familiar recipes.

I've never eaten like this before so this is a first and I'm new at it. It's working for us, though and I can tell a big difference. Plus I eat until I'm full and have lost 15 pounds this first week (maybe some of that was water?).

Anyway... I LOVE this cookbook and it's definately organized and the meals are easy to make - as long as you have a food processor. I wish they had a hard cover version.

</review>
<review>

If you're on Joel Fuhrman's Eat to Live plan then this cookbook is indispensable. Recipes are free of processes foods, oil, salt, and there are many wheat-free options.

</review>
<review>

What a great book!  420 pages, hardback, and every single page is worth reading, not one page is boring.  You just want to keep reading and keep turning pages!

This is my first Nora Roberts' book.  I can't believe how good she writes!  I would recommend this book to everyone!  It's got murder, mystery, romance, people, the love of the land...

I'd love to find another book like this one!  I really enjoyed it.

(I'll let the other reviewers tell you about the story, I'm not so good at that.

</review>
<review>

I've read quite a few of Nora Roberts's books and this was the only one on which I had the complete 'wowzer' reaction.  I mean, seriously: wow.  This is a book full of content, with enough dimensions to the story to keep me busy for weeks and weeks, reading and rereading it to get it all.  Ms Roberts brings you into the gold and glamour of Hollywood with the same talented ease as she brings you into the green and whispers of the Olympic Rain Forest.  The characters are likable, and believable, and most certainly not your average Roberts book.  Livvy could be a pain in the butt as much as Noah could be a persistent annoyance.  And readers will find themselves grieving for Julie MacBride along with Jamie, Rob, Val, David and Livvy herself.  And there's a surprising twist at the end that will leave you reeling . .

</review>
<review>

When I started reading River's End, it reminded me of a remake of the "O.J. Simpson" murder.  It is a story centered on a little 4-year old girl who witnesses the death of her mother by her father.  Years pass by and the story unravels Olivia's feelings and emotions as they develop based on this horrible tragedy.  Written in the ingenious Nora Roberts style I have grown to truly enjoy, this story is both entertaining and informative as we learn quite a bit about the Olympic Rain Forest through Olivia's eyes.  I guessed the villain about 1/2 way through the book but the story still held my interest as I could never be 100% sure I was correct.  I would highly recommend this book to everyone.

</review>
<review>

In RIVER'S END, Nora Roberts uses a plot that has been used many times over the years: A story of Hollywood's glamour gone astray, and the young girl who survived it. But this isn't a typical plot by any means, not with Roberts' doing the writing. She guarantees many unexpected events along the way!

The tale of a pair of Hollywood stars living the life many only dream of living, a young child who can grow up to have it all, until murder and mayhem reeks havoc in their lives. The mother is dead and the father is in jail, and Olivia, the little girl who had it all, is forced to forget it all in order to save her own sanity.

Olivia is raised by her grandparents in the Pacific Northwest and has been shielded from her past until those events are once again brought to the headlines when her father is released from prison. A young writer, Noah Brady, is the son of the investigating police officer to this crime and he wants to tell the story that no one has been allowed to hear.

Noah digs up long buried ghosts and stirs the pot to bring the monsters back. With her father out of prison and revenge on the killer's mind, you have to wait until the end of the book until many subplots are solved. Was her mother's killer her father or someone else? Who is the monster that wants this story buried and never told? Can Olivia and Noah's love survive this ordeal?

As an avid mystery lover, and a Nora Roberts' fan, I have to say that she just keeps getting better and better. This one almost had me fooled (very few actually do fool me), and I was second-guessing my idea of the villain until almost the end.

</review>
<review>

Some may not consider this one of her best, indeed, it isn't listed as a fav anywhere, but it had enough Nora magic to introduce me to the woman and hook me into devouring everything I could there after.

Pacing was good, twists were good and I was right there in Hollywood, the forest, everywhere her characters were. Detail in descirbing the forests got a little bogged down but I waded through it.

I cried at the end - a first for me! ( Until I read her other books)

I wouldn't read this first, if you're just discovering Nora. There are other books that put the awe in awesome. Check those out then come to this one

</review>
<review>

My first Nora Roberts' book....with only be persistent did I complete the book....found it to be very slow paced with an unrealistic storyline...shallow characterizatio

</review>
<review>

I couldn't put this book down it was so good. It was such a surprise because by reading the inside cover it doesn't sound at all good. But I gave it a try and I'm glad I did it's definatly become one of my favorites this year. The story comes alive for you

</review>
<review>

This is one of the ONLY books by Nora Roberts I can actually say I didnt like. It was SO dissapointing I got mad everytime I looked at it. This books is about Oliva and Noah... THE END. That is practically what it is. It started off when they were both younger, them meeting when they were older and them meeting YET AGAIN WHEN THEY ARE MATURE. I guessed the story RIGHT from the beginning, and I hardly could ever do that before in any of Nora Robert's books. I hate to say it, but I DONT reccomend this book. It was really waste of time. What happened to the quality work of Ms. Roberts

</review>
<review>

Hello! I'm training my Golden Retriever puppy with this book, and Volhard  and amp; Fisher's training methods have worked wonders!!! My puppy, at four months of age, has been taught to sit on command, heel on command, and down on command. You can also teach your dog signals for the commands you want them to do, which can come in handy if you're talking on the telephone or chatting with a friend while walking your puppy. The main idea Volhar and Fisher teach you during this book is  and quot;positive reinforcement and quot;, which is a really handy training method to use. If their methods can work on my stubborn, rambunctious, sly Golden Retriever puppy, this book can definetly perform miracles with YOUR dogs!!

</review>
<review>

Hello! I'm An obedience trainer and instructor for obedience titles at AKC Obedience trials! This book might be older than some but take my advice! This book is written by an experienced trainer and handler. Most of all, I have trained several canine's by the methods listed in this book, and they do work. I have shown canine's, and won CD tiles at AKC events by using these methods, and have documented proof! Mrs. Fisher, which is one of the authors, holds a degree in animal psychology and gives you an in depth look into the mind of the canine...The book has great details in the why's of different methods of, reading your dog, and trying to understand why he thinks the way he does! On my very first obedience trial for an Obedience title, the dog got his first Qualification for CD Title when he turned 6 months of age. By using the methods in this manual he recieved his CD Title by the time his 3rd Show rolled around. It's a very good manual for both, the beginning trainer, and experienced trainer alike!!! My highest recommendations go out on this book!!

</review>
<review>

This book will do very little to help you understand the Brussels Griffon. There are only a few pages about Griffs. The rest is about any kind of dog, and Griffs are not like other dogs. They have many unusual traits. Save your money and buy a book that is really about Griffs. The only one I know of is Doone Raynham's

</review>
<review>

I am a docent and at times a docent trainer, and this guide came in very handy when I was preparing for an exhibition on contemporary artists.  It is well-written, to the point, and has extensive coverage for a little book

</review>
<review>

I'm a BFA student at Virginia Tech heading to grad school and this is an excellent book to teach from, have as a reference, or just thumb through for fun.  Simple and succinct while still thorough.  It's really an invaluable thing to have for ready info at your fingertips.  This book has been part of the curriculum here for Performance Art, Found Object Sculpture, and Installation classes, and everyone in the class universally approves and finds it helpful

</review>
<review>

Perfect for writing critiques and analyses from all art movements.  Great glossary of terms for a beginning art student looking up hard-to-understand words in text books

</review>
<review>

A glossary of art terms.  This book is a definite must for those writing analyses of art.  It's also good for looking up those tricky terms in your text books.  It is filled with artsy terms and illustrations.  I used it in all my art history classes

</review>
<review>

People of all groups, ethnicities, religions, and races commit cons, steal, and such.  To paint a whole ethnic group, Gypsies (Romani folk) with the same broad brush as the few among them who commit crimes is no more valid than to call all whites "oven tenders" because of the Holocaust or call all corporate officers "embezzlers" because of Enron or to call all men as rapists because a few have done so.  These sorry characterizations merely illustrate how twisted the slanderer's own views are.

While the grain of truth is that some people of all groups might con other people, the larger truth is that all groups have their share of criminals and no group has a monopoly on virtue.

Marlock clearly has written a book that is quite racist and wrong in spite of the grain of truth that some few people are indeed criminals.

Marlock tries to cover his tail by saying that he does not mean "all" Romani folk but then he goes on to make it quite clear that means "virtually all" but can't say so, without legal liability issues.  It's pure CYA and then he goes on and on with his racist slanders.

Yes, cons do exist and this book describes many of them.  No, they are not "Gypsy crimes" but just crimes and are committed by people of all ethnicities.  Too bad he doesn't just stick to describing the crimes and never mind discussing his racial hatreds.

Marlock's agenda is clear.  If he only wanted to protect innocents from crimes, he would not focus on a single very-small group of people.  The number of Romani people in this world is miniscule compared to the number of criminals in the world so his focus on Gypsies illustrates his true agenda here is merely to demonize a tiny, relatively-defenseless group of people.  The Furer's Reichspropagandaleiter Minister Dr. Goebbels would be proud of Marlock as one of their own, I am sure.


</review>
<review>

I must say I am appalled at the negative feedback on this book, and can only deduce that these reviews are written by those of whom this book speaks!  Granted not ALL people of any ethnic race or population are bad, Dennis is simply exposing a behind the scenes multi-billion dollar business that just so happens to be run by the Gypsy culture. The stories in here are true and not fabrications. I have had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Marlock and listening to him speak. He is a very knowledgeable individual who has certainly done his homework and knows exactly what he is talking about. I highly doubt Mr. Marlock is making millions on this, it seems to be his passion, his life's work to get the word out there so less innocent people fall victim to such cruel crimes. The honest people work hard for their money legitimately, and no one should be allowed to just take it away. To all the scam artists out there, spend less time writing bad reviews and go get an education and a real job!
Dennis, continue the great work! You are doing society a favor by showing us what we might not see on our own

</review>
<review>

The disparaging reveiws about this book, to me, can mean only one thing: there are people out there who don't want the truth to be told. Is there such a thing as the Gypsy Mafia? Yes. Are they costing all of us by perpetuating their very lucrative scams? Yes.

Do those involved want you to read this book? No!  Why? Because if we don't they exist we won't see them coming.

This is not a racist book and only those with an agenda would see it as one.


</review>
<review>

Well, if you can't blame anyone else, blame the Gypsies.  Dennis Marlock is doing very well probably, using Gypsies as his career enhancer. However, replace Gypsies with Jews, Hispanics, Blacks, Asians, and you would have a  libel lawsuit on your hands. Dennis, keep talking about Gypsies, and you  true racism continues to show through

</review>
<review>

I manage an insurance investigation department. Though this book did not  cover the many insurance fraud schemes, it was very accurate in describing  the culture of this group of fraud artists. Invaluable reading for a fraud  investigator

</review>
<review>

This book was excellent. More informative and suspenseful than the others, and it will keep you reading for hours. It was well worth the late night to go pick it up. Can't wait till book 7!

</review>
<review>

Harry Potter and his friends return for their 6th year studies at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardery. Harry, Ron, and Herimoine are tested as they endure their most difficult year of Hogwarts. In addition to learning new spells, practicing quidditch, and experiencing teenage life, Harry must take time out of his day to look into Dumbledore's peinseve to learn about his arch enemy, Voldermort. Friendships are put on the line, and trust is tested. At the end of the year, Hogwarts is put in an extremely difficult situation, leaving readers eager to read the 7th installment. J.K. Rowling's The Half-Blooded Prince continues to deliver the all of the magic that readers first fell in love with.
Anyone who loves the Harry Potter Series will not be disappointed with this book. In fact, this is my favorite year out of the 6 so far. Once you begin reading, it is simply impossible to put the book down. J.K. Rowling leaves you on eager for the 7th and final installment of the extremely popular series

</review>
<review>

I throughly enjoyed Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I thought it was a little short compared to Book 5, but the story was very well developed. The only problem I had is that I will have to wait for J.K. Rowling to finish Book 7

</review>
<review>

This was a great purchase and highly recommended for those of us who have a long commute and no time to read a book

</review>
<review>

J.K. Rowling successfully put me off this book series within the first two chapters of this book.  The characters personalities were wavering in book 5, in this they completely vanished or mutated.  I'll only be getting the 7th one because it's the last one and I've read this far so I might as well go the whole way.

In books one through four the trio of Harry, Ron, and Hermione were loveable characters tenaciously and cleverly seeking out the answers to the mysteries that came up each year and saving the day.  Book 5 had them doing more angsting and screaming than mystery solving, and more whining than day saving. Book 6 made them stand in paper doll doing a bad job miming the motions the real characters would have done.

This book Harry seemed to care more about romance.  A very poorly done romance littered with cheezy phrases and romantic moments on par with the worst of bad fanfiction; which had no background or build up from previous books.  A female character from the background, whom Harry barely even notices all through the past five books, is suddenly the most perfect and beautiful girl in the school in mary-sue fashion.  Several other characters in both the foreground and background were also unfortunately treated to Rowlings amature attempts at romance, none of which bore any revelance to plot or story.

Harry also had a significant decline in morality and intelligence.  The clever boy who put clues together with his friends now cheats in one of his classes and makes one stupid mistake after another.  The image of Harry that stuck with me and seemed to glare off the pages every time he spoke or did anything was of him lying, frozen in a curled position on the floor of the train with blood coming out of his broken nose, under his invisibility cloak and rolling around with the trains motion after a particularly stupid episode with Malfoy.

As to the general plot of the book.  Poorly done.  Continually backstaged by sickeningly done romance and angst it barely made an impression on me.  Most of the 'revealations' in the book revealed nothing not already known or obvious from old information, and the culmination of what Harry was not-quite-solving didn't amount to anything.

My final opinion: Don't bother to read past book 4 if you're just starting the series and care anything at all about characterization.  A very disappointing book

</review>
<review>

It may come as a shock, but I always suspected that something's not quite right with Snape. Well, we'll see what happens next..

</review>
<review>

In this next-to-last volume of the epic series, Professor Dumbledore shares hidden secrets with Harry about his foremost adversary - Voldemort. Harry makes an unusual discovery in Potions class that serves him well, but even so, another great friend is lost. Also, a surprising someone now stands with the Dark Lord. If you are a Harry Potter fan, you've got to read this book to find out WHY he-who-cannot-be-named is such a menacing evil force.  You will never guess the ending of this volume and where it will take you next.

</review>
<review>

I loved this book but I hated a lot of the stuff that happened. Warning: very sad and frustrating stuff happens. But I guess they were things that needed to happen to help push him to do what he is destined to do

</review>
<review>

Coming in with four stars, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Holds its own among the finest books in the world. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, by J.K. Rowling is the sixth book in the Harry Potter series, and arguably the preeminent one. I'm not a real aficionado of books, so a rating of four stars means this is a practically flawless book.  The only downside is that the book is very extensive, and if you're an impatient reader this book is not for you. But there are more positive aspects to this book than negative ones. I say this because Harry Potter is not your typical witch and wizard novel. The book throws in a sense of reality among all the sorcery and spell casting.  You can sense the reality in the emotions of the characters, the way friendships play out, and how holidays are celebrated.  But it still captures the ways of the upcoming wizard- Harry Potter- by bringing to the book new spells, allies, and enemies. And there's always the spine-tingling fear of Lord Voldemort waiting on every page...................
E. S.

</review>
<review>

I was recommeded this book by a fitness coach.  I was about 50 lbs overweight and suffering health problems.  Anyhow, I been following the program for about 2 months now and occasionally work out and have lost 25 lbs.  I tried Atkins before and did lose about 40 lbs, but as soon as I went off and added carbs back I gained weight like no tomorow.  I wore everything I ate.  With this program I eat a lot of fruit and vegtables and the part that is great is it seems to kill your hunger after awhile.  I used to think about food most of the time and with this program, I actually sometimes have to remind myself to eat.  That is completely un-heard of for me prior.  Additionally, I feel much better, my compexion, and skin is much healthier looking.  I ve lost about 25 lbs already and I have  energy to want to work out.  With Atkins I had no energy and no endurance.  Occasionaly when I cheat, and eat bread, it actually upsets my stomach now.   I used to have indigestion frequently, now that is also gone.  I highly recommend this program

</review>
<review>

This diet elimninates starches and grains, sugar, of course, legumes and dairy products and makes the case for us eating like our ancestors. Good examples and receipies. May be hard to follow completely in its purest form

</review>
<review>

This version of the "protein" diet brings the whole eating craze back to the center where it belongs.  It just doesn't make sense to eat dripping bacon and greasy cheeseburgers without any checks and balances.  The Paleo diet calls for a sensible approach to eating lean protein as did our distant ancestors, and reinstitutes the idea that fruit and vegetables should be a mainstay.  I do wish there was a more prominent place for whole grains, but who says you have to follow Paleo exactly?
Good nutritional information included in this book

</review>
<review>

The Paleo Diet by Loren Cordain, Ph.D. is a monumental work that brilliantly explains and popularizes what may well be one of the biggest breakthroughs in scientific understanding in human history: the evolutionary hypothesis of human nutrition and lifestyle. This hypothesis does what no other diet and exercise regime does: it builds a scientific model that can be used to make predictions that can be tested and it does so upon the very foundation of biology--evolution.

This book does an excellent job of explaining this model and how to put it to use. Dr. Cordain's style is eminently readable, so it is understandable to the layperson while maintaining a scientific and evidence-based approach. Endnotes would make the book even better.

Those scientists who are using this evolutionary model of nutrition predict that the healthiest foods for humans will be the natural foods that humans have been eating for the last 2.5 million years--not the agrarian and processed foods of the last ten thousand years--and that an optimal diet will approximate as much as possible the types of diets that Paleolithic peoples consumed.

Most other diets take a hit-or-miss, after-the-fact approach, focusing on the micro level of what certain scientific studies and anecdotal evidence suggest about the healthiness of certain foods and diets, and from the aggregation of some of this data, try to determine the optimal dietary approach. As new data comes in that contradicts the old, upheavals in dietary fads occur and many people become confused and discouraged by the conflicting signals they receive over the years. As others have noted, Paleolithic-based diets are the only non-fad diets, since they span hundreds of thousands and millions of years, not decades.

The most common criticism of the evolutionary hypothesis of diet and lifestyle involves comparative life expectancy. Assumptions are made that people live much longer and healthier lives today than Stone Agers did, and that Stone Agers did not live long enough to acquire the chronic degenerative diseases of modern civilization. The idea that hunter gatherers' lives were "nasty, brutish, and short" is actually an exaggeration that was popularized by Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan. Dr. Cordain explains (as have others) the scientific findings that human life expectancies DECLINED when Stone Age hunter-gatherers adopted an agrarian lifestyle at the start of the Neolithic era. The later increases in life expectancy were mainly due to public health advances in sanitation, food safety, quarantine systems, immunizations and childbirth survival rates. Thirty three years was the estimated AVERAGE life expectancy of a Paleolithic hunter-gatherer male, not the maximal lifespan of all hunter gatherers. A hunter gatherer who survived childbirth, infectious disease, accidents, battles, and wild animals could be expected to live as long as we do today. Moreover, archaeological and anthropological studies of Paleolithic records and contemporary hunter-gatherer cultures show much lower prevalence of heart disease, sudden cardiac death, cancer, stroke and even acne than in modern societies.

Professor Jared Diamond, the famous evolutionary biologist and author, went so far as to state that "recent discoveries suggest that the adoption of agriculture, supposedly our most decisive step toward a better life, was in many ways a catastrophe from which we have never recovered. With agriculture came the gross social and sexual inequality, the disease and despotism, that curse our existence." He further declared that "Hunter-gatherers practiced the most successful and longest-lasting life style in human history. In contrast, we're still struggling with the mess into which agriculture has tumbled us, and it's unclear whether we can solve it."

Those questions that Cordain didn't handle thoroughly in his book are addressed on his website (http://thepaleodiet.com/faqs/).  Perhaps future editions of the book will include the additional details and defenses that Cordain has posted on his site. For example, Cordain responds to another common objection to The Paleo Diet--that hunter gatherers favored fatty cuts of meat and that Cordain is therefore wrong to suggest that we restrict our intake of saturated fat. Cordain agrees that "There is absolutely no doubt that hunter-gatherers favored the fattiest part of the animals they hunted and killed" (such as the tongue and brains). But this does not mean that we should eat unlimited quantities of fatty domestic meats, as Cordain explains: "Not surprisingly, these organs are all relatively high in fat, but more importantly analyses from our laboratories showed the types of fats in tongue, brain, and marrow are healthful, unlike the high concentrations of saturated fats found in fatty domestic meats. Brain is extremely high in polyunsaturated fats including the health-promoting omega-3 fatty acids, whereas the dominant fat in tongue and marrow are the cholesterol lowering monounsaturated fats." Cordain points out that modern feedlot cattle typically have 30% body fat or greater, versus the 10% body fat that wild Paleolithic animals averaged on a year round basis.

Cordain also explains on his site that the question of saturated fat is more complicated than a simple good-or-bad debate would indicate. Some saturated fat is good (stearic acid) and some is bad (palmitic acid, lauric acid, and myristic acid). Wild animals have more of the good saturated fat than domestic animals.

As scientific understanding of the new field of evolutionary nutrition advances, some of Cordain's recommendations may well be revised. Cordain has already modified one of his recommendations: he no longer recommends using flaxseed oil in cooking (he still recommends consuming it cold, adding it to meats after cooking them and to salads) and acknowledges that was an error. This is a new field in science and there is still much to learn.

Cordain was first "enlightened" about diet by S. Boyd Eaton's 1985 article in the New England Journal of Medicine entitled "Paleolithic Nutrition." Accumulating evidence and growing scientific opinion suggests that S. Boyd Eaton, Loren Cordain and others have indeed started a scientific revolution. I believe that this book will be seen in retrospect as an early classic in this revolution's development.

One doesn't even need to accept the evolutionary model in order to recognize the wisdom of this dietary approach. Cordain says that a blueprint for optimal nutrition is built into our genes and "Whether you believe the architect of that blueprint is God, or God acting through evolution by natural selection, or by evolution alone, the end result is still the same: We need to give our bodies the foods we were originally designed to eat."

</review>
<review>

Every nutritionist, MD, chef and charliton has a diet theory.  "Low Fat" is good.  "Low Carbs" is good. "Balanced (whatever that means!)" is good. Loren Cordain also has a theory. His theory makes as good or better sense than most of the others: Our body and mind are probably better off if we eat the foods we evolved with over a couple of million years of evolution.  What makes Cordain's approach different is that he backs it up with real science, that is, testing his theory with real research and real tests on real subjects using the scientific method.  If the tests don't show that the one or another part of the theory is working it gets cut out and the theory modified.  I'm tired of trying out untested theories which are politically correct or sound good.  I want science.  Cordain delivers.

By the way, just because I've lost wieght, feel great and really enjoy my food is just anectotal evidence, not a double blind test with statical significance, but it got me to write this review

</review>
<review>

As always Bradygames provides a stellar guide, but this one is a cut above most other strategy guides. It includes an in-depth look at the characters and the history of the xenosaga trilogy. I recommend this guide to any xenosaga fan or newcomer. I personally only use the walk-through on as-needed basis, but having the guide is great for discovering every secret this game has to offer.

</review>
<review>

Maps, enemy data, secrets, boss strategies...everything you could want in a walkthrough, and more. They even did their best to keep it spoiler-free

</review>
<review>

This strategy guide did a credible job of helping me locate important items without spoiling the plot. Without this book, I would have missed out on most of the sidequests and optional battles.  You can only access some of these extra features of the game during a specific point in the story.

This guide will offer less assistance to the player compared to your average walkthrough.  However, I believe that was done in order to prevent spoiling the complex story of Xenosaga III.


</review>
<review>

There are 240 pages in this walkthrough but the walkthrough doesn't actually start until page 120 with a picture.
As phobia said in a previous review, there are no maps. The guide says there are no spoilers in the guide either; which can be a good thing. The guide has a list of points of interest, items, and enemies' chart, for each section you are doing.
There are many pictures within the paragraphs as an example of what they are talking about. For instance, on page 122 and 123 where the actual walkthrough starts there are the previous mentioned lists and five (5) pictures showing what the area looks like.
I have not played the game yet, and since I will not be playing it anytime soon, I did read the beginning of the walkthrough, and they describe really well what areas to explore and come back to so you can save, and what enemies etcetera you will be having to fight and/or items to be found.
I have a game and guide collection so I would have bought the guide regardless, but having said this I still think the guide will help a lot when playing the game.

</review>
<review>

Geoffrey Moore's latest book should be required reading for all executives in the age of the Internet. Rather than filling out a theoretically weak book with numerous examples, or building a detailed theory which cannot be  applied, Moore has produced a brilliant work of practical business theory.  Drawing on and extending his work in Crossing the Chasm, Inside the  Tornado, and The Gorilla Game, Moore looks at various stages in the  development of businesses, how to manage for shareholder value, how to  create and sustain competitive advantage, and how companies with diverse  cultures can effectively overcome the innovator's dilemma. Any executive  feeling threatened by the Internet, or wishing to take full advantage of  discontinuous innovations, should read this book

</review>
<review>

 and quot;Living on the Fault Line and quot; is like a diorama of a new battlefield. Reading this book, like studying the scale model, should give the experienced leader new perspectives on which troops to deploy and where  they should go. It is a tool to show the terrain, the high points and  ambush risks that armies face. This market is not lacking in people who can  act, and this book shows them where to focus their efforts in a usable,  timely and concentrated way

</review>
<review>

I highly recommend this book! It's an easy read for non-accountants! This should be in every manager's desk for quick reference. This has helped me a lot in making day-to-day decisions.

</review>
<review>

This is a good starting point to understand Finance.  Written in plain English with confortable fonts and page presentation

</review>
<review>

This is one of those few books that is simple yet not simplistic. Book is written for corporate managers whose job responsibility is outside the decipline of finance, however who can benefit from knowing the finance at the fundamental level. Book does not go into "mechanics" of finance and focuses more on the "essense" of finance. Written with the simplicity of small business yet with questions to be asked in large corporations. I would strongly recommend this book to all my managers.

</review>
<review>

Helpful to managers to give them insight into where accountants are projecting and where hard numbers are coming from.  You are able to see sources of manipulation

</review>
<review>

Financial Intelligence: A Manager's Guide To Knowing What The Numbers Really Mean by Karen Berman and Joe Knight (owners of the Los Angeles-based Business Literacy institute) with management expert John Case is an innovative and "user friendly" instructional guide to proper and intelligible management of finances and business oriented decision making. Financial Intelligence is an impressive compendium of guidelines and information including the basics of financial measurement, reading income statements, balancing sheets, cash flow statements, separating hard data from the assumptions and estimates, the mechanics of analysis, calculating ratios, return on investment, working on capital, knowing the difference between cash and profit, financial literacy and transparency and how to recognize how the two can boost performance. Financial Intelligence is very strongly recommended to all business managers, both the novice and the experienced, as everyone has something to learn.

</review>
<review>

I recommend this book to all of my clients and students.  It explains complex concepts in clear and precise real-world language for both financial and non-financial managers.

</review>
<review>

Probably the most important book that a manager can read.  It demystifies the "art" of finance.  It brings finance's secret language back to simple English.  Great for techies who are part of the overhead.

</review>
<review>

Karen Berman and Joe Knight's Financial Intelligence: A Manager's Guide To Knowing What The Numbers Really Mean tells managers just how to use financial data to make decisions, and how to select and apply the right analytical tools and resources for the decision-making process. The basics of finance are covered along with insights on where financials some from, how they influence decisions different ways when used with different formulas and purposes, and how they can be biased. The authors have trained thousands of managers and employees in the course of their business: their expertise lends to plenty of insights here.

</review>
<review>

Are you in management or do you want to be in management?  If the answer is yes, then this book is a must for your career.  The information here is extremely powerful and the authors did an outstanding job of making it simple to understand.  If you have ever wondered why senior management would not fund a project when the company is having a record profit month, Berman will explain why this maybe the best choice.  Throughout the very palatable training there are fascinating examples from the newspaper headlines (Enron/Worldcom/...) of what these headliners did with their finances that was wrong but was overlooked for some time.  This is not just what the definitions are but that they mean.

Okay if you have a Business Degree you should know this but you need your coworkers to know this to really help your company win.  You can try to educate each of your coworkers for years or just give them a copy of this book.  Your company/team will be more unified and focused.

I presented this book to my senior management requesting that the company buy a copy for every one in leadership. I am looking forward to rereading this book and I strongly recommend you buy this book.  Financial Intelligence will help our careers

</review>
<review>

Most people thinks about war, like some very bad, but every day we are involved in situations that require taking consciousness about facts that happens around us, to really know the true to create a very real perspective, in order to take actions in a directed way to be successful.
This book is a very good reference to find how to make your own war strategy

</review>
<review>

I got a top tier MBA, spent tens of thousands of dollars and two years, but didn't learn the important stuff.  (And I was the valedictorian, and got some really great jobs).  I really enjoyed Greene's book 42 laws of power (I can't remember if it's 42 or some other number), but this book is a great reminder and educator of the way things work behind the scenes, in people's minds, and at the macro level of every business and political dealing.  I'm convinced that there is either a conspiracy in our educational system to make us dumb workerbees, 99% of our teachers just don't get it, or our measurement system for the quality and effectiveness of our eductional system is severely broken.  (Or all the above!)

Much of the book rings a bell with my intuition, but there is a great deal which is so inciteful and informative.  I would say I couldn't put the book down, but that's not true, I needed to take a rest every chapter or so.  I love his mixing of explaning the principals then giving historical examples.  The war stories have direct analogies to the business world.

I have also read Greene's "Art of Seduction", which I think is absolutely vile and disgusting.  I don't think the book is vile and distigusting, I think the book simply tells the truth.  Greene doesn't make the rules, he's just telling how many "successfull" people play the game, which is really just a clear illustration of the part of human nature which is cloaked behind good manners and grooming, and how people take advantage of our good nature, weaknesses, and need for connection and love--all of which applies to both our personal and business world.  Better to know it than not know it, and know when to fight fire with fire if you think you can stay true to your principles.  Maybe there should be a followup something like "Buddah's dance with Devil"

This book is going on my top shelf

</review>
<review>

Most people see war as a seperate activity unrelated to other realms of human life. But in fact war is a form of power - Carl von Clausewitz called it "politics by other means" - and all forms of power share the same essential structures

</review>
<review>

Having been a previous owner of "48 Laws of Power" and the "Art of Seduction" I was awaiting this foray into the art of warfare... and I have not been disappointed! After receiving this book as a birthday gift, I have not put it down in the last 10 days; managing it a piece at a time, and adding some highlighting to key phrases...

While some may consider the art of war (or even seduction or manipulation of power) to be an evil thing, Mr. Greene's take on the subject seems to be "its out there: learn about it to either use it or defend against it." How true this is. The anectdotes in this book are not just coverage of battlefields and generals - varying in scope from Alfred Hitchcock to Joan Crawford, to Cortez - this book has one for (almost) everyone. And while this may seem like Sun Tzu for the Jet Set, "33 Strategies of War" would find a welcome home on the bookshelf of a four-star general preparing for battle or a stay-at-home mom wanting to match wits with her unruly children...

</review>
<review>

Among the other reviews here, there have been some comparisons between this book and the Art of War by Sun Tzu. I'd agree. Both are elegant and detailed instruction manuals on how to prepare yourself for conflict.

Once again, Green brings a tremendous body of research and historical insight to his writing, demonstrating the key points of each chapter through some of the greatest successes and mistakes from history.

But this isn't just a book about war. Greene repeatedly states that many of the strategies and tactics used to harden an individual for conflict (or conflict avoidance) apply equally well to business, politics and negotiation, and the examples come from everywhere from Hollywood to Ancient Rome.

The advantage this book has over the previous two is that his clarification of his strategies is more balanced and consistent. He goes vague less often here.

This book completes nicely Greene's cycle of historical self-improvement books: the first in how to woo others to your way of thinking, the second to deal with power structures, and the third for self-discipline and conflict resolution

</review>
<review>

Definitely and highly recommended for Students of War and Leadership!

</review>
<review>

I learned a lot of new things by reading this book! For example, in
chapter 22 Mr. Greene writes that "Afghanistan was rich in natural gas and other minerals and had ports on the Indian Ocean." Perhaps the 34th strategy of war should be studying the map before writing books on strategy and tactics.

</review>
<review>

As a writer, success coach, consultant, and....COMBAT VETERAN and ex-Political Prisoner, who works with combat veterans adapting to life in the World, especially the entrepreneurial world, I'm always on the look out for great books that cover in detail the subjects I'm most interested.

I walked through Art of Seduction. I ran through The 48 Laws of Power. I FLEW through The 33 Strategies of War: it's all about the here and now, not "fighting the last war". This applies to war itself, but also negotiation, sales copywriting, marketing, and business development strategy.

Key word is strategy, as compared to just tactics, and Greene delivers this very well! Use tactics to fight the battle or hand to hand or CQB, use strategy to win the war.

Greene proves that even though war, sex, seduction, negotiation, persuasion and business have been written about by so many, there's always room for new points of view...buy a lot of highlighters before you start, and a notebook to record ideas to review later for your business and...campaigns

</review>
<review>

This book is a masterpiece. Filled with principles that will impact your daily life. Finally, a motivational book that has more meat than fluff!

As a Bible student, I also found many principles in this book that can be applied to the Christian. Though I am sure the author didnt intend it, but the strategies of war give insight into the culture of war in the old testament.

Amazing

</review>
<review>

I have read the 48 laws of Power by the author. This book is even better. It is fascinating and practical. The book is gripping and laced with strategy and tactical wiles to emerge as winners in the modern game of combat and existence. Must read.

</review>
<review>

Elaine Gavalas is Greek-American and shares anecdotes about her rich heritage along with valuable cooking and nutrition tips.  This and the splendid color photographs alone are worth the price of the book.

The recipes involve a fair bit of work and ingredient-gathering.  (But I'm a cook who finds anything beyond opening a can to be intimidating.) I tried the Stuffed Eggplant and the Broiled Lemon Chicken with good results.

This cookbook includes a full nutritional breakdown with each recipe (calories, carbs, cholesterol, fat, fiber, protein, and sodium).

The real icing on the cake (no pun intended) is the charming cartoons that depict stringbeans talking on a tin-can telephone, salad tongs menacing a group of fleeing olives, a fish leaning on a pinball machine, and tomatoes playing catch with a bowl of salad, among other whimsical images.  Highly recommended

</review>
<review>

The term "Innovation" has been used so much in recent years that it's become cliche.  Humans have been innovative for over 30,000 years, before the day of the first fire pit.  People have always utilized innovation.  But now it's is more vocally emphasized in the business realm because of ultra-competitive global market forces, and because we've reached the stage where technology enables change at a more rapid pace.  "Innovation" is a Mantra.  For lack of better words, creativity, adaptability, and innovation have always been vital. They've always been used by the successful: the winners; the victors. Innovation has always been mandatory. Survival: both literally and figuratively.

Authors Tony Davila, Marc Epstein, and Robert Shelton list 7 rules for innovation.  This book uses matrices and tables to detail the different choices and the positives and negatives of choosing these various options.  There are three types of innovation: 1) Incremental 2) semi-radical and 3) Radical.

Of the tons of information in this book, some things noted are the case study of the Coca-cola company and it's drop in sales, to Individual employee motivation in the "pay-performance relationship." Why do incentives for employees fail at times?  Because they are overused.  What can inhibit and actually kill creativity? "Fear, Failure, and Fairness" affect calculated risk taking by individuals, staff-teams, and entire companies.  As for Radical Innovation, what is the motivation for radical innovations?  That groundbreaking new idea, invention, product, vaccine, or piece of technology?  Answer: intrinsic motivation.

One example of the types of innovation is a combination of them, such as in "Ersatz Radical Innovation." Ersatz is when a company (e.g. Apple) combines two forms of semi-radical change to create of successful product that changes an entire industry.

One case study enumerated how a company can focus too much on
innovation and lose site of the goal, such as in the case of Xerox PARC. The creative process must have the crucial ingredient that's equally vital: commercialization.  It's a symbiotic relationship. Another very relevant issue discussed is the Outsourcing of Innovation.  Which developments should be kept in-house?  Which should be shared and outsourced?  Innovation is so critical that it can't be outsourced entirely, so partial and selective outsourcing (sharing) is done under the proven concept of "partnering." Innovation is obviously borrowed, and oft-times today, it's outright stolen.

Perhaps a lot of this new focus on "creativity," and "innovation" and "adaptability," and "co-operation" is because of the recent rise of China, India, and other parts of the world. Game Theory's concepts are sprinkled about in this book because Game theory is an underlying and also an explicit element in economics, business, and calculated risk taking.   Because of the theoretical and applicable strengths of
Game Theory we see innovation and adaptability + Game Theory.

This book deserves more attention.  The writing style is
reader-friendly and keeps your interest.  The authors provide
numerous case studies, stats, tables  and  figures, theory, and
practicality, and  specific ways on how to survive and thrive in
today's world. Great book that more people should know about

</review>
<review>

We recommend this book to everyone involved in innovation. Whether you're involved as a creative thinker, a promoter of new products, a manager guiding the innovation process or an investor evaluating an innovative company, there's gold here for you. Authors Tony Davila, Marc J. Epstein and Robert Shelton compress a mass of research and experience in innovation practices into a set of rules and guiding principles. Then, they use stories, lucid explanations, charts and careful definitions to illustrate how these principles work. A few of these concepts could have been expanded profitably - for example, how to tell in practice when radical innovation is needed, how to determine if you're innovating too much or too fast, and how to sort out the best ideas without discouraging the creators of the rejected concepts. That's the only caveat; everything else is fascinating and immediately applicable

</review>
<review>

Many executives decide they want more innovation from their organizations . . . but aren't quite sure how to encourage that result.  Relax.  You can read and apply Making Innovation Work, and you'll do a lot better.

The authors clearly understand today's best practices in innovation both for breakthroughs and for on-going incremental improvements.  They take what seems amorphous to many and make it as concrete as is desirable to do.

The basic approach entails helping readers to understand that the processes you use to innovate determine what kind and how much innovation you will accomplish.  From there, the book focuses on how to use a process that permits all of the kinds of innovation to prosper that the company's strategy pursues.

While many such books exhort everyone to go for breakthroughs, Making Innovation Works also explains when it's appropriate to have a more defensive innovation strategy . . . but to stay in the game . . . rather than to fall behind by being too defensive.

For me, though, the book really hit its stride in chapter six where the appropriate measurements are described to identify how your innovation process is doing.  The book became even more impressive in chapter seven where incentives for innovation are explained.  Chapter eight on how to learn innovation is perhaps the most pivotal section in the book.  Chapter nine on creating a supportive culture for innovation was also solid.

I was pleased to see that Making Innovation Work looks beyond just innovating products and processes.  The book also addresses business model innovation, perhaps the most important subject for innovation.

The only weakness I found in the book came in describing business model innovation and how to pursue it.  The authors have too narrow a view of what's involved in business model innovation.  They need to become more familiar with the less frequently cited best practices in business model innovation.  Although their bibliography on innovation is a marvelous one, I was surprised to see how thin it is on the subject of business model innovation.

Until a better overview of how to manage innovation comes along, Making Innovation Work will be the standard reference

</review>
<review>

It is a good book that clearly shows models to map the different types of innovation and the problems involved to manage it

</review>
<review>

There is a dire need for a fresh look at innovation.

Contrary to popular belief, the authors assert, much of what is held as common wisdom regarding how innovation is managed is wrong.  Tony Davila, a faculty member of Stanford's Graduate School of Business, Marc Epstein, a research professor at Rice University's School of Management, and Robert Shelton, managing director of Navigant Consulting's Innovation practice write that contrary to popular belief, innovation:

*	Does not require a revolution.
*	Is not alchemy
*	Does not require a "creative" culture.
*	Is not solely about processes and stage-gate tools.
*	Does not focus exclusively on new technology.
*	Is not needed in copious quantities.

The authors write that innovation, like many business functions, is a management process that requires tools, rules and discipline.  It needs to be measured and promoted if sustained, high yields are going to be delivered.  It is a necessary ingredient to safeguard an organization's tangible and intangible assets.  In short, it is a vital and must be managed.

To do so, the book identifies seven rules:

1.	Strong leadership encourages value creation.
2.	Innovation is a vital part of an organization's mentality.
3.	Innovation matches the organization's business strategy.
4.	Creativity and value creation are balanced.
5.	Seek to neutralize forces that discourage good ideas.
6.	Networks, not individuals, are the building blocks of innovation.
7.	Metrics and rewards make innovation manageable.

Execution of innovation is not difficult, the authors conclude.  It is similar to other management activities, such as manufacturing or financial control.  There are no secret formulas.   This book replaces the myths and half-truths with clear and concise thinking on how to manage and execute innovation.

</review>
<review>

Wharton School Publishing offers another indispensable source for business leaders and policy makers facing the increasing challenge to sustain performance and growth.  Innovation is necessary for sustained success, and, as an integral part of the business, has to be managed.  This book is the accumulation of years of experience and research by the authors in the field of improving innovation in order to realize greater value and growth for the company.

The objective of this valuable resource is to help you design an innovation strategy to fit your company or organization, profitably manage the innovation, and, in a final analysis, measure and reward the innovation.  Strong and informed leadership in imperative in order to make a clear decision on the roles of technology change and business model change.

The authors offer clearly defined methods for creating and sustaining innovation with positive results.  They also include illuminating case studies of companies that failed or flourished in technology and/or business model change. The authors illustrate in detail the application of generic types of innovation: incremental, semi-radical and radical.

I certainly agree with them in the case of incremental innovation. Maybe even in what they call semi-redical. Radical though, changing from buggy whips to manufacturing automobiles; from mainframe computers to PC's; I'm doubtful. Here's an example. We know the cost of oil is going to drive gasoline to be very expensive, by the end of the century, $100, maybe $200 a gallon, you're General Motors, or Ford or Toyota -- what do you do now

</review>
<review>

Tony Davila, Marc Epstein and Robert Shelton's Making Innovation Work: How To Manage It, Measure It, And Profit From It draws upon the authors' experience as innovation consulting specialists to review the latest research and ideas on how to construct strategies and organizational structures to encourage and manage innovation. From taking innovation ideas and incorporating them into an existing business structure to devising a strategy for encouraging innovation and building networks within and outside the company, chapters provide specific details on how to get the job done

</review>
<review>

"This book challenges the prevalent misconceptions about innovation, and lays out the tools and processes necessary for an organization to harness and execute innovation (from the Introduction)."

Tony Davila, Marc J. Epstein, and Robert Shelton say, related chapters of book show that, contrary to popular belief:

*	Innovation does not require a revolution inside companies.

*	Innovation is not alchemy, with mystifying transformations.

*	Innovation is not primarily about creativity and having a "creative culture."

*	Nor is it solely about processes and stage-gate tools.

*	Innovation does not focus exclusively on cool new technology.

*	Innovation is not something that every company needs in large quantities.

They argue that Making Innovation Work provides three new, important perspectives for senior managers:

1. Innovation, like many business functions, is a management process that requires specific tools, rules and discipline-it is not mysterious.

2. Innovation requires measurement and incentives to deliver sustained, high yields.

3. Companies can use innovation to redefine an industry by employing combinations of business model innovation and technology innovation.

In this context, they say that innovation is not about secret formulas; it is about good management, and thus, they identify the seven Innovative Rules of good innovative management:

1. Strong leadership that defines the innovation strategy designs, innovation portfolios, and encourages truly significant value creation.

2. Innovation is an integral part of the company's business mentality.

3. Innovation is matched to the company business strategy including selection of the innovation strategy (Play-to-Win or Play-Not-to-Lose).

4. Balance creativity and value capture so that the company generates successful new ideas and gets the maximum return on its investment.

5. Neutralize organizational antibodies that kill off good ideas because they are different from the norm.

6. Innovation networks inside and outside the organization because networks, not individuals, are the basic building blocks of innovation.
7. Correct metrics and rewards to make innovation manageable and to produce the right behavior.

Finally, they say that "the seven Innovative Rules are guiding principles for executing innovation in any company, business unit, non-profit organizations, or government entity. You can attain the goals embodied in the Innovation Rules by using the standard management tools - strategy, structure, leadership, management systems, and people. Because organizations are complex, no single tool is sufficient to reach any one of the goals." Every one of the Innovation Rules requires several tools as discussed in the book.

Strongly recommended.


</review>
<review>

This book opens with some cheery news: "Much that is held as common wisdom regarding how successful innovation is managed is wrong." According to the authors, innovation does not require a company-wide revolution or mystifying transformations, nor a focus on technology or a devotion to building a "creative culture." In fact, not every company really needs a large quantity of innovation. Instead, there are a few requirements to implement a successful innovation program: specific tools, rules, and discipline; the right measurements and incentives; and the ability to integrate both business model innovation and technology innovation.

Using real-world examples from such innovative organizations as Apple, Coca-Cola, and Vodafone, this book identifies seven rules of innovation: exert strong leadership on the innovation strategy and portfolio decisions; integrate innovation into the company's basic business mentality; align the amount and type of innovation to the company's business; manage the natural tension between creativity and value capture; neutralize organizational "antibodies"; recognize that the basic unit of innovation is a network that includes people and knowledge both inside and outside the organization; and create the right metrics and rewards for innovation.

Innovation comes in many flavors. For example, Apple is praised for its chancy decisions to invest in the iPod and iTunes, two "semi-radical" innovations that fundamentally changed the industry. Years earlier, rival Dell also broke with the traditional PC business by honing a direct sales strategy, but Dell's change led it to focus even more on PCs, not less.

This book largely escapes a problem with many books on innovation: their relentless reuse of case studies of companies that were once rich in innovation but lost their way, apparently with little notice from the authors. So it's refreshing to note that Making Innovation Work takes a shot at Hewlett-Packard-an innovation golden boy in dozens of titles despite years of declining performance-by opining that former CEO Carly Fiorina sowed the seeds of its downward turn by changing the company's culture away from the "HP Way."

We like the authoritative tone of this work, born perhaps from the experience of its trio of authors. Davila is a professor at Stanford's Graduate School of Business. Epstein was a visiting scholar at Harvard Business School and is a distinguished research professor at Rice University's Jones Graduate School of Management. Shelton is managing director of Navigant Consulting's innovation practice.

Of the many recent books on innovation, this goes near the top of the list.

- Sean Silverthorn

</review>
<review>

Sticking to incrementalism will lead to a long and painful death for businesses. The only hope is innovation, especially in an age where you are not only competing with local players, but are engaged in open competition from those all around the world - some of which inherently possess lower cost structures. Innovation is the next frontier. Through innovation you'll be able to set your sights higher and create surprising experiences for your customers.

Making Innovation Work is a great book on applying structure to the innovation process. While pure innovation cannot always be systematized, applied structure is necessary to move ideas from the wonderful world of thought to the real world of application. In essence it's all about applied innovation. The authors explain seven innovation rules which talk about innovations power to redefine industry. The rules explain the need for strong leadership, reasons for weaving innovation into corporate thought, managing creativity, as well as creating the right metrics and rewards to spur innovation.

All in all, Making Innovation Work is an excellent book which will show you how to stimulate and most importantly, apply innovation to create real world, bottom-line results. Entrepreneurs and managers alike  need to understand that innovation is not about repackaging the old, it's about creating the new. My personal recommendation is to read Making Innovation Work as well as Clayton Christensen's Innovator's Dilemma. Go ahead - shoot for the moon!

------------------
Michael Davis
Founder -- Epoch Strategic Ventures (Innovation Network)
Editor, Byvation (Newsletter

</review>
<review>

With all the new, revised, and up to date versions of the Bible avaiable I was happy to find an edition still around that all christians can relate to.  I have 4 different editions of the Bible and the newer editions leave something to be desired.  The only problem I have with it is that the type is small.

</review>
<review>

I have read the bible through at least a half dozen times and parts of it many more. I prefer the KJV because it is more poetic and other versions are really no clearer in meaning.
After studying religions and researching theology and philosophy incessantly, I observed that many of the creeds of the great sages are similar; but there is an undeniable force that draws me to Christ. Despite the barbaric language of the scribes who documented his words and the sometimes erroneous ways he was perceived, I filtered an inspirational truth message from the gospels.
History states that there was a writer during Christ's lifetime who wrote down many of the things he said with no commentary. This was called the Quelle, a German word for "source." Later the documented sayings of Christ was known simply as "Q." It does not currently exist independently, but was used to write the text of the gospels, written many years after Christ's death.
Although I have studied the remainder of the Bible thoroughly, I conclude that it is a collage of history, myth, parables, dreams--people seeking and perceiving God in many ways.
Trish New, author of The Thrill of Hope and South State Street Journal

</review>
<review>

This is an excellent edition to have in one's library. It helps in dealing with some of the translation debates. When some KJOs tell you that the KJV is the only "perfect" translation of God's word you can ask them which edition of the KJV they are referring to. If I had a dime for every time I've heard a KJO pastor or lay person hold their bible up and say, "I have the 1611, God's word, and only the 1611 is God's word..." I would have a pretty bank account. So few know that the bible they hold aloft is actually a mild revision completed in 1769. Most of them have never laid eyes on an original 1611 and if they did I'm sure they would be shocked to their socks that they could barely read the somewhat challenging 17th century King's English. You can show them this facsimile bible so they can see a picture of the real thing.

There are those KJOs who have argued that the only thing changed between the 1611 and the 1769 is the spelling. When you have a copy of this facsimile bible you will be amazed that they are in error. There are actual word alterations and some punctuation changes.

In Isaiah 14:12, the Lucifer verse, the 1611 had "?" at the end of each statement. But Lucifer was not being asked a question, he was having a proverbial statement delivered to him. In 1769, the "?"s were replaced properly with "!"s. The word "shamefacedness" which now appears in our 1769 KJVs was "shamefastness" in the original 1611. It has been fun to compare these kinds of changes while collating the modern KJV with the 1611 facsimile.

I find the font easy to read in this facsimile, although it is small. Seeing the original notes that the KJV translators placed in the margines--those marginal notes that staunch KJO defenders tell you never existed and are "bad" and "misleading"--is most interesting. Also, a copy of the Translators to the Reader letter is found near the front of this facsimile, a must for anyone wanting to know what the original men of the translating committee thought and believed and what their intentions were in doing a "better" translation.

Next time your KJO friends tell you he uses the 1611 ask him if you can see it and then show him your 1611 facsimile bible...oh, and ask him if he can pronounce the spelling of the King's English. :)

I wonder if Peter Ruckman uses a facsimile. If not, someone needs to ask him if his Bible translation is "perfect.

</review>
<review>

I really like this Bible.  In fact, it is probably my favourite version of the few copies in my personal library.  It is an exact fascimile of the 1611 Bible with proper typeface, spellings, etc.  While reading it, one can easily imagine him/herself in 1611.

The binding leaves a bit to be desired - mostly the cover of the actual book (it doesn't seem to match)- but overall it is a very nice book

</review>
<review>

I am a serious Conservative Bible student of many years.  I have used a variety of tools to ferret out what G_d has to say to us in His Holy Book.  This is another that most students should have, not to address the content of the pages (because it is unreliable by comparison), but for the ongoing KJV-only argument that still remains.

The problem with most of the KJV Only crowd is that - while they all say that the 1611 Authorized Version is the only TRUE WORD OF GOD - very few of them have ever seen one.  And this is an excellent reproduction.  It readily displays the spelling faults, difference in word usage from current applications and the influences of Rome, even in such an Un-Roman text.  It retains the apocrypha - books regarded by most of Christianity as non-inspired - so as to support some of the more obscure doctrines that were found unacceptable by the believers sansRome.  And the idioms are very different from those in the typical KJV and the far more reliable NASB and NIV.

Further, another reviewer said "The study of Hebrew has advanced since 1611."  But in reality, the Jews - particularly the Massoretes - never lost understanding of the language.  In 1611 however, the scholars working on the translation were still either first, second or third generation Roman Catholic-trained, even if they were not Catholics themselves; so that their language skills were likely to be 60% English, 35% Latin, 4% Greek and 1% Hebrew.  This is because the Vulgate was the Textus Romanus for centuries, as was their training.

Finally, the translators of the KJV 1611 were caught in their times and chose to manage their translations so as to not irritate their benefactors from various theological positions.  For example, they purposely chose to NOT translate the word Baptizo, but to transliterate it to "baptize" - without explaining anything about the meaning of the word.

All in all, I highly recommend that believers get a copy of this, not only for the historical perspective and the release from the "KJV only" bondage, but, as another said, it is like owning a piece of the history that so many of us study.  As for the somewhat cheesy exterior on the rigorously reproduced text, I like the fact that I don't get it confused with another.  The BIG 1611 on the front sees to that.

Thanks,
Keit

</review>
<review>

Inevitably, the King James Version of the Bible will draw fire for its archaic language. I do not believe that this is a fair basis on which to critique a particular printing of the King James Bible.

Aesthetically, the interior of this Bible is lovely; the illuminations, headers and latin numerals are truly charming. The typeface is quite legible, though rather small. After only a little reading, one becomes accustomed to the V in place of U and the curious spellings of many words. The text commands one's attention; I personally believe this to be a good thing.

Qualitatively, however, the paper, gilding and cover design all leave something to be desired. The paper is thin and of the variety that crumbles with age, the gilding on the pages comes off on one's fingers and the enormous "1611 Edition" stamped on the front cover borders on vulgarity. There also appear to be a fair number of typos in this, though I would imagine these to be original to the text and not mistakes of the modern publisher.

I am quite pleased to find a leather bound King James Bible with the Apocryphal books. For some time, the only such bible on the market was in paperback format, which does not hold up well to the rigors of daily handling.

All in all, I like this edition very much and can easily imagine enjoying it on a daily basis for years to come.

Do have a look at the publisher's other materials; Hendrickson has a knack for publishing beautiful and affordable reference volumes (such as the Septuagint, AnteNicene/Nicene/PostNicene Fathers, etc.)

</review>
<review>

I think the 1611 Holy Bible King James Version is a must to complete your Bible collection.  Complete with the Apocrypha, the 1611 edition will give you in your hands an exquisite replica of the original KJV.  One thing about the KJV, it really, along with the writings of Shakesphear, solidified the English language.

In Olde English, you will notice some differences from the KJV you have in your library today.  You will note also, that this bible carries with it a sense of excellence, the excellence that only the scriptures can carry.


</review>
<review>

I just received my copy of the 1611 Edition of the KJV Bible.  As one of the other reviewers had said, upon opening and beginning to read I could sense being in the presence of holiness.  Also, the cover really isn't so bad...it's dignified and simple.

I can already tell that this will be a favorite bible of mine as time goes on.

Go ahead...buy it

</review>
<review>

I was up at nights reading this. It really is a great book.
I   love his spooky stuff. I love the characters in this book

</review>
<review>

I usually read Stephen King for his interesting ideas and imagery and expect his books to read fast and well. I've read three previous King books that have had the occasional long passages with overstated depictions of horror, doom, and grotesquery in order to immerse his readers into the tone of his story.  This one takes the cake because what is meant to read as terror and horror is really ridiculous and unimaginative. And this is exactly what "Insomnia" is. This isn't a spoiler, just the author's note: at the end of the book we read Sep. 10, 1990- Nov 10, 1993- three years in which King took to write this book.  Three years which were evidently wasted.

The other King books I've read were engrossing for their characterizations and character identification.  "Insomnia's" Ralph Roberts is certainly a character the reader could identify with.  He is strong, kind, has traditional gentlemanly views on aiding women in distress and regards them as beautiful and respectable. His counterpart Lois Chasse doesn't come across as identifiable. Instead she serves as a  secondary character who has no real flair or identity other than being in love with Ralph. King doesn't usually do that with his secondary characters.  Other characters with much smaller roles in this book come across as real and identifiable, like Ed and Helen Deepenau, the three bald doctors, and Ralph's numerous confidantes.

Then there's the whole abortion mess. This central political issue crumbles midway thru and seems to serve no purpose at all in the story. Though King does provide an interesting and seemingly objective commentary on the issue via Detective Leydecker (albeit with a tranparently pro-choice slant), it serves no relevance to the theme of the story but just hangs there on display used for no more than a story device.

I gave the book two stars because I am an inspiring writer and reading this provided me with some of the devices that are important to utilize as part of a writer's arsenal. The devices were obvious and all thru the reading I asked myself, 'How is King going to get through this?' His weapon of choice was most often Ralph Robert's narration (via third person) that analyzed the events of the story and interpreted its meaning and significance. It seemed whenever King was in trouble in the story, he would use Ralph as his solution and let him think it out and guide it for him. This is a useful tool for a beginning writer, but King used it as a crutch to tell a story that had no pulse from the beginning.

One last thing, the villians just don't work. They are not frightening, they are not demonic, they are not vicious or malign. Three little bald doctors with scalpels and scissors? Their defining characteristics are being small and bald- does that really frighten anyone? The real villian among them dances around and jump ropes to reveal his evil madness. Then there's the Crimson King, the evil supernatural mastermind we read about from page 100 who finally enters the story on page 550 as a Catfish in one of the most terrible, anti-climactic scenes ever rendered.  I rest my case.

</review>
<review>

I thought this was a good book. One of the many that keeps you turning the page due to suspense. Ralph Roberts had no clue that his Insomnia would lead him to heroism and he would finally get to "sleep". Stephen King's one of a kind creativity definitely comes to play here. I would recommend this book to anyone. I think anyone would enjoy the suprise ending in finding out about the "promise"

</review>
<review>

I'd read most of King's stuff during the uh decade of  my UTe.  Salem's  Lot and Pet Cemetery being  the hook on the line and     The Stand, Shining, Christine  and   IT reeling me in.

I thought he'd never come out with a book  that I didn't want to read cept anything of or related to his wife's stuff and the Gunslinger series.

Then one day I started to read Insomnia and I couldn't make it to the halfway point, the antiChristian Proabortion garbage was too thick for me to ignore and I found myself throwing Insomnia away, I did that with Cider House Rules by John Irving too.

Even Needful things with it's anti evangelical stuff could be ignored cause there is some truth to the anti Catholism and hypocrisy  but Insomnia was just plain mean spirited.

</review>
<review>

Once again in King's books just like "The Green Mile" we have the senior citizen Ralph Roberts who is recently widowed and he starts suffering from insomnia. Then he starts seeing crazy little guys and people with balloons attached to their heads!I would start seeing things too if I went without sleep for a few nights. I was hoping that a clown named Pennywise with a stack of balloons would appear since this book is set in Derry Maine but no such luck. I  think somebody should buy King an Atlas because he seems to be unaware of any other locations  except Maine which does get rather tiresome after awhile. There are  a couple of subplots about a wife beater and abortion in this book but I find it to be a very good subsitute for Seconal. I give this book 5 stars because it seems King is still trying to "live up" to the promising writer that he once was 20 years ago

</review>
<review>

Origionally I had checked this book out from the library, but it was so good I bought a copy for myself. The character development is very good, and the story (though it has a few ho-hum spots) is interesting and flows really nicely. However, this is not a scary book at all but really a rainy afternoon read

</review>
<review>

No kidding -- this book gave me insomnia!  I would wake up at the same time every morning, just like the character in the book:  it was awful.  I can't remember how long it took me to get a full night's sleep after reading this book.  Buy and read at your own peril

</review>
<review>

There is nothing wrong with this book. It's not too long. It's not hard to read. It's perfect. I read this book in elementary school and I haven't read a book sense that I think is better. This is my all time favorite

</review>
<review>

Okay, first let me confess that I'm not the typical Steve King fan (is there such a thing?).  I read The Stand years ago, and have loved the Dark Tower series, which has led me to start reading some the peripheral Tower books like Insomnia.

I'm glad I read it, even without the Tower connection, I would have liked it.  But for you Tower junkies who haven't read it, but are interested in the Tower connections, read pages 461,580, 683, and 728 (this page caught me off-guard and gave me chills).  These pages are from the Viking hardcover edition

</review>
<review>

The Charlie Bone series is an entertaining one, and all the kids I know who read it want to keep reading more.  That's my goal as a teacher, so I try not to quibble with the gigantic plot holes that exist in the world Nimmo has created.  Nor do I care that the main character seems to have no personality.  He merely serves as a plot anchor.

I confess that I enjoyed this book, and am happy that so many of the 3-5th grade kids I teach and know enjoy it too

</review>
<review>

The problems at Bloor Academy intensify for young Charlie Bone in this second adventure.  Poor Henry Yewbeam, actually Charlie's great-granduncle, goes missing from the year 1916 and turns up in the present.  Charlie discovers his distant relative and the powerful Time Twister that allowed him to make his incredible journey.  Unfortunately, it doesn't take long before Manfred Bloor, his father, and grandfather pick up the trail.  Things get very complicated as Charlie keeps losing Henry while trying to figure out the riddle of the Time Twister.

Jenny Nimmo has written five books so far in the Charlie Bone series.  She's also written other books for children, including THE SNOW SPIDER, the first book in her Magician Trilogy, for younger readers.

The Charlie Bone books are easy and entertaining reads.  Even though they usually clock in at 400+ pages, the language, the storyline, and the characters lend themselves naturally to the reader.  Charlie's world is large, filled with mystery (what DID happen to his father?), villains (most of them from his own family!), and magic (what else does that wand do that Charlie got from evil Skarpo?).  I had a good time reading this one to my 8-year-old.  We laughed together, and fretted to, and we got to enjoy solving some of the mysteries.

The scene changes still remain somewhat abrupt in the books.  Maybe it's just me, though, because my son never once complained.

Overall, CHARLIE BONE AND THE TIME TWISTER is another good read from Ms. Nimmo.  Readers wanting something like Harry Potter will be pleased with this series

</review>
<review>

Charlie Bone is one of many of the children of the red king. His 'gift' is the ability to see a photograph and 'hear' the events that pertain to the time in which the photo was taken. The Yewbean's are ancestors of Charlie and relatives to the Red King as well. When the book opens, we read about Henry Yewbean, who is tricked and sent into the future with a marble sized ball called the 'Time Twister'. When there, he meets Charlie Bone, a descendant of his from the Henry's future. The story is about Charlie helping Henry escape from Bloor's Academy, which is an academy for gifted students, run by Henry's cousin, Ezekiel, where Charlie is a student and Henry is stuck there because of Ezekiel's plot to kill him. After many mistakes and misadventures, Charlie and Cook, along with several of Charlie's friends and his uncle, Paton, help Henry escape and return to his little brother, who is now in his 90s, because he is unable to return to his own time, for reasons explained in the book. With lots of twists and turns, this book definitely will keep the reader turning pages. Great for children, teens, and even adults. All in all, a pretty good story

</review>
<review>

the book is about charlie bone and in this one a kid comes about from 100 years ago adn has to fit in, in that time

you should look at my site katsbookclub.bravehost.co

</review>
<review>

Do you like Harry Potter? Then the series of Charlie Bone are for you!

Jenny Nimmo is one of my favorite authors so far in my life.
Charlie Bone and the Time Twister is the sequel to Midnight For Charlie Bone. This serie is labeled as adventure and mystery. I saw the first book as an advertisement in 6th grade, the guy said if you like the Harry Potter series then you'd like Midnight For Charlie Bone. Charlie Bone and the Time Twister is the book that shares the joy and danger of adventures from kids 12+. Charlie is a 14 year old boy who has a unique talent of hearing and seeing the people move in pictures and paintings. His grandmother discovered that he started having this power so she sent Charlie to a school called Bloor's Academy where other kids have special talents as well. There he meets new friends, weird teachers, and enemies. A boy who comes out of nowhere appears in the academy and he becomes friends with Charlie. His name is Henry, Charlie figured out that Henry is his great-great uncle from about 80 years ago. Henry should be over 100 years old by now but he came to this time because of the Time Twister so he looks like a regular 14 year old. I would be amazed if I get to see an ancestor of mine 80 years ago! I would ask so many questions about how life was when there was no techology and things that we have now in 2006. So Charlie's evil principal, Ekziel, who is Henry's cousin wants to capture and torture him because Henry was always better than him at everything. The adventure goes on but you have to read the book to find out if Henry will be safe from harm. I would recommend this book to everybody. I give this book 4 out of 5

</review>
<review>

If you are into adventures and time travel you will like this book a lot because of time travel and adventure. In January 1916, it's the coldest day of the year when Henry Yewbeam puts on his blue school cape and takes his bag of marbles down to the freezing hall. Halfway through the game, Henry sees a marble rolling toward him. He picks it up. It is full of beautiful colors. Suddenly the walls start fading, the light is going. He feels himself disappearing. Henry writes on the floor, "GIVE THE MARBLES TO JAMES". Then Henry vanishes from the year 1916.

In January 2002, it's freezing cold, the coldest day of the year. Charlie Bone is crossing the hall on his way to a lesson at Bloor's Academy. Something begins to happen a few feet in front of him. A boy in a blue cape materializes out of thin air. He rubs his eyes and says, "Oh my word! What happened?". Now Charlie Bone and his friends are looking for a place to keep Henry until they can find the Time Twister and get Henry back to the year 1916. Will Henry ever be reunited with his brother James? Will he get back to 1916? Read the book and find out! I also recommend The Kingdoms and the Elves of the Reaches by Robert Stanek. He loves to end chapters with cliffhangers too

</review>
<review>

This is one of the best biographies I have ever read. You can tell the authors put a lot of time and effort into this work - it's a true labor of love. Filled with beautiful photos and extensive bibliographical notes, this one is a keeper. Who knew Miss Francis was such a "wild child"? Whether you're a film scholar or a movie buff, Lynn Kear's book deserves a special spot in your bookcase.

</review>
<review>

This is a very detailed book about the life of Kay Francis.  The authors present a chronology of Kay Francis' life based on her diaries and other extensive research.  Kear  and  Rossman provide intimate details of her life in an unbiased and thoughtful manner.  The authors were able to convey their love of Kay thru the book.  We receive a glimpse into the life of a Hollywood actress in the 20s  and  30s.  This book will appeal to people interested in Kay Francis and Hollywood.  I enjoyed it because it shows the individuality of Kay Francis.  Her charity work, midwestern values, sexual encounters, and career are all presented in the book.  The pictures were great and interesting.
The book left me wanting to know more about Kay Francis and the movies she starred in. I highly recommend this book.

</review>
<review>

I must admit, I didn't know a lot about Kay Francis going into this book but I had seen her in a couple of films and I went the extra mile to delve deeper into her life and career. I was glad I did! Oh, what a life! Oh, what a career!

This book is the definitive reference to Kay's life, both on and off the screen. Her exciting career, her steamy sex life and the best part...much of this book is based on Kay's own personal diary entries. You can't get better than that!

If you know nothing about Kay and you're intrigued with her life, the way I was, you'll learn everything you want and need to know by reading "Kay Francis: A Passionate Life and Career." If you know everything about Kay Francis, you're wrong. You only THINK you do! Without a doubt you'll learn something new here with the turn of every page!

Great book

</review>
<review>

This year movie buffs are extremely fortunate because out on the market is not one but two wonderful new biographies of the actress who "couldn't wait to be forgotten"--Kay Francis.  Lynn Kear and John Rossman have done a superb job of detailing Kay's life with an especially rich section about her early life--prior to Hollywood stardom. The book also captures the essence of the jazz age of the 1920's when women were coming out of their shells and becoming less uninhibited. In many ways Kay Francis was the epitomization of the free spirited women of the jazz age. The book, as usual for a McFarland product, is lovely to look at and the picture quality is superb.  Both books quote from Kay's diaries which were long forgotten at a University archives.  The diaries provide much of the dynamic revelations in the narrative--Kay's candid thoughts about her life and (many) lovers.  Kay Francis certainly did, as the title says, have a passionate life--and a career which movie buffs and fans can easily appreciate.  We are fortunate to have this wonderful book as a reminder of that life and career

</review>
<review>

Kear and Rossman have made a major contribution to our understanding of this glamorous and intriguing star. With great skill, they meet the reader's expectation of being told a captivating story, while staying true to the demands of scholarship. The book is extremely well-researched, and as thoroughly documented as any scholarly user could want, but never dull or plodding. Supplementing the text is a generous selection of striking photos.

This will be *the* work on Kay Francis for quite some time to come. If you've been tantalized by the brief mentions of Francis in other film writings, here's your chance to find out more -- lots more.

</review>
<review>

This book is a treasure of intimate details and provides a unique perspective on the 1920's, 30's and 40's.  This is not a stereotypical romantic view of that time, but a gritty investigation of the life of Kay Francis and the Hollywood elite.  It is well written with numerous authentic photographs and references to the private journals of Kay and her decadent world.  It is an honest and revealing portrait of an individual and how "the other half lived".  I highly recommend this book for history and movie buffs both

</review>
<review>

This lavishly illustrated biography is a great read. It includes great nuggets of research, including previously unknown information about Kay's parents, her bisexual relationships, and behind-the-scenes tidbits about her film roles. The diary entries are particularly revealing. Wonderful

</review>
<review>

What a wonderful bio on a fascinating and complicated woman sadly overlooked for decades. Exceptionally well-written and painstakingly researched, this book not only tells a full and textured account of all aspects of Kay Francis' life and work but also deftly weaves in historical content of the heady times and locales she occupied. A MUST read for Kay fans and anyone interested in the golden age of films. This juicy and revealing book is a biographical treasure and one of those rare instances of exciting, original information in an exceedingly well done package. Best thing I've read in a long time

</review>
<review>

THis is a tedious, by the numbers biography that reads like an appointment diary. The authors have done their research, but a biography should be more than a who dined where on such and such a date. Most of this was gained from Kay's journals. Little insight is given to who Kay Francis was as a person, which is crucial to a biography. The book concentrates and inordinate amount of time on Kay's love life and the list of her lovers gets quite tedious after awhile. The book is less than 200 pages long and is a paperback. The pictures are nice, but one expects more from a book for this price. Most of her films are judged by film reviewer quotes giving the impression the authors couldnt be bothered to view the films themselves. This is definitely the lesser of the 2 recent Kay Francis biographies. I dont really understand the rave reviews for this book, as it is one of the most disappointing Hollywood biographies I've read in quite awhile. [...

</review>
<review>

Kay Francis fans and classic movie buffs should rejoice as Lynn Kear and John Rossman have written the perfect companion book to Scott O'Brien's excellent biography, "I Can't Wait to be Forgotten".  While O'Brien's book expertly focuses on Kay Francis' film and theater career, "Kay Francis: A Passionate Life and Career" delves deeply into Kay's private life.
As a long-time Kay Francis "fan-atic" and researcher, I was impressed with the wealth of information included in this book.  The authors have done an amazing job of collecting and compiling previously unknown materials on this reclusive and enigmatic actress.  Utilizing Kay's personal diaries and scrapbook collection, the authors have created an accessible and fascinating look at one of Hollywood's best (and most neglected) actresses of the 1930s.  The information on Kay's parents and her later television and stage appearances are particularly well documented.  This book also includes many lovely and rare photographs.
For too many years, this elegant and highly accomplished actress has been ignored by modern day film audiences.  Only a handful of her films are commercially available on VHS and DVD.  It is hoped that this book, along with Mr. O'Brien's book, will help spark a renewed interest in her film career.   Those who have fallen under her spell due to several excellent films, such as "One Way Passage", "Trouble in Paradise", "Confession", "In Name Only" and countless other classic film, will agree that Kay Francis' time has finally come

</review>
<review>

The days were so long till I got back to the book... LOVED IT

</review>
<review>

Terrific writing and story line.  You wont be able to stop thinking about it all day long till you finish it!  Excellent twists through out the whole thing too.  The story just keeps getting deeper and more twisted.  I'm looking forward to reading the rest of Tess' books.

Definately pick up this book!

</review>
<review>

The Surgeon is still the best book Tess Gerritsen has written, but this novel is probably second in my opinion.  I loved this book.  For the first time I liked the character Maura Isles.  I could actually understand the issues Maura had to be dealing with.  Also, Jane Rizzoli, who I believe is getting stale as a character, was kept out of the forefront enough for me to enjoy the plot.  The plot was great.  I did not get the feeling of overwhelming evil from the villain, but then a villain does not have to be unredeemably evil to be a villain.  Also, the secondary murder (actually the one that puts everything in motion) was resolved in a way that I sure did not see coming.  This was a great read, fast paced and intense.  This is why I count Tess Gerritsen as one of my favorite writers.  Concluding:  God, that Dwayne was a creep!!!

</review>
<review>

This book was awsome.  I read the others in the series, so I devoured this one in just one day.  I love these books, and I think this was my favorite.

</review>
<review>

How would you like to have to perform your own autopsy? That is the conundrum that faces Dr. Maura Isles in Body Double when she returns from a conference in France to find that the identical twin she never knew she had has been murdered in front of her house. The investigation into the murder leads Maura to a mental institution to confront the woman who gave the identical twins up for adoption 40 years before, and also leads Maura into the chilling discovery that a serial killer has been murderng pregnant women.

This book moves quickly as Maura follows the investigation to its very surprising conclusion. It's a pleasure to see Maura team up with Dr. Jane Rizzoli-- Maura seems to take some of the hard edges off of Jane and Jane seems to make Maura a little less of an ice princess. This is an enjoyable book that you will find is hard to put down until the end

</review>
<review>

Dr. Maura Isles is very surprised that there are a couple of obstacles that are linked to her throughout the book.  Some of the different events and some of the different adversities through the book were strikingly familiar to her ownself. She has been on edge ever since some problems through the book.  If you would like an exciting, and would like a book that establishes many different adventures for Maura Isles, this is the book for oyu to read

</review>
<review>

Now, I have been reading quite a bit of Tess's books and I must say i found this one an ABSOLUTE enjoyment.

the first chapter was such an attention grabber that it gave me the creaps that it facinates me to think how does she think up of these things!

Dr. Maura after getting back home from a tiring flight from paris gets shocked into the crowd and the police cars that were swarming in front of her house. not knowing what is going on she get out of the cab that she was at and approaches the sceen just to have everyone look at her like they seen a GHOST! and literally they have every reason to be.
in front of her house, parked in a simple car was a woman who has been shot, she was the splitting image of dr. maura her self! making this book so interesting, it was hard to put it down. this suddenly was a personal call for dr. maura to find out who the woman was, why does she look like her so much, what does the mysterious woman do for a living, and who her real parents are! to the light romance she was having or felt like she was having, with a man/cop who known who the woman was, her sister.

i can not express how happy i was to pick up this book, if i said anymore then i would be giving almost the whole book away. all i can say is that you will absolutely not know who the killer is until the very end! the way she ties all the murders together was ingenious! omg i almost gave out a spoiler.

guys i highly recommend this book to read!

</review>
<review>

I blasted her when she wrote The Apprentice and hated the Jane Rizzoli character. In Body Double however, I found the twosome of Maura and Jane a good match. This was a quick read, lots of twists and turns and a surprise ending that I thought was rather quirky and fun.
This is a good read, not a great one. Tess does terror and suspense with a flair. I am happy that I gave this author another go

</review>
<review>

This is oe of my favorite suspense authors.  I wish she would write faster.  I really have enjoyed all of her books.  They are well written and interesting, exciting stories.  Definitely recommended

</review>
<review>

The first review I posted was that of 'the great gatsby', and now this.

A somewhat controversial story written in poetic prose and riddled with thought-stopping insights on life, on love and age which are as forceful as the underlying moral of the story is subtle. The only disappointment was the ending - not the ending itself but the fact that the book came to an end in under 130 pages of pure reading pleasure. The quotes listed in the other reviews here are in themselves beautiful, but don't do justice to the context in which they were used and adjacent paragraphs that they accompanied.

A great, gripping read that just whets the appetite and satisfies the senses with elegant sufficiency

</review>
<review>

In the US, we understand sexy but we struggle with the erotic.  We read the body like we read the newspaper, by habit; with a glance.  Our real failure in love is our failure to take our time.  It's not in our nature to wait, to sample, to savor.  We rush into love as if we were late to an appointment.  Gabriel Garcia Marquez in his MEMORIES OF MY MELANCHOLY WHORES doesn't rush.  The book is a seduction and moves at that quiet lazy confident pace. The protagonist turns 90 and, mindful of his mortality, wants what he's never had: "A night of wild love with an adolescent virgin." Of course, desire is a dream and dreams are an attempt to remember. And, what do we want to remember, everything, everyone we've ever loved.  Memory, though, is an admission of loss.  Desire is our straegy to reclaim what was lost.  Of course, memory  is a trickster...and that's part of the joy of this book, as the "Professor,"  defies death less through contact with flesh, than though memory and desire.  In this book as in life, it is the approach, it is anticipation, that sets us on fire

</review>
<review>

Some will think that "Memories of My Melancholy Whores" is about 90-year-old man seeking sex with a 14-year-old girl, but, it so much more.  It is Garc�a M�rquez's refreshing primer on aging.

Yes, there is the titillation of sex, some think that of a pedophile, but, to stop there is to miss Garc�a M�rquez's brilliant handling of what it must be like to die from aging.

The hero of the story is a nonagenarian narrator who bears all, tells all and opens the wonderful depravity of wanting, through the physical.  It is a regeneration of his youth.  He seeks to repudiate what time is doing to him through erotic passion for that which he will never be again - young.

This is Garc�a M�rquez's  first book in more than a decade, and, no, this is not his best achievement, even by his own standard.  But, it is a book that is as alive and passionate, as it is morally challenging.

Garc�a M�rquez has brought us insight into the mind of the extremely old using the extremely young as a backdrop - brilliant.  Highly Recommended

</review>
<review>

This is a swift, sweet read.  The urgency of the narration moves ahead almost breathlessly.  The 90-year-old narrator has "begun to count minute by minute the minutes of the nights I had left before I died," and repeatedly announces his intentions with the phrase "Today's the day" as if there might be no others left.

The preposterous premise - an old man falls in love with a young virgin whom he has never seen awake - does not stand in the way of genuine insights into human nature.  The old man is not so much in love with the girl as he is with his own new-found capacity to care for another human being, for he has never been in love in all his 90 years.  Despite his vast sexual experience, he is in some ways as virginal as the object of his affection.  He has lived his whole life in his parents' house, worked at the same job since he was a young man, and never had sex he didn't pay for.  His procurer tells him, "The only Virgos left in the world are people like you who were born in August."

The love he feels for the young girl, his first love, is almost indistinguishable from the love a parent feels for a child.  He lingers over her sleeping form.  His observation is intimate but not exactly lustful: "Blood circulated through her veins with the fluidity of a song that branched off into the most hidden areas of her body and returned to her heart, purified by love."

Even in translation, the writing is poetic.  I raced through my first reading, but paused to linger over beautiful phrases.  This is a book that can be read again and again

</review>
<review>

I will just echo the other assessments of Garcia Marquez's latest book.  Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.  Wonderfully rendered passages and that almost spiritual quality of his writing relay the story of a man looking back at the loves and conquests of his life with real depth and humanity.

Be forewarned that the book is very slight, but you will relish every page.

</review>
<review>

The title of my review basically tells exactly how I feel about this work. The writing (and the translation) is simply beautiful, and it's of such a length that it will take about 2 hours of your time to read. These 2 hours will not be wasted, I assure you, for you will read words written by a modern master of literature. The plot is quite simple, and often not even necessary, for the language and the writing carries this book from beginning to end. I only wish that the book were longer so that I could spend more time with a very delightful elderly man

</review>
<review>

This thin volume can be read in one evening - it goes very fast, not only because the book is not thick, but because it flows... After a long time Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote finally a novel, and although it is not comparable to his past epic, complicated accomplishments, it is remarkable.

The ninety years old journalist decides to come back to his habit of brothel sex, but when he gets to the room with a very young virgin, procured especially for him, he unexpectedly, and for the first time in his life, falls in love... His love is romantic, innocent and gives him new life power.

Given the story, the title is misleading, but it is explained very well; the old man is entangled in his memories, habits and generally his past, which consisted in a great degree of his sexual adventures. Because of his lifestyle, he found himself alone in his old age, and the newly discovered love is for him confusing, absolutely surprising and invigorating.

I read this book with great pleasure, and I was happy, that it was not very long and elaborate, because it is a small treasure anyway.

</review>
<review>

Nobel-prize winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez returns to the literary scene with another great novel: a story about a man who decides to sleep with an adolescent virgin for his ninetieth birthday.  A journalist by trade, his other preoccupation is women:

"I have never gone to bed with a woman I didn't pay ... by the time I was fifty there were 514 women with whom I had been at least once".

The woman he meets at his favorite whore-house in a city somewhere in Columbia is a 14-year old beauty who works at a button-stitching factory during the day.  He quickly becomes infatuated with her and makes arrangements with the Madame of the house to continue seeing her.  It is his passion for her that makes him reflect upon his ninety years:

"The house rose from its ashes and I sailed on my love of Delgadina with an intensity and happiness I had never known in my former life.  Thanks to her I confronted my inner self for the first time as my ninetieth year went by.  I discovered that my obsession for having each thing in the right place, each subject at the right time, each word in the right style, was not the well-deserved reward of an ordered mind but just the opposite: a complete system of pretense invented by me to hide the disorder of my nature.  I discovered that I am not disciplined out of virtue but as a reaction to my negligence, that I appear generous in order to conceal my meanness, that I pass myself off as prudent because I am evil-minded, that I am conciliatory in order not to succumb to my repressed rage, that I am punctual only to hide how little I care about people's time.  I learned, in short, that love is not a condition of the spirit but a sign of the zodiac."

Despite the title, this is what the story is really about: contemplating his past.  As he does so, we get a glimpse into the life of an old man and the culture of Columbia.  Some readers only familiar with American and Western European cultures may consider the novel downright appalling, but most readers with a global perspective (the minimum legal age of marriage for females in most Latin American countries is between 12 and 14) will appreciate Marquez' masterful storytelling and keen insight into the human psyche that makes Memories of My Melancholy Whores a worthwhile read.

</review>
<review>

The quality was good and it came in a timely manner.  I was pleased

</review>
<review>

This book was a gift and that is the only reason i am not returning it.  The story is bizarre, which in and of itself is not bad but this is...bad.  Luckily my daughter found it as painful as i did to read.  Zero appeal on any level.  If you want great bizarre try "Heedly pecked me in the eye"!

</review>
<review>

Olive and her cast of friends prove to be very imaginative in their quest of returning a lost heart.  My daughter loves this book and it has become a regular nighttime read for us

</review>
<review>

Olive, the canine heroine, has found a one-of-a-kind object she just knows must be returned. A heart! And not just any heart, it's a huge heart. One that is as loving as Olive's is. Now, with the help of her friends, Handler the squirrel, Flea the flea, and Weaver the spider, Olive must find a way to return the heart to it's rightful owner. Her very good friend Dexter the dog.

In usual fashion, Vivian Walsh has woven a cute tale that is sure to please all young readers, especially around Valentine's Day, while J. Otto Seibold has created wonderful illustrations that bring the story to life. Olive is an adorable character, who could put a smile on anyone's face. Overall, this is a must-have book for your home, you won't be disappointed!

Erika Sorocco
Book Review Columnist for The Community Bugle Newspape

</review>
<review>

I have a six year old son who loves this book, especially the pictures.  There are a few pages that have extravagant landscape scenes with tons of stuff going on and we play a "where's waldo" type of game to find all the different types of fruits and veggies and also find the different snack posse team members.  He absolutely loves it.

The story is fun and not preachy at all and it's good to see my child with good eating habits on his mind.  What more can I ask for

</review>
<review>

I am glad that my best friend happened to mention how much her daughter loved "The Race Against Junk Food." We were talking about books for our kids.  Having read KR's review (above) previously, I had second thoughts about buying this book for my son.

I would agree that this book won't win any literary awards.  However, for me the most important critic of this book is my son.  And he loved it!  He's asked that I read it over and over again.  And most importantly, he's taken a keen interest in eating healthy.

My understanding is that "The Race Against Junk Food" is supposed to be a MOTIVATIONAL book.  There is plenty of "how to" books about what our children should eat.  And still up to 1/3 of our kids are obese.  You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that we should all eat lots of fruits and vegetables.   My issue is getting my son to want to eat healthy.

I would respectively suggest that from my son's point of view this book is like the movie that the critic pans and everyone else loves.

SNAK Posse, feed us more!

</review>
<review>

I can't believe that other reviewers gave this book 5 stars. I was completely disappointed. The book included very little useful information  to help kids make good nutritional choices- "fruits and veggies are awesome" was about the extent of it. The text is uninteresting and cumbersome to read aloud, and the illustrations are not appealing. I am returning this book

</review>
<review>

Excellent, The Race Against Junk Food is a wonderful way to teach kids, parents and grandparents (like me) about healthy eating habits.  My 5 year old grand girl loves this book.  It's colorful characters and great story keep her interested from start to finish.  She even tells other people about the book, and wants all her friends and family to order a copy right away. I highly recommend this book and encourage everyone to read this colorful guide toward good nutrition

</review>
<review>

I have a 2 year old and a 5 year old and it has been a bedtime favorite for a couple of months. The story is fun and the characters are cool and colorful. Since the characters are fruits and vegetables, the book furnishes you with a fun way to talk about healthy eating

</review>
<review>

How many ways are there to get our children to read, eat healthy, and be more active? Answer - NONE, until I found Race Against Junk Food. The story is wonderful, action packed but non-violent, and it gently moves a child's belief system into a mode that encourages a healthy lifestyle. What could be better? Read it with your child and see if you don't become more active and eat more fruits and vegetables (and leave that couch  and amp; cheeseburger behind)

</review>
<review>

Very helpful. Easy to read. Some is "I knew that already" but that is coupled with interesting ways to handle things.

</review>
<review>

This book is uses very simple psychology methods to understand people and their responses. You can use these tools in everyday incidents to get what you want. The chapters are concise and to the point with real life everyday examples to find the truth and advantage to every situation. I highly recommed this book to people who want to gain tips and experience with an upper hand.

</review>
<review>

This book is so outdated. All the techniques listed in this book are from the 1980's and earlier, which means that most of the things you can learn from this book are already learned by you from the past. There are much more recent interesting researches and discoveries of human nature you can find in other books

</review>
<review>

I agree, the book has many, many good insights and most of it makes sense. You can theoretically use his techniques, but sometimes they are just unrealistic in real-life situations. Also the book is so short and his chapters so small that it leaves you hungry for more depth, more explanation and more examples on how to use his tips. Sometimes the situations he describes are just too limited. I would not buy this again...it's just not detailed enough and provides too few examples on how to use this in real life--not every situation is about a cheating boyfriend or a dishonest employee. It seriously lacks depth but it's a decent read...but you will forget everything you read in 2 days.

I'm sure there are lengthier and more in depth books that deal with the same topic which are more worth your money, time and effort.

</review>
<review>

I have read several books on verbal self defense and this is by far the best. It contains techniques that are simple and easy to remember. Most of these methods are in the form of a statement that you can make. The only thing you have to remember is that although these tactics look and read very good on paper, real life situations are a different story, in that, when you employ these techniques, people might not react the way you anticipate them to in the short term. But, I am confident that if you employ these tricks on a regular basis, you will see some positive long term results

</review>
<review>

Concise, easy to read and remember, well supported, and extremely effective! Recommended for anyone who want to improve their interpersonal skills. "People will not like you more when you do sth for them, but when they do sth for you.

</review>
<review>

The power of influence is evident and this book allows you to visualize it from the author's perspective alot of the powers of influence is tattooed in our natural responses, Dont look for the second coming in this author, but view him as a light house in a sea of battling waters and that will be the only way you will be able to truly appreciate his writing style

</review>
<review>

David explains how the laws of human behaviour operate for the advantage of those few who truly understand their impact on human behaviour.I threw logic out the window as I became increasingly aware of the raw power of emotion to guide and direct our lives. I now have a feeling of being behind the wheel instead of being the passenger

</review>
<review>

This book is excellent and teaches various psychological methods to influence people.  It makes a lot of references to NLP and cognitive psychology.  Very helpful in the real world.  Well written by a knowledgeable professional

</review>
<review>

This book is very good for those who need a little edge. Its evaluation of human nature is very accurate. Many of the suggestions are worth trying.This book is very oreinted towards costomers a money maker, so to speak. But the psycological factors are very acurate and well described.The author uses proven psychological tactics to manipulate and control any situation.It is a very good book to try and have fun with

</review>
<review>

Since I am agnostic, I held some trepidation at reading this book, worried about excessive religious overtones. This isn't about religion. It's about living and coping with our inner demons. The protagonist is a preacher from a long line of preachers telling his family's story and his own to his son whom he knows he will not live long enough to see grow up. It is a compassionate and intimate tale of this character's inner life and ruminations, yearnings to be noble, and his baser human inclinations. It is beautifully told. What a wonderful read to find insight into the human portrait

</review>
<review>

For a novel which is essentially without a plot to hold one's attention and build a growing admiration for the author's skill is no mean achievement. That is what this book did for me.

Seldom have I found the description of simple virtue, thoughtfulness, and Christian integrity so convincing. As the grandfather of an eight-year-old, I can see the potential value of committing to writing an account of the experiences, lessons and insights I have gained in my life -- as well as mistakes I have made -- but which would possibly be lost if I were to wait until my grandson is old enough to understand.

There may be those whose impatience and perhaps immaturity preclude an appreciation of this fine book. I hope they might find the opportunity to read it again in 20 years time

</review>
<review>

An outstanding characterization of an elderly clergyman close to death
who is imparting his cheer, optimism and his faith, which is the under-
pinning of his life and work, to his seven-year-old son.  In his private
monologues to his son the reader becomes deeply attached and inspired by
this thoughtful, insightful man.  His wife is a quiet, salt-of-the-earth
mainstay for him.  She knows that bringing his old sermons to him will
re-ground him in his effort to communicate with his son.  It is a thoroughly lovely read, and refreshes one's own religious thoughts.  Robinson gets inside the reader's head and heart with this one

</review>
<review>

I enjoyed this novel, but the pace is slow and the story line does not compell you to read keeping reading, so I ut it down for days at a time

</review>
<review>

The Pulitzer Prize winning "Gilead" is an extremely personal book--an aging Congregationalist minister tells his story through his diary entries--meant to be read by his 7-year old son in about 15 years (long after his ill father's death).  The historical background harks back to the days of John Brown, the radical abolitionist preacher.  The "current" day is rural Iowa (Gilead of the title) in the `50s.  I struggled with some of the theological discussion (although Congregationalists are cousins to Unitarians), but Rev. Ames story of personal discovery kept me going.  There is a great story about a town in Kansas that you'll long remember

</review>
<review>

I loved this book.  A friend of mine, an English teacher, gave it to me to read because he enjoyed it so much.  He told me it was the journal of a dying man written to his young son, and I thought, "I know I'm not going to like it." I thought it was going to be depressing.  It wasn't.  It was sweet and wise and lovingly written.  I thoroughly enjoyed reading about his prayer times, his relationship with his wife, his love of his town, and his thoughts on death and aging.  There is a little bit of a plot--just enough--and a little mystery, which is nice.  But if you love good writing, this is a gift.  You'll be purring as you read it

</review>
<review>

This book is a meditation on faith and what it means to be a moral person.  It's pace is slow, yes, but the insights are profound and the language precise and elegant.  John Ames struggles with his faith in an almost physical way throughout the novel; it's a noble struggle and real.  For in the end, only hard-won faith, doubted, contradicted, second-guessed, and tested, is worth anything

</review>
<review>

I was surprised some at how much I enjoyed this book. Because it is an epistolary novel consisting of only one, long letter from a 77 year old minister to his seven year old son, I thought it would be boring. It was certainly different from any contemporary books I've read, but it wasn't boring at all.

In his letter, the father writes about his own youth and his relationship with his father, his scallywag of a grandfather, his best friend and that man's ne'er-do-well son, the history of his Iowa town as a stop on the Underground Railroad during the Civil War, and his two marriages. Throughout, he ties in the themes of grace, forgiveness, and man's fallibility.

I was particularly struck by the narrator's discussions on how much he enjoyed his life. He writes the letter to his son knowing that he will not be around when his son is an adult. But, although he is approaching death and anticipating his heavenly afterlife, he makes it clear that he appreciated the temporal pleasures of his life -- the beauty of the prairie, his books and education, falling in love, baseball, and his town.

It was wonderful.

</review>
<review>

In this amazingly beautiful work of fiction, Robinson manages to capture the beauty, pathos, and miracles of everyday life. I walked away with two primary impressions: First, how absolutely breathtaking is the voice of Rev. John Ames.  For one squaring off against his own mortality, he has an amazingly refreshing outlook on life. Secondly, it has been a long while since I've seen quite a colorful character as Ames' grandfather: a kleptomaniac, one-eyed, vision-led prophet that fought against slavery with a Bible in one hand and a pistol in the other.  It is not a stretch to say that this book had echoes of Faulkner, Steinbeck, with as compelling a narrator as To Kill a Mockingbird.

</review>
<review>

If you're thinking of reading this book, let me save you some time--don't.  I like a good literary read as much as the next guy (really), and make it a point to read all the Pulitzer winners, but this book, in perfectly plain English, sucked.  There is no plot, no beginning, middle or end, and is so tedious and boring that I actually started reading it from the back forward.  It didn't help, but it didn't make a wit of difference either.  Do your self a favor and skip it

</review>
<review>

H.G. Wells may be best known for The Time Machine and the War of the Worlds, but don't overlook The Island of Dr. Moreau. This short novel, 160 pages, isn't so much a fast read as it is a good one. The titular Dr. Moreau is the quintessential "mad" scientist whose life's work involves vivisection. He takes animals and through surgery and brain manipulation attempts to give them humanity. The result is a twisted menagerie of beasts who share both human and animal traits. His experimentation has allowed them to understand human speech, and his brainwashing makes them believe he is a god whose laws must be obeyed.

The protagonist of the story is Prendrick who gets shipwrecked on the island and then "rescued" by you know who. Prendrick's main purpose in the story is to be the outsiders who sees the island and the macabre goings on through discriminating eyes. He is also the trigger that helps the fragile society break down with the beasts regressing more and more into their animal instinct, which causes the grim downfall of Moreau.

This is a story full of metaphors and deep-reaching themes. The obvious theme concerns man's desire to play God and the negative consequences of such efforts, but also the deeper conclusions one can draw about Wells' view of humanity itself.

Overall The Island of Dr. Moreau, clearly shows the depths of Wells' thinking and his deep interest in society and its ills. The story challenges one to think about the negative consequences of genetic and social engineering. It also shows that H.G. Wells was a far-reaching thinker and a man truly before his own time

</review>
<review>

I read all of H.G. Wells' most famous works, "The Time Machine," "The War of the Worlds," "Invisible Man," and "The Island of Dr. Moreau" in a row. Of these, I would say that "Moreau" is the worst.

The book, like many of Wells' other works, is very innovative. Wells was probably the first to conceive of the possibility of surgically creating human-animal hybrids. As another reviewer said, there is also some of Wells' trademark social commentary. The mutants are very creepy, and the description of their society and gradual degradation back into animals is fascinating.

"The Island," however, lacks the compelling vision of "War of the Worlds" and "The Time Machine." Unlike those books, which presented human society in interesting conditions, I felt that "The Island" was more of an adventure story. The characters didn't really interest me, not even bitter, rejected Dr. Moreau.

"The Island of Dr. Moreau" is worth reading, but doesn't represent Wells at the top of his game

</review>
<review>

This is a haunting book about the effects of science and human attempts to alter nature. As with most horror stories, the narrator survives which everything around him crumbles, but the meat of this novel is riveting. There is great action, the main characters are interesting (though not fully developed) and the story moves quickly without a lot of pause. The message of this book becomes more pertinent every day and while the science underlying Dr. Moreau's experiment is iffy at best, that does not detract at all from the effect of the novel. I would  recommend this book to all science, science fiction, or horror fans.

</review>
<review>

The lone survivor of an oceanliner is thrown into a series of events beyond his control. He finds himself saved by a resident of a strange island and has no other choice but to live on the island until another ship sails near, unfortunatly ships don't come by often. Upon his arrival he discovers that Dr. Moreau, an unorthodox scientist, is conducting "experiments" on live animals, experiments which change them into pseudo-humans. Upon this horrible discovery Prendick is thrown into a fight for his life against the beasts of the island and Dr. Moreau...

-The Island of Doctor Moreau- is one of the most fantastic science fiction novels I have ever read. If applied in a real context, the probabilty of the events of this novel seem unreal, yet the portrayal of Edward Prendick's inner thoughts as he sees Dr. Moreau's attempt to take nature and transform it to his image is a powerful social criticism of the tainted human desire to shape our world in our own image.

H.G. Wells is not a horror writer but he sends a chilling message about the darkness of the human heart, and clearly shows what truly seperates men from animals.

</review>
<review>

This is one of the great classic sci-fi novels, utilizing the great formula of imagining a horrific implication of some of the science of the day, and then using that as a springboard to comment on humanity.

Wells has something to say about the human condition, but even if you're not looking for a lesson in philosophy, this book will excite you with its unexpected plot twists and superb writing.

The island of Dr. Moreau tells the story of Prendick, a shipwrecked man who is rescued and then deposited on the titular island, which is inhabited by a pair of scientists and a large group of beings who have one foot in the world of men, and one foot in the world of beasts.

Unlike many of the "classics," this is a fast-moving action tale that is told in only 150 pages or so. The writing is somewhat dated, but not nearly as much as you might expect; language is less of a barrier than it is in, for example, the Sherlock Holmes stories or Mark Twain.

Wells gives us all a window into the beastliness at the root of ourselves; anyone who reads this will find lots to discuss.

</review>
<review>

This book was very quick to read, and was a lot of fun.  Normally I am pensive when I'm looking at reading 19th or early 20th century authors, but this is just a great book.  The book presents difficult questions about animal testing, genetic testing, and other questions of ethics facing today's scientists and citizens.  For sci-fi fans this is a must read

</review>
<review>

This is one of the few books that I've ever read to my husband that he couldn't figure out before the end. Tim Powers and his billion-threaded plots defy attempts to predict their outcome. Definitely and enjoyable read. Powers knows how to weave a very tight plot that still leaves room for humor and whimsey. Highly recommended

</review>
<review>

To-date (may soon be overturned as I'm trying a new one from Tim Powers now) -- this is the best book Tim Powers has written.  I have tried some of his other stuff and it has been like he is a one-hit wonder.  The Anubis Gates is a very good read that he has not matched again in my view.  Here's hoping that my current trial of another of his books comes close to this one

</review>
<review>

This book is easily one of the 10 best books I've ever read. It turned me on to the works of writer Tim Powers, and I have now read every one of his novels (and most of his short stories, as well). "The Anubis Gates" is easily one of his masterpieces. It is usually lumped under SF or Fantasy in bookstores, because they honestly don't know what to make of it - it IS both SF and Fantasy, but so much more. For lovers of dark, modern fantasy - or anyone who loves a great time-travel tale unlike any other - this book is highly recommended. I also recommend Powers' "Last Call" - but it is not for the faint of heart

</review>
<review>

If you think it would be impossible to meld Egyptian gods, time travel, poetry, and historical fiction, think again, because this book does it.

Brendan Doyle, a scholar with expertise in Samuel Coleridge and the (fictional) William Ashbless poets of the early 19th century, is drawn into a scheme to actually travel back to the period of those poets via `gaps' in the integrity of time flow left from the performance of a major spell by a mysterious survivor/sorcerer of ancient Egypt.  Kidnapped and marooned in this time period, Doyle is introduced to the underwold of that London, becoming a beggar who must hide from the sorcerer's disciples (and their ka's, replicas grown from the original's blood). Figuring out why he is object of such attention and determining what to do about it forms the balance of this work.

The action is fast paced, the situation complex and in places appropriately horrific, the described environs of London and Egypt in that period very well done. Most of the characters were well drawn, from the ka Romany to Jackie the beggar, and their motivations and actions normally made good sense. Historically, this seems to be quite accurate in terms of known events, from the Duke of Monmouth's attempts to take the English crown to the known early life of Lord Byron. Some of the images and ideas of this book are excellent, from little four inch high men to a valid, believable werewolf. And it does provide an interesting explanation for some of Coleridge's visions.

Where I had some problems with this work was with the character of Doyle himself as he changes from something of an ivory-tower milquetoast to a man of action and derring-do, as the change just did not strike me as totally believable, even given that he was almost forced into such action or die. In some of the later stages of the book, I also had trouble following just who was who, especially for some of the minor characters (why this confusion exists is one of the mainstays of the plot).

But most disappointing to me was that Powers basically copped out on providing any answer to the philosophical question that time travel almost necessarily entails: if you go back in time, are all your actions from that point on totally pre-determined (else history would change), is there some wiggle room for self-determination if the actions were never documented; or can history be changed and a new universe born? How he managed to not answer this forms a somewhat surprising coda to the main action, good in its own right, but still left me feeling a little cheated.

Still, a strong action novel, well researched, and very different from most books that fall under the umbrella of `time-travel'.

--- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat

</review>
<review>

I was recommended this book by a co-worker who knew I liked the works of Umberto Eco. Though less erudite, Powers does spin a great tale by reworking actual historical facts and filling in the gaps with far-out fiction. Somehow he makes it work. If I tried to tell anyone the plot of this book, I would get the most absurd looks imaginable.

I started out hating this book, if only because I have no interest in the politics and poetry of the early 19th century. All I can say is "stick with it". The amazing writing and terrific story will pull you happily thru.

This would have been a 5/5 if I was more learned about the 19th century. If you are, then this is definitely the book for you.

</review>
<review>

What sets Tim Powers above many others who write in the fantasy genre is his excellent grasp of both history and mythology, and the effortless way that he blends them together to create uniquely fascinating story lines. The Anubis Gates is a fine example of his genius. He combines history of early 19th century and late 17th century London with Egyptian mythology, binds it all together with time travel, and creates a fascinating and fast moving story. He skillfully introduces historical personages such as Lord Byron and Samuel Taylor Coleridge into his story, as well as asides referring to King George III and his madness, and Napoleon and his threatened invasion of England. He also creates an intriguing London underworld of bizarre  beggar's guilds and gypsy tribes. He then shows us this world through the eyes of a 20th century academic that is thrust into it almost by accident.
The only flaw in Powers' writing is in his character creation. His characters are serviceable, but are never really rounded out into three dimensional, flesh and blood people that fully engage me into caring for them deeply. They are adequate to serve his powerful, fast moving plot, but don't add much to it. However, once you have been captured by the magic of his plot, you should be able to forgive a bit of flatness in his characters.
The Anubis Gates is original, fast moving and fun. I highly recommend it.
Theo Logos


</review>
<review>

Tim Powers is a marvellous author. This time his imagination takes you on a time-travelling trip. True, it has been done before. Just not like this. Tim Powers makes it real. The research he has done for this novel probably even has some historians starting to believe in the possibility.
The Anubis Gates is not just a fantasy novel. It's pure adventure. And much more. It's part literature, the way the author is using his language skills, part fantasy, part comical roller coaster ride. I never put the book down. Not even after my third time. You won't either

</review>
<review>

Norman Podhoretz was a New York intellectual in the 1950's-60's, once editor of Commentary magazine. A left-leaning writer then, in the early 70's he began leaning right and became one of the "founding fathers" of neoconservatism. He was an anti-Communist who rebelled against the anti-American bent of the 60's radicals. (The thought of Jane Fonda all decked out in her love beads sitting down with the North Vietnamese leadership to trash all things American still gives neocons the heebie-jeebies.)

This was when he began breaking with old friends, such as the ones named in the book's title. Most of these people (taken from Podhoretz's viewpoint) are not very pleasant. (Is there anything more vicious than an intellectual scorned?) But Podhoretz is very much on the defensive, and like the "lady who protests too much," makes the reader wary. Whether you go along with his politics or not, I thought it was a pretty interesting book anyway

</review>
<review>

Norman Podhoretz is one of the most important American intellectuals of the Post- War period. His shift away from the Left toward a Conservative position helped mark a new period in American intellectual life. In this memoir he writes about the ' friends' of a former time, each of whom is a distinguished 'name' by themselves. Allen Ginsberg, Hannah Arendt, the Trillings, Lionel and Diana, Lillian Hellman and Norman Mailer. Podhoretz blends the personal anecodote with the ideological quarrel in explaining his estrangement from these friends. At one point he talks about how their radical indulgence in their own appetites led to a kind of moral chaos which he understood as destructive and damaging.
There is a question raised by many readers of the morality of turning on old friends in this way, and writing as if one were the only righteous man among a bunch of misguided moral morons. Other readers point out the possible envy motive given the fact that all the people he writes about are probably considered by most to be more important ' creative figures ' than him. Certainly Arendt, and Mailer fit this category.
Podhoretz however should not be underestimated and he as a critic , and as a moral and literary guide is a person of considerable weight and stature. I would not say that everything here suits my taste, but there is a great deal of interesting writing about the intellectual life of the American fifties, and of some of its major characters.

</review>
<review>

Podhoretz, the man who recently said what's the big deal about a few thousand dead G.I.'s in Iraq considering what's at stake (without having a clue that nothing is at stake), Norman disparages the artist/intellectual/egotists of the 60's/70's that don't fall in line with his ideology while today he lauds the conservative egomaniacs that have brought our country to its low level of intellectualism and turned a nation founded by intellectual deists into a Disneyworld of McReligion.  But it's all fine so long as we make the world safe for democracy.  Norman seems to think there is something hypocritical about professing social justice and being a small time celebrity, when in fact, as Freud said, the partial motivation of any "artist" is fame and the love of women (speaking I assume of male artists). Einstein enjoyed the limelight; everyone enjoys the limelight and everyone has his or her weaknesses.  Have you ever read Einstein's poetry?  YUK!  So to disparage the ones you don't happen to like is a bit disingenuous.  The true irony is that only an attention-seeking egotist would write a book about such trivial nonsense.  But this is all in keeping with a man who explains what writers should be writing if they only knew better, ex., he applauded James Baldwin's early career because he was on his way to being another Henry James; he condemns him when Baldwin's attention turned to racism in America.  Imagine that: a black writer distraught over racism in America.  The very idea! I think Norm's whole problem can be traced back to his youth, which he relates in his autobiography "Making It," talking about taking the subway from culturally challenged Brooklyn to Manhattan, growing up as a nice Jewish boy, the son of modest working class parents, attending college, and rising among the ranks of the intellectual New York crowd. Nowadays, Norm is comparing the invasion of Iraq to the invasion of Normandy, and explains that Iraq will become democratic by using as an analogy post-WW II  Germany's quick transition to a modern democracy (of course, with the help of 2 1/2 million allied troops occupying it).  How did this guy ever have friends to begin with??

</review>
<review>

This highly readable book is going to be despised on the far left for exposing some of the key intellectual icons/godparents of the movement as insidious buffoons.  A  useful and brief companion book written years ago for some context would be Tom Wolfe's Radical Chic/Mau Mauing the Flakcatchers

</review>
<review>

Podhoretz is just a thug!  He justifies the comment of a Viennese anti-Semite one hundred years ago, Hermann Bialohlawek:  scholarship is what one Jews steals from another

</review>
<review>

I can't believe the negative reviews I've just found regarding this title... and some of them written by so-called feminists themselves.  How can someone be offended by a book or the stories of others' lives?  Only if they choose to fear words or the expression of others' thoughts and ways of life.

Love and partnership: the very subject matter is quite personal and so, the anthology is a collection of intimate tales very openly shared showing the trials, tribulations, challenges, and discoveries of a variety of women.  For the first time in reading these accounts, I've realized there are others like me...those of us who don't view relationships, sex, and love as conventional, traditional, or confined but as very unique and individual circumstances and arrangements fitting the uniqueness of the individuals involved themselves.  The stories will open your mind, introduce new ways of thought, and support the idea that we are all connected, as humans and women, no matter how different we may be.  The stories are inspiring, making you feel included rather than excluded, and give you the motivation to continue to seek the partnerships best suited to your own needs and wants.

It's a joy to read, full of surprises, and exactly what you'd expect from such a title.  It serves to confirm the definition and benefit of true and inclusive feminism, allowing room for all of us whether we go the marriage route or not

</review>
<review>

This is an outstanding collection of essays. I could easily relate to many of the postives and negatives of relationship commitments that all of the women discussed. I found this book a breath of fresh air

</review>
<review>

As an avid reader, a feminist, and newly engaged to be married, I was thrilled to see that the third wave feminist grrls from  and quot;Bust and quot; magazine had edited a book on marriage.   To add to my excitement it was published by the very cool Seal Press, and had a forward by my hero bell hooks.   IT WAS SEVERELY DISAPPOINTING!  Based on my previous experience, I expected honest, daring, endearing funny stories from a variety of self actualized women. Instead I got boring stories about:  how un-feminist marriage is, what last name the baby gets, and is lesbian marriage  and quot;real and quot; marriage.   Clearly the editors didn't do a very good job seeking out QUALIFIED submissions - something with attitude, something where theory meets praxis.  To top it off even the forward from bell hooks was bland.  She discusses her legacy with feminism and leaves out discussing MARRIAGE!  A (good) book about feminism and marriage is despretly needed.  It's such a difficult area for all of us partnered thinking humans.   and quot;Sex and the City and quot; is doing great.  Why can't we have a book version.  And I don't think  and quot;The Rules and quot; counts

</review>
<review>

It's amazing to see the explosion in books offering veganism as the solution to the world's ills.

It's like someone suddenly turned a light on and everyone woke up this year and went "oh yeah" - "of course" - "doh"

Perhaps it's more to do with a vegan lifestyle becoming easier to adopt than ever before due to shelf-loads of delicious new vegan products hitting the stores.

Having read this book that explains the "Why" or rather "Why not?" so succinctly then the next step is to discover the "HOW"

You better grab a copy of Hamlyn's new vegan cookbook with delicious healthy recipes ISBN: 0600611906 before it sells out.

A great new healthy vegan cook book by a dynamic UK nutritionist Yvonne Bishop-Weston BSc Dip ION MBANT who works at The Food Doctor in London.

With a great deal of ingenuity her award winning food mad vegan husband has devised recipes such as black forest chocolate cake with orgasmic chocolate mousse, lime souffles, Bannofee dairy free Ice Cream and lots of mains and starters too.

Good luck with helping make the world a better place

</review>
<review>

The author writes with zeal about the "new medicine" - vegan diet.  Full of references and detail, this is a solid discussion of how chronic disease can be prevented (and managed/reveresed) with diet.  As a vegan for over 3 years and a Registered Nurse, I thought I knew it all, but this book proved me wrong.  Your average physician is going to do one thing, wait until you have disease and then prescribe medication or surgery to "manage it."  You can do better.  Take matters into your own hands and read this book!  Highly recommended

</review>
<review>

This book, "The Vegan Diet as Chronic Disease Prevention", reinforces common sense attitudes toward the relationship between the quality of the diet and the resulting effect on health.  This is the only book on the subject of health and diet that I have found that is simple enough for anyone to understand and yet sophisticated enough to cause most doctors and other health care providers to re-evaluate their practice of medicating the symptom and ignoring the root cause.  Anyone doing research will love all of the credited sources and references, there is no "opinion" in this book, it is all proven with cited sources and studies

</review>
<review>

I received "The Vegan Diet as Chronic Disease Prevention" a few days ago for my birthday and have not been able to put it down since.  I know, that sounds like something one would say about a good novel, not a diet book, but this isn't your typical "diet" book.  It outlines all the different "diseases" that are CAUSED by diet, and provides a roadmap for reversing or stopping the damage.  As I read the "Vegan Diet...", I can't help but think about the friends and family that I have that could be helped by following the advise given within.  From the coworker with a daughter "diagnosed" with A.D.D. (this same coworker blurted out the other day that Cheetos must be healthy because they have "cheese" on them), to my dangerously overweight cousin, everyone knows someone that could be helped by this book.  I know what many of my friends will be getting for Christmas this year, a copy of this book

</review>
<review>

This book is the most complete resource that I have found concerning the effects of food on the body and the resulting problems that a bad diet can cause.  Anyone with a child that has been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder ( ADD )needs to read this book before drugging up their son or daughter

</review>
<review>

This book is the finest disease prevention book that's come out in a very long time. My question is: Why isn't this on the shelves of every bookstore and why isn't it being promoted by the  and quot;natural/health and quot; food stores? Is the publisher not promoting this as it should be? It is a great resource for everyone, as disease prevention and as a diet, as well as historical information. It is a shame, in my opinion, that more people will not have the opportunity to read and learn from it merely because it is not being promoted as it deserves to be. Whoever has dropped the ball on this one, get with it!!!

</review>
<review>

This book is a very easy read, even though it is packed with more references to research than I have ever seen in a book of this type before.  Now more than ever I believe we are what we eat

</review>
<review>

This book is really good.  It goes into depth, really, about all matters concerning a healthy lifestyle, really. I really recommend it

</review>
<review>

As some other reviewer pointed out, unfortunately Dawkins with this book is preaching for the choir. But hopefully it will give the more sane portion of the population some ammunition to meet the dogmatic rantings of the deists. His writing is sharp, witty, and cuttingly sarcastic, and an easy read, even if you don't agree to all his points.

</review>
<review>

Dawkins does not attack anyone, but notes that Carl Sagan and many other recent scientists made a grave error in attempting to reconcile religious beliefs with scientific facts. When religion held the upper hand, the resolution was to force people like Galileo to renounce their works. Science has held the upper hand, but too many scientists are on government payrolls or dependent upon grants to conduct meaningful research, and they must bow to forces imposing political correctness at universities to maintain their tenure or other sinecures.

</review>
<review>

"I decry supernaturalism in all its forms," writes Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion. "I am attacking God, all gods, anything and everything supernatural, wherever and whenever they have been or will be invented" (p. 36).

On closer inspection it becomes clear that insanely Dawkins is attacking life in all its forms, including his own life, and believes that life is an invention. Dawkins is too deluded or irrational to comprehend that God is everlasting life, and that we are the reproductions of that everlasting common ancestor. See Psalm 82: "I said, `You are gods; you are all sons of the Most High.'"

So if we are gods - i.e., the sons of the cosmic system's creator -, then Richard Dawkins is one of the gods. Because he's attacking "all gods," most irrationally he's attacking himself as well.

The main point I want to make is that the Most High's identity doesn't remain unidentified in the Bible. In John 10:30 Christ identifies himself with the existing highest form of life, i.e. with the parent seed of the universe: "I and the Father are one." On top of that in Revelation 22:13 Christ discloses: "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end."

Christ is "the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end," because he constitutes the cosmic system's input and output, or everlasting genotype of the phenotype universe.

Thus in essence Christ is teaching that he is the embodiment of the existing highest form of life, and he created the universe for the production of human beings in his own image, similarly as a seed creates a mighty tree for the production of seeds in its own image.

When Dawkins asks, "But how does life get started?", he's asking a stupid question that has only an equally stupid answer, which he doesn't fail to provide: "... we can make the point that, however improbable the origin of life might be, we know it happened on Earth because we are here (p. 137). It is beyond his comprehension that what is everlasting needs no origin, and because life is everlasting, it needs no origin.

Pitifully this Oxford biology professor seems to be ignorant of the principle of biogenesis. In the publication of his own university - i.e. in the Oxford Dictionary of Biology (4th ed., Oxford University Press, 2000) - we find: "biogenesis The principle that a living organism can only arise from other living organisms similar to itself (i.e. that like gives rise to like) and can never originate from nonliving material."

Read also what the Science and Technology Encyclopedia (University of Chicago Press, 1999) says about the subject of biogenesis: "Biological principle maintaining that all living organisms derive from parent(s) generally similar to themselves. This long-held principle was originally established in opposition to the idea of SPONTANEOUS GENERATION of life. On the whole, it still holds good, despite variations in individuals caused by mutations, hybridization, and other genetic effects."

Let me add that no biological generalization is more strongly supported by thoroughly tested evidences than the principle of biogenesis. And because the scientific evidence is clear beyond any reasonable doubt that life can never originate from nonlife, only from life similar to itself, it is an entirely reasonable and consequently scientific conclusion that there was never a time when life did not exist, and human life could come only from human life similar to itself. From this it also follows that the myth of life's origin from nonlife, moreover the myth of man's descent from lower forms of life, should finally be abandoned, at least in scientific circles.

Ironically many evolutionists, and even theologians, are in the habit of assuring us that the accounts of creation in the Bible are not fact-based, but faith-based. However it is beyond any doubt that this is a misconception. Even Philip, Christ's disciple, demanded tangible evidence for the creator's existence. Christ, without hesitation, presented the Father's body for Philip's examination. In John 14:8-9 we find this exchange of words: Philip said to Jesus, "Lord, show us the Father, and we shall be satisfied." Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father; how can you say, `Show us the Father'?"

Paul in his letter to the Colossians also assures us that Christ is the creator of the universe, and not something what is intangible or empirically not verifiable: "By Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible ...; all things were created by Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together."

Logically Christ, being the generative seed of the universe, is everlasting. The universe has no power whatsoever to act upon the initial cause of its own origin, just as a tree has no power to act upon its own parent seed.

At this point the argument may be raised that man is not the cosmic system's input and output, or pinnacle of all life forms in the universe. Indeed, whether it is true or not, we can't be absolutely certain. Precisely for this reason the theory of creation is tentative, just as scientific theories are supposed to be.

In any case just because we are not absolutely certain that man constitutes the existing highest form of life does not mean that the theory of creation is not fact-based, but faith-based. Man's existence is an undeniable fact. What is faith-based is the speculation that a life form superior to human life exists, which superhuman being is reproductively isolated from human life. But if either evolutionists or fundamentalists keep insisting - in the total absence of evidence - that human life is not the pinnacle of life forms in the universe, in that case they are the ones who believe in the existence of superhuman beings.
As a matter of fact Christ never told us that anything superior to his own being exists. He only affirmed his own existence and his identity with the Father, but never the existence of a being beyond and above himself. Being the Creator of the universe, he is most qualified to know that no being superior to himself ever existed.

In the final analysis this is my recommendation: Buy The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, provided you need expensive and substandard toilet paper.


</review>
<review>

Dawkins did a great job of presenting the current scientific position of atheism. The book can guide the debates between believers and nonbelievers.  It is nice to hear Dawkins say that his mind is open if God's existence is proven.  His book is thus timely because my  scientific proof of God's existence did arrive at Internet book stores this summer. (Search on "The First Scientific Proof of God.") A am waiting for reviews of this proof. A scientific proof of God's existence was possible earlier because the `scientific method' was found during the Renaissance. However, at that time, Science and Theology were becoming two distinct fields of thought.

Unfortunately, this separation silenced the flow of significant scientific thoughts about God beginning with Abraham.  This flow passes through personalities such as Moses, Plato, Jesus Christ, Constantine, Nicholas of Cusa, Leibniz, Cantor, and Cassirer. It is obvious that Dawkins missed this flow.  Because of this separation, the theory of God was transformed from a scientific subject into an irrational mystery.  Fortunately, this separation and mystery were overcome when competent English translations of the work of Nicholas of Cusa appeared in 1979 by Dr. Jasper Hopkins of the University of Minnesota.  After 25 years of research, my scientific proof of God emerged from this flow of scientific thoughts. But, Dawkins was correct to say that a proof of God would reveal a very different view of the world.  A new and very different life for humans can certainly be expected.

A scientific proof of God transforms the fields of science and theology into a single field of thought. A single symbolic language thus unifies them. All people must change. For instance, religions must think scientifically. And, science must think godly. In more detail, Dawkins must accept God as a multiplicity of unified symbols. The religious Trinity is thus changed to a scientific Trinity so that God is connected to the universe rationally and logically. Dawkins must also recognize that God and the universe (1)  are one, (2) have no beginning, and (3) have no end.  Finally, Dawkins must accept Michael Behe's concept of irreducible complexity because no atom of the universe is free.  Thus, no atom can be useful on its own

</review>
<review>

Just read this book and decide.  Richard Dawkins sheds some light on some very complex ideas.  Reading "The God Delusion" is more enlightening and lucid than reading the prose in the Holy Bible especially the King James Version with its difficult to understand 1611 English.  The updated translations (NIV, NRSV, ESV, etc.) of the Bible are easier to read but still have bizzare stories and lots of verses that contradict one another.  Christian friends of mine have explained these logical contradictions in the Bible.  Unfortunately, their explanations of the contradictions are vastly more confusing than the logical contradictions themselves (at least to me, anyway).

I am happy that the media in my country (USA) is promoting (or at least mentioning) books such as "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins, "Letter to a Christian Nation" by Sam Harris, and "Breaking the Spell" by Daniel Dennett.  We need an open and honest national (or world) discussion about religion and atheism.

By the way, a good Christian friend of mine from China read "Letter to a Christian Nation" by Sam Harris(less than 100 pages).  He is still a Christian and can't give up God; however, he is more understanding and tolerant of atheism.  This Christian even complimented Harris on how clearly he conveys his points in his writing.

</review>
<review>

Critics of Richard Dawkins' new book The God Delusion ultimately characterize his work as both angry and vitriolic, or more tamely, polemic. These are unhelpful descriptions as each fails to ask the question whether Dawkins has something to be angry, vitriolic or polemic about. Too many cultural commentators want to engender what they claim to be a thought process, but is in all actuality a feeling, that we should find a middle road between the mandates of science and the insights of spirituality. The bargain such people strike to make has value, but only where we can manage to clearly differentiate between those areas of life which science can and has spoken to, and those where it has not.

A number of reviewers from prestigious newspapers, periodicals and journals have already commented on what they see as the merits and missteps of Dawkins' book; however, many of them have not wrestled with several of the critical insights in his work. To resort to the ambiguous but doubtlessly effective (at least as measured by persuading people not to be bothered with Dawkins) charge that his analysis is angry, is to be unwilling to meet Dawkins on the grounds of his arguments. It should be said that, in the interests of fairness, Dawkins is surprisingly willing not to resort to similar vagaries. While a portion of his book does deal with fundamentalism and its various confused pulpiteers such as Dobson, Falwell and their ilk, this is only a small section of his book. That he is willing to bear the responsibility for pointing out what these people actually believe, their hopes for reshaping American culture, and how their beliefs impact hard science should not mean that we relegate Dawkins to the same heap of exasperation we do fundamentalists.

Perhaps it is the biologist within Dawkins that leads him to believe a parallel exists between biological cancer and similarly suspicious malignant ideological growths. While many of us wish to overlook fundamentalists with the hope they will simply go away, Dawkins fears this might not only be na�ve, but irresponsible. History is full of moments when society has regressed, labeling dissent the path to eternal damnation instead of earthly wisdom. While it might be that the inherent practical nature of the American people will be offended by the objectives of religious fundamentalism, rebel and find our historical balance, we easily forget that this balance is many times found only because of the clarion call from those who see the creeping influence and suspicious agendas of fundamentalists and require that we respond. A certain shame should be accorded to those who view with equal exasperation the fundamentalist and those who believe they can not be dismissed, but must be responded to.

As a scientist, Dawkins is privy to a particular question which contemporary culture largely believes remains unanswered, but science does not. This question is the hot-button issue of evolution. For many, belief in evolution is somehow inter-related with issues like abortion and homosexuality. No doubt, within the realm of ideological inquiry, we may successfully frame almost any issue in majestic terms that invoke non-quantitative words which have, at their core, the ability to project and then protect the idea that certain questions are unanswerable through rigorous scientific inquiry.

At its base, the question of evolution echoing in the head of the average person probably has less to do with science and more to do with the implications from scientific inquiry and theory in general. People's intuition subconsciously registers the threat that evolution presents; namely, that naturalism may be a task master no less demanding than certain religious systems. The idea that we may have only one opportunity to experience life adds a certain intensity within it which many currently avoid by pushing their hopes, aspirations and expectations (of themselves and others) into an afterlife. Additionally, among profound thoughts, few exceed the evolutionary realization that life on this planet is precious, inter-related, and that the environment must be viewed as a holistic organism within which we individually and collectively play an important role.

What scares Dawkins is probably the realization that for many people, the insights of evolutionary theory are believed to be inseparable from a descent into animalistic hedonism. Never mind that ideas like morality have equivalents in the animal kingdom, as do love, nurturing and protecting life. If one of the fundamental truths of the natural universe is Darwinism, we should share a certain amount of alarm with Dawkins that the implications to evolutionary science are being so poorly received. Man owes no duty to myth or to tradition, and finds progress only in those moments in time when verifiable truth is allowed to dictate how we engage reality. In this sense, Dawkins bears the vanguard of members of the natural sciences like Galileo who believed that any supposedly spiritual truth which could not bear the light of modernity was not worth protecting in the first place.

For those who wish to somehow tiptoe around the theory of evolution, Dawkins is perceived as hostile. To those who believe something important might actually be at stake by understanding where life comes from and how it develops, Dawkins is fighting for a solitary focus on what we know, not what we wish to believe is true. This latter point has not only important philosophical, scientific and theological outcomes, it has immense practical value by freeing the abused spouse or child to realize that what they wish to be true - that the abuser loves them, but is unaware of how to show it - is simply a prison from which they can only escape by separating what they wish was true from what can be verified as loving.

To his credit, Dawkins takes his scientific and philosophical critics seriously and responds assertively. Those who see his book as bracing are not being fair - if scientific inquiry is to mean anything it must not blanch at challenges which attempt and endlessly find some open hole through which they can see the shortcomings to a particular theory. Dawkins is never better than when defending the difference between science and theology, where one sees ignorance as limits to inquiry and knowledge versus the other as the gap only a creator god can fill. In a successful effort to be intellectually serious, Dawkins carefully uses examples of fundamentalists within hard science. This is probably because they are a rare species (perhaps his critics wish his biologist's sense of the need to protect endangered life was more acutely directed towards them), but more likely because he knows well they can create straw men which he does not appreciate being used on him. Dawkins' treatment of the classical arguments for intelligent design, Anselm and Aquinas' postulates for the proof of God are treated similarly respectfully, which is not to say they fare well in his hands.

It would surprise me if this book did more than add fuel to the fire; however, if we wish to employ a literary euphemism such as this, it would be appropriate to state that sometimes fire is nature's way of regulating itself (as the blow-down effect in the northern woods suggests). If so, the fire Dawkins is building may be an important part of our growth in consciousness. People who look to Dawkins with a critical eye towards what he suggests about internal spirituality should be careful as this was not the primary, or even secondary, thrust of his analysis. The purpose of this book was to deal with a particular set of concerns which Dawkins believes represents a bulwark to the progress of humanity. In a hat-tip to this inevitable criticism, towards the end of his book Dawkins does present a middle way which suggests a vehicle for transitioning between where most humanity is and the implications of evolutionary biology. While well-intentioned and certainly not without its merits, I much prefer writers who consider evolution's insights fixed and have moved on to wrestle with how we reshape religion into conscious personal enlightenment.

To be a spry debater is not to be mean. Many who mistake Dawkins' assertive and direct style for vitriol do so less because they believe his attitude prevents civil discourse, and more in the hopes that society can advance without calling ineptness for its inadequacies, and confusing current limits of human knowledge with the inevitability of supernatural explanations. At his base, Dawkins does not feel compelled to believe without proof, an attitude which some believe has value only within the sciences. Among the many insights to this book, perhaps the one which will stick with most is the simple realization that we have no need of beliefs which can not be tested or of ideas which give solace but wither under scrutiny. What we may hope for should not be what we believe, lest we give in to any number of delusions, only one of which is, as Dawkins describes, The God Delusion

</review>
<review>

This is a mildly entertaining and informative read. The book has been extremely controversial, mainly due to the title and the semi-divine status bestowed upon Richard Dawkins by the atheistic community. What is most interesting about the contents of this book (amply described in other reviews), is that Dawkins himself has almost nothing original to add to the science-religion debate. What are found in this book are re-hashed arguments that anyone with an interest in theology or philosophy will know well enough. How is it that someone like Dawkins comes to be known as one of the greatest thinkers of our time? I'm afraid that after reading The God Delusion I have no answer to this question.

Dawkins makes a fundamental error in his entire analysis of religion and its implication in the problems experienced in the world. Since evil and the spiritual longing and expression exist side-by-side within most humans and societies, Dawkins assumes that one causes the other. A little knowledge of probability theory and statistics would be of immense benefit to Dawkins.

However, I think religious people of all persuasions should read this book. If this is the best shot that can be taken at religion, then believers of all faiths have nothing to fear. And the informed religious reader will get a chance to compare the thinking of the great spiritual leaders who have imbued people's lives with love, meaning and structure with one of the cold, withered and egotistical minds of one of our would-be secular gods.

</review>
<review>

A superb book. The cretins below who attack Dawkins for being fundementally intolerent of religion miss the point. As was writen wonderfully elsewhere:

I think it would take just a single change to world culture: the end of knee-jerk deference to religion. That would mean:

No more looking the other way when myth is presented as equal or superior to fact
No more looking the other way when parents and communities brainwash their young with reality-distorting dogma
No more tongue-biting when religion leads to holy wars, terrorism, serial child abuse, and bigotry
No more governmental assistance in marketing religion, be it "In God We Trust" on the currency, oaths sworn on bibles, letting theocrats alter the Pledge of Allegiance, or tax breaks for churches and temples.

That is what we, Atheists, ask. If the above were implemented - if religion were scrutinized as it should be, if it were forced to survive on its own merits - it would crumble up and die and for good reason. Because it is a fraud, and a poison, and not sustainable on its own merits

</review>
<review>

I was truly surprised by this book when I read it some years ago. I was surprised by how engrossing and powerful it was , all the way through. This man lived a tremendously interesting life, rich in great creative challenges and triumphs, rich in meetings and experience with remarkable people, rich in sexual adventures and complex human relationships. The story of how the child of Greek immigrants came to become the director of two of the classics of the American Theatre "Death of a Salesman" and a 'Streetcar Named Desire" and of two of the great American movies, "On the Waterfront" and " East of Eden"  is told with remarkable frankness and perceptiveness.
Kazan does not come across in this work as a saint, but rather as a truly strong person who took what he wanted from life, even if this meant hurting others. His personal and inner torments however too make up an interesting part of this story.
One more point. His writing follows the rule of Henry James and is always interesting. This is a work whose richness in anecdote and event are so great that it fits into the 'couldn't put it down' category

</review>
<review>

With a former Supreme Court Justice warning the USA today (March 10, 2006) about starting down the road toward a dictatorship, it seemes fitting to re-visit the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in the 1950s when the right-wing was trying to scare our citizens into giving the government supreme power, just as neocons are trying now.

Elia Kazan defends his decision to name names during the Hollywood Hearings of the 1950s, saying that his ideas toward the Communist Party had changed and he thought the higher ups (maybe from Russia) were dictating policies to the American communists in the movie business.

Maybe so, but he also admits the Hearings already had all the communists' names and admits they were only showing their power to control people here in Hollywood,using intimidation to instigate the blacklist. In real life, the USA government was the bully, not the old, tired communists of the 1930s.

If so, then why did he ever think the movie he directed, "On The Waterfront," was a good analogy for what he faced? The USA government caused the black list and precipated suicides and family break-ups in their Hollywood investigation.

It was the mob who caused the deaths and intimidation in "On The Waterfront." Is Kazan saying that Congress behaved like the mob? Or that the mob behaved like Congress?

Granted, Kazan was a great director, brilliant at times. But to him the bottom line was the bottom line, and to keep his position as an all-star director, he had to name names. While he tries to seem noble, the reader can see his 'reel' motivation was money and his career. So what if he named names! He was working.

Today, we see the right wing using similar tactics in the Bush administration: questioning people's patriotism, using smears and mud-slinging against opponents, trying to get people fired if they disagree with neocon policies, keeping a blacklist of university professors who oppose them, and most recently, equating the AARP group of loving gays instead of our troops.

After reading Kazan's book, I did gain a firm insight into right-wing politics, and these politicians use juxtaposition of images to label their opponents. Right-wingers still don't care if they distort the record. To them, winning is everything

</review>
<review>

First, let me state I have often judged other people by their past actions. Was Kazan wrong for providing names of alleged Communist Party members? I can't answer this, and you shouldn't answer it, not until you read this book! Yes, Kazan named names. Yes, he did ruin the careers of certain artists. Please, don't judge until you have read his story! This is an honest, masterful show business autobiography! Kazan was a fearless, authentic, visionary director. He admits to adultery, poor parenting skills, and using people for his own good. Alfred Hitchcock allegedly tortured Tippi Hendren during the filming of the THE BIRDS by having the little critters thrown at her face in repeated attempts. Why? To foster the character's psychological terror. Would you want that man house-sitting for you while you are on vacation? Hell no......Can Kazan be rewarded for his art, yet  escape judgement for his past behavior? You decide, but read his story first! Kazan's films never shirked from dealing with pressing social issues, yet the movies are visual poetry. Hey, you try to make a movie about corruption on the Brooklyn docks! Oh, and make it a heart-wrenching allegory, a love story, and a black-and-white masterpiece! One other thing, don't forget that the Mob basically controlled the docks at that time and were not too keen on being protrayed in an unflattering light!!

One of Kazan's gifts was his tremendous empathy. Kazan the author allows us to develop this same empathy. He is a wonderful story teller, relating anecdotes about personalities like Tallulah Bankhead, Tennessee Williams, and Brando.  Granted, he worked with a pantheon of American writers, like Tennessee Williams and John Steinbeck. Granted, with source material like A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE and EAST OF EDEN, and actors like Jessica Tandy, Marlon Brando, and Julie Harris, he clearly had an edge over other industry directors.

Again, before you judge his character, read his book, sit down and watch his complete output of films, and draw your own conclusions. Don't let Nick Nolte or Ed Harris, both of whom refused to applaud or stand when Kazan was given his lifetime Academy Award, decide the issue for you. This book should be a must-read for young people considering a career in film or theatre

</review>
<review>

I became a part of Kazan's world upon reading the first sentence of this remarkable book.  Kazan raises candor to the level of literature, something most writers simply cannot do.  But it's so worth aspiring to as a means of written communication.

Kazan must have kept extensive personal files and journals to construct such a flowing narrative, which maintains a consistent energy through its 800+ pages.  Kazan spares no one, least of all himself, in recounting motivations, actions and consequences throughout his extradordinary journey as an actor, a director and a writer.

What interested me first about Kazan was his association with the Group Theatre, Harold Clurman, and Clifford Odets.  His later adventures with Tennessee Williams, Marilyn Monroe, and the House Un-American Activities Committee also make for engaging reading.  However, there's a depth to the writing that goes beyond Kazan's show business background.  I learned a lot about myself by reading this book, and that quality makes this a superb autobiography

</review>
<review>

I knew absolutely nothing about Elia Kazan prior to reading this book. He does a superb job of reconstructing his life from his early years learning theatre stage craft at Yale all the way through to his final years (he was 78 when he completed the book). He is seemingly forthwright about many of the tough decisions he faced throughout his career from the House of UnAmerican Activities revealing of many of his old 'comrades', which he does a decent job of articulating why he did whatthat, even if on the surface it seems lecherous.

What I was left with was the impression of a person who lived life to the absolute fullest, a person with conflicting and often questionable morals (particularly with women), and the thick skin you need to have to survive and thrive in the arts. A book like this far surpasses any 'how to' book for aspiring artists and is proof that there are no hard and fast rules other than perseverance, conviction, hard work, and individuality (finding your own voice).

</review>
<review>

This book is perhaps one of the greatest autobiographies of the modern Theatre. Kazan pulls no punches in depicting his epic journey from Greek immigrant to one of the greatest theatre and film directors of all time.  His life parallels the crucial artistic movements and conflicts of the  Twentieth Century: The Group Theatre, The HUAC hearings, The height and  fall of the Hollywood Studio System, the founding of the Actor's Studio,  and the development of the American Theatre. Kazan, along with Arthur  Miller and Tennessee Williams played a crucial role in creating a strong  and vibrant American Theatre. All throughout this amazing journey are  insights into the craft of acting as well as the trials and tribulations of  a man struggling for personal identity. This book demands to be on the  shelf of any student, practitioner or fan of the Theatre. Five out of five  star

</review>
<review>

I have read this book four times.  I can't recall an autobiography of any century that is more candid, and is written with such extraordinary brio

</review>
<review>

I realize that they are postcards, but I don't think I am going to be able to send them to anyone.  I love the artwork too much.  The colors aren't quite true to the actual pieces, but I am sure it was mass-produced.  Other than that, these are beautiful miniatures of the real thing

</review>
<review>

I read the works of folks like Vince Flynn, Lee Child, and, I thought, Nelson DeMille, for the escape--the action--intrigue. Someting to make the plane flight go faster.  I don't read for thinly-veiled, current-events, quasi-political commentary.  (There are recognized exports available for that sort of thing.  For example, a tour-of-duty in Vietnam gives neither me, nor Nelson, "expert" status on the conduct of warfare.)

DeMille, as he matures as a person and a writer, has taken to slipping his "agenda" into his storytelling.  Consequently, the "story telling" aspect of his craft has, in my opinion, atrophied.

He, of course, has that right. But I, for one, am done reading his books. There's always the news if I want current events commentary. And better suspense writers if I desire an entertaining escape.

</review>
<review>

Once again De Mille has written a provacative novel. It is both enertaining and thought provoking. I could hardly put it down. It is one of his better pieces of work.

The theme in the book is that a very rich,powerful and deranged  individual could bring about a nuclear tradegy. Moreover, that this might even be encouraged behind the scenes by our government. The story raises one's conscienciousness regarding the fact that either domestic or foreign terrriosts could destroy our world. That, infact, bellerent governments might enable it to happen. The book also points up the lack of cooperation that sometimes prevents our national security agencies from stopping such a holocaust. But DeMille's main character ignores the protocol and red tape of such bureauracies and cuts to the chase.

The book is also very funny as De Mille's protagonist is both cynical and smart.This book is far better than his last, although becomes redundant at times.

Wild Fire left me wondering if in fact a war mongering government might have used such trickery to give us an excuse to invade the Moslem World or might do so on a grander scale to attack Iran or North Korea in the future. I"ll take my chances with diplomacy, thanks.

De Mille mixes fact with fiction, as so many novalists like to do today. But as we have seen since September 11th, truth is stranger than fiction.

</review>
<review>

For us DeMille fans, we'll wait impatiently for the next book.  I wish they would come faster, but I understand that DeMille does a lot of research on his books, which is why they're relevant and timely--and he probably has a life, (he's engaged?) unlike some of us readers who want him to crank them out faster.

Wild Fire came at the right time for me.  I had just watched the elections, knew everyone was frustrated with the war in Iraq and I know I'm tired of seeing our boys come home in body bags for an uncertain cause.  As I watched the news, the thought occurred to me that maybe instead of sending our boys over there to get killed individually and causing such pain for the country why not send a bomb instead and blow the murderous (not extremists) bums off the planet.  A little extreme (murderous) departure from my usual thinking, but what other country finding Sadam in his hidey hold wouldn't have blown him in half, declared victory and come home?   Probably no other country, cuz we're always the country sending out the troops!  So, a little of Bain's thought processes crossing your mind while seeing another causality from Iraq would be forgivable.  However, to follow through or to have the power to follow through and continue the thought process--now we're into the storyline.

Well researched, timely, and of course, starring John Corey wisecracking his way through (sometimes going a bit over the top at inappropriate times), how could DeMille go wrong.  Well, this time he didn't.  Not his best book, but still a great read, it appears Nelson is back on his game after floundering a bit the last few times.

I'm not certain why Kate's in the action since she's Corey's boss but always follows his orders?  Maybe it's time for Nelson to have a female ballsy protagonist or does he like the "yes dear" type of woman?  While I enjoyed it immensely, I still wish Nelson would take his characters on a more believable adventure like he did in the old days.  These characters, while extremely funny on Corey's part, are still single handedly saving the country while the rest of the alphabet box (CIA, FBI, etc.) looks on in dumb utter amazement.  It scares me to think that only 2 of all of these people are bright bulbs and the rest are dumber than dirt?  If you're a DeMille fan, you'll enjoy this book and if you can suspend your disbelief and just sit back and enjoy it for the entertainment value, then you'll like it, even if you're not a DeMille fan

</review>
<review>

I just finished "Wild Fire" and although it is not the best book I have ever read and most definetly not the best John Corey book I have read, it is far from the worst.

Simply put, "Wild Fire" lacked something that I could not put my finger on. It was not as exciting or have edge of your seat moments as the other three John Corey books had.

But as readers I think it is extremely important to remember the time line of the book, it is 13 months after both John Corey and Kate Mayfield escaped death. The character of Kate changed completely, she would never drop the "f" word and yet she is much more fisty than in the other two books that feature her. Was the dullness supposed to correlate to the characters' atmosphere post-9/11? Did these characters have a feeling of helplessness because no matter how good they are, 9/11 still happened while they were working for the ATTF (under their watch)?

I really have a hard time describing that lacking quality in the book, but the plot was interesting and I still could not put the book done. Something drew me to continue page after page. It was not boring by any means.

As a side note, as a New Yorker and avid reader, I am in awe and to an extent obsessed with the John Corey character and I highly recommend reading all of "his" previous books, "Plum Island", "The Lion's Game" and "Night Fall" [especially if you are from the New York area].

</review>
<review>

I am one of those DeMille fans that marks the launch date of his novels on my calendar, and plans all activities around being at my nearest Costco to pick up one of the first copies.  This book was well worth waiting for - with subject matter that, in this present time, was more than timely, and, not that far outside the realm of possibility.  It's scary to think that people like Bain Madox, the villain, exist, but they do, and anybody who thinks Wild Fire was some sort of wild fantasy, needs to think back to some of the crazies we've experienced so far in this life. Think about Hitler, Saddam, and that crazy little guy in North Korea.  Do we really think that America could not produce such a nut?

For those who are looking for the typical suspense ride, where we pick up elements of the story a bit at a time, chapter after chapter, this isn't one of those.  You'll know the whole ghastly plot in the first hundred pages, and then you'll ride along with John Corey and his wife, Kate, for the last four hundred, while they try to figure it all out.  All the time, the dastardly plan is unfolding, and your mind's eye will visualize the horror that lies ahead if John and Kate don't get it together fast enough.  Frankly, I like this plot arrangement - it's a break from the usual, and I find just as much suspense in watching our heroes plow through the frustrations, obstacles and wrong turns along the way.  At the same time, John Corey has so much fun smart-assing his way through it all - he may be a bit over the top at times, but I think he is showing off his extreme machoness to his new bride.  Kate, I am happy to report, is no slouch herself - and gives it back in kind.

Another great read from Nelson Demille - this one doesn't quite rank up there with my all-time favorites, Night Fall, The Gold Coast and Upcountry, but it will tantalize you and make you think long after the last page is read. And that's what we want.  A memorable read.  Thank you, Nelson - could you write a little faster, please?  Can I write anything on my new 2007 calendar?


</review>
<review>

An exceptional plot of how power corrupts.  Suspenseful, entertaining, fascinating, and humorous with a touch of sarcasm throughout.
Marty Wurtz
Author of Deceptions and Betrayals

</review>
<review>

Let me preface this review by saying I am an ardent fan of Nelson DeMille's work - and have read more than ten of his books including Night Fall, Plum Island, and (my favorite) The Lion's Game. I evaluate this book not for what it lacks but rather-- its entertainment value and how it made me ponder situations, predicaments, and circumstances.

My favorite movie critic is Rex Reed.  I did not respect or value his judgment until he starred in the movie, Myra Breckenridge, with Mae West.  The critics panned it (including Rex Reed). The public avoided it in droves and considered it one of the worst movies of all time.

Mr. Reed discovered from this experience, humility - and the ability to see both sides of the proverbial coin. If we were to judge things sorely by their imperfections (in our minds) - that means, by definition, we will approve of nothing.

With the above qualifications in mind, I recommend Wild Fire to one and all.  If you love a good laugh, the main character (Detective Corey) will not disappoint. If you like a plot that isn't afraid to pick up speed at unexpected intervals, Wild Fire delivers that and more.

Chapter ten, page seventy six, explores the most populous Muslim country, Indonesia, and its battlefront of terrorism. It also lays out in graphic, and thought-provoking detail, the "A list" of Muslim countries scheduled for a retaliatory strike due to the havoc and chaos wrecked upon America on 9/11.

While the plot is fictional, it is almost surreal because in every one of the countries mentioned in the novel, terrorists are striking at the very fabric of each of these societies in real life.  This chapter on its own will enthrall the reader, and give all who are hungry for a good read;  food for thought.

Reginald V. Johnson, author, "How To Be Happy, Successful, And Rich"

</review>
<review>

When I realized early on the time I would waste on this assemblage of leftover quips packaged around a absurd concept, I resolved that I would alert other readers.

Generally I enjoy this author's works and anticipated this latest tome. I was surprised and dissappointed to find a lengthy novel which did nothing to disguise it's clues or probable developments. Everything was telegraphed and nothing was original. The conclusion was so lame that I was shocked that there was no effort to build suspense or intrigue.

My advice is to skip this one and wait for the reviews on his next

</review>
<review>

This book has about 3 interesting chapters; the rest is all dialog between a man and wife.  All this chit chat does nothing to further the plot, but simply takes up time and space.  There is no suspense until the 49th chapter.  Take my word for it; this book is not worth the $$, or time to read.  What a waste of talent.

</review>
<review>

I lost count how many times the word "myriad" was used inappropriately.

On the good side: This book was extremely light reading and can be finished in about three hours. There is a very approachable treatment of certain things that could be very technically difficult for some readers, such as regression to the mean.

There was a (perhaps too) brief discussion about why Russia failed to thrive under the Communist system. I like brevity, but I could have done with a few more pages (or even a chapter) on why Communism doesn't work. Most people refute it on idelogical grounds, but Kurtzman had a great start in bringing up the technical problems of co-ordinating large amounts of (market-based time scale)information by bureaucracy (which uses a bureaucratic time scale) that he didn't develop at greater length. Finally, someone who understands that this is not a matter of opinion!

Good discussion of initial public offerings of companies, which is something that we all "know" happens, but we often don't know the actors. Good discussion of exactly *what* Michael Milken did that got him into so much trouble. We all knew that he spent about a billion dollars in legal fees and is still worth hundreds of millions of dollars after the fact, but didn't know exactly why.

Kudos to him for his beautiful treatment of the complexity of the market and telling us how many players are involved in even the simplest decision.

It also gave an interesting explanation of something that I've wondered for a long time, which was how David Bowie managed to sell bonds in himself/ his catalog of songs and make so much money.

</review>
<review>

When I was a kid, I dreamed of being an astronaut.  That wasn't to be, but this book inspired me to go into science and engineering and now I'm a successful programmer; I've heard the book influenced many other people similarly, including many who worked on the space program. If you have similar interests, I think you'll find Rocket Ship Galileo absorbing, even if dated

</review>
<review>

This was Heinlein's first novel published in book form, and the first in his excellent "juvenile" series which included Space Cadet, Time For The Stars, Starman Jones, The Star Beast, Tunnel In The Sky, etc., and it is still my all-time favorite. Heinlein manages to make believable the tale of a scientist (Dr. Cargraves) organizing three 18-year-old boys of a rocket club to build a nuclear powered moon rocket. If you have an interest in space travel you'll get sucked in and won't put the book down until it's over, no matter how dated and unlikely the premise at first appears. It is written with Heinlein's usual skill (that earned him four Hugo awards), and the characters are easy to identify with, especially for any young space enthusiasts. This was also the basis for the 1950 classic film Destination Moon, although about all that remains unchanged in the film is the name Dr. Cargraves. In the book there is a veiled threat from unknown enemies that turn out to be Nazis (this was the first thing Heinlein wrote after the war) - in the film there's just a veiled reference to a communist threat. I suspect the film also draws from Heinlein's more sophisticated treatment from the same period, The Man Who Sold The Moon.
On 6 October 1988, after Robert Heinlein's death, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) awarded him the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal:
"In recognition of his meritorious service to the Nation and mankind in advocating and promoting the exploration of space. Through dozens of superbly written novels and essays and his epoch-making movie Destination Moon, he helped inspire the Nation to take its first step into space and onto the Moon." -- James C. Fletcher, Administrator, NASA
Read Rocketship Galileo, or get it for your kids. If it's not available here, search the auctions.

</review>
<review>

A daring young atomic scientist teams up with three high school seniors to attempt the first-ever rocket trip to the moon -- that's the premise of Heinlein's Rocket Ship Galileo.  Readers who aren't immediately turned off by the story's wild improbabilities and dated subject matter may find this book an entertaining adventure.  To begin with, Heinlein's story is well paced and solidly constructed for once, a pleasant change from the episodic hodgepodges he created in his later years.  He skillfully introduces elements of conflict at an early stage of the story, (as sinister forces seem to be trying to prevent the voyage from taking place) and he even manages to build some suspense, an effect Heinlein is not usually noted for.  His descriptions of the mechanics of the moon rocket and its voyage are both convincing and interesting, despite being badly dated.  One real letdown is the characters, who are curiously undeveloped, even for science fiction.  The three boys themselves are virtually interchangeable, and Doctor Cargraves isn't much more distinctive.  If some attempt had been made to give these young men their own individual personalities, the readers might find them easier to identify with.  As it is, it's hard to really care about these characters, even when something horrible happens to them.  The really big problem, though, is that this book really hasn't aged very well. For example, Heinlein tries to show us how a moon rocket was outfitted and launched privately, by one scientist and his youthful helpers, working on a shoestring budget, after a few months of labor; when after all, any schoolchild knows that it took NASA and the U.S. government billions of dollars, working with hundreds of the finest minds on the planet for nearly a decade, to accomplish the real thing.  Once our heroes reach the moon, the story gets even more improbable, as they find that the moon is already inhabited.  Naturally, Heinlein wrote this novel for younger readers, and it was published at a time when space travel seemed utterly impossible.  As such, it was written for the tastes of the times, and times have changed dramatically.  For instance, the only women in this book are the boys' mothers, who have very little to say about anything important.  The villains are cartoonish stereotypes, who are summarily dispatched without any show of remorse.  Although the book is reasonably well-written overall, and older readers may take some nostalgic pleasure in its simplicity and naivet, today's young readers may want something more wildly speculative than a moon landing.  On average, if you're old enough to remember Sputnik, you can be forgiven for loving this book; but if Neil Armstrong is just another boring guy you heard about in school, you probably won't be too impressed by Rocket Ship Galileo

</review>
<review>

Let's say this right up front:  and quot;Rocket Ship Galileo and quot; is not Heinlein's best novel.  But it just might be his most influential work, and given that the competition ranges from  and quot;Stranger in a Strange  Land and quot; to his early groundbreaking science fiction before WWII, that's  saying a great deal.  After his return from civilian service for the Navy,  Heinlein wanted to break out of the pulps he'd written for before the war.   He didn't want to stay trapped; he wanted to write for the slicks, for  girls, for boys, for the movies, for nearly every market that he could  break into.   and quot;Rocket Ship Galileo and quot; is not his first novel -- he'd  written several novel-length works for the pulps.  But it is his first work  specifically written for young boys, and the first of the dozen or so  juvenile classics to follow.  Heinlein's greatest literary hero, Mark  Twain, had written for boys; the market seemed open to him, and the money  looked good.  Heinlein always loved teaching young people, and this novel  would prove his greatest triumph in that regard.  Yes, the storyline is  somewhat hard to believe: three high-school age boys get taken to the moon.   But that was right in the tradition of the Tom Swift novels that had sold  so well to young boys.  Yes, the ending is corny to us now, with Nazis on  the moon: but in 1947, the Nazis has just been defeated, and they had been  the world's greatest rocket scientists: it seemed perfectly plausible in  1947.  The novel hasn't dated well in some respects; the dialogue is a bit  cheesy, and the characters are a little hard to tell apart.  But it still  moves with great excitement, and the science hasn't dated very badly at  all; Heinlein's experience developing high-pressure suits proved sufficient  to create a space suit remarkably like that later developed.  So why is  this novel so influential?  Because it was read by hundreds of young men  and women who went on to work in the Apollo program in the sixties;  Heinlein, in this very novel, had convinced them going to the moon was  exciting, achievable, and important.  If any work of fiction has that kind  of impact, it deserves to be read.  But in and of itself,  and quot;Rocket Ship  Galileo and quot; is still a page-turner, and a wonderful read.  Enjoy

</review>
<review>

I first read this book many years ago, and I still reflect on it from time to time.  It changed the way I looked at the world.  Simple in content, and perhaps a story out-moded for the present adventures found in SF, it still  has a particular value to the reader that will make it a favorite.  This  book was about unbridled ambition.  A handful of young rocket enthusiasts  and a instructor build a rocket ship and go to the moon utilizing their own  wits and resources.  Heinlein taps into the possibilities that could shape  the future, and essentially poses the question 'How long will space  exploration remain only a government exercise? Why couldn't private  citizens take it upon themselves to explore the stars themselves?'  This  entire book may seem simple at first glance, but I consider it an important  and thought provoking concept for any dreamer with a vision. At the time  this was written, it was very much ahead of it's time

</review>
<review>

I just love this book. The author writes a sweet and simple story told from Sally's point of view but what really captures you are the beautiful illustrations. Stephen Huneck's work is sold at gallerys across the country and many of the pieces that he sells are images from the books. I think that they are wood carvings/ cutting? Excuse my ignorance. We also have Sally goes to the farm. Both are lighthearted and fun. They really make us all smile. For anyone with a lab in their life this is a must have!

</review>
<review>

Sally Goes to the Mountains is a book I would give as a gift to any dog lover from 4 to 94. It's colorful illustrations, charming and witty captions, subject matter and size makes it the perfect coffee table book. I'll cherish mine forever. I can't wait for the next "Sally" book and plan to visit the huneck.com website to choose a special framed print from this very special book

</review>
<review>

In Sally Goes To The Mountains, author/illustrator Stephen Huneck draws upon his award-winning expertise to take young readers on a romp with a fun-loving black Labrador named Sally. Sally goes for a ride to the mountains where she encounters bears, moose, rabbits, and skunks! There are berries to pick, sticks to fetch, and a lake to swim in. Huneck's bright, superbly crafted woodcut prints perfectly capture the joy of a dog's outing in the mountains for young readers. Also highly recommended is the earlier volume of Sally's adventures, Sally Goes To The Beach (0810941864, [price])

</review>
<review>

I bought this book for my mom as a present.  She already owns the other  and quot;Sally and quot; books and loved this one too.  The illustrations are beautiful and very whitty.  My favorite is the giant moose with Sally.  The Sally books aren't just for Lab owners or children--any pet lover will enjoy them

</review>
<review>

Miss Rogers was a Latin teacher in Troy, New York for many years. She loved Latin and had a pleasant and loving attitude to her students. It was from her that I first heard, "Omnia Gallia in tres partes divisa est" She made us memorize certain passages in her beloved language.
So my first view of this ' classic' is not as a 'book to be read' but as a text to be studied in order to learn Latin grammar.
And what I felt in learning this is how logical, clear and straightforward it all seems to be. The style of the work as I understand it is a reflection of that strong, determined, clear, goal- oriented, straightforward moving Roman spirit that conquered a great part of the world.
As for the text itself, the character of Caesar, the military operations. Others more qualified than myself have already commented on this on the 'Amazon site'. I would just say that for some reason I had at that time years ago great sympathy for Vercingetorix, the defeated leader of the Gauls. I could not understand why he had to be defeated since he was in his own land fighting to defend his own people. I thought simple Justice would have him prevail. And as a young person I was dismayed at his despite his great courage being defeated.
As for the Romans even Caesar they inspire respect more than love, and admiration for their courage is balanced by a disdain for their appetite for conquest and domination

</review>
<review>

This used to be the manual for every young noble going to war as an officer. Today it is a historical document showing the roman republic in war, and in particular a portrait of how the great Ceasar would like his friends, enemies and history to see him. This book has shaped the thinking of allmost every military commander for 2000 years, and it would be a shame not to read the words penned by the dictator himself.

</review>
<review>

This is a remarkable document.  It is at once a manual on military strategy, on effective management of his troops, and on the psychology of the enemy.  But it is also a history, with smatterings of anthropology, sometimes our only source on a vanished pre-Roman way of life in what became France.  Finally, and most difficult to grasp, there is a political subtext, in which Caesar is communicating with both allies and rivals in Rome, advancing his career while advising future leaders on proper conduct.  Why did he mention certain things?  What did he omit?  What political image (or self-consciously enduring myth) was he creating for himself?  There are few antique documents as fascinating and to boot it is a literary masterpiece of clear exposition and rapidly moving narrative.  Once you read it - and it must be read carefully and with references to other sources - you will have no doubt that Caesar was one of the greatest leaders of all time:  afterall, his name is the basis for Tzar as well as Kaiser!

Then there are the details.  What stick out in my mind are individual tales of bravery as well as foolishness, rendered in detail as vivid as a novel, and the ever-present possibility of failure or even disaster from which Caesar always manages to pull victory at the decisive moment; of course, there are the many instances of brutality in a time of different standards of military conduct.  Then there is the siege of Alesia.  To protect his troops and starve out the enemy (and the charismatic Gaul, Vercingetorix), Caesar at Alesia had in a matter of days not only to build a surrounding rampart facing in, but also one facing outwards (14 miles in curcumference!), to ward off the last-stand of the bravest of the Gauls.  Finally, to break the spirit of small revolts after Alesia, Caesar cut off the hands of all the Bellevoci who took up arms in a desperate, last gambit that Caesar feared would repeat itself in innumerable city-tribes as his consulship ended.  It worked.

And there are many characters who figure later in the great civil wars that destroyed the last remnant of the Republic: Brutus, Labienus, Mark Antony, and Cicero's brother Quintus Tullius. You get glimpses of them as men as well as military leaders who later opposed Caesar.

As with much in Classical Civilization, the more you know the more you love it.  And the more this period of diversity looks like a metaphor, or example, for the present.  There is a good reason why the educations of scholars in the humanities (as well as in the sicneces) and diplomates began with the Classical era - read this and see how relevant it still is, in light of the War in Irak.  This is one of the most important documents from the period.

Warmly recommended.  If you are predispoosed, it will influence the way you think of contemporary events

</review>
<review>

Julius Caesar was one of the truly pivotal people in recorded history.  Most non-historians know him as the one who was stabbed by Brutus on the Ides of March. It is almost as if Caesar sprang full-grown to grab the reigns of power from the Senate in Rome.  Yet Caesar had a fairly long life before he became First Citizen of Rome.  He was a successful general and a talented historian who saw world events with the dispassionate eye of one who felt supremely confident that his tenure as an army general was but the last stop before his ascension to ultimate power.  In his CONQUEST OF GAUL, Caesar uses the third person point of view to punctuate his tacit assumption that unfolding events ought to be divorced as far as possible from the one witnessing them.  This writing technique also served to symbolize his stated goal: to conquer Gaul.  To him, Gaul was a land of barbarian tribes, with each possessing formidable numbers and fierce fighters.  These tribes and their leaders were enormously emotional, wildly unpredictable, and more dangerous as individuals than as organized units.  Caesar knew that to beat them, he could not be as them.  They were emotional, he coldly calculating.  They were not efficient in massed groups, his legions had to be. Caesar was the ultimate practitioner of the divide and conquer school.  He picked off his enemies one at a time, like bobbing heads on a shooting gallery.  The Atuatucii, the Nervii, the Helvetians all fought ferociously, sometimes winning minor victories, but it was Caesar who won the ones that counted.  He transformed his legions into extensions of his personality.  They fought well as masses against overwhelming odds, not for their pay, or hope of plunder, or even for glory, but for their commander.  Caesar's iron will and resolve filled his legions with hope and his enemies with despair.  It was only when Caesar was recalled to Rome that the Gauls decided that now was the time to seek a new leader to strike down the Roman eagle.  During this battle against Vercingetorix and his earlier ones against lesser chiefs, Caesar sees each battle as the logical working out of a master plan, that when combined with the bravery and training of his troops in co-ordinated combat, could crush a loud but awkward foe.  As he writes, one can visualize his intended audience, not the reader of this review, but the purple-robed senators back in Rome sweating out the increasing victories of a man who seemed fated to return to the Capitol to tell them their business.  His calmness in battle was matched only by his calmness with a stylus.  It is truly ironic that it was this same calm that led him to discount the excited warnings of a Mark Antony, who tried to tell Caesar of plotters, that led to his downfall

</review>
<review>

I have read the present classic book with great pleasure, but I nevertheless have had some feelings of not being completely satisfied with the editing. I happen to possess the complete translation of Ceasar's  and quot;Gallic War and quot; published by an imprint of Harvard University Press and it occurred to me that in the present book several seemingly irrelevant passages have been left out. And this strikes me personally as somewhat irritating. Of course, when one does not know the difference one probably won't mind at all, but I thought it might be useful to people out there who are in the moment of deciding whether or not to by the present book to know that it is not the complete version, and should they wish to come into the possession of this complete one they should rather purchase Harvard's  and quot;Gallic War and quot;. I am not trying to downgrade the present book, but it's just a matter of wishing to own a complete version of the work or not minding at all about such trivial things

</review>
<review>

If you can get past that the book was, at least in part, a piece of political propaganda for Ceasar you will be able to enjoy the experience of hearing Ceasar in his own words

</review>
<review>

So I pick up this book (it was a gift from friends), and expect it to be dull and dry like Tacitus or Plutarch.  Instead, Caeser has me rolling (well, not exactly) with laughter.  He writes in a very historically accurate way, but since this is a piece of propaganda, he tends to lay the blame for mistakes on someone else, or rationalize his breaks from the Roman authority.  Caeser also belittles the natives of most of Gaul (except the Belgae,  and quot;the most fierce and quot;), and when he destroys an entire village, he states it in such a cool and nonchalant way ( and quot;and so the village was burnt, and all of the citizens put to the sword. and quot;)  While caeser may not have intended to be funny, this book is a wonderful piece of history which must be taken as a historical tall tale

</review>
<review>

Terrific for those of us that had trouble with the original latin at school. Fluent commentary on Caesars exploits in Gaul.Describes the geography of Gaul, it's people, politics, and Roman (read Caesar's) attempts to pacify Gaul. This is the first hand account of the invasion of Gaul that Caesar sent back via courier to the senate and people of Rome which enhanced his powerbase and set in motion the events the Ides of March

</review>
<review>

This was a really good book. It is good from the front cover to the back cover. I would recommend this book to anybody who enjoys being "transported" to another time and place through words

</review>
<review>

Matthew Skelton's debut novel features two storylines that intertwine like snakes across the centuries to lead us on a search for the book of all knowledge and power, ENDYMION SPRING.

"The story it appears, is still writing itself."

In 1452 Mainz, Germany, the young printer's devil, Endymion Spring, slaves for his master, Herr Gutenberg, whose moveable-type printing press is causing quite the ruckus. People claim that his perfectly copied Bibles are the work of magic and devilry, while others think he has the power to change the printing world forever. His invention becomes enshrouded further in mystique as a mysterious investor, Johann Fust (a.k.a. Faust), shows up at Gutenberg's door with a serpent-engraved chest and a proposition for business.

"When Summer and Winter in Autumn divide
The Sun will uncover a Secret inside."

In modern-day Oxford, England, Blake Winters visits the college with his sister Duck and his mother Juliet, a skilled researcher excited about studying at the famed university. While their mom is off in the world of research, Blake and his sister wander through St. Jerome's College Library and accidentally stumble across an ancient tome, a book that Blake soon discovers is the furthest thing from ordinary. All of its pages are blank!

"The printed word is sacred."

Why would a library keep a blank book with a broken clasp? This question bothers Blake until he sees the words appear on the page, words no one else can see but him. This unbelievable experience takes him down a road of conspiracies and competitions, one in which he'll encounter a lunatic collector of rare books, a nosy Oxford professor, a peculiar homeless man, Mephistopheles the cat, an origami dragon, unfinished grammar homework, All Souls College, secret staircases, the Shadow, and THE LAST BOOK. He soon learns that no adult can be trusted, not even his parents --- not with something so important on the line.

"If life has taught me one thing, there is nothing so loyal and true as the written word."

One of the wonderful things about books is the power they have to "stay with you long after you read them, lingering in the unswept corners of your mind." This is just such a book. Skelton is a master of words, wielding a high-level vocabulary in the smoothest of manners to paint his dark and captivating world. While the complex nature of the language, combined with the scholastic focus of the story, might turn off some readers, its enrapturing chase through the halls of modern-day Oxford and the streets of bygone Mainz will carry other readers swiftly along, intriguing them all the way to the finish.

ENDYMION SPRING is a fine debut, and we undoubtedly can expect great things from this author in the future.

Reviewed by Jonathan Stephens

</review>
<review>

I listened to the audiobook... I usually become annoyed with books with skip to back story alot. It didn't bother me much here.

Although I understand the comparison, I detested Inkheart/Inkspell as being very very boring and drawn out and depressing ...so I am probably am in the minority.

The mysteries of this book are more thoughtful and the story moves along. Sometimes i wasn't sure if the mysteries (or confusions) were caused by confusion on my part or the author's... still,  it is this very confusion which makes it interesting to me.

I had to fill in the gaps a bit and I got to imagine what it all meant. It had a resonance for me.

</review>
<review>

My son and I met the author last night.  He is wonderful and very fascinating in how he writes and how the characters come to life for him.  If you get a chance to meet him, take it!

My son, who is 11, liked this book.  He gave it a 4 out of 5 stars with 5 stars reserved for his favorite series:  Cat Warriors and Edge Chronicles

</review>
<review>

I recomend this book to every new mom. It explains everything that is happening and I knew what to expect before I went to my Dr's appointment. It told me things my doctor didn't.

</review>
<review>

My wife and I receieved this book as a gift when we announced her pregnancy.  It is by far our favorite pregnancy book.  The week-by-week format is perfect for following along with your progress and also makes it nice to read together.  There are even helpful hints for dads along the way.

My wife found that the book answered her questions and concerns as they arose.  Should I be feeling the baby move?  When does morning sickness start?  Is my weight gain normal?  The timing of when this book discusses what is happening to a pregnant woman is good.

What we like best about this book is that the information is up-to-date and, unlike MANY of the pregnancy books out there, it isn't just filled with negativity.  Yes, there are a lot of things that can go wrong and there are things you need to know.  But, this book presents that information in a positive manner and doesn't go overboard.  There is much about pregnancy that is positive and this book celebrates that and is reassuring.  But, it isn't purely platitudes.  It also gives you information to help you when you prepare to see the doctor.  That balance, we have found, is very rare in pregnancy books

</review>
<review>

When I was pregnant my first time, I carried this around everywhere!  I was hungry for knowledge and this seemed to be the only book that I could refer to more frequently than just the month-to-month!  I had wished that there was a day-to-day book, but this came very close to providing me with new information as frequently as possible.  It is a staple of the pregnancy book diet!

Kelly Townsend
Author
Christ Centered Childbirt

</review>
<review>

I absolutely LOVE this book.  I grabbed a pile of books at the bookstore and looked through each one carefully before selecting this one.  It is the only best-selling guide written by a doctor with millions of copies sold.  And I know why now that I own it!!  I don't see the negative like some readers do.  It is written by a doctor, so it provides a lot of info that you'd get by talking with your doctor every day!  So there are things that you should know about even if you don't want to hear it or don't think it will happen to you!  It explains things such as bleeding during pregnancy, some common medications to avoid to prevent birth defects, pollutants to avoid and why, STDS during pregnancy, nutrition and sources/serving sizes, how your actions affect your baby's development (vaccinations, smoking, xray, falling, safety, etc.), possible tests, required tests, lying on your back, rh-sensitivity, douching, sex, backaches, exercise guidelines, air travel, car safety, breastfeeding, pregnancy discomforts (hemmorhoids, constipation, backaches, foot swelling, dizziness, breast itching, cramping, contractions), infections, hot tubs, jaundice...  It really is like having a doctor's advice for each week of your pregnancy.  It relieved alot of the worrying about symptoms I was experiencing, realizing that I was "normal".

It is very exciting to read each week's development and be able to check out the illustration of the baby's actual size and shape, read what I may be expecting (nausea, ultrasounds, testings, baby kicks, belly size, wt. gain).  Every week I sit on the couch and read aloud to hubby and we marvel at all the changes and progress this book explains each week.  Sometimes I even read ahead a few weeks because it reveals so many interesting changes occurring that you couldn't possibly know otherwise.  There are tips provided for each week and common concerns addressed that are very important during each week of pregnancy.  It is an invaluable resource!  I've learned so much from this book, I highly recommend it

</review>
<review>

The greatest strength of this book is the week-by-week format. It outlines specific changes that are pretty close to exactly as predicted. We noticed many of the things and then read them that week, ie. phlegmyness, inability to travel more than an hour and dryness at night just to name a few.  This book is very well balanced and it tends to focuses more on the positives of pregnancy and not the possible complications. This is the 5th Edition of this book with millions of copies sold. Overall it is a great help. I definitely recommend it to all expectant couples. These authors also wrote a number of supporting or complimentary books:
Bouncing Back From Your Pregnancy
Your Pregnancy Journal Week by Week
Your Pregnancy for the Father to Be
Your Pregnancy After 35
Your Pregnancy Questions and Answers
Your Pregnancy Every Woman's Guide
Your Baby's First Year Week by Wee

</review>
<review>

This book is appalling. It is disempowering to women, providing false and very negative information about out of hospital births (with no reference to back it up), and generally gives a "don't worry your pretty little head and do what the doctor tells you" attitude--even if what the doctor tells you will endanger you and your baby.

In spite of what this book says, there are things you can do to minimize tearing (and episiotomies don't heal better than tears, in spite of what the book says), things you can do to improve your chances of a healthy baby without a cesarean or other medical interventions, and so on. Of course there are times these things are needed, but not nearly so often as the book suggests, and it's not nearly so random. It continually cites opinions as facts, without any evidence base.

There are much, much better books out there than this one. Don't subject yourself to the needless anxiety of this book

</review>
<review>

Ok, so there might be some parts that are negative, but really- how cool is it to tell your husband, partner, whatever that "This week the ears will be growing and the baby will be able to start to hear things" or "The baby is now the size of a peanut- look at the scaled drawing in the book of what our baby looks like!"  I think that this is a great book.  Always take things with a grain of salt, but this book rocks.  I buy it for all my friends that are having babies.  Very informative, and the pics are really cool.  I thought this was the BEST book, way better that "what to expect when you are expecting"  yuck!  :

</review>
<review>

I know that no book can cover every topic, but this book left a lot out. It went into great detail about what I should do if I got some pretty rare diseases, but barely touched on the subject of Morning sickness, which is much more common.
And some of the information was just plain wrong. I trashed the book when it made me freak out in the 20th week because I couldn't feel the baby move. It advised that I should call the doctor. When I did, I found out most women don't feel it move until 21 weeks. Unfortunately I found this out after I had cried my eyes out thinking something was wrong.
I would not suggest this book to anyone

</review>
<review>

This book is almost entirely week by week description, so the information is detailed.  I especially liked the Dad Tips that are included with each week.  There is also a tiny section on labor and lists of common events for the first several post partum weeks.  I liked the simple writing style, but I often did not find the extra information for each week relevent to what I was going through at the time.  I prefer You and Your Baby Pregnancy: your ultimate week by week by Dr. Laura Riley

</review>
<review>

We have this and the "bible" of maternity books, "What to Expect When You're Expecting."  But we may have well just thrown the other one away.  This book is great.  Each weeks there is information on how your baby is developing.  Many weeks have illustrations depicting what the baby might look like.  Info on the size and development of the baby and what changes are happening to the mother's body.  There are plenty of facts on things like nutrition and warning signs and symptions of disease.  And my wife's personal favorite was the "Dad Tip" each week.  It really is a well written book.  It doesn't overload you on information but keeps you aware of the mother's changing body and the development of the baby. A must have for any mother or father out there

</review>
<review>

My kids absolutely love this book.  Every time they see a dog they don't know, they ask what it is and look it up in the book.  There hasn't been a dog they haven't been able to find yet.  The color photographs, not illustrations, are great.  I highly recommend this book, especially to kids who love dogs

</review>
<review>

This book is great for dog lovers.  I thought that the part about training your dog and such is dull because the pictures and accrual description of the dogs of the book is the best.  It is great for someone who wants to get a dog and find which one is perfect for you.  People whom already have a dog would not be board in this book. I had already had a dog before I got this and it was fun trying to find my dog and my friend's dog in this book.  I think that this book is great for all ages because just looking at the pictures if fun.  Anyone who says this is an awful book must be wrong only thing is there are more dogs in the back that do not have a description which means you my not find you dog in this book

</review>
<review>

As much as I like the book, it was not what I though it would be. This is a book about the various breeds explaining thme briefly to the child reader and introducing them by photos. Some of the best photos at a very reasonable price for those looking into the different breeds around

</review>
<review>

This is a great book that I use for 4-H quiz bowl.  It has complete breed descriptions for every breed in the AKC.  It gives you the breed standard, a size comparison, and unique facts for EVERY breed.  This book also has vital information for first aid, and health care.  Great book for kids 8 and up

</review>
<review>

This book is the eleventh book in A Series of Unfortunate Events.  This book follows "The Slippery Slope" and precedes "The Penultimate Peril."

We began in story where "The Slippery Slope" left off.  The Baudelaire orphans, Violet, Klaus and Sunny, on her way out of babyhood, are floating down the Stricken Stream on a broken toboggan.  Faster than you can say "Captain Nemo," a periscope with a submarine attached appears.  Aye, aye, a submarine it is!  The submarine, named QueeQueg, is crewed by Captain Widdershins, his step-daughter Fiona, and Phil, whom we previously met in book the fourth, "The Miserable Mill."  Captain Widdershin's motto is "he who hesitates is lost."

The submarine and its crew head for a mysterious location marked on the charts as "GG," hoping to find the sugar bowl with the secret.  Others are in the ocean too, and the submarine barely escapes an octopus submarine and another, larger, and more sinister submarine.  Eventually the crew of the QueeQueg finds GG, which turns out to be the grim grotto.

The Baudelaires and Fiona don diving gear and float toward the grim grotto, hoping to find the lost sugar bowl.  Unfortunately, the children discover a virulent fungus and are trapped in the grotto for some time.  The children seek the sugar bowl, but to no avail.  Eventually the children return to the QueeQueg, but the deadly fungus of the grim grotto has accompanied Sunny and she has but an hour to live.

Just when you think things can not get worse, the children discover Captain Widdershins and Phil have disappeared from the submarine while they were in the grim grotto.  Worse yet, Count Olaf shows up in the octopus submarine, along with other unsavory characters.

Will the children escape the Octopus submarine?  Will they find a cure for Sunny Baudelaire in time to save her?  What happened to Captain Widdershins and Phil?  Just where is the sugar bowl and what secret does it contain?  Who is the mysterious person in the taxi at the end of this book?  Most of these questions will require at least one more book to resolve, and the reader will need to persevere a while longer.

This story is about average for the series.  The author went on a little long on a particular issue in several places, and Captain Widdershins was somewhat obnoxious.  Count Olaf's new, improved laugh is also annoying, as are the other unsavory characters in Olaf's crew.  However, I, like many other readers, are to the point where I have to find out how Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket, ends this series.  Only two books left to go!

Enjoy!

</review>
<review>

When your last name is Baudelaire, it is a known fact that you will somehow stumble upon trouble, no matter how hard you may try and avoid it. When you're last name is Baudelaire and you're an orphan, stumbling upon trouble increases tenfold. Which is why the Baudelaire orphans (Violet, Klaus, and Sunny) know instantly after they begin floating along the Stricken Stream that trouble is lurking around some vicious corner. However, as they are not dolphins, seals, or fish, they did not expect their next bout of trouble to take place underwater. But, alas, that is exactly where they find themselves on their next dreadful adventure. Having come across a submarine that is filled with three crew members (Captain Widdershins, his step-daughter Fiona, and, lo-and-behold the Baudelaire Orphans old pal, Phil), the Baudelaire's enter the underwater vehicle, and begin their next journey. Within a short while, the three orphans learn that Captain Widdershins is a member of V.F.D., and they quickly realize that he is on their side, willing to help them discover the truth about the fire that took their beloved parents lives. However, when the orphans, along with Fiona (a young mycologist), prepare for a bit of deep-sea diving, they soon find that young Sunny has been infected with Medusoid Mycelium (a deadly fungi). Now, the siblings are searching for a way to save their baby sister from a very certain death, without many supplies. As if that weren't difficult enough for the Baudelaire's to endure, they have just discovered that Count Olaf is now trailing them under the sea, and plans on capturing them, and (you guessed it) claiming their fortune as his own.

It is quite unusual to note that, having read the ten previous novels in this depressing series, this one leaves the reader feeling the teensiest bit happy when the last page is turned. Snicket has begun to make the three Baudelaire orphans, whom we all know and love, grow up. They are developing school-boy (and girl) crushes, celebrating birthdays that make them another year older, and increasing their vocabulary quite a bit. They are pursuing new hobbies, such as the culinary arts, and writing, and, perhaps, even a love for deep-sea diving...perhaps not. He has even changed Count Olaf from the miserable, obsessive, self-absorbed cretin he used to be; giving him a chance to show his giggling, poetry-loving, order-taking, sensitive side, leading the reader to think that maybe, just maybe, this series will have a happy ending. For those who have read the ten previous novels, THE GRIM GROTTO is essential reading, especially if you plan on finishing the series to see what type of miserable ending the Baudelaires end up with. A not-so-grim tale that will leave you gasping for air (and dry land).

Erika Sorocco
Freelance Reviewer

</review>
<review>

The Grim Grotto has Violet, Klaus and Sunny aboard a submarine where a crazed Captain is obsessed with finding the sugar bowl before Count Olaf. While Klaus starts getting close to the Captain's stepdaughter Fiona. She's a book a worm too, well when it comes to learning about mushrooms. One of the funnier parts has has her stepfather alreday planning their wedding and having the two blushing. While saying "and Violet can marry my stepson once we find him again, Aye!". The book has it's slow points but it's still one of the best of the books since it has some surprises. Plus when Sunny gets poisoned by a deadly mushroom, Klaus and Violet have to figure out how to cure her and get away from Count Olaf at the same time.

Olaf is surprisingly about as whacky as Jim Carrey played him this time around. He introduces many new goofy laughs and is harder to take serious this time around. The books had a better and more sinister Olaf than the movie until I read this book. He seems to get more and more annoying as the books go on anyway and he's certainly his most annoying here. The book is still creative and the most intriguining enough for me to strongly recommend it. I honestly liked it more than most of the books.

</review>
<review>

The Grim Grotto, Book the eleventh in the Unfortunate Events series, picks up where book the tenth left off. At the start, the Baudelaire childrens are floating down Stricken stream on a toboggan when a periscope suddenly comes out of the water. The Baudelaire children are unsure whether the people inside the submarine can be trusted, but you know how that goes if you've already read the previous 10 volumes. So on this adventure it begins with a submarine and continues through encounters with deadly mushrooms, tap-dancing, a message from a lost friend, betrayal, and eventually a dark undersea cave

</review>
<review>

I love Koontz but this book fell far from the mark.  It started off slow and I found myself thinking, "Where is this going?"  And, in the end, I felt it took me nowhere.  And, the T.S. Elliott quotes got a little annoying.  If you're a fan like me, I know you'll read it despite this review but if you're a first-time Koontz reader, don't start with this book.  It is definitely not his best work - try Odd Thomas or even (going way back here) The Funhouse instead

</review>
<review>

I've read most of Dean Koontz' books and for the most part, I've enjoyed all of them. Most of his books are what I consider just sci-fi/fantasy; a good thriller read.  I think I'd have given this one a 5 if there was less fantasy.  I got the feeling he wrote this book in the hopes it would become a screenplay, a combination of a King/Spielberg wannabe.  I listened to this on audio, my Koontz first, and I found that in the midst of my road rage during rush hour traffic, I wasn't missing a lot of the plot.  I really could imagine this on film, and given the length of the audio book, minus all of the flowery descriptions, it would make a great 2 hour movie.  However, I got a pleasant surprise at the end, and I absolutely loved it.  His explanation of Armageddon vs. "Alien invasion" made the book, in my opinion.  It will make you think.  This wasn't one of his worst books, it was one of his best.  Give it a try.

</review>
<review>

This was my first Koontz book (since then I've read many) and I think it's still my favorite.  One reviewer said it "will likely let you down, unless your favorite theme in Koontz's books is the transcendence of horror by uplifting spirituality".  Well, yes!  That's the whole reason I read Koontz books - otherwise I don't think I'd be able to sleep at night!  I love the redemption twist he writes into many of his stories (The Face, anyone?).  Anyone can write straight horror without hope, but Koontz acknowledges a bigger picture, and I hope he keeps it up

</review>
<review>

I have been a fan of Dean Koontz for many years, but I stopped reading his new novels about 6 years ago, because after awhile, it seemed as if all of his characters were the same. I recently read the back cover of this book, and it sounded so interesting, so I gave it a chance. Boy, was I sorry. It is as if Dean Koontz regressed to a first year creative writing student! His sentences are awkward, mostly out of an insane desire to use as many adjectives and adverbs as he can - it is as if he wrote the book with a thesaurus by his side. This was way too distracting, and it really diminished what otherwise could have been an entertaining tale.
Please Dean, take an opportunity to read some 'how-to' books on writing

</review>
<review>

The foundation of success in a horror story is a strong, original beginning.  The author must grab your attention and earn your suspension of disbelief.  Dean Koontz failed to make this upfront investment in The Taking.  The story caroms off of a long series of hackneyed horror elements - stormy night, body snatchers, magic mirrors, ghouls, and (Koontz's favorite) Delphic dogs - before settling down with a very modest storyline about a non-denominational rapture.

Koontz can usually be counted on to deliver some pleasant thrills or humor if not the chills of real horror.  But The Taking provides no such return

</review>
<review>

I'm not a hard core Dean Koontz fan but I have read a few of his novels and enjoyed most of them (at least enough to pick up another from time to time)

Until now.

I've always found Koontz to be heavy handed as an author and 'The Taking' is about as subtle as a hand grenade. We get it - people are selfish and have lost sight of what is important in life. They should pay more attention to their children and love their dogs.

The preachy tone to the novel reaches a crescendo with a corny 'Noah's Arc' ending. This the worst novel I've read in a long time - and may be the last Dean Koontz novel I'll ever read.

</review>
<review>

I'm a fan of Koontz but this book was a disappointment. First of all it seems that not much happens. Molly, the main character, goes around worrying about what will happen next and the writer spends way too much time philosophing. It's too cutesy with children and dogs (Koontz, please, the super intelligent dog concept is getting tired). For most of the book it would be a 3 star book, but the ending is too cheesy and religious. What will he write next? A "Left Behind" book

</review>
<review>

Mr. Raffini has put together a great resource for motivating students. This book shows ways to use active versus passive learning practices. These methods are all classroom tested and designed by successful teachers. He understands what motivates students and what activities leaves lasting learning. Even a few of these suggestions will help make any classroom a better learning environment.

</review>
<review>

Educators already know that intrinsic motivation is preferable, but finding a viable way of doing that can be challenging. This book provides 150 (author was not exaggerating ; ) specific, doable activities for motivating the reluctant learner. I checked it out at the library~ it was so good, I immediately turned to the computer to order on line

</review>
<review>

Solid book on CS- long read!
Many good points-
Wish there was a cliff notes versio

</review>
<review>

This book fills in the empty space of academic books in CRM. Most of the publications and articles I've read deal with research on the subject and companies selling their programs. In this book Peppers and Rogers compiled a comprehensive text with theory, research and contributions from other authors that are a valuable tool for the under and graduate level

</review>
<review>

This very extensive text on customer relationship management leaves nothing unsaid or unexplained. Authors and editors Don Peppers and Martha Rogers tackle the subject with admirable organization, clarity and depth. They define every important term and do not lose the reader in marketing jargon - a rare virtue in a book about marketing. The text, including contributions from other well-known experts in the field, propounds a well-developed theory of customer relationship management (CRM) and sets out numerous examples to illustrate, explain and clarify the theory. Useful as a handbook, textbook or reference manual, the book covers - among many other core subjects - customer identification and differentiation, customer feedback, an analysis of retailing and basic tools for CRM. We highly recommend this book to service-oriented managers and executives. To form profitable relationships with your customers, first get friendly with Peppers and Rogers.

</review>
<review>

Having just finalised an e-business thesis on Online Personalization, I must say that this book is an impressive source on the strategic level for what is synonymously called CRM, One-to-One marketing, relationship marketing, etc.

What I like about Peppers  and  Rogers is that they don't pretend to be the only ones to have seen this shift in customer-focused organizations (although they were first-movers in US by coining the term One-to-One in 1993). Peppers  and  Rogers accept readily that many other people have interesting perspectives to add. Thus, this book includes many contributions from marketing wizards like Philip Kotler, Seth Godin, Bruce Kasanoff, and Patricia Seybold.

The book is the sixth from the authors. If you have read some of the previous publications, you'll already be familiar with their core concepts like the IDIC-model (Identify-Differentiate-Interact-Customize), as well as Learning Relationships and customer Lifetime Value.

I believe that Peppers  and  Rogers' most important contribution is to change a company's focus from customer acquisition to customer retention. That is: Stop spending all you money getting new customers and start spending more on keeping and growing existing customers. This is where the learning relationships come in. The basic idea of Managing Customer Relationships, the authors concisely describe in plain English:

The Learning Relationships work like this: If you're my customer and I get you to talk to me, and I remember what you tell me, then I get smarter and smarter about you. I know something about you my competitors don't know. So I can do things for you my competitors can't do, because they don't know you as well as I do. Before long, you can get something from me you can't get anywhere else, for any price. At the very least, you'd have to start all over somewhere else, but starting over is more costly than staying with me.

Being a Dane, I'm proud to see the reference made on page 172 that the relationship theory can be traced back to the Scandinavian School of Relationships Management (e.g. Gronroos and Gummeson). Back in the 1980's, both were required reading in Scandinavian business schools. They often researched service firms and B2B-networks and based on this knowledge, they emphasised the contents and types of the business relationships and the required strategies to make these relationships work. It wasn't until the 1990's that CRM-initiatives took off in the United States - and usually they have been very technology-driven. Today, we all accept that you need both the relationship mindset and the technology-enabler. So the two approaches may ultimately achieve the same goals.

Peter Leerskov,
MSc in International Business (Marketing  and  Management) and Graduate Diploma in E-business

</review>
<review>

Another stellar effort by the pioneers of one-to-one. This book tackles CRM on several different fronts, and includes thoughtful pieces from a range of expert contributors. The book features both tactics and theory, including a helpful history on the emergence of CRM as a major business philosophy and some of the original research behind relationship theory. A hefty reference, and a useful one

</review>
<review>

If you can only buy one book on CRM, this is it.  This comprehensive reference covers CRM methodologies, frameworks, best practices, and case studies all in one easy to read and easy to implement volume.  The book is filled with contributions from leading companies, well-known thought leaders in the field, and the best minds in academia.  It truly has it all

</review>
<review>

Excellent Reference work, but just as much fun for brows
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Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America: 2-Volume Set by

ing

</review>
<review>

`The Encyclopedia of Food and Wine in America' is a great 1500 page compilation of excellently written articles on virtually every aspect of the history, education, manufacture, marketing, personalities, and writing about food in America. Practically the only thing it does not include is recipes or cooking. Even sidebars whose label suggests a proper place for a recipe such as the sidebar on shoofly pie gives not one hint about how to make this delicious dessert. Given the size of the subject, it is not at all surprising that the editors have left these out, as both recipes and kitchen science can both be considered without nationality, plus the fact that there are thousands of good cookbooks and a score of books on food science available today, so why not focus on things which are not commonly covered in these books. This means that this volume can sit beside the `Larousse Gastronomique' with only a very small amount of overlap in material. These two giant books have two entirely different objectives. While both works will have articles on potatoes, Larousse will tell you how to cook them, but Oxford will tell us were they are grown, their commercial importance, nutritional importance, and their appearance in cartoons.

So, unlike Larousse, you are much more inclined to simply read the articles in these volumes for your own entertainment as much as for your need to know something. The articles are filled to the brim with interesting trivia about American food. One favorite item in the article about Spam is the fact that the word `Spam' became associated with junk e-mail on the strength of a Monty Python skit which did the same kind of number on Spam as the movie `Blazing Saddles' did on western films. Another discovery was the renaming of sauerkraut to `Liberty Cabbage' after World War I. In this way, the book follows the style of the Encyclopedia Britannica that leans heavily toward long, detailed articles rather than shorter articles with a greater chance of redundancy, especially with a hundred or more independent contributors.

It would probably take the average foodie about five minutes of searching through these volumes to find something they miss. My first sense of something being missing was when there were articles about Charlie Trotter, Alice Waters, and Rick Bayless, but no articles on Thomas Keller, Jeremiah Tower, or Richard Olney. I would not feel the absence so acutely if the editors had given us biographies on Julia Child, James Beard, Craig Claiborne, and M.F.K. Fisher and stopped there, as all four of these figures are so obviously at the very top of the heap in their influence on American eating and food writing. On the other hand, Tower and Olney between them are probably as much an influence on culinary professionals in the United States as Alice Waters. While Olney spent much of his life living in France, he was born in Iowa and all of his most influential works, most notably his editorship of the Time-Life culinary series of books in the 1960s was aimed at American audiences. This series is mentioned twice in the long article on cookbooks with no mention of Olney as the editor, a position recommended to the publishers by James Beard. Regarding Keller and Trotter, for example, both have received the James Beard best chef in the country award and of the books attributed to these two chefs, I much prefer the two from Keller than the three from Trotter which I have reviewed. I suspect the difference in the eyes of the editors is Trotter's earlier ascendancy, his substantial charitable activities, and his better than average culinary instruction TV shows.

These quibbles aside, I am genuinely impressed by the overall quality of the writing in the thousands of articles in this work. The biographical articles all begin with a crisp statement of the importance of the subject to American culinary history. In spite of the very large number of writers, all articles seem to share this same matter of factness, with virtually no sentimentality or sensationalism. One joggling act that must have challanged the editors is how to limit the book to `American' subjects. And, they seem to have accomplished this with great good judgment. In place of any mention of French or Italian or Japanese or Korean or East Indian or Chinese subjects, the editors have given us articles on `Italian-American' food and `German-American' food. I know the German-American culinary world better than any other and I give the author of this article high marks for capturing the big picture and not limiting himself to the very easy subject of the `Pennsylvania Dutch' cuisine. Although the Amish and Mennonite communities of Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, and the Carolinas are at the heart of the German / American food tradition, the greater German influence is much broader, overlapping, for example, the Jewish-American culinary world and even the influences from France and Italy.

By far the best use for this work is as a starting point for serious culinary research or simply noodling around the literature of cookery for fun. In addition to the articles with their excellent bibliographies, there are appendices on general food bibliography, general wine bibliography, list of food periodicals and web sites, major food subject reference libraries, major food museums, food organizations, and food festivals.

Be warned that in spite of the title, wine gets much less than half the volume of ink spilled in these volumes. I also detected a few minor editing mistakes and omissions. The web site for the cable `Food Network' is listed as www.foodtv.com, but this was changed close to two years ago to www.foodnetwork.com. This little mistake is less easy to understand since the article on Julia Child notes her death which occurred about 6 months ago. Still, this book is a great source of entertainment and information for foodies and foodie scholars.

Expensive, but of high quality as a reference and entertainment.

</review>
<review>

What makes this encyclopedia different from most other such comprehensive authoritative sources of information? It's a pure delight to read!  Whether it's discussing food mythology or the traditions of ethnic cookery or just any other culinary subject, these volumes are a great entertainment as well as real education.  Truly a labor of love on the part of excellent, dedicated scholars and editors, it's a great gift for any American who takes pleasure in reading as well as eating and drinking

</review>
<review>

As a child, I made a game of perusing the Encyclopedia Britannica by randomly flipping through its volumes until I found something of interest.  I remember feeling as though the whole world was at my fingertips waiting to be discovered.

Flipping through the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America has reawakened that wonderful feeling.  I thought I was fairly well informed on all things culinary, yet every page offers something new and fascinating.

This is an essential addition to any food lover's library.  It's a joy, and worth every penny.

</review>
<review>

This is an indispensible reference tool whether you are just fascinated by food and drink and all things related or need information for backgrounding purposes. I have found it very useful. (Did you know that Dr. Pepper was created by a pharmacist from Waco, Texas in 1885?) The appendixes listing food websites, food museums, festivals etc. are quite helpful also.  It's well worth the cost and a "must have" for your libary, especially if you work in or deal with the food and beverage world . . . and if you just love knowing random trivia you'll love having these volumes to thumb through!

</review>
<review>

As a weekend gourmand, I found the entries in Food and Drink in America to be fascinating!  From the origins of apple pie and baking soda to the lore of tomatoes, this is an amazing collection of historically-grounded, little-known stories about the food we eat.  It is an indispensable reference book for anyone interested in food, cooking and American history - not to mention a comprehensive source for culinary trivia -- a great conversation piece

</review>
<review>

Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity is transferring China and changing the Global Balance of Power, is a personal account of a reporter who dedicated the martyrs for their faith from CE 635 to modern time.
This book gives a brief orientation on how Christianity came to China in 7th Century known as Nestorian Christians.  There was a stele commemorating this east-west cultural and religious exchange, being translated by James Legge in bilingual text that I happened to have a reprint copy.  Then he carried on the history to the new millennium.  Besides Franciscan, Dominican and Augustinian, Jesuits had a good relationship with the Royal Court in the exchange of knowledge in 17th Century.  However, the Pope, a religion authority tried to interfere the cultural and internal affairs of China over the tradition rite of honoring ancestors and Confucius.  The Chinese Emperors issued "Edit of Expulsion and Confiscation" to drive Catholics out.  The 19th Century of Anglo-Saxon Protestant ventured back to China in opium boats and gunboats.  No wonder why Marx called Religion is the opium of people.  Robert Morrison, an Englishman, was credited to translate the Bible into Chinese with no mention to the assistance from his convert Liang Fa.  Morrison came in and was employed by East India Company, the monopoly opium pusher and smuggler to Chinese.  England waged the Opium Wars 1839 and 1856.  He died of diseases and was buried in East India Company cemetery in Macau.  The Gospel of John was beautifully translated in Taoist terms, totally disregard to intellectual property.  Chinese God Son, Hong Xiuquan who wanted to establish Chinese version of Kingdom of Heaven, made the Christian Tai Ping Rebellion.  However, this Heavenly Peace Kingdom was brutally suppressed by the Christian Europe in manpower and gun power in support with The Ching Dynasty The 1900 Boxer Movement was a struggle against foreigners especially missionaries.  The book did not mention two humiliating unequal treaty terms known as most-favored nation clause meaning if a foreign power squeezed any Chinese concessions, all other powers would share the same privileges, and extra-territoriality which meant all foreigners in China were not subject to the laws and jurisdiction of Chinese government.  This book did not ask the question: why Boxer pick on the disciples of "love your neighbors as yourself"?  These God's representatives did not practice what they peach.  There were many exceptions such as American Rev. Hunter Corbett, whose grandson I met last year.  The American share of Boxer Indemnity was devoted to Chinese higher education with heavy lobby.  (See articles in magazine Chinese American Forum).
The Three Self Churches was created by Chinese Christians in 1920s not in 1950s as alleged, to declare independence from foreign masters who dictated power, donations and policy, long before Mao's regime to administer patriotic church affairs. A Chinese pastor confirmed recent incidence of such hard-nose attitude and he rebuked and refused such conditional funding.  The subsequent chapters described   Christian mainly protestant house church activities and politics under Mao's Republic.  Only one chapter was about Roman Catholics.  Chapter 14 talked about missionaries came in disguise as English teacher by lies and deception.  In mid 90s, some feverish American missionaries came to recruit Chinese converts to smuggle Bibles to China.  Why not they themselves do the dirty work?  This chapter also exposed a home grown quasi-Christian cult know as Eastern Lightning with an reincarnation of Jesus as a Chinese woman along with others such as Born-Again movement, Falungong and Little Flock.
David gave an impressive detail account on the development of Christianity in China.  It is "love your neighbor as yourself" doctrine to the teaching in the land of "do not do onto others as you do not want others do onto you".  He devoted the last chapter in "China's Christian future?"  with the possible answers - a more responsible power, an emerging menace, democracy and changing the fare of Christendom.

Reading this book creates the following questions.
1.	Nestorian Christians came to China but died out long time, Mohammed established Islam and immediately sent his four disciples to China where they all left their body and soul in Beijing.  Does it mean China will become Christian or Moslem?
2.	China is a virgin land from missionary eyes, what will happen if all denominations ranging from Baptist, Mormon, Christian Scientist, Pentecostal, Jehovah's Witness, Seven-Days Adventists, Moon's Church to Branch Davidian of Waco Texas claim their share and dominate with eventual government tanks crushing?
3.	Will orthodox Christianity accept Chinese Gnostic Christians incorporating the teaching of Buddhism, Taoism and folk religions as cult members?
4.	What will happen if Chinese Christians find out lie in be(lie)f, history and theology, Jesus and Christ, truth and faith, and Catholic and Protestant?
5.	 Will Chinese Christian burn witches, start Crusade killings, and turn hospitals into churches with faith healing miracle to avoid high medical cost?
6.	Will Chinese Christian support stem cell research, abortion and the teaching of evolution?
7.	Will US accept Chinese Christian made according to American compassion self image? (The allegation P.288 about China closed in upon great hostility to US between Korean War and Kissinger's visit was doubtful.  If he researched further, he would find that Premier Chou En-lai always wanted American friendship but US red scare prevented it from happening.  Chou extended his hand to the American official at the encounter of Indo-China Peace meeting 1954 and was refused.  This is why Nixon upon arrival Beijing stepped up and extended his hand to Chou first for a 28-year make-up.)
8.	Will the evangelical Chinese Christian on west journey to Jerusalem convert Moslems to bring about crush and confrontation?
9.	Will foreign powers invade Christian China to protect national interest?
10.	Will a Christian China lamb become the political and economic scapegoat when Christian brothers lose their jobs or rocket secrets?
11.	Does the American public know about the educator missionary - Minnie Vautrin being honored with a bronze bust and a scholarship fund in her former campus in Nanking, China 2002?  Please read about her in book, The American Goddess at Rape of Nanking, by Dr Hua-ling Hu and  review.
12.	The Bill of Rights came about because before American and French Revolutions in Christian world, there were only Divine rights and king's right, but not human rights. Was UN human right draft based on Christian or Confucius idea? Check it out.
13.	Will Jesus laugh or cry if he witnesses his disciples instead of standing with him on humanity, justice and peace, destroy other ethnic cultures, change their value system and the mode of thinking?
14.	Will Chinese Christian send back missionaries to first and second world countries to win back lost souls as major Cathedrals serve more as tourist attraction than houses of worship?
15.	Will Chinese Christian make the same remarks as their American Indian brothers: We used to have land and they have the Bible; now we have the Bible and they have the land?
16.	Will Chinese Christian be the blessed peacemaker on diversity harmony among the brotherhood of Judaism, Christianity and Islam as God is the Father of three faiths?
17.	Will a powerful Christian China become an imperial or colonial power as their Christian brothers of 19th Century?
18.	What will happen when Chinese Christians are Bible lover but ignorant about Buddhism and Taoism both of which are the spiritual salvation for Western seekers?
19.	Will Chinese Christian want to have the best by declaring to be a Taoist-Christian as so claimed by my American campus minister friend?
20.	Will Chinese Christian practice what they preach?
21.	The producer of River Elegy, Yuan Zhiming and company dreamed of democracy in China based on Christianity.  He tried hard to adapt by misinterpreting and distorting ancient Chinese Classics to convert.   It is interesting to ask why Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, a devoted Christian failed miserably in bringing about democracy even some of his supporters baptized their troops with garden hose.
22.	Will a Christian China become American two-party or European multi-party democracy?  Why a high number of Christian countries notably in Africa and South America are not relevant?
23.	What will happen if China becomes a theocracy?
24.	Will Chinese Christian accept from the DNA burden of "Communist five black types" to that of  "Original sin"?
25.	Will Chinese Christians be willing to switch from "shame" culture to "sin" culture?
26.	Will Chinese Christian prevent exposing clergy in sexual scandal and corruption?
27.	Will Chinese Catholic keep Vatican II in treating Jews, Buddhists, Moslems and people of other faiths in respect without conversion?
28.	Will Chinese Christian judge others, good or bad depending on their Christian membership?
29.	What will happen when Chinese Christian create a "Chinese Messiah" and start a "People Temple"?
30.     How will Chinese Christians treat belivers as family menbers or as Confucius teaching that all human around four seas are?
31.     Will chinese Christians unite Catholics, Roman and Eastern Orthodox,and all denominations of Protestants?
32.	Will God feel good if the Garden of Eden is full of only Christians, one kind of plant, animal and fish?


It is a miracle to see how a Jewish cult develops into a culture.  Jesus sacrifices his life in protest against inhumanity, inequality and unjust of the Roman Empire.  Truly this man was the Son of God, exclaimed the Roman centurion (Mark 15:39)

Mr Karl Marx, please sit down!
Will the real Jesus please stand up?

</review>
<review>

As China re-emerges as a dominant power in the 21st century, much will hinge on the beliefs of the people in that country when it comes to the actions it takes and tolerates around the world. Oddly, the fascism of the Communist regime remains largely in place in the era following Mao's disastrous reign, even as capitalism and other Western ideals spread like wildfire through this huge, heavily-populated, and (from a Western perspective)oftentimes strange land. Aikman does an excellent job of covering the basic bullet points of the history of Christianity in China, as well as introducing readers to the many Chinese Christians who have led or continue to lead the church in their country. On a recent trip to China, I was highly impressed by the deep generosity, humility, resourcefulness, strength, perseverance, and kindness exhibited by Chinese of all ages. This spirit hums just below the surface in the stories Aikman tells of the Christian Chinese and their faith. This spirit is also, I believe, one of the major reasons why the life and teachings of Jesus seem to so easily take root in the hearts of so many Chinese. Also, those who are concerned that a "Christian China" would somehow gut the land of its culture and heritage while propping up a Westernized facsimile in its place should rest easy. It seems that the faith is spreading through this nation in a very distinctly Chinese way

</review>
<review>

Aikman turns a reporters eye to a careful analysis of the incredible move of God in Mainland China over the past 30 years.  Three significant movements are identified and explored -- the Underground Church -- the Revival within the Three Self Church -- and the unusual influence of Christian scholars in Chinese culture.  Captivating reading -- but apparently the naming of names and inclusion of pictures of famous Christians in China has led to some increased persecution.

Aikman's assertion that some day the critical mass of Christianity will reach the tipping point and bring sweeping social change has proven to be an embarassment to the government,  And if there is one thing the government of China won't stand for, it's being embarrassed.  Read it with discretion.



</review>
<review>

A vivid and compelling description of an incredibly important storyline virtually unknown outside (or even inside) of China

</review>
<review>

Gospel under seige in Communist countries has been narrowed down recently with the breakup of the Soviet Bloc, and now more predominant the oppression in Muslim countries.  China has been one of those "iffy" places where publically the government would want us to believe there is religious freedom, but there are real doubts.  What is truly fascinating from this read is that China Christians feel God's call to the Islam nations!

This book serves to provide a view of that very thing, with a well documented history and insights into the Far East power, with this well written former editor of Time magazine in China.

The profiles of the key players both from the government's Religious Bureau and the house churches and foreigners is illuminating.  Theology is not discerned much, just a journalistic type mentioning of its leanings at times, along with some of their confessional publishing appendixed.

God bless all those that have and are and will take a stand to confess Christ in that place

</review>
<review>

AIkman wrote a fair history of of Christianity in China, however he misrepresents what is going on in China today.  By far the biggest problem in the Chinese church is poor teaching and abusive practices.  This exists almost exclusively in the underground churches.

Aikman wrote a book that caters to the palates of American Christian evangelicals who want to hear exactly what Aikman is telling them.  Young "missionaries" who have yet to understand the difference between culture and faith or have even critical thinking will use this book to find inspiration and funding.

As a Mandarin speaking Christian who has spent considerable time in China I was hoping to like this book. If I was not, I would proabably think it was very good

</review>
<review>

The former Beijing bureau chief for Time magazine more or less accurately describes the state of the Christian Church in China, both underground and communist approved. He particularly invests substantial portion of his book on the Christians in Henan province and accurately portrays the region as one of the centers if not the center of Chinese Christianity. His approach to the research and description of the missionary work is still Western-oriented although he mentions Korean and Korean-American missionaries frequently. His presentation of the late Jonathan Chao as the father of modern Chinese confessional movement who helped draft various Chinese doctrinal confessions is very interesting, although the confessions are obviously a product of Western-educated Chinese rather than a purely indigenous product. Because of this, the faith statements primarily deal with doctrines that interest the Western Church rather than accurately stating what concerns the Chinese Christians the most. The book is about 90% How Christianity is transforming China and 10% Changing the Global Balance of Power. His vision for pro-America China is narrow and parochial at best. China must become more than a helper to America in the world stage. A Christian China that leads the world as a true leader would also show leadership in world mission to the rest of the world.

</review>
<review>

I usually try not to be too mean to a new author (as I am one, myself).

The plot was predictable, boring and simplistic.  That was not the worst part.

Now to the characters

Kattan duRhys: My God, he was weak-willed, utterly devoid of passion, he was whining on every page and annoying to no end.  I did not find him endearing at all, and skipped every line he spoke.  WHo is Kattan? "Weakling in Tights"

Melisande-- .....another simple-minded..... She's even WORSE than Kattan.  I can't imagine someone more obnoxious and totally empty of compassion and intellect than this character.

Wolfram-the only character worth rooting for, other than the dogs.  He was well-rounded, sharp, and actually knew what the heck was going on.

The pros: the songs were nice, I wish there were MORE.  After all, it was supposed to be about a BARD Hero.  Where were the songs? What happened to them whenever that annoying simpleton, Kattan opened his mouth?

I can't imagine a book where I've enjoyed less than watching six-second commericials about after shave.





</review>
<review>

I thoroughly enjoyed this book.  The characters were complex and interesting, although at times a little bewildering.  The world-building was good--there was a strong sense of a developed and unique culture and magic system.

The prologue is intense and moving--beginning with a mother, a queen, trying to save her last child from the usurper of the throne... and failing.  The first part of the tale seems like a second prologue where we see the child grown a bit, but still very much a child, lose yet another bit of stability in his life.  It's an important scene in his development, yet it really isn't part of the main story, which truly begins when he meets the princess, Melisande.

Both Kattanan/Rhys and Melisande seem very young and immature, even then.  It's a little frustrating waiting for them to grow into themselves, but it's worth it.  As the characters  experience all the tumultuous events (evil and not so evil wizards, plots and machinations, betrayals and loyalty, death and destruction, friendship and love, forgiveness and revenge), I grew to like them more and more--even the "bad guys."

I will definitely look forward to the next book

</review>
<review>

Music plays a major role in this book - the main character is a highly sought-after singer - and I like the way Isaak handles the music. Rather than try to write a collection of songs, I've never seen this done successfully (Writing stories does not make you a song writer), she focuses on the songs story and the emotion it triggers in the singer and his audience.  It's as if the music is a living object - excellent.  I found this book riveting, with lyrical prose, compelling characters, and a story that made it hard to put down.  I can't wait for her next book

</review>
<review>

The Singer's Crown captivated me from the start, with the nefarious uncle, and later the scheming grandmother, coupled with a variety of plot lines author Isaak effortlessly keeps interwoven until the surprising end. "There's magic in them, thar family jewels?"  I was invested in her secondary characters and enjoyed how she let them be strong in their own right.  This wasn't strictly a good-vs-evil plot--the hero was young and distracted by what he lacked, and the heroine was overawed by her protectors.  Nevertheless, it made a compelling read, and I look forward to Isaak's next book with eager anticipation

</review>
<review>

In 1215 in the Kingdom of Lochalyn, Thorgir murders his brother the king, kills his nephews except the youngest prince Rhys, and when his sister in law Queen Caitrin refuses to cooperate, he slays her too; none are buried properly.  He completes his dastardly coup by having a surgeon insure that Rhys would never have whelps and he would qualify as a singer with the Virgins of the Goddess.

In 1229 Rhys knows he cannot fight for the throne since he cannot produce heirs.  Instead he makes a living as a singer; his current patron Baron Eadmund gives him as a courting gift to seventeen years old Princess Melisande.  Normally avoiding anything that stirs the testicles, Rhys the eunuch finds he wants Melisande as his.  However, he knows that cannot be, but will die to keep her safe.  He will soon test his fortitude when the Baron is killed, Melisande's hounds murdered and her father bewitched by the wizard who enabled Rhys' uncle to kill his family so easily.

THE SINGER'S CROWN is a terrific romantic fantasy starring a wonderful hero, a fabulous princess, and a dastardly killing villain.  The story line is action-packed, but character driven from the moment that Caitrin tries to save her only living child from his uncle and never slows down as he must choose between his beloved song and the dreaded consequences of love.  Though readers will wonder why Thorgir allowed Rhys to live though removing a future threat, fans will take immense pleasure in this powerful tale of betrayal and love in a realm in which wizardry seems so real that the audience is beguiled.

Harriet Klausner

</review>
<review>

The author weaves a complex tapestry with this novel. There are depths of this world that make me want to dig deeper. The nature of the magic, and its hold on people ... don't ask! ... it wouldn't be wise.  Her characters have a depth of texture. Prince Rhys - not your typical aggressive swash buckling hero - for reasons painful to consider - is drawn inexorably to fight to regain the family crown if not the family jewels. Surrounded by a rich suite of other characters - princesses, dukes, wizards and the lower echelons of society as well - pursuing their own agendas in shades of grey that provides a credibility often lost in fantasy. Not a children's book -  a darker story path, with more twists and more reward, for this reader at least.
I am looking forward to returning to this world!  What's next?

</review>
<review>

Stupendous!  Clever, engaging characters made this a difficult book to put down... I was rooting for duRhys from the start

</review>
<review>

Golden Country is by far the best book that I have read in a long time.  Gilmore has created a large cast of compelling characters whose lives I immediately wanted to know more about.  Moreover, it is a beautifully written book.  It's hard to believe that this is a debut novel.  I look forward to her next book.

</review>
<review>

I loved the book from the first page on. The characters were  alive and well defined, and their complex stories and lives were imbued with real humanity.  A fantastic read ... and special book.


</review>
<review>

Jennifer Gilmore's beautifully written novel transports the reader to early 20th century New York and beyond in this intricately woven story of three Jewish immigrant families. The reader is swept into this facinating, witty, descriptive and historical novel.  This is a must read.  Golden Country has a heartbeat, it's a real page turner

</review>
<review>

Golden Country is terrific--a definite must.  Gilmore is a wonderful writer with an amazing ability to develop such strong characters and images in the book that they live with you even after you've finished the book.  There's the dazzle of broadway; the rawness of Jewish mafia; and the toughness of immigrant survival.  Gilmore's "golden" touch is to develop ironies about the American dream through such unforgetable, fascinating characters.  It's a classic, not to be missed.

</review>
<review>

Jennifer Gilmore's first novel is a stunning debut.  From start to finish, Golden Country draws the reader into the inter-twining lives of the Bloom, Brodsky and Verdonik families, first and second generation Jewish immigrants raised in the "golden country" of America.  Gilmore has developed brilliant, complex characters - ranging from tragically comedic Sarah, an alcoholic full of regret of how her life turned out, to Francis, the larger-than-life go-getter who doesn't let her "frumpiness"" get in the way of success.

Gilmore skillfully utilizes humor, tradegy and American history to weave her story.  You will laugh out loud, cry and in the end, wish for more of this wonderful novel.

</review>
<review>

Containing some of the funniest scenes I've read in ages, Jennifer Gilmore's accomplished first novel traces three generations of three overlapping families, all immigrants who settled in Brooklyn, showing how families, their values, and cultural commitments change across generations.  Her appreciation of life's ironies and her obvious love for her characters allow her to create a gentle, loving satire of the Jewish immigrant experience and show its universality.

From the 1920s to the 1960s, as the country survives the Depression and World War II, the Brodsky, Bloom, and Verdonik families and their children survive their own battles and become part of the American landscape.  As Gilmore presents her characters in often hilarious scenes which sum up their lives, she creates an unforgettable portrait of a time, place, and culture.  Feisty (first-generation) Inez Bloom, a hairdresser who claims Mae West as her neighbor;  Frances Verdonik, who writes letters for her neighbors to send back to the old country;  Joseph Brodsky, a salesman during the week and, on weekends, the developer (in his bathtub) of Essoil, the perfect household cleaning product;   Solomon Brodsky, "the Terrier," who has joined the mob;  and Seymour Bloom, a theatrical producer, are among the many unforgettable characters who bring the novel and its interconnected stories to life.

Dedicating this novel to her grandparents, Gilmore presents the generations with such humanity that every reader will be able to identify with them.  Her third person narrative perfectly captures the cadence and syntax of her characters' "voices," with their distinctive Brooklyn accent.  Wonderful images (the Williamsburg Bridge "tethering [the] neighborhood to the world") and vibrant humor make Jewish life in Brooklyn come alive.  Her wit and appreciation of ironies allow her to satirize stereotypes (and even tell ethnic jokes) without offending.

One scene, only a page long, epitomizes Gilmore's ability to capture characters in hilarious, dramatic scenes which reflect their states of mind:  Teenaged Frances Verdonik, attending a bar mitzvah, admires the centerpiece--a chopped liver "sculpture" in the shape of a swan, "the neck as smooth and curved as if it had been blown from glass."  As she watches her swan-like sister Pauline preen across the room, Frances knows that she, unlike Pauline, will be stuck forever "watching Hester Black and Charlotte Meyer b'tch and moan about the price of herring and potatoes."  The ensuing scene is a classic.

Charming, emotionally engaging, and filled with verbal surprises, this novel is full of "heart" without being sentimental--a debut novel that soars!  n  Mary Whipple



</review>
<review>

"For you," one of the characters in Jennifer Gilmore's debut novel tells his sons, "I promise you a golden country."  And in the 1920s in New York, the possibilities America seems to offer its new immigrants truly do appear golden, endless.  Joseph works as a door-to-door salesman, all the while slaving away in bathtubs at home, trying to invent the perfect cleaning product.  Frances translates her neighbors' Yiddish letters into a new language - English - for them to send back to Europe for the family left behind.  Meanwhile, Solomon falls in with gangsters, bringing shame to his family.  All the while, babies are born, inventions are perfected, dreams slowly expand - with no less than Irving Berlin, the invention of the television, Mae West and the 1939 World's Fair as backdrops.  With her meticulous knowledge of 1920s - 1950s American life and Grace Paley-esque gift for dialogue, Jennifer Gilmore has crafted a grand, glittering novel that is universal in its themes of family heartbreak, hope and redemption.  Golden Country is the best, most seductive book I've read this year

</review>
<review>

These stories are delightful, the illustrations are superb...I bought a copy for my grand-daughter, and was so enthralled that I ordered a second copy for me!

</review>
<review>

I have a very independent 14 year old daughter who does not respond well to being told what to do. Using love and logic strategies works really well with her. If I ask her what her plan is for homework tonight, she gives me a reasonable plan and does it, which is much better than yelling at her all night long to get it done. This works in a lot of different situations. For example if I ask her what the consequence should be (before hand) if she doesn't get her room cleaned when she says she will, there is a lot less arguing about doing her room or about the consequences if she does not get her room clean

</review>
<review>

Google the words Foster Cline and Attachment Therapy, and be prepared to lose your lunch. Happy research

</review>
<review>

This book helped me put a lot of parenting into perspective. I found that the take-home messages of the book are easy to remember.  The key one for me was, "Who owns the problem?"  What a concept.  The premise is that rescuing my kids from the consequences of their actions is a lousy way to teach kids responsibility.   The section on grounding of kids was great too.  This book is making me question practically every aspect of my knee-jerk parenting responses.  Highly recommended

</review>
<review>

I found the book had some ideas that helped, but it was unrealistic in many ways.  I am spiritual, but I didn't appreciate the religious opinion it gave

</review>
<review>

This book was recommended by my son's therapist for us to read as a new way to parent.  I found the book quite interesting and it gave me some new thoughts.  We have incorporated some of the suggestions in the book and have had a lot of success with it.  I'm not sure if I could do all the responses to certain situations, but many chapters in which there were responses that we could use.  It does take an open minded parent, and those parents who are drill sgt. parents will have a tough time using this book unless they are willing to change.

</review>
<review>

I was reading about my son.  It all sounded familiar and the concepts and suggestions made good sense.  Really talked about a framework of letting the decision making (and the consequence of their decision) remain with the teen. Then half way the book screeched in a new direction.  All of a sudden the book went from experienced practitioner point of view to subjective parent point of view.  When it comes to sex the authors don't want you to leave the decision with the teens, they want to take that one back, which weakens the premise they present.

The authors danced around abstinence while never taking a really firm position - which I would have respected, if not agreed with.  Then in the middle of that chapter one of the authors invokes Christ into the conversation/solution.  If I knew this book was written in context of a particular belief system, I wouldn't have spent the $22.  I would have wanted to know that in advance.  Tripping over this midbook has completely disappointed me and diminished the content and message of this book.

Buyer Bewar

</review>
<review>

Bought this book for my husband. He has 14-yr old daughter from previous marriage. DH does not read books, but I pushed him to just try the first 2 chapters.  He is still reading  and  even admitted that it was a really good book. He is using some of the techniques with his daughter  and  he seems much less stressed. Time will tell if the techniques work with teen..

</review>
<review>

I decided I needed a different approach with my teenagers when my son came home with a green Mohawk and a big Bush tattoo (George W., that is) one day and my daughter said she wanted to get a couple of nipple rings that would have sunk the Bismarck. This book really helped me take control of the situation. Now I have the green Mohawk and the nipple rings and my teenagers think I'm the coolest dad around, and they're as obedient as can be. Who would have believed it? But I owe it all to this book. Highly recommended

</review>
<review>

With several hundred Amazon rave reviews, it seems overkill to add another, but what the heck:  "The Lincoln Lawyer" is an outstanding piece of work by one of the best.  Connelly's ability to weave a compelling story in among the hills and bars (the drinking bars as well as the  ones before which you conduct trials) borders on magic.  The plot here is amazingly diabolical -- just when you think you know where it's going, Connelly pulls the rug away.  Haller is a wonderful character, delightfully shady and opportunistic but with a (somewhat tarnished) heart of gold. I hope Connelly keeps bringing him back.  But I hope he doesn't retire Bosch, either.  I think Connelly should turn out two books a year -- one of each guy.   I know it won't happen, but I can dream.  Thanks again, Mr. Connelly, for keeping me delightfully awake these past few nights.

</review>
<review>

How do you begin to describe the best legal thriller you've ever read?  This was a well-paced, highly entertaining story, but the book's real success is its longevity.  You continue to be captivated by it weeks after reading it.  Hands down, this is Connelly's best novel.  Few books leave you so completely fulfilled at the end.  Mick Haller is a defense attorney with a unique perspective on how the justice system works.  To him, it's a machine, and he's the "greasy angel" who keeps it well oiled.  Even though Haller's cynicism is a constant source of amusement, his real fear is that he will be unable to recognize real innocence.  Then an enticing case comes along with a franchise client, who can pay top dollar.  Accused of attempted murder for the battery of a woman, Louis Roulet hires his services.  What first seems to be a straight forward case, will ultimately test Haller to his limits: his family will be threatened, he will be accused of a crime, and someone very close to him will die.  Not only is this an insightful and fresh look at our legal system, the writing is first-rate.

</review>
<review>

I got this book unabridged on CD.  I would often listen to it while doing chores around the house or other mundane projects. My wife and I usually have our own books that we'll read together, but it was interesting how the story kind of pulled her in too, even though she wasn't listening to it to begin with. Upon discovering I had listened to some without her, my wife was like, "what? You listened to it without me?!" My response was, "I didn't even think you were listening to it." That's how hooked you can get on this story.

The Lincoln Lawyer follows the story of Mickey Haller, a criminal defense attorney whose personal life is teetering.  He finally gets a break at work when the perfect case falls into lap.  The client is called "the franchise" due to the fact that he's a high-roller who pays well, and more importantly on-time.  As the case continues, Mickey starts to detect red flags as his client doesn't seem all that trustworthy.  It reaches a crescendo when a good friend of his murdered while working on the case.

This book isn't good because of plot. In fact I found the plot to be pretty cut-and-dry: Man gets mysterious client, client turns out crooked, story turns into a big whodunit, blah, blah, blah. This book is good because of the writing. It's both intelligent and believable.  You really start to gravitate towards the characters because each has their own distinct personality. If there's any problem I have with the writing, it would have to the liberal use of the F-word. Do people actually use it that much in law? It made things feel more like a construction site. It may be there for shock value, but you'll get numb to it before you're even a third of the way through. All in all, an interesting read that will keep you up late saying, "just one more chapter."

</review>
<review>

Michael Haller's life revolves around criminal defense, his an attorney operating out the back of his Lincoln town car. His appearance sharply dressed and charmed mannerism makes him a very approachable guy, people either called him Mick or Mickey. Tall, dark and Intelligent with his good looks and Irish blood lines made him a catch. In the court room he was very together with great timing, in his personal life it was a mess, at last count he had two ex wives and one daughter. His father long deceased was also a famous defense attorney; another pressure of expectation in life he felt he had to live up to, his father wrote books and practised law that didn't have room for innocent clients, so far Mickey had spent most of his life worrying that he just wouldn't recognize innocence if it came along. Being an Independent operator he ran his business with his own private detective on his bankroll, he was also chauffeured around by an ex client who couldn't afford to pay his fees. In total he kept four Lincolns for another enterprise on the horizon encase things turned sour, what he was really looking for was a franchise player, a case to keep the cash rolling, point blank a meal ticket.

Louis Ross Roulet dealt in LA property he was a rich playboy, currently booked on charges of ag-assault, GBI, and attempted rape, and although his arrest charges looked bad these could always be dropped to something less by the time he made court. Mickey couldn't believe his luck not only a rich client but looking at the evidence it was stacked in favour to get him off the hook. This was all too easy, in fact with sharp tactics of negotiation and manipulation it was an open and shut case. Just as he was on a roll Mickey's close friend is murdered he begins to have second thoughts about his case something just didn't sit right, in his search for innocence had he instead stumbled upon something more sinister or maybe something just plain evil.

This is the first time in a long time that I have picked up a book based on a court room drama; but this book is much more than just that. Michael Connelly has done a wonderful job; his close collaboration with real life defense attorneys has paid off with their knowledge shining through; well written and easy to follow so you don't get lost in the jargon of law, especially for someone like me who is not familiar with the US law system. I'm hoping very much that Mr. Connelly will be able to entwine the exciting lawyer Mickey Haller in other books going forward, Congratulations to Michael Connelly for a rollercoaster read.

A.Bowhil

</review>
<review>

Very interesting cast of characters, would make an enjoyable TV show, more original than what is on today

</review>
<review>

Connelly really brings the characters to life.  The farther into you get, the faster you want to turn the pages

</review>
<review>

The Lincoln Lawyer is hilariously and profoundly true.  If you ever wanted to know what it is like to be a high-powered criminal attorney, this book will show you.  I am a civil attorney, myself, and this novel opened the door into the grimy other world of criminal law.  (Not that civil trial law is without its warts either.)

Put simply, this novel is about "The Client From Hell."  Every lawyer has had one at one time or another, but not like this.  Connelly's depiction of the protagonist's slow descent into you-know-where is engrossing, hilarious, and true-to-life.  The only bad thing about this novel is that it might discourage some readers from a career in law.  Or maybe it will encourage others.  Hard to say.  What I can say is that this is a well-written and engrossing novel that I could not put down until the final moment.  That is high praise indeed.

This is a remarkably well-written novel that keeps the reader guessing until the very last minute.  You will come to know and care about the characters in this novel.  Not only is the plot in this novel interesting and even engrossing, but (unlike a John Grisham novel) the characters are true-to-life as well.  This novel rings with authenticity.

This is my first Michael Connelly novel, but it will not be the last; not by any means.  This one is highly recommended

</review>
<review>

Michael Connelly is the best, and this new direction will hopefully going to continue. Good Read

</review>
<review>

I loved this book.  The pacing was perfect, the characters well-drawn, and the writing style engaging.  Mickey Haller, the Lincoln lawyer of the title, and protagonist, is a hustler who works out of the back seat of one of his Lincolns.  He gets embroiled in a case that should be a real money maker.  The author uses this background to set up a very believable ethical dilemma that makes this novel a very compelling read.  This is the first Michael Connelly book I've read, but based on this one, I'm going back to read his others

</review>
<review>

Criminal defense attorney, Mickey Haller, is thrilled to find himself in the position of defending Louis Ross Roulet against a charge of attempted rape and aggravated sexual assault with grievous bodily injury for his alleged attack of Reggie Campeau, a hooker with a past. Roulet is what experienced attorneys call a "franchise" client - he's willing to be billed full schedule A top dollar legal fare, he's got the money to pay and he wants to go the distance in his own defense. But Roulet's compelling intensity and the story he tells disturbs and frightens Haller because, despite his rock solid prohibition against asking his client whether he did it or not, Haller becomes convinced of his client's innocence. He recalls his deceased father's advice to other lawyers, "The scariest client a lawyer will ever have is an innocent client." Haller knows that mistakes could result in a lethal injection and the execution of an innocent man.

It's only when Haller recognizes the startling similarities in appearance between the victim, Campeau, and Martha Rentoria, the victim of Jesus Menendez, one of Haller's former clients (who is now cooling his heels for life in San Quentin for that particular murder) that Haller begins to scratch his head and investigate Roulet's case more deeply. All is not as it seems as Haller not only wrestles with legal ethical dilemmas but even finds himself in the disturbing position of being investigated as a suspect for the very assault for which he is defending Roulet. Even his family has been threatened and Haller must take action to protect his daughter and ex-wife, to resolve his ethical legal dilemmas, to clear his own name as a suspect, to free Menendez from what he now knows is an unjust conviction and, in the bargain, to snag the mastermind behind the whole twisted mess! A tall order indeed but Connelly has proven that he is up to the task. He's also tossed in a beautiful plot twist at the very point where a reader would be convinced all was in hand.

It's difficult to expect much more out of any crackerjack suspense novel.

Characters are marvelously developed - the baddie in the piece is portrayed as truly evil and abhorrent (in fact, you can almost feel the shivers going up and down your back when Haller recoils from his simple touch); Fernando Valenzuela, the bail bondsman, and Raul Levin, Haller's crack investigator, are wonderfully down to earth and realistic; Maggie McPherson, Haller's ex-wife, is portrayed as a skilled competent prosecutor but also frequently lapses into a man's stereotypical bitchy ex-wife. Even Teddy Vogel, a top lieutenant in the Road Saints motorcycle gang is colourfully portrayed and jumps completely alive off the page! Dialogue is realistic and credible. Connelly's expertise in the legal field is obvious as he gives us an extraordinary insider's look at the procedural machinations of both the defense and prosecution sides of the law system as well as the official police and unofficial defense investigation of a crime.

Grisham, Baldacci, Tannenbaum - look to your laurels! There is a new star in the firmament of legal thrillers and his name is Michael Connelly. It will be a sad day indeed if Connelly doesn't reach the decision to bring Haller and his team back again for our enjoyment.

Paul Weiss

</review>
<review>

Is religion irrelevant to modern society?  Should we cast theism overboard?  I don't know, but I'm interested in the dialogue, and in this book, Dennett offers an interesting perspective on these and other questions about religion.
In this book, Dennett takes the idea of cultural evolution, that there are nonbiological things like language and belief systems that evolve similarly to genes, and applies it to religion, looking at its survival value for early humans and its role in the contemporary world.  Although unapologetically athiest, he doesn't come across as pushy or arrogant, and I believe that an open-minded person of any (or no) religious view could read this book and be enriched by it

</review>
<review>

Dennett is very gentle in laying out his case, but his conclusions are earth shattering.

This is certainly a more subtle, methodical work than the recent books by Harris and Dawkins. While I feel characterizations of those previously mentioned authors are overly critical, Dennett is subtle where they are emphatic.

The spell spoken of in the title is the taboo against investigating or criticizing religion.

A very understandable work... half-way between a textbook and a popular work of nonfiction, taking the best from each

</review>
<review>

Ironically, Dennett (and Dawkins and Darwin) provide sophisticated believers with the best tools ever for understanding how a God might have purposefully injected the human memosphere with permanent belief in himself and endowed his believers with the sense of purpose, intentionality, goal-seeking, and teleology that keeps religion alive and growing. A God can accomplish all that *simply* by imbuing the Universe with Darwinian selection, since all Darwinian systems exhibit an epiphenomenal teleology so realistic that we might as well just define real intentionality as "the behavior of individuals (memes or genes) struggling for survival in darwinian system."

The theologian / cosmologist now has all he needs for a consistent reconstruction of religion. Occam's razor cannot favor the anthropic principle against a Darwin-backed teleological principle: the proposition that a purposeful God imbued a Universe with intrinsic purpose and with creatures capable of supporting a memosphere with purpose. As to the unreality of such a God, it would be no less real than the laws of physics and Darwinism, or, for that matter, less real than any computer program or a set of algebraic rules; but also no more material than those. The sophisticated believer no longer needs to reify his God as a tree or an idol or a human.

I will point out that the best thought-out mystic traditions have held such abstractions, amazingly clearly, for millennia, so Dennett is not addressing the religious as deeply as he might be, but this is a small critique since the vast majority of believers operate at a much more shallow level. I credit Dennett for explaining in some detail how, at this shallow level, the God meme is and will continue to be a powerful performer in the memosphere. However, he seems not to realize that science and Darwinism have given the deepest theological thinkers the best boon they ever had for reconstruction.

So I conclude that Dennett has set the stage for getting past the polemic that science and religion (at least sophisticated religious thinking) will forever be opposed. I don't think that's true. I would argue that the next phase is to work on moral synthesis, and, for that, science is way behind.

</review>
<review>

It is not difficult to dismiss Daniel Dennett's latest work, Breaking the Spell, as an under-researched and unscholarly polemic containing many assertions that are dubious and unproven at best.  Dennett, of course, would agree.  The book says from page one that it is not intended to be a scholarly work, nor is it intended to offer definitive proof as to the evolutionary origin of religion.  If this were what the book were trying to offer, then perhaps the ranting and raving about Dennett's lack of scholarship and his unverified claims would be more to the point.  As it stands, though, Breaking the Spell succeeds in getting its intended message across, and it does so in a manner that would not frighten off its intended audience--the average lay theist.

Essentially, Dennett's main thesis is that we should take steps towards developing naturalistic theories as to religion's origin.  Dennett is not concerned necessarily with what particularly theory ultimately explains religion, nor is he trying to prove the necessity of a "meme's-eye view" outlook in explaining religion's evolutionary origins.  Breaking the Spell is merely Dennett's way of broaching the topic, throwing out ideas that those who do have more experience than Dennett in these fields can attempt to refute or prove.

The book is intended for lay people--specifically lay people who have religious beliefs.  Dennett spends a lot of time cutting through the typical faith-based muck that makes it taboo to research or offer explanations for the origin of religion that don't mention God as the ultimate cause.  He quite convincingly argues that it is in our best interests to search for a naturalistic explanation for religious belief and that the various taboos against such research are indefensible and needlessly silence inquiry.  And, as far as this thesis goes, Dennett is entirely correct.  It may be true that there is no naturalistic explanation for religion, but the only way to find out is to actively search for one--and to hide behind the veil of "sacredness" only betrays a fear that the truth will be contrary to what one wants to believe.  Dennett, of course, says this much better and with much more precision and care than I ever could, so read his own words, because my summation of his thesis does not do it justice.

As for Dennett's varied conjectures about the possible evolutionary origins of religion, he maintains that he could be wrong about any of them.  He is not an expert, and he is only attempting to offer suggestions for lines of inquiry.  Much of what he says doesn't appear to be so outlandish, though it would require a lot more supporting evidence than what Dennett offers, and some of his auxiliarry assumptions that people tend to criticize (like those about "memes") are not even essential factors in many of his hypotheses about religion.

As a book offering a call for researchers and academics to explore possible naturalistic developments of religion without fear of reprisal from the faithful who will insist that they are violating a taboo or that naturalism should leave religion alone, it succeeds wonderfully and even offers a few tentative suggestions for further research in Dennett's many--and seemingly plausible--theories regarding the evolutionary origin of belief in God and religion.

Without a doubt, anyone approaching this book expecting a scholarly argument directed towards experts that offers well-researched and verified theories concerning the origin of religion would be best advised to avoid this book and to avoid reading it with the pretense that this is the book's intention

</review>
<review>

But I'll throw him a bone with a second star. (See end of review for why.)

First, let me qualify myself in a few ways.

I'm an atheist, so I'm not attacking Dennett on religious grounds.

Second, while I believe in the validity of evolutionary psychology, I don't believe in Dennett's adaptationist-based Evolutionary Psychology. (And, are there that many Dennett fans here, for the negative replies to my review, or is something about Ev Psych vs. ev psych not clear? Read my review of "Adapting Minds," David Buller's book, or of "Why Men Won't Ask Directions," further down this page.)

The problems with Dennett's book, as far as his previous history goes, boil down to two things: adaptationism and memes.

Adaptationism, at least the strong version touted by Ev Psychers, hasn't been shown to be true for purely physical evolution. For cultural evolution, even though it too is ultimately biological, it's got even less proof that it's anywhere close to a convincing primary explanation. See my blog, wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com, for some recent comments on Dennett, adaptationism and Ev Psych (versus ev psych). Or read my review of "Adapting Minds," David Buller's book, or of "Why Men Won't Ask Directions," further down this page.

Second, much of Dennett's approach could be explicated without ever reverting to Controversial Idea No. 2 - memes. If, and that's a big if, there's any truth to memes, they're likely to be much less robust bits of mental heredity than Dennett, even more than Dawkins, would have us believe.

Related to that is Dennett's incorrigible urge to translate language - and to some degree, the ideas behind the language - of people like Scott Atran and Pascal Boyer into his own. I've read and reviewed both their books on this subject. Go read them and learn a lot more than in Dennett's watered-down, "tweaked" transmissions. Ironically, in a book about religion, "dogmatic" might be a good word to describe some of Dennett's tendencies in this way.

Now, how does Dennett shoot himself in the foot in this book in the first 10 pages?

Simple. He first says he's not an expert on academic religious studies, nor on Eastern religions in general. He then runs roughshod over both these on page 10, where he defines religion as including a belief in a theistic deity, obviously excluding Eastern religions Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism. All DO make the cut of "religion" in the academy, Dan. But your definition of "religion" doesn't.

This is probably Example No. 1 to underscore what other reviewers have said, as well: This book looks like a rush job, perhaps to Sam Harris' book, or otherwise shallow. Part of that, given Dennett's previous writing history, is that he hasn't done much with religion in academic journals, so had no starting point of turning academic essays into book chapters.

Second, to skip ahead in the book to pages 272-73, Dennett makes what should be considered elementary errors of logic, even if being used to some degree as rhetorical talking points.

On 272, Dennett broaches the possibility that religion makes one healthier, mentally more fit, etc. He nowhere discusses the issue of statistical correlation vs. causal correlation. Nor, even if there is a causal correlation, does he consider which way it goes. I.e., does religion make you healthier, or does being healthier make you more religious?

On 273, he presents the hypothetical talking point that examining the issue of religion making one healthier or mentally more fit might fade under the scientific microscope. To broach this as even a halfway serious talking point, Dennett comes off sounding like paranormal peddlers that James Randi and CSICOP are constantly having to shoot down, special pleadings and all.

There's lesser errors on top of these, but what I've just listed are train wrecks of logical reasoning. Can anybody mail Dennett a copy of The Skeptic's Dictionary? Maybe this acclaimed philosopher wouldn't come up so short, or so na�ve, in the logic department as his thought on these two pages indicates. And, no, I'm not saying this totally tongue in cheek. Near the end of chapter 9, Dennett's logical reasoning skills are that weak.

I'll give the book two stars, not one, though, but only by the skin of its teeth. As a popularizing version of some of what Atran, Boyer and Harris, among others, discuss, and especially as (ostensibly) written in a spirit of outreach to a variety of religious believers of at least some depth of faith, it rises above the one-star mark. But only for that reason

</review>
<review>

Daniel Dennett is a very good writer and his books are always worth reading.  Although I don't always agree with his views, I have always been impressed by his basic fairness and honesty (on the whole) since I read "Darwin's Dangerous Idea," a thoroughly delightful work on evolutionary thought.  Thus when one of my colleagues loaned me "Breaking the Spell" Religion as a Natural Phenomenon"  I was prepared for an interesting exposition.  Unfortunately, I only had a chance to peruse the book, rather than read it in detail, but I got the main ideas and I did read some sections more thoroughly.

I was impressed with his section on primitive religion and with his admission in one of the appendices, as well as in the main text that science may not have all there is to say on ethics. In general Dennett is a much better writer on evolutionary psychology than many of his associates, and I might add, a more honest one!

That said, I do disagree with him on a couple of major points.  First I am not at all convinced by the theory of memes as postulated by Dawkins.  Memetic theory has not risen to the level of evolutionary theory or relativity theory, and is at present in many regards hypothesis or worse, speculation.  What exactly is a meme?  I know that some would say that the idea of a gene is nearly as nebulous, but at least we have some concrete examples.  I also am not sure that this idea, which has been around for several years, has actually born any useful fruits.  As an empirically-based scientist I have to say that I want to see concrete evidence and a way to test the existence of memes, not just experts telling me that such ideas make sense and so must be true.  It may be that meme theory will triumph, and that may be true of, for example, such speculative ideas as multiple universe or string theory as well, but all of these are as yet unproven and may yet end up on the scrap heap like the odd idea (once actually entertained by at least one scientist) that arachnids gave rise to the vertebrates.

I will also add that the removal of the meme for religion, if there is one, might take some doing.  It also might be cruel, as much of the world's poor, who (unlike Dennett) live hand to mouth, find some solace in religious belief.  Put Dennett in the shoes of a peasant in El Salvador during the civil war and see if he wound up religious or not. Some might say that being an atheist requires being well fed and not in immediate danger of loosing ones life!

However, Dennett is stimulating and his ideas are at least worth examining.  I thus recommend this book as a worthwhile examination of the human institution of religion from a different perspective than usual.  Time and study will tell if he and Dawkins are right

</review>
<review>

Mr. Dennett's book demonstrates the ignorance, irrationality, and dishonesty  of humanists. Discussing the meaning of word materialsim, Professor Dennett says:

"In its scientific or philosophical sense, it refers to a theory that aspires to explain all the phenomena without recourse to anything immaterial--like a Cartesian soul, or "ectoplasm"--or God. The standard negation of materialistic in the scientific sense is dualistic, which maintains that there are two entirely different kinds of substance, matter and ...whatever minds are supposedly made of." (p. 302)

Philosophers stopped believing in dualism a thousand years ago with the development of metaphysics. A modern view is that man is an indefinability that becomes conscious of its own existence.

The philosophy that God does not exist is not materialism, it is naturalism. Materialism is the view that all that exists is matter. Materialists frequently say that free will is an illusion and that the experience of the existence of oneself is some kind of epiphenomena. (In a quote below, you will see that Dennett puts free will in a list of things people belief in.)

It is not clear from the book whether Dennett is a materialist, but he is certainly a naturalist. Concerning the proof of God's existence, he trots out David Hume's "Who made God?" which is based on a misunderstanding of the principle of causality. I refer the reader to my personal website for my version of the proof.

Let's look at two quotes, the first is at the end of the chapter "Belief in Belief" and the other at the beginning of the chapter "Morality and Religion":

"That is, isn't it true that, whether or not God exists, religious belief is at least as important as the belief in democracy, in the rule of law, in free will? The very widespread (but far from universal) opinion is that religion is the bulwark of morality and meaning." (p. 245)

" Without the divine carrot and stick, goes this reasoning, people would loll about aimlessly or indulge their basest desires, beak their promises, cheat on their spouses, neglect their duties, and so on.  There are two well-known problems with this reasoning: (1) it doesn't seem to be true, which is good news, since (2) is is such a demeaning view of human nature." (p. 279)

In the first chapter, he mentions "bulwark of morality" and "meaning." But in the second chapter, he leaves out "meaning."  If our purpose in life is not to get to heaven, what is our purpose is life?

Whether religion supports morality can be determined by observing whether there is a correlation of moral conduct with religious belief. Mr. Dennett makes such a correlation to the detriment of religion by citing the high divorce rate of fundamentalist Christians.

There are worse things than divorcing your spouse. Disingenuousness can be worse and can take the form of leaving unsaid what should have been said. Mr. Dennett should have explained why he did not discuss the idea that religion gives meaning to life.

The only miracle mentioned in Mr. Dennett's book is the Shroud of Turin, which has on it a mysterious image of a crucified man.  Since no one claims to know how the image got there, it can be called a miracle. However, Mr. Dennett does not tell us anything about it. The reader is left to find out about the famous relic by looking it up on the internet.

</review>
<review>

Tim LaHaye, Jerry Jenkins, and others in the Pre-Trib circle, such as Ed Hindson, Tommy Ice, Chuck Missler, etc., continue to put forth the same deceptions that Hal Lindsey popularized decades ago.  The notion of a pre-tribulation rapture is foreign to scripture, it is foreign to the teachings of the early Church, and it is grooming the Church for destruction through ignorance and lack of preparation for what is really coming.  These men are novices and not prophecy "experts" or "scholars" by any stretch of the imagination; they are those who tickle the ears of gullible Christians.  Why continue to be deceived?  Tim Cohen, in his excellent book, "The AntiChrist and a Cup of Tea," provides biblically sound and testable evidence to show that the coming AntiChrist is known NOW.  Not only that, the same author (Tim Cohen) has now put out the strongest presentation on the whole issue of the rapture EVER offered to the saints of God in Christ: "The REAL Rapture".  If you really want to know the truth about the timing of the coming rapture, then you need to hear Tim Cohen's "The REAL Rapture" (based on a volume in his forthcoming "Messiah, History, and the Tribulation Period" series (see Prophecy House's web site, prophecyhouse dot com, for details on these items)

</review>
<review>

This is a nice fold out chart of the whole Biblical scenario from a dispensational view. It makes a good reference and book mark for my Bible. I would also recommend LaHaye and ice's book charting the end times, it is fully comprehensive

</review>
<review>

I must seem like someone in great need of a unifying philosophy, because several people have tried to lend me theirs. Ex-boyfriends seem to think Daoism just the thing, while acquaintances recommend Jesus (that's why they stall out at acquaintances).  After reading this book, though, I can now say, "No thanks.  I've got Adam Smith."

When I was trying to get over a death in the family, this book provided me by far the greatest solace.  Smith summarizes the ancient schools of philosophy (and most interestingly, how some got perverted into serving as the basis of Christianity), and from them distills a manual for life that's both intuitive and useful.  What I like best about Adam Smith is that while his genius may not be immediately apparent, his common sense is.

The last chapter of the book deals with the origins of language, and it's about my favorite.  Besides making me wonder why there are any linguists still employed, Smith touches on evolution and boolean logic (computer language).  Based on this chaper alone, he should be called the father of linguistics; if he had elaborated just a bit more, perhaps he would have been the father of evolution, as well.

</review>
<review>

The book under review was published by LibertyClassics.

Smith's "Theory of Moral Sentiments" (TMS) is both an excellent work of psychology and an eloquent exposition of philosophy. It was written about the same time as David Hume's and Francis Hutchinson's theories of moral sentiments (theory of benevolence) in the 18th century, departing from the ancient ethical paradigms of a priori ethics and reaching instead toward an empirical, a posteriori ethics for modernity. Rather than deducing first principles from the philosopher's armchair, Smith's account begins with experience, habit, and custom based on nature's disposition of mankind's moral constitution. Therefore, it is a wholly modern theory, and in many ways anticipates Darwinism and evolutionary biology (EB).

Smith's ethical account is grounded entirely in observation. Nature, custom, habit, and experience teach us its principles, which comports with both our internal judgments and our external evaluations. By our imagination, we place ourselves as if we are the other person, conceiving ourselves as if we were that person. Our emotions well up with an "analogous emotion" of the other, vicariously experiencing the other's pleasures and pain, his gratitude and resentment, becoming sympathetic to the other's plight as though it were our own. Love and gratitude are agreeable sensations, while hatred and resentment are disagreeable passions. Our sympathy for the other is measured like that of "an impartial spectator" who we become by viewing another's motives and actions by our own in accordance with our own sense of propriety, moral sense (duty), and benevolence, by "bringing the case home to ourselves."

"Every faculty in one man is the measure by which he judges of the like faculty in another. I judge of your sight by my sight, of your ear by my ear, of your reason by my reason, of your resentment by my resentment, of your love by my love" (I.i.3.10). "We approve of another mans judgment, not as something useful, but as right, as accurate, as agreeable to truth and reality" (I,i.4.4). Conscious of another person's situation generates sympathy in ourselves, and the correspondence with one another, is "sufficient for the harmony of society" (I.i.4.6). "To feel much for others and little for ourselves, that to restrain our selfish, and to indulge our benevolent affections, constitutes the perfection of human nature . . . .as to love our neighbor as we love ourselves is the great law of Christianity . . . . as our neighbor is capable of loving us" (I.i.5.5).

Based upon these primary motives of gratitude and resentment (foreshadowing Trivers' and Hamilton's reciprocal altruism in EB) leads to an analysis of grief and joy, anger and love, suffering and enjoyments, distress and relief, envy and magnanimity, and all the other binary emotional relations. To each emotion we attach a "proportionable recompense" for merit and demerit, reward and punishment. A sympathetic imagination or indignation naturally boils up in the breast of the impartial spectator.

While beneficence is always a free act, we do have duties given us by nature in order to be just. Justice, writes Smith, is a negative virtue and only hinders us from harming our neighbor through retaliation or punishment "to safeguard of justice and the security of innocence." Even though we are primarily motivated by self-love, we imagine an impartial spectator to humble the arrogance of self-love to avoid hurting one's neighbor.

Smith makes clear that "man, who subsist only in society, was fitted by nature to that situation for which he was made," and that is to act reciprocally. For ill inflicted unjustly on another, we naturally seek retaliation; for the good afforded from love, we reciprocate the affection. After all, "society cannot subsist among those who are at all times ready to hurt and injure one another" (II.ii.3.3). This occurs "for the purpose of advancing the two great purposes of nature, the support of the individual, and the propagation of the species" (II.ii.3.5). When it comes to society, justice is more important than beneficence, because, while society can live without beneficence, it cannot survive without justice. Nature, and society through habit and custom, implant conscience in the human breast, and every injustice, therefore, alarms man. Conversely, Smith observes, "mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent" (II.ii.3.7).

Like Hume before him, Smith locates the causes of pain and pleasure as being behind the primary motivations of the two chief emotions: For Hume they are love and hatred, for Smith they are gratitude and resentment. To measure the propriety and duty of one's own actions, "we must become the impartial spectators of our character and conduct" (III.2.2). Man is naturally endowed to live in society with a desire to please others and avoid offending others, and it is our duty to impartially evaluate ourselves at least as stringently, if not more, than we evaluate others. Nature has made man the immediate Judge of mankind, ever making proper comparisons between our own interests and those of other people. We judge ourselves best when act as if we stand in a place with eyes of a third person. "It is reason, principle, conscience, the inhabitant of the breast, the man within, the great judge and arbiter of our conduct" (III.3.5). Of course, our own disciplined, self-command, coupled with constancy and firmness, makes our interior and exterior comparisons and resemblances fair and equitable.

Smith's TMS covers much territory also covered by Hume, but from a different angle, and with a different regard for "utility" in a theory of benevolence. Both theories are thoroughly modern, and readers familiar with EB will find that Smith better anticipates many of EB's themes, i.e., reciprocal altruism, kin selection, etc. Smith's perception of man as he will become described by Darwin is uncanny. Although Hume's account begins with first principles of observation, and heuristically builds upon empirical foundations, Smith's observation begins with the more mundane and ordinary and refines toward first principles. Even though they are in agreement on most matters, it's intellectually interesting to take note of their differences (e.g., utility). Regrettably, the ethical theory of moral sentiments gets little attention in ethics courses, despite the ease of reading and relevance to today's modern synthesis. Both deserve a wider audience. This handsome text is well introduced, annotated, and documented.. Recommended

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<review>

This book, the first published by Adam Smith, was very favorably received when it was first appeared in 1759.  Within a few generations, however, it was largely neglected due to various turns taken in moral philosophy.   Smith's approach is to paint the moral aspect of living in vivid colors, so  that it literally inspires virtuous conduct.  But in doing so, Smith never  preaches; instead, he illustrates the beauty of virtue even over the  practical advantages of living as though one were an  and quot;Ideal  Observer and quot; or spectator. This perspective plays a large role in his  work, for according to Smith the moral perspective, and indeed conscience  itself, is largely a function of adopting the point of view of the   and quot;person principally concerned and quot; in morally relevant situations,  and subsequently sympathizing with the perspective of the various parties  involved.  Sympathy for Smith is not soft-heartednes (nor headedness), but  is instead identification with the motives and feelings of the parties  involved.  The volume includes one part devoted to an examination of the  history of ethical theory, interpreted through the lense of Smith's own  sentimentalist theory. One thing that should be noted about The Theory of  Moral Sentiments is that it goes a good way in correcting the impression  that Smith was a laissez-faire capitalist, and indeed the sentiments  expressed here make it clear that the popular conception of Smith as first  and foremost an economist concerned with automatic regulation resulting  from an  and quot;invisible hand and quot; (a phrase used only twice in all of  Smith's writings, as explained by the editors in the excellent introduction  to this volume), do not mesh well with the historical facts.  He was a  professor of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow University, and is reputed to have  declared himself most proud, not of his most (and justly) famous, The  Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, but of this book instead.   Indeed, his headstone reads,  and quot;Here Lies Adam Smith, Author of The  Theory Of Moral Sentiments and of The Wealth of Nations. and quot; The book's  major shortcoming is its ultimately unsatisfying appeals to human nature at  junctures where people clearly have disagreements.  Smith's defense of  retributive justice is an example, for today we might well see ourselves as  involved in a struggle to move beyond such a conception of what constitutes  appropriate behavior, despite the natural propensity that we may have  toward it.   Despite its age, this book will inspire and challenge people  now struggling with moral dilemmas, and the comparatively confusing moral  climate of our own time.  It is good to see it in print, and it is good to  see moral philosophers and others beginning to discuss its significance  once again.  I recommend it highly

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<review>

Dave McKean, Cages (ComicsLit, 2002)

I finished Cages over the space of a weekend. I still have no idea what's really going on behind the scenes in this book. All I know is that it is a profoundly powerful experience, and not to be missed.

The story centers on Leo, an artist who (he tells his landlady, and others, early on in the book) found himself at an impasse in life and needed a change. Well, he certainly gets on here. His building is full of odd lots: a reclusive writer on the floor below him (one of whose novels provides the title for McKean's book), a philosophy-spouting jazz musician on the floor above, and a landlady who loves talking to pigeons. There are some other minor characters floating about, but those are the bunch you'll get to know best. There's also a cat who wanders around the building at will.

How you decide to read this is pretty much up to you (as long as you read it. You will go read it immediately, won't you?). You can read it for the story itself, which is unfortunately a bit disjointed, and if you don't read a little deeper you'll find yourself holding some loose threads at the end that beg for a closer reading. You'll likely find yourself more satisfied with it if you read a few layers down, tracing the patterns of the lives of the characters and figuring out who's who and what everyone's representing. (McKean should be giving you just enough in the book's final chapter to get most of it figured out without exhaustive analysis.) There is also, and I didn't go this far, the opportunity to completely submerge yourself in the book's symbolism, figuring out the archetypes for every character in the book (mull on this: given the revelations about the cat in the end, what is one to make of the landlady and her endless talking to pigeons?). One could spend a great deal of time thinking about Cages, and it demands a great deal of thought.

The only problem with this novel (and, graphic or no, this is one of the finest examples of the novel I have read this year in any form) is that it seems as if the surface layer suffered a bit in the final analysis. Things aren't quite as neatly wrapped as the should be to make this a perfect piece on every level (as they are in, say, Wendy Walker's The Secret Service or Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian). Still, that's an extremely minor point in the general scheme of things. I cannot recommend Cages highly enough. This will easily be finding a lot on my 25-Best list this year. ****

</review>
<review>

There are really no words I can write to do this one justice.  It's one of the single most moving experiences I've ever had reading anything, never mind comic books.  McKean's line art is breathtaking, and the painted interludes and photo montages are every bit as fascinating, disturbing, and touching as anything he's done with Neil Gaiman or Grant Morrison.  The story is about a tenement and its various occupants, but it's also about inspiration and love, and the things that drive us to create.  Go read it

</review>
<review>

This truly is a brilliant work in its own right. 500 pages of magnificent art work coupled with wonderful stories of human interaction, hope, struggle, and triumph. The stories do tend towards the ambiguous side at times, but it doesn't distract from the overall enjoyable time spent reading. This truly is a gem, and should be on the shelf of every comic book fan

</review>
<review>

Cages is  that rarest of graphic novels ; a work that can be called art and not just entertainment. The multiplicity of visual motifs from a very basic pencilled line that is very impressive to painting and highly skilled photo collages show a visual versatility that is formidable by itself. I was surprised at the skill of his writing, At first reading, I thought Cages was merely a self referential book on the nature of creativity.But further readings show that the  novel also discusses the nature of God, sex and human relationships and the way in which  any or all aspects of human existence can tun into a cage if one  does not have  balance and perspective. The jazz musician poet is the character who comes closest to having this and is the most admirable character in the novel; he is able to live outside of the cage most of the time. This graphic novel meets the definition of art in that second and even seventh readings or viewings add to the experience while well done entertainment has little to say beyond a first or maybe second reading, All serous comics lovers should read Cages and preferably more than once.NBM took over the publishing fromthe defunct  former publisher so it should be easier to find or get by way of special order

</review>
<review>

This is probably the best  and quot;comic book and quot; ever written.  Artist Dave McKean, whose art I have long time admired, proves that he can write as well, or better, than his old partner, Neil Gaiman.  He used to do all of Gaiman's art and Gaiman's later work has suffered with the absence of McKean's art work.  This is an almost 500 page hardcover book that tells a story about creativity and creative people.  There are three central characters: an artist, a writer and a musician-poet. They all live in the same apartment building and they interact with one another as well as the muse that lives inside each of them and torments each of them.  The story is not told in stricly linear fashion and McKean frequently will break away from dialogue and narrative and into visuals to carry the story for awhile.  He does it all equally well.  The rumor I heard is that the publisher went out of business shortly after publication of the book and that is why it is not available.  Dave McKean, who is a very successful artist in the UK, should look into his rights in publishing this himself as a reissue since too few people are experiencing the joy of reading and seeing his work

</review>
<review>

My favorite exercises in college were always related to Game Theory.  I'm guessing that James Surowiecki has a similar penchant, which would explain why his book is one of the most accessible volumes dealing with elements of it.  My biggest critique is a personal one, that the book contain more of the actual mathematical analysis of his case studies.  Of course, that would've made the work less accessible, less popular and I might have never read it.

Crowds are wiser than individuals when it comes to particular applications of problem solving involving cognition, coordination, or cooperation.  He argues that the average answers of a diverse group will yield more success than individual experts regardless how intelligent the individual may be.  Surowiecki then illustrates his thesis with some great examples from Jelly Beans in a Jar to the search for the lost U.S. submarine, Scorpion.

Businesses, he urges would do much better if they allowed the decision and prediction processes to be guided by larger groups.  But the makeup of the groups is important:  Diversity of opinion, meaning each person should have private information; Independence of the members instead of 'follow the leader'; Decentralization, meaning the members are able to specialize; and Aggregation, meaning there exists mechanisms that empower the group decisions bringing them to reality.

It's a fun read and bound to change the way you view organizational structures.  I highly recommend it.

- CV Ric

</review>
<review>

Surowiecki is a talented writer and one, who along with "Blink" author Malcom Gladwell, utilizes a writing style that includes myriad interesting scientific studies and historical anecdotes.  He starts off with a fascinating story about some fair, at which he witnesses hundreds of people guessing the weight of a cow.  No one got the exact weight of the cow, but the average guesses from everyone in the crowd was right on the money.  This may seem like a coincidence, but Suroweicki goes on to describe many cases where the many come to astonishing conclusions, that the few could rarely come to.

One of the most interesting aspects of the book is the description of open source- the future of software.  He also describes economics games and real economics like stocks and how millions of traders can "know" something without knowing it and how it's nearly impossible to win when betting on the NFL.  Also, he includes ways in which groups of people don't provide a better answer than the expert, and in fact, explains how, in some situations, the masquerade of diverse thinking coupled with the detrimental "group think" can lead to disastrous results (e.g. the 2003 shuttle tragedy).

It's not explicitly layed out to the reader, but Suroweicki's ideas show how a democratic government will always be more beneficial to its people than a centralized small group.

It's a very fascinating book, and I recommend it exuberantly

</review>
<review>

This is not a book about management.  It is a wonderful exploration about how and why groups of individuals can and do make better decisions than individuals.  It sets out some necessary conditions for this wisdom to be able to take place and then does some excellent analysis of why that happens.

What I got out of this book was some very important ideas about why collaborative decision making is important and how to assure that it is done well (If you want the other side Irving Janis' old classic on Groupthink is a good counterpoint.)

Unlike a lot of other big idea books this one is very literate and readable.  It is a joy to read but it also offers some very substantive ideas

</review>
<review>

What an outstanding book! I would not be exageratting by saying that this book has influenced me, particularly my leadership style, more than any other. The ideas therein pop into my head several times a week, as the wisdom of crowds rears its head over the course of my day. Examples include viewer ratings on youtube, student ratings of teachers at the school where I work, online doctor ratings by patients, movie recommendations by the masses on Netflix, and more. The collective people's opinions are generally dead on - even when individual opinions vary. This is the premise of the book, and one that I am now firmly convinced of.

Well done

</review>
<review>

Intrigued by the relative frequency of citation of this book in the new "web 2.0" universe, I was disappointed to find only a sequence of factoids on social experiments and little in the way of analysis.  From the very beginning of the book the reader is invited to agree with the central thesis (that a crowd of independent individuals does better than a smaller elite group) and it very much feels like evidence is carefully selected to reinforce the author's argument.  The book could have been twice as thin without losing much of its substance.  I would qualify it as a light business read, entertaining but not quite convincing if you're not part of the choir

</review>
<review>

If you want to know more about the importance of shedding all political alliegences and affiliations, read this book. What a wonderful body of knowledge with just the right stories to highlight the profound insights into the recesses of our heart.

</review>
<review>

This book is basically a magazine article that has been expanded to fill out an entire book (this has been noted by others)
Anything of interest is said in the first chapter, followed by a lot of fluff - "sometimes the crowd is wise" "sometimes the crowd is not wise".  After the first chapter, I seriously couldn't read for more than 10 minutes without getting bored

</review>
<review>

James Surowiecki's "The Wisdom of Crowds" is a readable and understandable book that attempts to bring an esoteric concept and present it to the layman.  Surowiecki's thesis is simple: a group of people that is diverse, independent, and decentralized usually reaches a better solution to a problem than even the best experts.

Surowiecki is a columnist with the "New Yorker," and the book reads like a collection of columns, with short, digestible sections discussing smaller ideas that all lead to his thesis.  He uses case studies, sociological experiments, stock market activity, and other research to build his case.  Although he offers many qualifications, he does a very good job showing that the marketplace of ideas usually produces the best answer.

"The Wisdom of Crowds" sets out what it means to do and helps explain how the world actually works - why the experts are often wrong and why the majority is usually right.  While it may be beneficial to managers and leaders looking to incorporate these ideas into their leadership styles, it is a great read for almost anyone wanting to understand a little more about human behavior and how the world works.

</review>
<review>

The author, James Surowiecki, lays out and explores a variety of general and specific cases of groups of people acting either wisely or stupidly.  The examples are all easy to relate to, and I found them to raise meaningful questions in my mind which were answered in due course in the text.

When I think of crowds, I think of unthinking masses moving together, led by tradition, habit, or an individual.  How can that be wise?  A more accurate title would be "How some groups of people can make better decisions than experts, while others act like collective idiots, and what characteristics distinguish the two types of groups", although that's hardly likely to sell as many copies. :-)

For me this really shed some light on my past experiences of participating in successful and unsuccessful teams at work.  I'd sometimes wondered why I've been on a few teams that appeared to "click" (smart people who want to work together to achieve a common goal), but our results weren't great, whereas other teams have been successful.  What was it that made a good team?  I had some of the pieces, felt I still had some real gaps in my knowledge.  This book certainly helped.

To paraphrase the basic idea that I took away from the book, teams of people can achieve superior results if:
1 Each individual on the team is well informed;
2 The work of one individual does not influence the work of another;
3 There is an objective method to aggregate individual conclusions into a group conclusion.
As simple as they sound, there are many ways to fail, and the book does a great job of exploring a variety of phenomena that cause failure.

</review>
<review>

I am an adult with ADHD inatintive type. I have struggled all my life with this condition.  Howevere, I have managed to earn a BA in psychology and I am currently working on a masters degree.  Because of my expierences in psychology classes I know something about scientific research and empirical evidence.  This book was a major dissapointment to me because it lacks the  simple scholary research to prove the claims made by Dr Lawless. I am afraid this book is nothing more then modernday snake-oil that will cause more harm then good.

This book is so full of pseudo-science that I fear it may cause a great deal of harm to children and adults with ADHD.  Dr. Lawless is a psychologist and should now how to read the scientifice research on the subject found in peer reviewed journals.  While, I believe that the chemeicals in the foods we eat are a major cause of illnesses, ADHD and obesity, There is little scientific evidence that add is caused by diet. However, their maybe more evidence in the future.  One of his clames of red dye has been proven completly false.  Another one his claims about magnet theropy are so out of the scientific mainstream that he comes of as a snakeoils salesman.  Please do not buy this book.  If you want reliable information by on of the Driven to Distraction books

</review>
<review>

There are many great ideas presented in this book about dealing with your add child, BUT the chapter on meds is completely off base.  Let me preface the following with MY opinion (I am not an MD or an expert) that children with ADD need a team approach in helping them deal with the condition (if you choose to call it one) and there is a place for meds for many kids, BUT it is only a piece of the puzzle. Parents, teachers, family members, Md's, and behavioral specialists are all crucial. I happen to work indirectly with many of the world thought leaders and experts on ADD (ie. Joseph Beiderman, Mass General Hospital, Boston MA/ Harvard Medical School, ... look up his credentials). First Dr. Frank Lawlis is not an MD, this means he has not been to medical school- that is not to say he isn't a great psychologist, just that he HAS NOT and DOES NOT write prescriptions for these meds and has NO first hand experience with directly managing these meds himself.  In this book there are many things that are completely false regarding ADD meds. For example he states that they only work for about 50% of kids.  FALSE Let me cite 3 credible sources that disputes this (notice in the book that he does not talk about HIS credible source)
1. "approx 70% of patients respond to the first stimulant agent administered with resulting improvement in their ADHD symptoms." - Practical Considerations in Stimulant Drug Selection for the ADHD Patient- Efficacy, Potency and Titration Beiderman, Today's Therapeutic Trends, 02'
2. "Improvement occurred in 65-75% of 5,899 patients randomized to stimulants." - Practice Parameter for the Use of Stimulant Medication in the Treatment of Children, Adolescents, and Adults, Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Feb02'
3. "At least 80% of children will respond to one of the stimulants if they are tried in a systemic way." Clinical Practice Guideline: Treatment of the School-Aged Child with ADHD, Published in American Acedemy of Pediatrics, Oct 01'.

All of these quotes are credible and are opinions based on evidence-based medicine from the experts. Lawlis also states that there has been little research in children and that most studies have been done on adults and rats/mice.  This is Completely False! The Journal noted above, Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry  (that was a review of  "161 randomized controlled trials that have been published encompassing 5 preschool, 150 school-age, 7 Adolescent, and 9 adult studies"  Where does Dr. Lawlis get his information?
The review noted above by the American Acedemy of Pediatrics, identified for analysis 2405 citations, 92 reports, and 78 different studies.  This is American Acedemy of Pediatrics- They are only interested in children and adolescents! Not Rats, Mice, and Adults.
These are the most credible Medical Journals published. These are not the biased trials sponsored by big pharma.  The information in these Journals is taken very seriously by Pediatricians and Child Psychiatrists, and is heavily relied upon by these professionals.

Lastly, he also states that these drugs are identical to cocaine in their affect on the brain. This is not true, they have similarities, but by NO-Means identical.  Yes it is true that stimulant medications can be abused and can also be addictive, but some of the newer formulations of these meds have lessened their abuse and addictive potential by altering the speed at which the drug is released into the bloodstream thereby somewhat flattening the curve (Cocaine use produces a curve that is almost straight up-this is what gives the "high") The most common way for these drugs to be abused is by crushing them and snorting them (which allows for fast absorption and steep curve), and some of the newer meds are crush resistant and/or cannot be turned into a fine enough substance to be snorted.  There has also been data published that shows a DECREASE not increase in drug abuse for patients who have taken stimulants.  It is believed that kids who are treated (drug treatment and otherwise) are less likely to associate with kids who are failing academically/socially and who are more likely to be using drugs. (This is not to say that high all high achievers abstain from using OR that ALL children who are failing ARE using)  It is just a point that kids who are treated are more likely to be focused on school and their responsibilities and are less likely to be involved in drug use.   Kids who are failing in school academically/socially are often looked at as outcasts and are often looked down upon by peers, teachers, and family, and this can cause a child to look for an escape... sometimes drugs.  Children who Do benefit from stimulant medication sometimes have more self-esteem because of their success, and certainly less scrutiny from peers, teachers etc.

Lastly, Lawlis tells a story about a man who died from long-term stimulant medication.  I am not going to say that this did not happen, but I will say that stimulants have been used since the 1950's, and the medical community agrees that they are safe when managed properly.  The medical community and FDA have pulled MANY medications that were deemed unsafe from the markets (many times against the will of BIG Pharma) and the stimulants would not have remained on the market for OVER 50 YEARS, if stories like this were common or the least bit likely.

I am not at all stating that stimulant meds are the answer because they are not, but they can be a small piece of the puzzle that is helping these kids with ADD.  The book is full of great ideas and approaches to ADD, but he is not accurate about the stimulant medications.  Parents who see value in them should not feel ashamed and or frightened by what he says because most of it is just not accurate.  Good luck and I hope this was helpful.

</review>
<review>

While raising a son with ADD I have read many books and articles which seem to advocate one treatment or another. I find this book has a family centered approach. Solutions involve the family rather than the just the ADD child. And, while the book does give some intriguing alternatives to the usual medication regimes, it does not rule them out all together. I liked this book for the new ideas it presented without insisting that these are the only ones which will work. The author seems knowledgeable, has had a long practice and  includes some personal experiences to illustrate his ideas

</review>
<review>

I don't quite understand why some are discounting Lawliss' suggestions because he is a psychologist and not an M.D.  Most M.D.s who suspect that a child exhibits symptoms of ADD/ADHD refer the parents and child to a psychologist, who will properly diagnose and, if necessary, treat the child.  At least, in my experience, this is the normal course.  If psychologists are the experts in this arena, then what's the problem?

This book offers great alternatives to medicine, but is not an absolute alternative, nor does Lawliss claim to offer absolute alternatives

</review>
<review>

This book has very pertanent information that parents, teachers, and other people working with ADD children need

</review>
<review>

Dr. Lawliss notes in "The ADD Answer" that we should not put teachers, doctors, or Dr. Lawliss himself above our parental observations and intuition.  There are some unproven methods in this book, but there is also a ton of insight on family dynamics and treating the environment of the child.  Learn from this book and then you decide how or if to apply the methods.  I have been putting teachers on a pedestal, believing they know more about child behavior.  No more of this - they know more about children in general, but I know my own child best, and being that I am willing to honest with myself and my child I can effectively use what is pertinent to our situation from this book

</review>
<review>

According to the NIMH there are about 1.6 million cases _total_.  If the rest of this book is as accurate as that statistic then, well, that pretty much says it all

</review>
<review>

In this book's intro it says, "It's no coincidence you opened this book" then "You see, everytime a coincidence occurs, a prayer is answered, or something happens to make you say, 'Wow! What are the odds of that happening?' You've received a godwink, a signpost along the path to your destiny-a message of reassurance that you are never alone."

Besides that contradiction, here is more. But first, here's some wishful thinking advice (from his book):

"If you have faith in the outcome, the picture you've seen in your mind can be yours."

Yep, this is another book rehashing the "if you have enough faith" fairytale. But here are the contradictions. He goes on to say: "You are destined to have a soulmate relationship. ... (godwinks) are signposts of reassurance, guiding you into making your own free will decisions."

What the hell, so you are destined, and godwinks are to show you that you aren't alone, no wait, they are reassurances to guide you into making your own free will decisions because you control your own destiny.

Oh but that's not all, on page 143, he said, "You must continue to listen to the small, still voice within-your intuition-and make the important choices in your like on your own, bolstered by an awareness that you are surrounded by the invisible safety net of the Almighty, confirmed by godwinks, that you are never alone."

That's some great comfort from God, to let you know that you are on your own when it comes to making decisions, and he's not gonna help at all, and even causes coincidences to reassure you that he's not gonna help, and reminds you to make all the hard choices without any help, and is just gonna watch and continue to remind you that he's doing this. Oh and, "let the power of coincidences lead you to love." ... Wait, so now God uses coincidences to tell you who to marry or have sex with, and you should choose, using your free will to go with God's coincidence-advice? I thought he wasn't helpin out with the hard choices?

Advice, don't give this book to anyone unless you want them to end up in a mental institute. And saying "free will" is redundant, of course it's free. It seems like this author has an anti-predestination bias, and in his bias is fine with wrecking the minds of those he is trying to make money off of

</review>
<review>


I really enjoyed this book.  While I think some of the winks are stretches, there are some that are absolutely amazing.  I think for those of us who've had some hurts, it's refreshing to know that God still has some good things in store for us.

</review>
<review>

I really enjoyed this book by SQuire Rushnell, almost as much as the first one of his that I read. Both books, which we have come to call the "God Winks" books, are great and a necessary item for everyone's home library

</review>
<review>

I found this to be another good book by the author. His eye-opening first book "When God Winks" was truly exceptional and this book is close to living up to that standard. His thoughts on love and relationships are insightful. This is a very good book

</review>
<review>

This is an adorable book of evidence that would make anyone afraid of their partner's previous relationships, especially if the past boyfriends, girlfriends, and most of all ... spouses are still alive and kicking.

Let coincidence lead you to the one meant for you. One who isn't going to have you in some love triangle with the past

</review>
<review>

This is the second book I have read by this author and I loved them both.  Very uplifting, fun and thought-provoking!  Makes you believe in love, coincidence, and the core of goodness in so many people.  A great read - I highly recommend it!

</review>
<review>

i just want to say that this book was one of the best books that were ever written and one of the best books i've personally ever read.  If you beleive or dont beleive in love, this book is a great book to read.  it opens your eyes to a whole new world and things you never thought were even possible.  i read this book in 1 1/2 days and i loved it.  If you have little free time here aand there, i think you should definately give the book a shot and read it.  It's a small book kind of, but i now find myself going back to it sometimes and referring to certain sections.  good luck!

</review>
<review>

I thought this book was  very intersting! The book was very easy to read and very informative.  I related to the book in many ways. I agree with what squire says about love and relationships. I learned alot of what he says about godwinks and love.  It was very much like the first book which made it easy to understand

</review>
<review>

Very compreshensive.  From how to name and label photos as you import them to what type of disks to use for backups.  He covers thousands of details that i would not have thought about.  Is clearly geared toward professional level of photo indexing.  However, he offers helpful suggestions for any level of digital photographer.

The viewpoint is specifically from one of a MAC user with iView and Photoshop CS2.   He says his concepts apply to any software of this type.  But, his examples are all with these packages.   Great if you plan on using these packages, annoying if you are not.

Very well written and a bargain for all the information you get

</review>
<review>

I am a fairly serious photographer- with over 5000 cataloged images stored in  iViewPro.  I also use Photoshop CS2- so I have pretty much the same setup as Peter Krogh uses for his book.  I probably shoot a couple hundred images a month, of which maybe 5% get archived and saved.

The best thing about this book is it describes, in detail, one whole methodology for setting up a reasonable system for storing, naming, cataloging, backing-up, rating, and organizing photos.  I would much rather a book that describes one method, rather than trying to describe every possible methods and the tradeoffs of each.  Krogh describes how he does it, why he did it that way, and what the advantages an disadvantages were.   You may object to some of his choices- (I am not a fan of digital negatives), but opinions are like you know what...everybody has one.

If you use the same software that Krough uses, you will be very satisfied with his book.  If you use others (Photoshop downrevs, ACDSEE, etc), I can see the book being a bit of a disappointment.  However, since I use the same tools (and these probably cost close to $1000 to duplicate), the price of the book was easily made up in just a couple of the hints.

I do have one complaint.  The interface between CS2 and iVIEW is clunky in that it doesn't point to the same metadata for some fields- specifically the star rankings.  Krogh suggests a number of work-arounds, none of which I really liked.  None of that is Krogh's fault- Microsoft and Adobe need to have a meeting.  However the one thing that really annoyed me was that Krogh offered one script to address the problem, which is offered on his website for a fee- don't remember the exact amount- $20 seems to ring a bell.

If there is one thing I hate, it is laying out cash for a methodology book, only to be hit up again for downloading a script.

If stuff like that doesn't bother you- I wholeheartedly recommend the book, subject to your having the same toolset.  If stuff like that bothers you- hold your nose and buy it anyway

</review>
<review>

Extremely usefull roadmap to navigating the new territory of digital workflow.  If you are a professional photographer shooting digitally, this book is the essential guide to  everything you need to capitalize on digital's opportunity and avoid time consuming mistakes.  I feel like an evangelist, as I've bought a handfull of copies for colleagues

</review>
<review>

One of the most difficult realities of managing thousands of digital photo images is how to label them in a consitent manner so that you can easily retrieve photos and keep track of photos that have been altered. Another important consideration is if you will be able to read the information as software and hardware changes occur. Peter Krogh makes logical suggestions and tells you why he chose to label an image in a particular manner. The DAM Book also has great suggestions on backing up photos. I have always struggled with labeling/numbering consistency, Peter Krogh makes it all very logical

</review>
<review>

Any photographer who is serious about their craft needs to take a good look at The DAM Book.  This book was written by a true professional that knows their stuff and will assist you in getting your photos from the the boxes and boxes scattered no doubt throughout your house and into the digital repository that is a better place to store, access, and retrieve the precious prints that you work so hard on producing.

From a discussion on how to get archived images into the computer to managing the vast amounts of data to learning the basics or how to clean up and make your pictures jump out at the person looking at them, this is an amazing guide that will make your money back in no time for the small price that you will pay.

For all photographers, this book needs to quickly become your desk companion... you won't know how you functioned before you had this wonderful text!!!

***** HIGHLY RECOMMENDE

</review>
<review>

"The DAM Book" is a seminal work on a topic of considerable importance to the serious digital photographer, and Krogh clearly knows what he's talking about and does an excellent job of explaining without going overboard. If you're at all interested in the question of how to file, archive, and index your digital photos, you should read this book.

Stylistically, though, "The DAM Book" is hampered by Krogh's almost toadying love for everything Adobe - in particular Adobe Bridge and Adobe DNG. His decision to center the book heavily around those two products along with iView Media Pro looks like a faux pas now, since iView is now owned by Microsoft and Adobe is planning to release LightRoom as their own DAM solution. I don't expect to see Bridge and iView being featured in the 2nd Edition of the book.

Still, Krogh does explain the basic concepts well enough that you can translate them to other products. He also explains the reasons behind his recommendations. And his explanations are surprisingly clear considering what an esoteric topic this is.

Highly recommended

</review>
<review>

This is an important first book on DAM. It would have been helpful from the beginning to have a simple outline of the workflow steps, rather than illustrations of various phases throughout the book. Also, the work is too heavily dependent on Adobe and DNG. His arguments that DNG is the universal format of the future seem rather unsupported by facts and history. That said, this is a very well written book with enough universals to be highly recommended. It is a must read for the digital photographer

</review>
<review>

For someone who used to store all there metadata in html files, this book gave some much needed information.
For those who look to this book to answer all their questions, it won't.  You need some actual logic and photographic knowledge to make use of this book.
I've seen complaints about the file structure recommendations this book pushes, but some people obviously didn't read the book, just skimmed.  The main premise of this book is to stop relying on where the file is stored on what drive and puts importance on what the file actually IS.  This makes finding the right needle in a smaller haystack of images that can span a decade.  By assigning time, keywords, ratings, and other metadata to your images they are actually usable.
Over the last 3 weeks I moved over a database of film (240 rolls, about 8000 images) and am finally making sense of the last 4 years of shooting because of this book.
Krogh's preference for DNG is well justified, as is his use of Adobe Bridge/Camera RAW.  AFAIK there is no other solution that properly catalogs raw files after exposure/color modifications.  NONE.  Get over it.  XMP and DNG is why I think its outright stupid to use any other raw converter.
Hardware choices are generally correct, especially the distaste of RAID.  I'd rather have four indipendent backed up disks than 5 disks running in one box that I can't turn on/off individually (wearing the disk down) with a common failure point PSU that I can't remove from the failed case and put into another if everything falls apart at the last moment.  RAID is very risky.
Ignore part of the Camera RAW chapter, read Bruce Fraser's book instead.
Read the iView manual, because this is not an iView guide, just an explaination of logical concepts.
This has been the best book for the continuing usefulness of my digital archives.  Buy it, steal it, just read it

</review>
<review>

Even if like me, you're not shooting gigs of digital images a year, the Krogh book is a must read. I'm no longer a pro shooter but I do need a handle on effective archiving schemes for my images. Peter does an excellent job of explaining his system that allows users to archive, organize and FIND your images. Well though out system that makes sense. While I'm no longer a working Pro shooter, I still have associations with pro's I went to photo school with (years before digital) or folks I work with and I recommend they pick up this book and read it cover to cover.

</review>
<review>

The book had a lot of helpful experiences and perspectives one can view in life. It broadens one's thinking and challenges us to see how we can better the quality of life that we live. References to the Bible I believe is the "true key".

</review>
<review>


When Wanda brought this thing home and threw it at me, I thought it might be that copy of American Squirrel Hunter magazine I asked her to pick up.

I got up to chapter 8 before I realized it ain't got nothing to do with varmint hunting at all.

Not for me

</review>
<review>

I ordered this book thinking that it would help put some things in perspective...what I got was a total eye-opener.  I have to admit, the man knows what he's talking about.  I didn't think it would be as religious as it is, but I'm deeply involved anyhow.

A definite must-read for anyone who wishes to tap into their deeper being.

Great job

</review>
<review>

This miniature edition is too small to be of much value.  When I purchased it, it was not at all obvious that it was a miniature edition, and I was shocked when it arrived.  If you're already familiar with the book, it may be a helpful reminder, but it is no way to become familiar with Dr. Peale's work.  It is not worth the 4.95 I paid for it, and the 3.99 shipping and handling is ludicrous

</review>
<review>

This littel minature book is very powerful. It has all the necesarry positive thing techniques that you need to start changing the way you think if you practice and beleive in it. It will turn your life around for the better

</review>
<review>

As a long time sufferer of anxiety/panic disorder, I recommend this book to anyone who is looking for coping mechanisms. Though not specifically geared towards people with anxiety, the book offers many pracitcal options for dealing with fear and uncertainty. A great place to start.

</review>
<review>

This is a great book. A book that can be of help to a teenager , an employee, a businessman, a live in mom or to a retiree. The book tells of changing our attitudes by the way we think. Norman writes that by thinking positive thoughts we draw in positive results and in the same way we draw in negative results by thinking negative thoughts. Its more like a magnet pulling iron towards itself. Therefore the bible says as a man thinks in his heart, so he is. As i said before a really great book otherwise it would not have been an all time positive best selling book.

</review>
<review>

This book has definitely changed my life.  I recommend it to anyone who is at a low especially.  It has given me a new outlook on life and helped me become a positive person. I  was very jumpy, nervous, even depressed before, this book really helped me to take my time and calm down.  I now know that I can handle things much bette

</review>
<review>

Dr. Peale is a master at describing and articulating the manifesting power of poitive thinking and believing.  He simply writes about the truth of thinking yourself into success.  Great Book that I read over and over again.  Definitely an inspiration for the writing of my own book

</review>
<review>

As a Christian, this book was incredibly inspiring.  I recently finished it and lately, when I come across a problem at work or school I remember various methods of thinking in order to solve the problem.  If there is no solution to the problem, I use a couple of methods to "view" the problem.  Dr. Peale uses countless examples and stories of experiences of people that have changed or developed by faith in God and the following of Christ.

Throughout the book, he emphasizes the concepts of faith, peace, serenity, love, patience, perception, and prayer power in order to deal with life's headaches and hard-times.  I highly recommend this book!

</review>
<review>

This is the story of Elizabeth Turrill Bentley. No one suspected a "well-bred, Vassar educated descendent of Puritan Clergy" would join a communist party and run "two of the most productive spy rings in America." That is exactly what Bentley, code name Clever Girl, did. Equally unexpected was her transformation from spy to FBI informant.

It all started in March of 1935 when Bentley was lured to an American League Against War and Fascism meeting by a neighbour. It turned out to be a front for the Communist Party. Kessler's descriptions draw the reader into the setting and give an idea of the atmosphere, as well as Bentley's mentality. Clever Girl attempts to shed light on the motivations of the most important woman to affect the McCarthy Era.

Bentley's early dealings with the party made her feel important and independent. She lived in a one room apartment and was unemployed. She was lonely. Going to meetings may have started off as a social event but it turned into something more. A calling. She was impressionable. In the opening chapter I felt she had been brainwashed and lured into the fold because of her loneliness, desire to have a family and ties with others.

Shortly after joining, Bentley met and fell in love with soviet handler Jacob Golos whom she affectionately called Yasha. Golos was the glue that attached Bentley to the party for years despite him not being as loyal to her. She let him interpret the world for her through his communist eyes. Regardless of what she gave up for him, it is because of her association with Golos she was able to move up through the ranks. After only 6 years (1935-1941), Bentley was running things.

When it was discovered he was no longer in control she had to fight to maintain her status. She quickly became deemed a problem and after Golos death her status was taken away. Although Kessler doesn't come out and say it, I think this had more to do with her being a woman than the fact she was an American in a high ranking, Soviet spy position.

When things started to look worse, she decided it as time to go to the FBI for help. In exchange Bentley named hundreds of Americans involved with the party. It is incomprehensible, the number of people who willingly supplied sensitive information from the Treasury Department to the party. It isn't so hard to believe or see the Soviet Union (the US wartime ally) as an "evil-doer" but what is difficult to believe is that Americans could be spies against their own country.

What I found most interesting was not Bentley's plunge into the depths of communism but her relationship with the FBI and media after she became an informant; as well as her flip flop between a secure, independent woman of means and a neurotic paranoid, probably brought on by the alcohol abuse.

Bentley played a game with both sides, never winning in either. She survived under a short-lived spotlight in each. Being an FBI informant wasn't as glamorous as being a Soviet spy. As a spy she basically worked alone and had control over what happened to her. As an FBI informant she was constantly scrutinized by the FBI, congress and most indignantly by the media. Her life was never normal. While most days I think she reveled in the limelight I also think that she longed for privacy, but mostly I think she longed for their respect.
The stereotypes of this time period are evident and well known. Bentley was a woman in a male dominated society. She held a high-ranking position but she was never really respected for it. Not by the Soviets, the FBI, nor the media who directed lots of name calling her way. If she had been a man I wonder what their views would have been of her and how she would have been handled. Clever Girl shows the life of Elizabeth Bentley, the past she couldn't outrun and the price she paid for the choices she made. Kessler's interpretation of the facts is worth reading both for its historical and entertainment value.

Review Originally Posted at http://www.linearreflections.co

</review>
<review>

Liz Bentley was born in a society that had limited opportunities for women. In the 1930's with the Great Depression this Vassar  graduate had only the socila outlet of the Communist party.
Kessler documents the importance that Bentley played as a Communist spy. Indeed before this book was written I always had the impression she was a courier or a bit player. Kessler documents that when bentley's lover got sick that she ran the spy ring. I always thoguth of Communist espionage in the 1950's as male driven from Greenglass, Julius Rosenberg, Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss. But this book docwement without Bently the FBI would not had the collaboratiog evidence for the secret Venona intercepts. Because these tapes were secret ,Bentley had no collaboration and only one person -William remington went to jail arising directly fromn her accusations.
Bentley had to endure the hatred of the far left for being a rat , a liar and worse. She contributed to rise of McCarthy and for J Edgar Hoover getting more powerful. Benley was years ahead of herself -running a businees (admitedly a Communist front). She was sexually expressive and her lover -Jakob Golos (whom was married) was her boss in epsionage. Benley exposed  2 spy rings the Perlo and Silvermaster ring and in doing so performed a patriotic duty.
Where I fault this book is that more details on the spy ring could have been given. Kessler seems to weant to defend Bentley against the far left but is uncomfortable delineating the extent of Soviet infiltration of the US Government. Such a thing sounds like McCarthyism (proof of the validity) and she may be showing her poltical bias in not making this connection. This book is a quick read and gives this fascinating part of US history. This book should be included in a Women's Study group

</review>
<review>

Although the life of Elizabeth Bently deserves a bigger book, I enjoyed this first biography of the enigmatic but fascinating commie spy, Elizabeth Bently. The author attempts to explain this Vassar educated American woman who became a Russian spy, but Bently still remains a vague phantom. Since I'm fascinated by that whole period--of Joe McCarthy, Alger Hiss, the shocking presence of real-life commnists in American government back in the 30s and 40s--I found this book very readable. You might also enjoy related books, especially Ann Coulter's best-selling,  and quot;Treason, and quot; which really delivers the goods about how the Communist scare of the 40s and 50s was not the imaginary fear of paranoid Americans. It really was something to cause genuine fear. Elizabeth Bently revealed just have intensive this spy network was

</review>
<review>

The subject of the book is hard to understand, even with all the facts laid out so admirably.  Kessler's writing style commands attention without getting in the way of the facts, but those facts are so twisting that at times even the most diligent student of history may be confused.  That's a small quible, however, in an overarching work of vigor and suspense.  Well worth a read

</review>
<review>

Hope Mirrlees originally published this marvelous book back in the 1920s, to some acclaim at the time.  The book then was forgotten by all except a few lovers of fantasy until it was republished by the now legendary "sign of the unicorn" series put out by Ballentine in the 1960s and early 70s.  Many authors have tried, with varying degrees of success, to achieve what Mirrlees does so effortlessly:  She brings a true sense of the mystery and wonder to this story of a people who live on the borders of fairlyland.  In this book, we learn about Nathaniel Chanticleer and his son.  About a people who would rather not see fairyland, but who are in some ways inextricably linked.  I don't want to say too much, or give too much away about this wondrous story, but I would like to say that one phrase has stuck with me for a long time:  One character accidentally wears yellow to a funeral, and then comments that it was, "after all, a blackish sort of yellow."  True words of the genuine synesthete, yes; but also true words of those who have touched the fe.  I am just delighted that this is back in print.  I hope everyone reads and enjoys it!


</review>
<review>

This book was extremely well written. It's a gorgeous story and not cliched at all. What totally gets me is that after searching the web for a time, I have not been able to find anyone that has written on the connection between her book and the eugenics movement taking place in the 20's. She most bluntly did not agree with eugenics at the end. For example, on page 233, "And if all the gifts of Life are good, perhaps, too, are all the shapes she chooses to take, and which we cannot alter." The book is filled with hints at the time period even though, after looking at countless reviews, the reviewers keep commenting on how her other books took from the time period and historical events and that Lud-in-the-Mist did not and it was a "fantastical" piece of literature. In my opinion, this book was TOTALLY based on the time period. There's even a line by the blacksmith about how since he's not "white" anymore he has come down in the world. If you're looking for a cultural artifact of the 20's, this is an astounding piece

</review>
<review>

I like the book, its cute and weird, but I lost mine when I had it with me dining at the mall and took it with me into the movie theater there, forgot it in the theater isle during the movie when I set it down and never saw it again.

So I ordered a copy here through e-campus in "new and used" in Nov 05, they told me they would ship on Nov 23.. Its Jan 7th 06 and I still have yet to recieve it.  I see they still have copies of it listed in the "buy new and used" section here.  Beware, they list books that they do not have.  Their ratings section is full of this advice but I did not read it in the first place :

</review>
<review>

Lud isn't London, and Dorimare isn't England, although there are some resemblances. Dorimare is bordered by Fairyland, although these days it does its very best to ignore that fact. Two or three centuries ago, under Duke Aubrey, it was different. Trade between the two lands was thriving, and the people of Dorimare enjoyed eating fairy fruit. But the merchants rose up and drove Duke Aubrey out-he was capricious and bad for business-and now mention of Fairy is banned as indecent, and fairy fruit is so illegal that smugglers of it have to be prosecuted for smuggling silk.

And then one day the Mayor of Lud, Nat Chanticleer, discovers that his son Ranulph has been fed a piece of fairy fruit, and his quiet, orderly, respectable life is thrown into chaos. His city becomes strange to him, his daughter runs off to Fairyland, his friends turn against him, and he has no choice but to learn more than he has ever wanted to know about Fairyland, fairy fruit, Duke Aubrey, and the hidden mysteries of Lud.

A good, satisfying read. Recommended

</review>
<review>

I can tell this is an unusual fantasy just by checking out the main character. Most fantasy heroes are not round, stodgy, middle-aged men who are respected pillars of the community. But the enchanting fantasy "Lud-in-the-Mist," reminiscent of "The Hobbit" in some areas, stars just such a man, amid dozens of other nice ordinary boring people who get their lives magically turned upside down..

Fairy is forbidden in the town of Lud -- not just fairy creatures and their exquisite fruit, but the very mention of it. "Son of a Fairy" is one of the worst insults possible. Duke Aubrey, a half-real-half-mythic noble who vanished long ago, is said to have gone off with them. Fairyland is, to the rational mind, a fantasy world, not merely containing fairies but also the dead. And currently, the mayor Nathaniel Chanticleer, a seemingly rational and dull man, has a lingering longing for... what? He heard a strangely magical musical note long ago, and now fears it. Despite all this, life remains boring and rather pleasant -- there are a few loons, such as always-dancing Mother Tibbs, and Duke-Aubrey-obsessed Miss Primrose. But most aren't.

But then strange happenings begin. Chanticleer's son Ranulph begins acting strangely, claiming that he's eaten fairy fruit. After Chanticleer sends his son off to a farm for a vacation, the teenage girls at Miss Primrose's Crabapple Academy suddenly seem to go pleasantly nuts, and then race off into the hills. Life seems to seep out of the old town -- and Nathaniel must connect the present crises to a past conspiracy, all of which hinges on Fairyland, fairy fruit, and the sinister doctor Endymion Leer...

The characterizations are charming. Though this book doesn't resemble Tolkien's at all, Chanticleer is reminiscent of Bilbo Baggins in his pleasant boring stodginess, that hides a brave, unconventional interior. He's not the person you would identify as a hero, but he is one anyway. In the same way, you wouldn't consider a place like Lud -- reminiscent of Tolkien's Shire in some ways -- to be the ideal place for an eerie adventure.

There are plenty of supporting characters, such as Chanticleer's childhood Ambrose, the quietly malevolent Endymion Leer, the various fairy-struck teens, and the snippy and sinister old ladies. Though Mirrlees spends relatively little time on character development, it flows out believably anyway -- little quirks and flaws are given to each individual.

Hope Mirrlees's writing moves on at a quick clip, without skimping on the details of Lud or its inhabitants. It also has that unique cozy feel that a lot of British fantasies have, while also being able to flip on the eerie, magical feeling. The descriptions of Faerie itself are understated, but all the more powerful for being so. There's more here than magical elves with pointy ears -- the very atmosphere of the story is magical.

"Lud-in-the-Mist" breaks the mold for most fantasy stories, and emerges as an entertaining, beautiful, and often funny book. Definitely a good read

</review>
<review>

"Lud-in-the-Mist" was first published, to both some incomprehension and some critical success, in the 1920s. It opens with, as an epigraph, a reflection by the author's friend and sometime-collaborator, the classicist Jane Ellen Harrison, on the otherwise inexpressible longings revealed in myth. The setting is the land of Dorimare, which is certainly not England, but is something like it; just as the seaport of Lud-in-the-Mist is not exactly London in the Fog. For one thing, England never had such remarkably *interesting* neighbors as does Dorimare -- at least not across any merely geographical border. Not that the solid, and increasingly stolid, burghers of Lud have any intention of acknowledging Fairyland or its inhabitants. That nonsense was all done away with in a glorious (but not The Glorious) Revolution, by their brave, revered, but (now) embarrassingly enthusiastic, ancestors, who chased the last Duke, and the Priests, off to -- well somewhere over the border.

The story is, among other things: a cold-case murder mystery, with a play-by-the-rules solution worthy of John Dickson Carr or Dorothy Sayers; a psychological drama of self-discovery and generational conflict; a critique of British middle-class culture, including an aesthetic defense of aristocracy, ceremony and (by implication, or historical association) Roman Catholicism, against drab and (also by implication) Puritanical commercial modernity; and, above all, one of the finest adaptations of British fairy lore I have seen, effortlessly including in its scope medieval and Elizabethan versions, modern folklore, and even academic interpretations.

Oh yes -- there is also the matter of that forbidden Fruit, or in strict legal terms in Dorimare, since the stuff, officially speaking, doesn't really exist, those illegally imported textiles.

Obviously, some genuine issues are engaged, but never in a heavy-handed manner; they give a little weight to what might otherwise be a frothy and inconsequential story about madwomen dancing, and dead men harvesting the fields of fairyland. The book invites applications, but needs none. There are, as indicated, resemblances to English history. But there are too many differences to read it as an allegory (or as taking a position for or against a specific religion, rather than an attitude toward life), instead of what Tolkien called a sub-creation.

The names of the characters (both major ones, like the Mayor, Nathaniel Chanticleer, and Doctor Endymion Leer, and such minor figures as Professor Wisp, Ambrosine Pyepowders, and Miss Primrose Crabapple) are a mixture of real, if sometimes odd or overblown, English names, often Biblical or classical, and interesting variations on them. At least one family seems to have thought that anything medieval-sounding was not only old but impressive -- even if the family name comes from beast-fables, and is rather less dignified than they might like to think it.

The language of the characters is mostly rather nineteenth-century (including some memorable euphemistic "oaths" which aren't actually Victorian, but should have been). There are some indication of social rank by speech level; but no lapses into "comical" rusticisms or cockneyisms for no other purpose than amusing the reader. Some of the "old" or "traditional" verse and prose quoted  or read by characters in the book is authentic sixteenth and seventeenth-century literature, some is adapted, and some is original; but the joins are seamless (at least to the eyes of this English major), and their presence lends a sense of layered history and culture.

New readers consistently have greeted it with enthusiasm; many of those who like the book seem, indeed, to love it. But, for some reason, it seems that it has to be rediscovered -- in its own terms, brought back from over the Debatable Hills and through the Elfin Marches -- every few decades. (Actually, its obscurity in Britain during the grim 1930s, 1940s and 1950s is easy enough to understand; it is the need to seek out used copies in the U.S. in the 1980s and 1990s, after the book's revival in the 1970s, which I still find surprising. The existence of an ASCII text on-line since 1993 -- an admirable thing in itself -- has not been a real substitute.)

At the moment "Lud-in-the-Mist" seems to be doing unusually well (may it long continue!). There was a North Books hardcover edition in the Twelve-Point series in 1998, followed by a Millennium Fantasy Masterworks paperback edition in Britain (Gollancz, 2000; with a cover too mysterious to be misleading, but too dramatic to be quite accurate, and an introduction by Neil Gaiman). Currently available are American hardcover and paperback editions from Wildside Press (2002; with a tasteful Pre-Raphaelite cover, John Everett Millais' "Ferdinand Lured by Ariel"). A German translation (by Hannes Riffel) was just published, as "Flucht ins Feenland" (2004; with a lovely, if too insectile, vision of fairyland for the cover); it includes an epilogue by Michael Swanwick, on Hope Mirrlees and her work. And back in the U.S., a Cold Spring Press paperback is scheduled for April 2005. An abundance of Fairy Fruit, after too long an embargo. (And if you don't know what *that* means, well, you haven't yet read the book; I can't imagine anyone who has forgetting it.)

I am familiar with three older editions. These are: the original W. Collins Sons edition (London, 1926), examined briefly, but intently, shortly after reading the first paperback edition; the mass-market paperback Ballantine Adult Fantasy version (dated March 1970) which reintroduced it to the world, with an enthusiastic, but uninformative, introduction by Lin Carter, and a lovely scene-setting wraparound cover of the town and the rivers, by Gervasio Gallardo; and the second Ballantine printing (after the company had been acquired by Random House, as A Del Rey Book, dated August 1977), dropping the introduction and the Adult Fantasy label, and with a cheerful, and accurate, cover by Michael Herring, portraying Mayor Chanticleer (but I prefer Gallardo's).

I have not seen the Pan-Ballantine reprinting of 1972, in which the book (reportedly) returned to print in Britain by way of its American revival, nor examined in detail the more recent British and American editions, but I am going to assume that no one has tampered with the text, or subjected it to garbling in reprinting, and on that basis give them my whole-hearted endorsement. (Information on the German translation can be found at Amazon Germany, and elsewhere.)

For those who are curious about the author, there is a limited amount of information, much the most interesting of which has been researched by Michael Swanwick. From my own work with older published sources, I was aware that Helen Hope Mirrlees (1887-1978) collaborated with Jane Harrison on translations from Russian (one of which, the 50-page autobiography of the Arch-Priest Avvakum, was anthologized -- in re-edited form -- in Zenkovsky's "Medieval Russia's Epics, Chronicles, and Tales," in print in various editions since 1963). She was listed as the author of two earlier novels, both reflecting a cultural interest in Catholicism, "Madeleine -- One of Life's Jansenists" (1921; not seen), and "The Counterplot" (1924, with a small American edition from Knopf in 1925), both long out of print. A book of verse also was published. Her announced biography of Jane Ellen Harrison never appeared, and books on Harrison's life and career were ultimately written by others, after Mirrlees' death (to the accompaniment of complaints about her failure to produce it, and her handling of the materials).

Although the 1920s encompassed most of her known works, in 1962, Faber  and  Faber published a "A Fly in Amber: Being an Extravagant Biography of the Romantic Antiquary Sir Robert Bruce Cotton," covering part of the life and times of a seventeenth-century collector who saved, among other things, the unique manuscripts of "Beowulf" and "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight." (For English majors, Sir Robert is the *Cotton* in the "Cotton Manuscripts" -- his habit of putting busts of Roman Emperors on his bookcases accounts for  such odd-looking catalogue designations as "Cotton Caligula" or "Cotton Vitellius.")

Mirrlees, who had been associated with the "Bloomsbury Group" (Leonard and Virginia Woolf, who published the "Avvakum" volume, T.S. Eliot, etc.), is said to have withdrawn from public life soon after Jane Harrison's death in 1928.  However, she seems to have given at least a brief interview about T.S. Eliot some time in, apparently, the 1960s; a very short segment in which she describes one of "Tom's" marriages appeared on a British documentary, aired in the US on Public Television in the early 1970s, which I happened to catch

</review>
<review>

What a pleasure to have this superb novel in print once more! I can only  echo the praise of the previous reviewers on this page, all of whom were  obviously touched by this neglected classic as deeply as I was. While  there's a glut of fantasy novels available these days, all too many are  lacking in true Magic - a poetry both crisp and lyrical, an understated but  rich symbolism, a sense of the Mysteries, that is the essence of  "Lud-in-the-Mist." Add to that its subtle and delightful characterization,  its often cheerfully earthy humor ("By My Great-Aunt's Rump!"), and the  sheer beauty of its prose, and you have a book that belongs on any short  list of fantasy masterpieces. A book to be read many times, one that takes  the reader ever deeper with each reading. May it never be out of print  again

</review>
<review>

Dont know much about History does pretty much what it purports to do; fill in certain blanks in US history in a concise, almost too concise, manner. It is quite objective and makes no attempt to re-write history to promote a particular political leaning - until the final chapters. Then it is fairly clear that Dr. Davis leans a bit away from the status quo. This poses no real problem, as most of the Viet Nam generation are quite negative as to how that was handled. Now, the next edition of this book, which will of necessity deal with Irak, will be a very interesting read

</review>
<review>

This was absolutely the funniest parody I have ever read. The eager repetition of "The Supremem Court interpreted the 14th Amendment to give civil rights to Corporations" as the SINGLE WORST argument to ever come forth from that body was one of the funniest lietmotif's in this hysterical parody of US History told from the standpoint of an over-the-top Marxist. Worse than cowboys were BUSINESSMEN!! Eugene Debs and WEB Dubois were the ONLY white americans who were not evil!

All in all, a very funny read, skewering the extreme Left's take on US history

</review>
<review>

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one to notice the anti-White preaching in this book.   Not what I expected at all because this is how History is taught today and this is supposed to be an answer to that.   I was expecting to learn a lot more - most of the things mentioned I already knew.   I graduated from high school in '89 and then got a Bachelor's degree from a state college that wasn't in History.   Perhaps this book would be useful to those who have less education.

</review>
<review>

Davis's treatment repeatedly tells us how boring other histories are until we are bored with the repetition.  Then he gives us the thinnest liberal telling.  White men were all bad, indians were good.  Women were brave.  Conservatives are anti-semites.  Republicans are bad and pro business.  Anti-communism was silly. And all history is filtered through the vietnam protestor's filter. Mr. Davis is boring and totally predictable and has sacrificed accuracy for liberal orthodoxy.  This is offensive when it neglects Margaret Sanger's racism, and communist depredations

</review>
<review>

Kenneth C Davis presents an unvarnished look at the history of America from Columbus to mid-2002. His viewpoint incorporates modern scholarship and sensibilities and avoids the traditional oatmeal that America is always right and good, but not in a particularly accusatory or condemning way. For example, it exposes Jackson, Sherman, and others for their mistreatment of the Indians but doesn't actually condemn them. It explains Washington and Jefferson's ownership of slaves without apologizing for them.

That said, Davis makes some of the traditional mistakes, such as mistaking presidential politics for history, treating peace as just the uneventful time between wars, and focusing on meaningless scandals (his conclusion after a long discourse on Jefferson and Sally Hemmings? "We don't know.") Davis fails to address the rise of high technology any more than the rise of heavy industry. There's not one word about developments that define modern American culture: cinema, rock-and-roll, suburban sprawl, e-mail, and so on.

Still, Davis addresses the major events we all learn about in school but forget the details of and does so in an engaging and meaningful way. A note to audiophiles: I listened to the unabridged version on CD and found the frequent lengthy timelines to be hard to follow, especially since the narrator doesn't reiterate the year for each event

</review>
<review>

I don't know if this is one of the essential historical works, but it is definitely one of the most fun.  Kenneth Davis strives to provide a remarkably comprehensive and centrist survey of American history by addressing a series of questions that structure the work as a whole.  For the most part, he articulates the standard current few of the various figures he treats.

All major periods in American history are treated well and in pretty good detail.  Because I've been a pretty intent student of American history for some time, I'm not sure that I learned all that much, but I did find it to be a great review session.  One of the things that I liked most about the book was the "Must Read" recommendations where Davis indicates books that simply must be read.  I had actually read about half of these, but I've added several titles to my rather cumbersome reading lists.

The one place where Davis lapses a bit, I thought, was dealing with the Clinton years.  Truth be told, in a book like this it is probably a mistake to examine recent history.  We are too much influenced by the mood of the moment.  Most careful writing about the Clinton years has revealed how embattled he was, not how awful he was.  Davis's assessment of Clinton was, in fact, remarkably ill-informed, and he cites as "Must Reads" some very odd titles indeed, while ignoring most of the best books on that decade (i.e., that were written before the latest edition of the book).  The view of Clinton that prevailed circa 1998-2002 is quickly fading from view.  In GREATNESS IN THE WHITE HOUSE, Murray and Blessing convincingly argue that evaluations of presidents over time tend to deemphasize the force of their personality and linger over their actual achievements.  This is why for most scholars Reagan's reputation is steadily fading, despite the almost overwhelming force of his personality at the time.  During the nineties many--and David is guilty of this--obsessed over Clinton's actual or supposed crimes and failed to evaluate Clinton over the actual achievements of his administration.  I do not believe Clinton to be a great president, but neither do I view him as a bad one.  In future editions of his books, I would prefer seeing Davis stop twenty years from the time of the revision.

One other issue:  bias.  In many of the reviews here one seems mention of bias.  Interestingly, most scholars quite rightly ignore issues of bias.  But to the poorly education, bias seems to be an issue of overwhelming gravity.  The truth is that honest scholarship truly is possible, and while everyone has a point of view, having a point of view doesn't mean that you actively engage in twisting facts.  A recent surprising example was Conrad Black's biography of F.D.R.  Though Black is himself quite conservative politically, his biography of Roosevelt is quite balanced and fair.  In other words, he doesn't skew the facts to fit his own political beliefs.  There are books where authors ignore the facts of history (Ann Coulter's TREASON is merely one example--and by "facts" I really do mean events that any minimally rational person will agree on), but the truth is that most books do not.  Daniel Boorstin is a conservative historian, but he doesn't write every book with a conservative axe to grind.  Someone with left-leaning politics isn't necessarily skewing everything to his position.  Not everyone writes with an agenda (say, like Coulter does) and many write merely to narrate history.  I think that is what Kenneth Davis does here.  Myself, I think the temptation to talk about "bias" at the drop of a hat is misguided and should in general be jettisoned.  I'd prefer to focus on whether a historical narrative is accurate or not

</review>
<review>

Short, concise, and to the point chapters. Great wealth of knowledge and trivia

</review>
<review>

The comment on editor (using the reviewer's sacred space) is not out of place. Amazon has a different logic to treat people. In the previous incarnation amazon.com had an option for author's to comment. Now, I presume, it is turned into Guide.

amazon.co.uk and amazon.ca have differences in this regard, and in the ultimate this strategy (of sorts) hurts the authors, reviewers, commentators, etc.

Internet in Everyday Life is a kind of book that I could lay my hands, on the very day it appeared in the market.

--- Comments forthcoming --- I will be back soon and give a full picture of the book, its structure, approach and value for the every day life

</review>
<review>

This is an excellent walking book because it is so informative and motivational! It provides oodles of information about what shoes to wear, what gear to wear, winterize your walking program, how to walk off your weight, a routine for the road, how to prepare for a 5-K or a marathon, and dynamic walking routines...and everything else you need to know.  I highly recommend this book to the beginner or advanced walker.  This book has inspired me to walk three (3) 5Ks in the past four months and I now walk on a daily basis!  Just buy it and read -- you'll like it! =-

</review>
<review>

I have enjoyed Maggie Spilner's writings for many years and it's great to find her walking wisdom packed into one book! I especially recommend this book if your inner sloth needs to be reminded (as mine does) to get out and walk-- Every Day!

Maggie writes, "Walking supports health in every sense--physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. It enriches and balances your life. And it just plain makes you feel good."
She is the world's best walking buddy and sprinkles every page with practical --and fun--walking tips, guaranteed to get your inner sloth off the couch!

On a personal note, I want to add that there is a sign at the top of a hill where I walk that says: "Above all, do not lose your desire to walk." I have long been curious about the source of that quote, and, today, I found it:

"Above all, do not lose your desire to walk: every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness; I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it. . . Thus if one just keeps on walking, everything will be alright."
--Sren Kierkegaard, a prolific Danish writer, letter to Jette (1847)

Maggie's passion for walking is contageous -- reading her book will help assure that you never lose your desire to walk!

Suza Francina, author, The New Yoga for People Over 50 and Yoga and the Wisdom of Menopause. www.suzafrancina.com


</review>
<review>

This book is a good read.  Two others that were better for me from a walking program perspective are:  "The 90-Day Fitness Walking Program" by Mark Fenton (GREAT walking program for the couch potato beginner - starts w/ 10 minutes a day and gradually works up to 30 minutes a day - also not an information overload for a beginner) and "Walking Magazine The Complete Guide To Walking: for Health, Fitness, and Weight Loss" by Mark Fenton (this is the one i'm using now - great walking program schedule and tons of very good info on keeping variety in your fitness routine).  If you can afford them, get all three. (I also like "The Sprited Walker" by who I forget, for motivation.)  If not, start w/ the "The 90-Day Fitness Walking Program" by Mark Fenton and maybe this Prevention one to get you additionally fired up

</review>
<review>

I am the author of this book. I don't recieve any royalties for its sales and I no longer work for Prevention Magazine or Rodale Inc. I've checked here from time to time to see if the reviews change. The single negative review on top has been up for YEARS. I think it's too bad. I know many people have thoroughly enjoyed this book and found it very very helpful. It's true that much of it is a compilation of many years of articles written for Prevention and for my Newsletter. But they were well researched, facthecked and contain lots of helpful info for all levels of walkers. The section on Dynamic Walking is one of kind. You won't find that information anywhere else. I think it's a shame that one bad review by a person who seems mostly interested in marathons can be in place for years and put people off from getting a book that could really motivate them to walk for health for a lifetime. If you're new to walking and or a beginner looking for solid advice and inspiration, this book won't disappoint you.  There, I've said my peace. Now MY two-bits will be up here for years. My friends will probably tease the heck out of me for defending my work. So be it! :-

</review>
<review>

This first novel by one of modern America's prose-writing treasures is set in a part of California no one associates with the Golden State: the Sacramento Delta. The emotional and physical geography of the book blend seamlessly. Didion has since critiqued this book herself, in her much later prose reflection on California, "Where I Was From."  She's a bit hard on her former self. This is a lucid, hard etched short novel on the same general theme as Tolstoi's "Anna Karenina":  that is, how a uniquely unhappy family got that way. Didion is of an old California family. She takes no false pride in that, here or elsewhere. There is not a useless or spongy sentence in the whole book. Writers will be reminded of what they're supposed to be doing when they pick up a pen.

</review>
<review>

Great book! Just letting people who are interested know that they can purchase it online at www.drfuhrman.com, since it is currently unavailable here.  As a testment to this way of eating, I can say that it works wonders and should you buy it and follow Dr. F's suggestions, be rest assured that your cholesterol will return to a normal range.  Right now I can tell you that Dr. Fuhrman recommends eating large amounts of vegetables, esp. green ones like kale, spinach, bok choy, broccoli, brussel sprouts and lettuce, as well as fruits, and small amounts of beans, nuts and seeds.  If this does not sound appealing to you, I would definitely give it a shot anyway.  It is not as if you will be eating these foods on their own. Dr. F provides delicious recipes in the book and has many more delicious ones on his website.  Also, this is your health we are talking about.  I think it would be worth trying new or unfamiliar foods in the quest to regain your health.  Also, as a follower of Dr. F myself, I would like to say that he has mentioned that taste buds can actually change over time.  I am learning that in myself now.  I used to despise brussel sprouts and now I am not repulsed and will eat them on occasion.  Quite a shocker, I know.  But if you are a skeptic, read Dr. F's books, try his diet and then tell me I am wrong.
Best of luck in lowering your cholesterol!  I know you will be able to do it with this diet :)

</review>
<review>

I purchased this book for my dad when he discovered his cholesterol and blood pressure were a little high.  I tried to find a lifestyle book rather than a "recipe" book.  This has some great recipe ideas, but is more focused on trading in bad habits for good ones.  My recently retired father can't keep his hands out of this book -- he loves it

</review>
<review>

This book is available at Fuhrman's website for 14.95.  I have no idea why anyone is trying to rip people off by asking 90+ dollars for a copy! Good grief. YOu can buy a hardcover, signed by the dr, for 25 bucks.  I only hope  this absurd price is a typo...

Furhman's eating plans are superb, backed by scientific study, and long term proof that eating a healthy, whole foods vegetarian diet can reverse disease. It will save your life.

</review>
<review>

EXcellent book written to given alternatives to taking the normal cholesteral lowering drugs.  He is very motivational, informative yet balanced in his view.  I just got my blood test back and my cholesterol has lowered by 99 points.  He also gives lots of ideas on things to eat that are helpfu.

</review>
<review>

I had already read and been persuaded by Dr. Fuhrman's main book, Eat to Live, that better health for many Americans was possible, and that Dr. Fuhrman was showing the way.  Cholesterol Protection for Life is a much shorter book, it is more tightly focused (on heart disease, rather than general health), and it has a stronger impact.  At least, it did for me.  I thought my diet had already become very healthy, but CPL showed me there was work yet to be done, and that it is worthwhile to do it.

CPL shows many marks of hasty creation, beginning with the big graph on the cover, whose vertical axis is labeled "LDL Cholesterol" although the numerical values make it clear that total cholesterol is being graphed.  Many technical terms are used before they are defined, and a fair number are never defined at all.  There is some obtrusive repetition (you are told numerous times, for example, that the average American cholesterol level is 208), the text is rife with copyediting errors, some of which introduce ambiguities of substance, and there is no index.

These defects will be hindrances especially to readers new to the subject; those with some background will adjust more easily.  Even with the defects, the book is highly recommended.  If you have cardiovascular problems, you need this book; if not, you probably still need it to prevent problems in future, since everyone who eats SAD (standard American diet) has heart disease in his future.

A final remark.  Toward the end, CPL presents an extended discussion of a special line of nutritional supplements offered for sale by Dr. Fuhrman on his website.  At first, I found this annoying.  Did I pay good money to buy a piece of advertising?  But in the end, I was persuaded.  The multi-vitamin possibly aside, the supplements are unique, and uniquely helpful, products, and the discussions of them in CPL explain their value more thoroughly than I think is available anywhere else among Dr. Fuhrman's writings

</review>
<review>

I found this book so easy to read and understand. It is a lifesaver if you are suffering from high cholesterol levels or heart disease or if you want to ensure you never do!  Dr. Fuhrman gives you delicious recipes   and easy to follow nutritional advice.  He also  tells you exactly what supplements to take if needed.  There really  are other options besides statin drugs and their unwanted side effects.   It is sad that more doctors don't give advice and information like this to their patients.. I admire Dr. Fuhrman so much for the  tireless effort he puts into helping us learn ways to  cure illness and  live longer, healthier lives.  This book gives you the knowledge you need to find your own way back to  a healthy life free from drugs and heart disease

</review>
<review>

Don't believe anybody who says aggressive nutritional therapy can't work miracles - it can! If you've been told that you need to take cholesterol lowering medications for the rest of your life, even if you have already tried "dietary intervention", read Cholesterol Protection for Life (CPFL). You have the right to know that there is an effective option besides statin drugs; your doctor probably has not mentioned it. The patients of the author, Dr. Joel Fuhrman, routinely see their cholesterol plummet within weeks of adopting the eating style outlined in CPFL and expanded upon in the "mother" volume, Eat to Live (ETL).

The advice on the web site of the National Cholesterol Education Panel (NCEP) is a disgrace. According to NCEP's "Be Heart Smart!" page, we should eat meat with some fat cut off, skim fat off our gravy, make biscuits by glopping vegetable oil into them instead of lard, and use low-fat cheese to make macaroni and cheese. - i.e., tweak the fat but continue eating the junk that contributed to our heart disease to begin with!

CPFL, instead, talks about the foods we should eat to reverse CVD: vegetables, raw nuts, beans, oats, and pomegranates and their wondrous heart-healing micronutrients. CPFL provides the dietary framework and some recipes that exemplify how to make vegetables, fruits, and beans taste so great that you won't miss NCEP's biscuits and gravy much. CPFL also discusses the dangers of statin drugs; salt and stroke risk; homocysteine and folate absorption; the persistence of high cholesterol levels in some people (like me), despite nutritional excellence.

Seven months after starting CPFL's recommendations, my LDL was 136, HDL was 46, and I was still 15 pounds from my ideal weight. I then started adding 100% safe cholesterol lowering supplements to my nutritional regime. Two months after that baseline I reached my ideal weight. Ten months after the baseline my LDL fell below 100 and my HDL rose to 77 - using only food and nutritional supplements

</review>
<review>

This book provides a very useful guide in order to understand the basic theory about Investments. The only one thing that the writer of this book must do is to add is more demonstration problems

</review>
<review>

There should be NO typos in a 9th edition.  But go ahead and count them - not just in the text, but problems as well.  There are times when formulas in the body of chapters are wrong or other times when you don't have all the info needed to answer one of the problems.  Universities and instructors should be ashamed of themselves for making you spend $120 on this

</review>
<review>

Avi Shlaim is a rare authority of the kind who honestly portrays the truth. He meticulously unravelled the knots in history and came out with the true events that shaped Israel and its relation towards Arabs since 1948. He deconstructed the history by analyzing many documents and showed how the and why the Israeli leaders behaved and reacted to scenarios, how was their interrelation, how they perceived the security facts and what was their relation to the military commanders. I was looking for this kind of book for long and finally found it in Tanya Reinhert's book (see my review on this book). He showed that how true is Kissinger's aphorism about Israel is true: "Israel has no foreign policy, it has only domestic politics." It was so true. Although he showed that USA has rather balanced policy toward Israel, at least till the 1990s, but from a lay person's perspective thats hardly the case. How come Israel has so many F16s and Pakistan had to burgain for years to buy F16s ! Anyway this book was very educative for me, it helped me to learn objectively about the Arab-Israel conflict, and thus to counter the stereotypes of many of my Egyptian friends, for example.

</review>
<review>

While the pro-zionist lobby (I know them well, being a Sabra) will attempt to shred any book that doesn't present Israel as an angel and the Arab world as devils, this is a fair book and will fill a good chunk of the white space in anyone's knowledge of the region. The author attempts to explain how one founding principle determined the behavior of Israel's dominant leaders over the decades, and he succeeds. The author's conclusion is that Jabotinsky had a workable and realistic theory (build the figurative iron wall, then negotiate for peace), but that many of Israel's leaders did not have the qualities necessary to complete the second part of that theory. The author does a good job of examining these leaders, delving into what made them tick and how that affected policy. Rabin was one leader who might have made Jabotinsky's theory work, as the author shows, but he did not survive the Jewish right wing

</review>
<review>

Avi Shlaim has done an outstanding job of presenting the brief history of Zionism and the formation of the State of Israel.  Although he tends to editorialize his own perception of history, Dr. Shlaim, nevertheless, remains true to the facts

</review>
<review>

The subtext of this book is that Israel is an imperial power that has historically orchestrated its foreign and domestic policies to subjugate the Arab 'nations' on its borders. If one agrees with this thesis uncritically then the book will be a satisfying self-indulgent read.  However, to be fair, even you dismiss this oversimplified analysis, the book is still worth reading to gather an insight into revisionist thinking.

For me at least, the thesis above is the fundamental fault running through the text.  Each twist and turn in the tale of modern Israel, from the early Zionists onwards, is nuanced by its alleged negative impact on the surrounding Arab populations. The text never gets to grip with the profound cultural and intellectual gap between the indigenous hodge podge of Arab village cultures and the organised civil government model promoted by the Zionists and early kibbutzim.  The unpalatable reality, as the late Moshe Dayan pointed out, was that the threat to settlers from the Arab populations was much greater than any threat they posed. Under the Ottomans, Arab cultures had stagnated from the Gulf to Palestine and beyond.  Civil oppression, corruption, slavery and judicial practices hardly worthy of the that name were endemic in the regions controlled by Arab rulers. Consequently, is it any wonder that the Arabs were resistant to forms of representation and dialogue that were extinct for centuries in their own region?  Nowhere in this text is the point made that from the outset the settlers, and later Israeli leaders, were dealing with regimes that were fundamentally opposed to the intellectual culture and political institutions inherent in Judaic life and history.  There is a nontrivial point in appreciating the tensions, violence and indeed occassional excesses, the confrontations that have dogged Israel's attempt to establish itself.

There is indeed a mountain of scholarship in this book, but historiograpy is neither neutral nor value free. In my opinion, the text tends to divide the cast in the Middle East too conveniently into white hats, the Arab regimes, and black hats, the Israeli political establishment.  It goes without saying that such texts will evoke passions and partisanship in colourful measures.  Benny Morris, in Righteous Victims (also available on Amazon) raised a point that readers of Shlaim should ponder upon.  When he, Morris,was assembling his materials and sources, he was struck by the cornucopia of material available from the Israelis but the paucity available from Arab sources.  Now I ask you, on which side does the Iron Wall really exist

</review>
<review>

Shlaim tries to tell the truth about the conflict that is being inflicted in Palestine and the Isralei territories. He identifies the faults in Israel's policies and points out Israel's stubborness at achieving peace. He enlightens readers and angers Zionists, who are self-deluded by a belief that there cause is just. He uncovers the horrorific circumstances inflicted on Palestinians, some which match that of South Africa's former Apartheid. Shlaim has the courage and strength to produce the truth in a conflict that is riddled with so many lies.

</review>
<review>

Avi Shlaim is in the school of what are called "The New Historians" on the Arab-Israeli conflict, along with Benny Morris who broke new ground in historical analysis with the Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem. This text by Shlaim is a great single volume overview of the history of the conflict, from 1948 and the war of independence leading all the way up to 1999. The thesis of his book is that the Zionist movement eventually adopted the political philosophy of Ze'ev Jabotinksy with his ideas on revisionist Zionism, his argument being that the Zionists must build up and Iron Wall in the Middle East to create the State of Israel, with the intention of allowing the Arabs in after they give up the fight. Essentially it's an ideology that breaks down as: the best defense is a good offense. And Shlaim makes a compelling case in his book, doing so as objectively as he can. He traces the origins of the first Arab war, the Suez War, the June 1967 war, the Yom Kippur war, and so on, leading up to the collision with the Palestinians and the still going occupation. The flaw in this text is that while Shlaim is able to draw on a wealth of primary Israeli sources (providing an excellent bibliography), he is unable to reveal Arab planning as he cites very few Arab sources. I don't pretend to know the truth about this conflict; there probably will not be an objective account on this for another 100 years for all I know. However, I think Shlaim is done an excellent job reviewing Israel's history and political policies in the Arab world, and anyone who is new to this topic should start here.

</review>
<review>

Some reviews of Shlaim's "Iron Wall" suggest incorrectly that it explains the roots of Arab-Jewish conflict over Palestine. In fact the book offers only a 27-page "prologue," insightful and well written but largely based on secondary and tertiary sources and far too limited in scope. So far the best work on this topic remains the somewhat formal and pedantic first 129 pages of Kimmerling's and Migdal's "Palestinian People." Shlaim's book provides notably concise summaries, so effective that the first one or two pages of each chapter provide enough information for a first reading of the book

</review>
<review>

Let me start by advising that this is a dry book to read, so it is not for the average reader of narrative history. But its meticulous scholarship makes it an indispensable book about affairs in the Middle East.

People sometimes use the phrase "meticulous scholarship" to send up a warning flag that you had better not argue with what follows. But that is not so here. This book represents genuine scholarship, serving neither the purpose of public relations for Israel nor an attack upon it.

After offering some background on the origins of Zionism, Mr. Shlaim's theme is a review of the first half-century of Israeli policy. The title, an expression coined by an early Zionist, aptly sums up the thrust of that policy.

The author goes where scholarship leads, and he does not flinch from including less-than-heroic episodes that many contemporary books and news sources ignore.

Of course, in some matters of extreme sensitivity, there are still no adequate official documents available to scholars. In such cases, Mr. Schlaim tells us what he knows and goes no farther, leaving us with full confidence in his integrity.

I do not see how anyone can consider him- or herself well-informed on the Middle East without having read this book. It truly is that important.

</review>
<review>

In this excellent book, Shlaim  brought up to the spotlight what has been one of the most confusing, disputed history of any country of the world, that of Israel.
The State of Israel was born officially in 1948, but its modern ideological seeds grew out of mid-late century European zionism amid the rising anti-semitism of western Europe in the same period. Shlaim relates that a Zionist Congress convened in Viennna in the early 1900s to analyze a report of a fact-finding mission in the land of Palestine by two organization members. "The bride is beautiful," the envoyers stated, "but is taken."
This admission is crucial to understand the logic of the Iron Wall as championed by leading Zionist Ze'ev Javotinsky. Pretty much every Zionist acknowledged that Jews were not the majority  in British-occupied Palestine, thus they had to broker a deal that would leave them in charge and in power to submit the natives  against their will into accepting a Jewish state in their land.
What's stunning, as Schlaim writes, is that the Zionists knew what they were doing was indisputably inmoral, if not criminal, so Jabotinsky argued to his comrades that regardless of the inmoral implications of displacing the local population of their land, it was the prospect of a Jewish what was at stake all along in the end.
Unsurprisingly, the spate of immigrants arriving into Palestine after the 1917 Balfour declaration gave the tacit go ahead to the Zionists about their Jewish state in historical Palestine did not sit well with the local Arabs, who rightly feared the new wave of immigration as a effort to take their lands and to create an outpost for imperialism against Arab self-determination and rising nationalism. Hence the seeds of the 1948 war that saw the creation of a Jewish Nation and the displacement of millions of Arab Palestines into sour nation, land-less dispair.
Schlaim also asserts the Arab armies entering Palestine did not amount to an organized effort at crushing the Jewish state, as is often described in official Israel history. Rather, the different Arab armies had entered the war independent of the other, without even the slightest pretension of winning it or for that matter fighting it in behalf of their fellow Palestine Arabs. There were driven more by self-interest and by failure to ensure accommodation with the Zionists in the pre-war period than by altruistic motives of helping their Palestinian brethen retake their land.

Just read this fascinating book and find out the rest to this unusual account of the history of Israel's relations with its Arab neighbors,

</review>
<review>

Ram Charan makes a complex topic easy to understand. This book can be "speed read" in 45 minutes and it doesn't make you feel dizzy. Ram Charan is a true thought leader and an inspiration

</review>
<review>

"Feisty Fido" presents a clear step-by-step method for changing the behavior of a dog who is aggressive toward strange dogs when he is being walked on leash.  It was not as clear on changing the behavior of a dog who is intermittently agressive toward other dogs he lives with

</review>
<review>

This book is primarily for dogs aggressive on leash, same dogs off leash are fine with most, if not all, other dogs. It is only one of 28 catagories of aggression or combination thereof. The benefit to getting this booklet is that 1) you can determine if this is really the problem before you invest in a lot of more expensive books that deal with all manner of aggression. AND 2) You should be working with a trainer on ANY kind of aggression issue. This booklet will help you to know what type of methods are likely to be effective and you will have something to refer to as you are working with the trainer - I would not work with anyone who is not familiar and endorses at least some of McConnell's positive training recommendations.

Her booklets in general cover more information with more pages than you will find in a single chapter of a lot of training or dog problem books. This gives you 59 pages dealing with just one very common, very specific issue! You would get far less for a lot higher price if you brought a book on a more general behavior topic.

If you found the booklet useful, great! If you didn't, be glad you didn't spend more for it, quit yer bitchin and donate it to a rescue group who can use it - it's tax deductabl

</review>
<review>

This book is good if you want to take years fixing your dogs problems and avoid every problem until then.  I personally can't avoid every 'unperfect' dog until then.  It goes over desentization (not rocket science) but doesn't give any good answers to what to do when your dog is having issues.  I'm not a fan of the 'just run the other direction' theory.  It's not good if you want to actually address your problem and avoids the topic of when it's puppy-ness or real aggression concerns

</review>
<review>

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED --ESPECIALLY if you have rescued a dog!

McConnell addresses the specific actions you must take quickly as soon as you see unwanted aggression.

I had a mixed-breed dog that I thought had a completely non-aggressive nature.  With what I learned from reading her book, I  was able to interrupt a potentially dangerous situation involving a 2 year old and his clueless parents.

</review>
<review>

I heard Pat speak on the subject of dog agression last year at the Pet dog trainers assocaition. This book fills out the notes from that session. An incredible assest for trainers dealing with all levels of agression in dogs. I have used the methods with good sucesson three client cases. Reading this gives trainers more options for dealing with feisty fido's that show up with unhappy owners

</review>
<review>

Aside from people who just plain hate Shakespeare (and I don't get them at ALL), there are two types of Shakespeare Snobs.  1. The ones who think Shakespeare couldn't have written his plays because he wasn't born to nobility.  These people are idiots.  2. The ones who idolize Shakespeare to the point where, if they don't like one of his plays, He Obviously Couldn't Have Written It -- he is incapable of writing something they don't like.  Um... right.  Let's apply this rationale to a latter day artist: since Charlie Chaplin made "The Gold Rush", he obviously had nothing to do with "A King in New York."

Geniuses grow and change with everything they do.  The Beatles of "A Hard Day's Night" are not the Beatles of "A Day in the Life."  Shakespeare spent his career shifting with the tides of what was Currently Popular.  If he had lived in the mid 1970's, he would have followed a "Five Easy Pieces" with a "Star Wars".  He rolled with the flow, but stamped his own creativity on every work.  "Pericles" and the other later romances were written because that's what the current popular genre was.  Box office dictated form; artistry dictated content.

Having recently read "Pericles", I have to say that it's one of the best, wackiest plays ever written.  (I also think "Measure for Measure" is meant to be darkly funny, not brooding and angsty; but that's just me.)  "Pericles" is what would happen if the writer of the Hee Haw "Gloom, Despair and Agony on Me" song had decided to make a Hope and Crosby Road picture.  Unlike Shakespeare's tragic heroes and their Fatal Flaws, Pericles is just a poor schmuck (who happens to be a king) upon whom Murphy's Law comes down like a 50 pound hammer.  EVERYTHING happens to this poor guy; your jaw drops at his second or third consecutive shipwreck.

The opening scene alone is worth the price of admission.  Pericles has to guess the answer to the riddle of a very John Cleesian king.  If he guesses right, he marries the princess.  If he guesses wrong, he dies.  Unfortunately, he guesses the right answer -- that the king is screwing his own daughter -- and he can't possibly say it out loud.  He'll be killed if he answers and killed if he doesn't.  It's a very Ralph Kramden hummena-hummena-hummena moment.

And the Act IV brothel scenes, where Pericles' daughter Marina has been sold into prostitution, are among the funniest scenes Shakespeare ever wrote.  She doesn't just hold onto her virginity -- every male who tries to do her is coverted to the path of righteousness and the brothel is losing its shirt.

Nevertheless, you feel for the characters even while laughing at the outlandish sheer enormity of each new disaster; Bambi getting killed isn't funny.  Bambi getting squashed by Godzilla is hysterical.  The reconciliation scene is one of Shakespeare's most affecting.

If you like quirkiness, this is a wonderful play

</review>
<review>

J.D. Robb returns with another fabulous book in the In Death series featuring Lieutenant Eve Dallas and her multibillionaire husband, Roarke.

Eve and Roarke are absolutely horrified by the entire birthing process but have agreed to be coaches for their very pregnant friend, Mavis.  Eve is almost relieved when a double murder of two accountants in a top notch international firm drags her away from all the various baby hoopla that leaves her in cold sweat.  Her attention is divided, however, when Mavis' pregnant friend, Tandy Willowby, turns up missing and Mavis insists that only Eve can find her.  Eve takes all of this in stride, as she works to solve both cases with Roarke closely at her side.

BORN IN DEATH is perhaps the best yet in this absolutely phenomenal series!  J.D. Robb paints a fantastic portrait of Eve and Roarke's terror regarding everything to do with the birthing process, from the hormonal moms to the actual labor and delivery.  There are quite a few laugh-out-loud moments as Eve struggles between her vivid imagination which pictures babies as being somewhat like the alien life forms from the Aliens movies and her desire to be a good and supportive friend to Mavis.

One of the best things about reading any J.D. Robb book is that each book is complete in and of itself.  While the relationships of both the main and secondary characters do grow and develop, one can easily pick up any book in the series and not feel cheated as to the back history of each character.  This is partially due to Ms. Robb's clear vision of each personality portrayed.  More importantly, however, this is a true testament to the superb writing talent of J.D. Robb as this reviewer never hesitates but rushes immediately to purchase each new installment in the series.

BORN IN DEATH will delight fans of the In Death series.  The romance between Eve and Roarke continues to flourish and is a tribute to marriage as these two never tire of one another but instead only deepen their relationship in each book.  Never has the solidarity and strength of their relationship been more apparent than in BORN IN DEATH.  J.D. Robb injects a bit more humor than usual in this installment but this only adds to the depth of the overall series.  BORN IN DEATH is highly recommended for its spectacular blend of romance, police procedures, and mystery all told in a futuristic setting.

COURTESY OF CK2S KWIPS AND KRITIQUE

</review>
<review>

The "...IN DEATH" series, without a doubt, is one of the best.  The perfect mix of mystery, psychological thriller, and romance, each book in this series always offers up a reading delight.

Once again, Eve Dallas is faced with solving a horrific crime.  This time, as often happens with Dallas, the death of a young account executive and her financial manager fiance brings her own strong emotions into the mix.  Since she's already dealing with the imminent arrival of Mavis's baby, the fact that she and Roarke are to serve as birthing coaches, and not to mention the baby shower she must throw for her friend before that happens, Eve's nerves are already stretched thin.

When Mavis's pregnant friend, Tandy, goes missing, Dallas now finds herself working two cases simultaneously.  The two start off on different paths, but by the end of the investigation she might find that they have a lot in common--including new life and new death.

When questions of ethics are thrown into the mix by Whitney and his superiors, the crap hits the fan, and Eve and Roarke must put aside pride and anger to deal with their relationship, while still working on justice for the murder victims.

BORN IN DEATH is another winner in this series.  As always, I raced through the book in record time, and was sad to be finished with the story when it ended.  I can't wait for the next release, and hope to be able to see Eve and Roarke finally get that vacation they both deserve.  And, if I get to read about them running naked on the sand under a bright sun, I probably won't complain!

</review>
<review>

I am devoted JD Robb/Nora fan. Conspiracy-Survivior-Born are my favorite Robbs. Born has such a complex feel to it. Naturally the Mavis baby bits are wonderful. The sense of frustration and anxiety felt by both Roarke and Eve contribute to the enjoyment of the book. Surv. is also great because of the child issues that both Roarke and Eve have. Born in Death also addresses those concerns that they share. Read and Love Eve.
H

</review>
<review>

Eve and Roarke fans will love this selection!!!!  The last chapter had me holding my ribs in laughter!  As usual Eve works to exhaustion.  Although the mysteries, I agree with other posts, were transparent, it will not disappoint diehard fans!!!  This series continues to surprise me that it still has so much life left in it!  Bravo JD Robb

</review>
<review>

I loved being able to laugh as Roarke and Dallas handle being the coach team for Mavis..there were some hilarious parts in this book on that situation....and I loved the book as a whole..I can always count on getting a great read when I buy a JD Robb book...kudos to the author

</review>
<review>

Those of us who have kept up with this series will be both amused and touched by the birth of Mavis' baby.  The ending brings a tear or two especially if you have gone thru the 'process'.  Eve and Roarke's reactions are downright funny and right on.  And the concept of male birth control pills is a forever dream of mine in my field of abuse counselling!

The two mysteries melded together nicely. For a while I thought I would have to keep up with two separate ones.  But it worked beautifully.  Nora is a wonder!! Loved her picture on the backcover and imagine she sees a little of Eve in herself.  Well done.

The words were terse.  Hip lingo keeps omitting words from sentences but it fits in Eve's world.  All the usual characters are included in the book; some more than others.  Well worth the read.

</review>
<review>

It is simply unbearable to put this book down.  The character development is completely captivating; and the humor of Eve and Roarke regarding childbirth cannot but to keep the reader chuckling.  Great thriller and great story outside the thriller.  A masterpiece inside a masterpiece.  I will say no more as to do so would ruin the pleasure of reading "Born In Death". And that would be an unspeakable crime

</review>
<review>

This was of course a good read, as most all of the 'In Death' books are.  I very much liked the two mysteries that Eve had to solve (the murders and the missing person).  So glad Mavis finally had her baby.  Not a lot of character development...when will something different happen to Eve and Roarke? We need a bit of a toss up with them.  I am a loyal fan and will wait eagerly for the next one

</review>
<review>

i was really looking forward to this one because of mavis having her baby. Nora Roberts aka J.d. Robb didn't disappoint. Roake and Dallas both acted exactly as expected, with horror at the idea of being a part of the birth. Dallas and Roake both can wade through blood and guts but heaven forbid they deal with a baby being born. It was funny and on the mark. I enjoy Nora Roberts books and always look forward to the next one.


</review>
<review>

I own the single books from Dini/Ross teamup. Great books. They capture the essence of each character to build upon it a very meaningful and clever tale. Nothing to add about the art: Ross is well known and always getting better and better, with panels as evocative as the prose. The hardcover edition is the perfect way to enjoy these masterpieces (even if a bit heavy to handle.....). But if you are looking for extra material (as the new edition of Mythology) you could be disappointed

</review>
<review>

Actually, this edition is more a 7 and a half stars worth of material. The writing, which is both accesible to children as to adults, tells the very human stories of legendary DC Universe heroes like Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman among others trying to make the world a better place in their own respective ways.
The writing by Dini is excellent, showcasing an understanding of the human qualities of the superheroes few writers seem to understand let alone place on paper.
The real reason why anyone would buy this would be Alex Ross' artwork. Its stunning realism and attention to detail makes the worlds of the heroes come to life in ways seldom seen in comic books.
This book also comes with plenty of supplemental material by Ross such as unused artwork and promotional material for DC.
Rest assured, however, that Dini's writing and Ross' artwork are reson enough to shell 50 dollars (less even from certain sellers here on amazon). You won't be disapointed. Highly recommended

</review>
<review>

based on the strength of the Kingdom Come graphic novel illustrated gorgeously by Alex Ross, I picked up this gem of story-telling. The chapters contained within the book are treasures of narrative that will keep one's attention without any trouble at all. I am a fan of the X-Men from 'that other Comic Book company'. But I get too caught up in the megalomania of those stories that I realized how much I saw that superheroes dealing with common criminals and situations are as much, if not more, compelling.

Each Hero or Heroine here deals with their own problems with as much panache and intensity as if they were dealing with super-powered villains and you see they must also reflect on the results and possible consequences of their invlovement. While I loved them all, I particuarly liked Captain Marvel's story participating as a 'guest visitor' at a hospital for recovering children. He could be fighting Superbaddies #1 and #2 but involved his time with issues such as  re-educating an abusive father. A class story through and through.

And needless to say, Alex Ross's artwork was as awesome literally from cover to cover as it was on Kingdom Come. I really wish Comic Book companies take a look at examples of Graphic Novel masterpieces such as this and realize why the comic book format can be in better shape than maybe it is today. Five stars and then some

</review>
<review>

This book reprints 6 special comics and does them justice. Alex Ross's art not only looks great, but tells the story well.The pretty pictures do not get in the way of the story. The book is smaller size than the originals, which were the size of the old LIFE magazine, but the art is not impaired in the least and the production values are top of the line.What makes the book worth having, though, are not the pretty pictures but the stories.Paul Dini writes stories which make each of the characters examine themselves, bringing us along in a thoroughly entertaining manner. He makes them very human, complemented by the art which is very lifelike (Ross uses human models.)The Batman story is the best, the Justice League story the weakest, although that is a relative judgement since it is a pretty good story.At the time the stories were first published, I had wished that the 5th volume would be a Plastic Man story and still feel that would have been a better way to go, but such was not to be. Regardless, this book will remind you why we love superheroes.

</review>
<review>

This fantastic volume comprises all the seperate "treasury size" comics produced by Ross and Dini. These wonderful tales feature the breathtaking art of Alex Ross, and the stories themselves focus essentially on the iconaclastic elements of the individual characters.  The motivations of Batman, Superman, Wonde Woman, etc, are revealved to the reader without the mess of having to adhere to the rigid soap opera continuity that is the focus of modern-era comics. These are simply great stories accompanied by great art; in a sense, what comics should be.

</review>
<review>

If you are into Super-Heroes and those specifically related to DC, this is a must have book.  The quality of the illustrations is worth every penny.

Paul Franc

</review>
<review>

I have been an avid superhero fan since a child.  I have read many comics, both good and bad.  This collection of DC stories is by far the most visually appealing.  Not only is the art work of Alex Ross incredible, but the story telling is phenomenal as well.
In this book Superman tries to cure hunger, Batman endeavors to completely cease criminal activity, and Wonder Woman aims to free oppressed women.  Each character runs into the same problem.  They are only one person.  Despite all their super-abilities they are unable to eradicate the crime, starvation, oppression, etc.
The realization the characters come to is devastating but well portrayed.  They are timeless stories about ageless heroes.

The second section of the book deals with the JLA.  My favorite section is the "Secret Origins" part where each main character of the JLA gets a two page origin spread!

All in all the book is worth the money.  It is a treasure to read over and over again.  Share it with friends and family.  A must have

</review>
<review>

Whether you're new to the DC Universe or a diehard fan from yesteryear, there is something in this amazing collection sure to delight you.  Intelligent stories with well written dialogue...reverence to the history of the iconic characters and breathtaking art.  What a superb collectible and a bonus that proceeds go to the very charitable organizations the Justice League members themselves would endorse!

A must have keepsake for the library of any graphic novel fan

</review>
<review>

I love DC's ABSOLUTE format, especially how it lovingly showcases the body of work contained within.  It is grand to have this on the bookshelf and it's contents are indeed something to behold.  The only reason I didn't give this edition a perfect score is that I wish this omnibus also included both the two page Robin origin and the short Batman/Superman story which were originally published in Ross' MYTHOLOGY book.  Their absence really stings since they were crafted to fit in perfectly with the material of this collected edition

</review>
<review>

Alex Ross is an American treasure. He brings a visual reality to our mythology. This collection of work is an incredible bargain, and something any fan of either his work or the subject matter (the heros of DC Comics' pantheon) will treasure for a lifetime

</review>
<review>

One of the best thriller writers brings back one of my favorite protagonists, Mitch Rapp. A character that knows how to get things done. Sure he does it outside the guidelines, and with great vigor, but that's what makes him a rare treat. An enthralling story, with very satisfying thrills and outcomes.

Highly recommended

</review>
<review>

In an era when some American citizens openly root for the nation's enemies, Vince Flynn's Mitch Rapp character is a refreshing throwback to another era where no American would openly criticize his nation during time of war. Before, yes: after, yes - but not during.

Vince Flynn's novels are openly poltical. The author makes no secret of his preference for what some might consider traditional values like patriotism. In an age of moral relativism and news agenecies that refuse to be judgmental and refer to terrorists as "freedom fighters", there are some who consider Flynn to be unuanced. I consider Flynn to be one of the best thriller writers of the age.

In this eighth novel featuring Mitchell Rapp, Rapp is back at work for the CIA, handling the off-the-books assignments no one wants to hear about. Rapp is still recovering from the brutal murder of his wife by terrorists.

Rapp reports directly to CIA Director Irene Kennedy. His work is sanctioned by President Hayes and a very few others in Congress. Rapp has his enemies, though, and one of them has just been elected Vice President after a campaign in which the motorcade of the presidential candidate was attacked by a terrorist bomber. Presidential candidate Josh Alexander's wife is killed in the attack. The Alexander ticket wins on a sympathy vote. Vice President elect Ross is already planning to fire Director Kennedy and do a few favors for some people who helped get him elected.

The FBI, Secret Service and other law enforcement agencies have drawn a blank in finding the bomber and his masters. Rapp, of course, locates the bomber and, without bothering to read the rulebook, takes him into custody. Meanwhile, other information comes to the attention of CIA Director Kennedy that casts an entirely new light on the motorcade attack.

The capture of the alleged assassin becomes a hot potato as various political factions maneuver for position, some working in the interests of truth and others seeking to bury it. Politics at its dirtiest.

Flynn (and Mitch Rapp) paint a dark picture of Washington politics as the screws draw tighter and tighter. Rapp essentially becomes a fugitive, feverishly working to bring the truth out while political figures try everything they can to bury the truth - and Rapp. (Nope - no details. This book is too good to be spoiled.)

As is typical of a Flynn novel, there isn't a dull page in the book. Flynn doesn't need padding: he just keeps the action moving, page after page. If you're one of those old-fashioned people who believes in America, you'll be cheering. If you're not, well maybe this isn't the book for you.

The ending is, putting it mildly, disturbing. It raises many questions that most of us would prefer not to think about, but from time to time do when we browse the endless stream of news stories about corruption.

Vince Flynn has created a contemporary American hero in Mitch Rapp. In this eighth outing, Rapp is still a potent character. And Flynn's enthusiasm for protecting the United States of America at any cost is undiminished.

Jerr

</review>
<review>

Since I don't normally write reviews, I'll not try to make this clever.  I was completely disappointed in this latest attempt from Vince Flynn.  Though I love the character of Mitch Rapp, in this novel he read like a cardboard cut-out of the Mitch Rapp in all previous books.  As I read, I tried to analyze what was going on: "Well, he just been through a big loss, very traumatic...Flynn is trying to show the audience that Mitch has been profoundly altered by the experience.  Flynn will deal with this head on at some point in the novel".  He never does.  The whole interaction between Kennedy and Rapp at the end of the book feels like it was written by an 7th grader - its out of character and unbelievable for two seasoned intelligence professionals, completely without subtlety.  I've now come to the conclusion that, as a writer, Flynn has lost the hunger (i.e. is too full of himself, now that he's "made it" and has friends in high places).  My husband is a writer, I know the difference between when he's producing junk and when he's in the creative zone, writer coming together with words, not satisied until he's melded creative energy to insight, to produce art.   It appears that Flynn hurried threw this together -- a great disappointment to his fans who have followed Mitch since Term Limits and connected with his ability to read a situation, act decisively and remain in control, objectives intact.  I've already sold this book (though I won't part with the others) and I'll be more careful before I buy Flynn's next offering. My advice to Vince: Remember why you started writing (I'll bet it wasn't to produce books of mediocity).

</review>
<review>

Another close presidential election draws near. The Democrats are falling behind in the polls and running mates Alexander and Ross are pulling out all the campaign stops to close the gap in the polls.

After an appearance at a security summit, they rush to the next stop--and a carefully timed truck bomb explosion hits the motorcade. One of the heavily armored limos is turned over, but the other is totally destroyed. But instead of killing the candidates, Josh Alexander's wife is killed. Terrorists have succeeded in attacking on U.S. soil again.

FBI special agent Skip McMahan and CIA director Irene Kennedy are tasked with finding the perpetrators, regardless of what it takes. And what it takes is CIA operative Mitch Rapp. Unconventional methods that yield undeniable results--that phrase defines Rapp's career. Loved or hated, but never ignored. Rapp is only six months from an operation that cost him his wife and their unborn child. How will this affect his judgment and methods?

After shooting a suspect four times, in both hands and both knees, many in Washington conclude that he's gone over the edge. A clean sweep of the CIA is needed, starting with Kennedy and including Rapp. However it's hard to separate the good guys from the bad guys--the guilty from the merely corrupt. Mitch calls on people he knows are loyal to him and his country to sort the good from the bad before time runs out.

Readers will enjoy the fast pace, the plot twists and the fact that in the end good triumphs over evil.

Armchair Interviews: Another great Vince Flynn book

</review>
<review>

When I read a Novel I try to see how quickly I can figure out what will happen next.  It was very easy to do with this novel.  There is one surprise in the end that I did not anticipate.  Nevertheless I liked this book very much.  It is a good escape for a few hours.  '24' watchers will like this Novel.  Mitch Rapp is the Novel equivilent of Jack Bauer.  I also believe that Vince Flynn is giving us some idea how the CIA really works and because of the times we live in I don't think it is too much of a stretch to see this Novel as an education in what is happening today with the FBI and CIA - but don't forget this is a Novel!!

</review>
<review>

My favorite Vince Flynn book is still "Term Limits", but I really enjoyed "Act of Treason" and am anxiously awaiting Mr. Flynn's next Mitch Rapp novel.  Highly recommended.

</review>
<review>

I really enjoyed this book by Nora Roberts.  It is set in the Carribbean which makes it a good book to read in summer, IMHO.  It has romance, treasure hunting, and a little magic....really great!  I liked it alot

</review>
<review>

This has got to be my all time favorite book...I could not put it down....I read it several years ago...

The Scenery, mystery, romance all intertwined makes for a great novel.


</review>
<review>

This is one of my favorite books by Nora Roberts. Setting is her specialty. She really knows how to take the reader with her on every adventure. You really come to care about these characters, and it's great to escape with them to the sunny ocean setting and go deep-sea diving for the very first time in your life! This one earned its 5 stars!

</review>
<review>

I took this book to Hawaii with me and found out very quickly it was a perfect choice.  I loved the relationship between the two main characters.  I felt like the ending may have been a little rushed, maybe because I did not want it to end! Also, I felt a bit of a personality change in the leading male character towards the end of the story. Matthew Lassiter seemed to became a bit passive towards the end of the book.  Other than that I loved the book and still felt it was worth five stars

</review>
<review>

With the chilly season setting in here in Washington State, the thoughts of a tropical vacation keep me going all winter long.  I must admit that what attracted me first to this book was the palm tree, the blue-green water, the sand and the longing of wanting to be there.  This is the first of Nora Roberts I have read, however I am an avid JD Robb reader.
This book was so well written that you could just envision yourself in the sea diving for treasure or aboard the boat in the warm sun.  How exciting!  The plot was wonderful, the characters were likable, the villians were nasty.  This is one book that I am going to buy for myself as a guilty treat, and I will read it again when the cold starts setting in, so that it can take me away again for a warm exciting adventure.

</review>
<review>

I am fairly new to Nora Roberts.  But this book is not only my favorite by her, it's one my favorite books altogether.  It was so well written it made me feel like I were diving and hunting treasures myself!  And it has such a sweet, romantic storyline.  I was really sorry to see it end.  I hope there will be a sequel.  I recommend any woman to read this book, whether you like romance novels or not

</review>
<review>

First, let me say that while I have read many of Nora Roberts books, more often than not I am somewhat disappointed.  While she is always a reliable read, her stories tend to be very formulaic, and too often forgettable.  I picked up The Reef almost by accident at a friend's, for lack of anything else to read.  Having read a few of Nora's books before, my expectations weren't that high; I was pleasantly surprised.  Unlike the predictability of her other books, this one went against convention in many ways, while still developing a satisfying romance and mystery.  Generally Nora sacrifices an intriguing plot for the central relationship, but she balances the two beauifully here.  Not only did she create an intriguing villain, but the love story was touching.  As other readers have said, I liked how she spread it out over the years, which made it slightly more realistic, and somehow much sweeter at the end.  The development of secondary characters was also a welcome change from typical Nora.  In short, if you're not typically a Nora Roberts fan, give this one a try!  Not the best romantic suspsense I've ever encountered, but definetly worth the read

</review>
<review>

I can't say enough good things about THE REEF! It shows a strong female character in a field that used to be dominated by men, and a strong sensitive male that isn't afraid to dream.

This is a fantasy come true and involves marine archeologist Tate Beaumont and Matthew Lassiter and their families. The families run into each other while treasure-hunting for Angelique's Curse - a treasure that has eluded everyone, and many think it is only a myth. But this artifact is worth everything to some, even worth killing another.

As this joint expedition continues, it holds all of the elements needed for a great story: mystery, romance, secrets that can't be shared, deceptions and threats. There are so many angles that could have been pursued the reader isn't sure which avenue Nora Roberts will take until she delivers them to it. This always keeps you on the edge of your seat, and gives you a first hand "view" of the undersea world of beauty and intrigue.

I highly recommend THE REEF and only wish it would have continued - or at least had a sequel in the works! Great characters and fantastic plot will hook the reader from the beginning. One of Nora Roberts better works!

</review>
<review>

Last Man standing is about a FBI agent named Web London in a division called HRT or Hostage Rescue Team.  He is a grizzled veteran in the department that somehow avoided being killed with his comrades and friends in a ambush style killing in DC.  Accused of cowardice in a now scandalized department, a now disenfranchised and disillusioned Web London sets down a path to clear his name that at a point branches off into 3 separate stories before converging back into one in a highly dramatic and well written novel.  I never read anything by David Baldacci before Last Man Standing however after finishing the book it leaves me wanting to read more from him.  It is truly a book that you will not want to put down

</review>
<review>

I was looking for a real thriller, and thought I would try one by David Baldacci. I had read a very favourable review a while back, and I have also seen and enjoyed the movie version of Absolute Power.

After reading reviews at Amazon, I picked Last Man Standing. However, I was really disappointed. For me it wasn't thrilling at all. Several times I had to force myself to pick it up again to continue reading. For me, a good thriller is a book you can't stop reading, even if it's getting late and you really, really should try to get some sleep instead of continue reading.

Examples of great thrillers I have read are: The Firm by John Grisham, The Day After Tomorrow by Allan Folsom (nothing to do with the weather-related movie of the same name) and Angels and Demons by Dan Brown.

But Last Man Standing was quite the opposite. Sure it had its moments where it got exciting for a while (the final shoot-out for example), but those times were quite rare.

I've been trying to figure out why I didn't like it, but I can't say I know why. I do think that a lot of what happens in the book is quite far-fetched (especially the reason the hero Web London froze during the ambush) and that the characters are pretty one-dimensional, but that's not enough of a reason. Both The Day After Tomorrow and Angels and Demons have plenty of far-fetch twists and one-dimensional characters, but they were still exciting reads. I can't come up with a definite answer as to why I didn't like Last Man Standing - I simply just didn't care for it.

Writing a negative review like this will probably earn me a few unhelpful votes, but I think it is important to also review books you didn't like. Otherwise you risk getting an unbalanced view. However, I do admit that it is much more fun to review books you really liked.

But to finish, if you are looking for a good thriller, skip this one and try one of the other three I mentioned above.

</review>
<review>

I have read Baldacci's first four novels and have immensely enjoyed all of them.  This one, however, is just awful.  Not only the character's dialogue but even the story itself is written like a really bad detective movie.  The only thing I can think of to compare it to is this :  There was a series of Calvin and Hobbes cartoons where Calvin imagines himself as a private detective and they are written like the old detective shows, with lame lines like "The gun was loaded, and so was I".  That is exactly what this book is like, except it goes on for 400 pages.  There isn't a single interesting character in this book, in my opinion.  You just have to slog your way through the book to get to the end.  It's the Bataan Death March of novels.  I hope this is an aberration - I'll certainly give him another try since the first four novels that I read were so good.  But one more stinker like this one and I'll drop his name from my reading list

</review>
<review>

In this involving and complicated story, David Baldacci covers everything from drug dealing, to cults, to the FBI, to pyschoanalyis and hypnotism.  There's also a horse farm and pornography thrown in for good measure!  The main plot deals with the character of Web London, the sole survivor of a botched mission by HRT (Hostage Rescue Team), a part of the FBI; as he and his companions are en route to tackle a drug lord, London suddenly collapses, unable to continue, as if paralyzed.  He then is forced to witness his colleagues' massacre as they are shot by remote control weaponry as they enter an urban courtyard.  London's determination to discover what happened to him and clear his name makes up the bulk of the novel.  In his journey, he is forced to confront childhood abuse, and the possible abuse of his psychiatrist.  Baldacci tells the story from several points of view, and should be credited with creating complex and compelling characters who are both heroic and flawed.  On the good side, this helps when the plot becomes increasingly complicated; on the potentially bad side, the characters are, not surprisingly, unhappy with their lives, and there's not a `happy' ending for most of them.  The pain gets a little much at times, even though the `good' guys win at the end. The end is abrupt, and leaves you wondering if you missed something. Worth reading, just concentrate on the plot, or it will get away from you

</review>
<review>

What a waste of time.  This book is good for one thing.  It reminded of something I need to work on.  My stubbornness.  Sometimes I can be just too stubborn for my own good.  When I was reading this I just wouldn't quit and had to go all the way to the end.  This will teach me.  Thank you Mr. Baldacci!

Here is a synopsis of the book:  "A" is the biggest strongest man in the world.  No way!  "B" is the biggest strongest.  How can they be if "C" was in the most awesome group of men in the world?  Then they try to catch a bad guy who thinks he is the biggest, strongest and smartest of them all.  Thank you again David!

This would have received a 1 star except I was reminded of the lesson I needed

</review>
<review>

I "religiously" read all of Baldacci's books - he can't write them fast enough for me; and this is one of his best! I'd give it 10 stars if I could

</review>
<review>

Really fun to read, great pace and highly entertaining. The thrilling and complex story has great characters and ample twists and turns. I stayed awake for long hours to read the book and the story kept me guessing until the very end.
Unfortunately I cannot say that the solution for Web London's misery is completely convincing or really believable for me. Therefore I could not rate the book with the full 5 stars.
Nevertheless I really recommend to read the book - you wont regret it

</review>
<review>

My first Baldacci book, which lead me to read ALL of his books.  Action-packed mystery....awesome

</review>
<review>

I found this book to repetitive.  It just keeps going on and on, on how bad Web feels about the death of his 7 team mates.  Also, it has harsh racist descriptions on some characters that don't really add to the story at all.  It just adds to the stereotype of how life is in Annacostia, Washington DC.  One such description is that of the black grandmother of the missing kid.  She is described as a big black woman about the sides of a small car with big breast and lives in a house full of rat excrements. I don't recommend this book at all, but if you are a narrow minded white male, who thinks that he is at the top of the hill looking down on the rest, this book is for you

</review>
<review>

I have a 60 minute drive to and from work every day so I "read" countless books on CD.  Mostly, I listen to these books to stay awake so I'm always looking for something fast and exciting that I don't have to think hard to comprehend at 5:30 am.  This book was the perfect fit.  The characters are developed, but not too deeply where it's confusing who is who, etc..  Unlike other thrillers that I've read, you really begin rooting for the main character because of the opening scene.  Big F is a great character too that always keeps you guessing.

I recommend this book definitely as a way to get the blood flowing a little bit in the morning or at night

</review>
<review>

Overall, Star Wars RPG is a good system. Its very easy to learn if you've played D20 Modern especially. I wouldn't say that there are any big problems with the game system, but there are certainly a lot of minor problems that would be very confusing/frustrating to someone without a rules lawyer who understands game balancing. Its a fun game for roleplaying, but I'm not sure Wizards had any really competant game-balancing rules lawyers actually look over the system, or maybe they didn't play test it enough. Either way, the system has a number of very minor game unbalancing things that spring up in game from time to time that require a comptetant GM to resolve. Nothing especially terrible, and overall I enjoy the system as do many of the people I play with. So I would recommend the system to any Star Wars and roleplaying enthusiasts (in that order).

The book itself is well-laid out, I can find the info I need with relative ease

</review>
<review>

If your thinking of buying this, then do.  This book has provided many hours of fun just reading it, let alone playing star wars rpg.

</review>
<review>

The 2002 version of the Star Wars core rulebook is an improvement over the original.  It upgrades some underpowered character classes, adds some breadth, and makes much-needed improvements to the very abstract and annoying vehicle operation system used in the 1999 rulebook.  Unfortunately, the central, crippling problem with the 1999 version remains:  the d20 system just isn't well-suited to Star Wars storytelling.  Playing this game is nothing like playing out a Star Wars story, and a lot like playing Dungeons and Dragons in space.

Star Wars is fast-moving, fluid, and dynamic, and not much concerned with power balance.  A kid fresh off the moisture farm can fight his way past elite enemy troops to save the princess, and one Sith Lord can arrange the downfall of the entire Jedi order.  Audacity and heroic (or villainous) attitudes matter more than experience and number-crunching.  Major characters rarely die, and then only if there's a strong dramatic reason for it.  Plotlines are loose and free-form.  A game based on Star Wars should reflect that.

By contrast, d20 is very cut-and-dried, and very regulated, and much too lethal.  Concepts like "level", "class", and "hit points" are fundamental to the d20 system, but are not very applicable to the Star Wars universe.  The system has a lot going for it, and it's great for Dungeons and Dragons, but here it's a case of trying to stuff a square peg into a round hole.

I prefer the West End Games "d6" version released in the late 1980s.  It has its flaws - it doesn't deal with very powerful characters as well as it might, and character creation could use some tuning (particularly for Force-sensitive PCs) - but it captures the feel of Star Wars.  A revision of that rule system, or a completely new system incorporating the best features of both d6 and d20, would have been a much better choice than using the d20 system as a "one-size-fits-all" set of mechanics.

However, it seems unlikely that Wizards of the Coast will forsake their flagship d20 system for something as high-profile as Star Wars.  So I suggest that if you really want to get into gaming in the Star Wars universe, look for a used copy of the West End Games version

</review>
<review>

The Revised Core rules fixed much of what was wrong with the old core rulebook. The classes (and prestige classes) are much better. More flexibility for dark side PC's is available. Skills and Feats make more sense and aren't nearly as munchkined as they were before.

The downside is that they don't list nearly enough starships. There is no method to upgrade starships or create custom ships (that's all in Starships of the Galaxy, which is long out of print). Also there are no rules for cyberware (those are in the also out of print Hero's Guide).

Beyond that, the players I am running the Revised SW rpg in are avid d20 haters and despised the old rules, but they are all raving about the new "fixed" rules. Never thought I'd see them praise a d20 product, so if they like it, it's GOT to be good.

Warning: there are few, if any d20 products supporting the revised rules, so be prepared to hunt down conversion rules on wizards website or make them up on your own.

That being said, SSotG (if you can get a copy) is easy to convert to d20, just double the   listed Damage resistance for Hull Points and give the shields the same DR as the hull.
The cyberware rules in Hero's guide needs no modification that I  can see.
The skills and feats in all the non RCR books are still gimped, so be careful in allowing them into your RCR campaign.

Good luck and may the force (or darkside if you prefer) be with you.

</review>
<review>

I'm glad that I picked it up, a much better volume than the first book for this game.  Glad they made it available

</review>
<review>

The item I received from this person came quickly and was of high quality.  I am quite pleased with this purchase.  Kudos

</review>
<review>

The Star Wars universe is really good and when put together with the D20 RPG system it is phenominal. I have played DnD and I have found it hard to "get" sometimes, but with the Star Wars RPG there is no limit to what you can do. If you are going to play ANY D20 RPG, I recommend that you take a look at this on

</review>
<review>

This latest edition of the Star Wars roleplaying system is the best one that has been released to date.  First of all, I have to say that I'm really pleased with the full-color format.  There's a nice mix of scenes from the movie and original artwork.  As for the system, it is based on the D20 system, and it is quite easy to learn, especially if you are familiar with other D20 systems.  Another great plus is that this book is a complete package.  In other words you can start playing with just this book.  I was really pleased with that because a lot of systems will make you buy a player's book for character creation and another for gamemastering.  Of course there are lots of other books that will help you add detail to your campaigns, but if you're short on cash, don't worry.  This one will be enough to get you started.  Check it out, and make the world of Star Wars come alive

</review>
<review>

I am a veteren D and D player and friend recently introduced me to SWRPG.Overall SWRPG is a very good game but is slightly similer to 3rd edition D and D with blasters instead of swords and the force instead of magic.However there are many deeper changes that really make it feel like Star Wars and both RPG veterans and new players will have a lot of fun with it.
The game has a lot of pros and a few cons

+ The main book contains a lot of info and you dont need to buy any others, however for someone looking to expand their game there are many upgrade books sold.
+ The combat system is very solid and is easy for new people to understand while not being too simple either.
+ Charecter creation isn't that difficult as it can be in some games
+ If you have a good GM (Game Master) the game really comes alive)

- The space combat system is very clunky.
- The selection of ships and vehicles are limited to those that were well detailed in the movies.
(both of these can be fixed however with 2 books "Starships of the Galaxy" provides not only a space combat system and more ships but a ship creation system and "Arms and Equipment" gives many new vehicles along with nice new weapons and armor. I highly recomend both.)

Star Wars RPG is a very good hobby and seeing as you need this book to play I highly recomend you buy it:)

PS. You might want to make sure there are people who interested in playing SWRPG in your neighborhood as this game requires multiple players and your cat will have a bit of a hard time with it.

</review>
<review>

rachel ray  is becoming
a house hold  nam

</review>
<review>

Well you know the rest. Aside from her brash repetative demeanor her cooking has a lot to be desired. These meals CANNOT be done in 30 minutes, unless that is if you want everything half cooked. The book makes false promises and does not deliver. There are also NO PICTURES and NO INDEX and the recipes are very confusing..most of them deriving from an original Master recipe and then just changing one or two things. If you want good food and a good cook book don't buy into the hype and don't buy this book.

</review>
<review>

This cookbook definitely makes for good reading; it's done in a conversational style like her show is.  Kind of humorous when they have to include a section about what EVOO is and what it means to let food "hang out".

My main criticism is that you have to look at the recipes first, decide what you want to make  and  purchase the items for it.  Apparently, she and I do not keep the same items on hand in the pantry.  And, the number of ingredients she uses can be daunting; when I think of quick meals, I don't think of using a dozen items to make them with!

Still, I've found the book inspirational; even though I haven't got the required items, it's made me experiment with what I do have on hand.

</review>
<review>

I've heard a lot about MS. Ray's show on the Food Network, so I thought this book might be an interesting addition to my library. I was wrong. Unfortunately I didn't scan the book before buying it, or else it would still be on the shelf. Most of my gripes have been covered now that I have read them. Un organized, no index, and to be honest, uninspiring recepies. 30 minute meals? I don't think so given the time it takes to find what's needed to create a meal, most of them seem to be the kind that were passed down by word of mouth, and not researched. Is MS. Ray a chef? I don't think so, and am not sure what her credentials actually are.
So I can't recommend it, unless your a die hard fan of her and want all her merchandise.

</review>
<review>

I love this cookbook... i received it in college as a Christmas gift and it had plenty of inexpensive and yummy recipes.  I love the various pasta recipes and the "take out" recipes the best and i've used them again and again.

Unfortunately, there is NO index so when i go to the book to find "that one chicken recipe" or something, i have to scan the table of contents which is not organized in the best categories.  I've resorted to writing my fave recipes on the inside cover with the respective page numbers.

All in all a good book!  I own several more of her books and i think this is the one with the easiest, most accessible recipes for the average cook/family.

</review>
<review>

Good book for beginners and for those who have reached a place of discovery, but much too repetitious for me.  Don't listen to the audio while driving as Tolles voice is a monotone.

Rayna Gangi, author, "Forget The Cures, Find The Cause." and "Mary Jemison, White Woman of the Seneca.

</review>
<review>

This is THE book I recommend and give to people as an introduction to spiritual life.
It is just beautiful and powerful.  It is sad some people criticize it and "don't get it".  Anyone who has ever experience being and the witness state can feel that the writer has some real attainment.
This book is to be experienced to see the deep wisdom and power it has to offer.

</review>
<review>

I bought this audio book based on a recommendation.  I knew very little about  it when I bought it and started listening to it.  I found it fascinating, although a bit repetitive.  The core concepts were for the most part engaging, and I like that it was read by the author.  I was surprised by the Q and A format, but got used to it fairly quickly. I find the background of the author very interesting

</review>
<review>

A book full of deep insight and potential for revolutionary change both in my life and the world.  I found it helpful to reread the book several times, absorbing more each time.

</review>
<review>

Just the sound of his voice as he reads the text is like an "IV drip for the soul".  I cannot say enough about the power of this message.  Everyone should listen to this message

</review>
<review>

This book is a radical wisdom teaching. The premise is simple - that the only reality is to be found in the present moment, but the realization of this changes the way we look at and react with the world. I've read the book twice: once to understand what he's talking about, and again to see how to apply it. I have given it to several friends. The best thing about the book is the question-and-answer format, which deals with most of the problems that come up. I also liked the references to Buddhism and Christianity. The book is especially valuable for people who deal with depression and/or anxiety. A lot of the reviews of this book are negative; as Tolle points out, the ego has a lot invested in its survival

</review>
<review>

This powerful book will help you focus on the importance of living in the present and prioritizing issues. It is a resource for all people, of all religions and spiritual beliefs. It will provide you support to help you through a crisis. It is a tool to be shared with family and friends.

</review>
<review>

This book has contributed to my understanding of living in the present moment more than anything else I've read. In fact I've read it several times and plan on reading it again. Highly recommended to anyone seeking higher consciousness

</review>
<review>

As someone who has always appreciated and been intrigued by the different religions of the world and the similarities between them, I love how this book makes them all relevant to my life  and  how I live it.  One thing that most impresses me about this book is the author's thoroughness and conviction.  In The Power of Now, Tolle basically describes the essence of Being - what it is to be in the now, and what it isn't.  He successfully does this by addressing the major life forces that affect our ability to be present - the mind, the body, death, time, space, etc. - without straying from the heart of the book.  His knowledge, appreciation and respect for so many of the ancient spiritual teachings, from Jesus, the Bible, Zen, Buddhism, Taoism, and more, is enlightening in itself and supports his message very effectively.  Although I didn't agree with every concept in the book, I appreciate the thoughtfulness and compassion with which each is presented.  Tolle is a true spiritual teacher who has much to offer in the practice of self-discovery.

I discovered The Power of Now via another excellent and enlightening book called How to Create a Magical Relationship, by Ariel  and  Shya Kane.  The Kanes have a similar approach to Tolle's regarding the value of living in the present with non-judgmental awareness, yet their style and delivery is different: their approach is more practical, with examples/illustrations from real people, rather than spiritual teachings. Tolle touches briefly on "Enlightened Relationships" in his book; for anyone interested in exploring the dynamics of magical or enlightened relationships, the Kanes' book is a wonderful companion.

</review>
<review>

Previous to the first reading of this book, the principles of present moment living, quieting the mind, and being still to become in touch with my intuition or the wisdom of the universe are some I have practiced, along with others, that have enabled me to experience serenity in my life regardless of the circumstances. Though many of the concepts of this book were not new to me, I find this book very valuable. It further expands the understanding of these concepts and adds its own voice to the discussion of these principles with great clarity. It is a book I have read many times and each time, though I may just read a page or two, it quiets my mind and I feel more peaceful.(In my second reading, it helped me to be more peaceful during a time when the doctors believed my son had an inoperable brain tumor.) I have since moved on to read his next book - A NEW EARTH and I am on my third reading. I highly recommend this one as well

</review>
<review>

I haven't had so much fun in a long time. I wanted to go up and down the river with this one. I found it interesting and challenging too.  Good book

</review>
<review>

A classic military treatise used for twenty-five centuries. Shows the way to a success over life's obstacles. Presented in an engaging, rousing, and sensible way. The manual is very well organized and a must have

</review>
<review>

i read the art of war years ago and the it was a good book once you got around the fluff. this book is short, and to the point with a new twist for every day life

</review>
<review>

More like a workbook, we admire the way this book breaks away from the usual war mode and into the strategy realm.  Sun Tzu, though it does show you how to prepare for battle, prefers that war is not implemented if not  for preservation's sake.  This book's print quality could be better but it  is very well organized with profound analyses. Broken down verse by verse  and separated by each area of interaction (personal, interpersonal, group)  you can tell the author really took the effort to have the reader  understand and apply every concept.  Wow. You'll be glad you bought it.   Sonshi.co

</review>
<review>

I have read numerous translations of the  and quot;Art of War and quot;, however  and quot;The Art of Strategy and quot; takes the classic Chinese strategy to a level that modern Americans can easily relate.  I use this version of the  book in a course taught on public relations strategy and it is always well  received by the students.  It seems to be less militaristic in its  presentation and more applicable to modern problems including those of a  more personal nature.  While I personally prefer Thomas Cleary's  translation, there is no question that my students get much out of Wing's  new twist.  Great book

</review>
<review>

Practical, sage advice from Stanley. Not as good as his follow up, "The Millionaire Mind" this book is somewhat pedantic. It also suffers from the fact it's extremely dry. The author's writing is much more engaging in his followup, and that's a much faster read.

In addition to offering some practical tips "The Millionaire Next Door" also lends itself to parody in books like dave Barry's Money Secrets, a book called "Maybe Life's Just Not that Into You" and something from Andy Borowitz, the name of which escapes me.

If you have to choose between "The Millionaire Next Door" and "The Millionaire Mind" go with the latter.

</review>
<review>

The sub-header to this book could very well be: "All Work  and  no Play makes Jack a Dull Boy".

Basically, Tom Stanley's scholarly treatise on American wealth comes down to this mind-ripping, continent-blasting conclusion:

Millionaires, you see:

1) Save more than they spend;

2) Don't spend anything.

That's it. Page after page, chart after chart, graph after graph, anecdote piling up on anecdote, all of it boiling down to the same conclusion: don't spend more than you save. Clip coupons. Hang on to your wife `til Death you do Part. Buy a rambler for 80 grand, and cling to it like a rat clutching a Big Mac in a hurricane.

To wit: if you're a good little Bob Cratchit, and burrow down in your suburban Dacha, drive the Civic, eat Top Ramen, and take your vacations at the State Museum of Knitting  and  the Fine Arts, you'll die loaded!Sound like fun?

Didn't think so. Look: you've got one life, and after death all bets are off. Sure, you could be hauled up by the angels to Paradise, or it could just be one plate of linguini too many, a nasty flatline and one vast inky void of non-consciousness. Either way, you're looking at one single trip on this not-so-flat Earth, so you might as well live large.

It's true, now: you can haul in major bank in whatever profession you choose: eremetic horror-writer, Wall Street tycoon, Railroad baron, small-town librarian, legal eagle defender of the Criminally Insane, whatever. And you can always outspend it. That is the source of endless tragedy and Dickensian woe throughout the ages, without a doubt.

But there pitfalls at the other extreme. Listen: I live next door to one of these McMillionaires. The guy is this enfeebled little wizened gnome of a critter, used to be a bank Vice President and got bought out because he was a dingus. Total skinflint. Miser. Goes on his own hunting trips and brings back venison, deer meat, which he forces his family of---jesus, I think 12---to eat for months. Lives in a shacky little rambler, buys used Crown Vics from the local police department and bargain basement prices.

The guy, no doubt, is high net worth. But he's also a loser.

This is a guy who didn't want to cough up a few hundred bucks to help build a joint fence between our properties---so there's a fence, even a fence that abuts his property---but beyond my house and demesne, he elected not to build a fence. Instead, he got a plastic Jersey Barricade (orange and white) and went with that. Is that any way to live? Is that really what it means to be a `millionaire'?

I think not. Half the glory of the Age of Great American Consumption is buying stuff you don't need, but want. Desire. Demand. What else is work for?  Find a way to creative bliss, work at something you're good at, that you have a real passion for, and the money will follow.

But for the Love of God, it's only Money: spend it! What is money for, if not to indulge yourself?

Sure, get a pace---plan to the end---set a budget. But how many of you want to be that newspaper column on page A3, the 95 year old dowager pauper who begged for alms on the streetcorner, ate catfood out of a tin, and scrounged for quarters by the bus stop, then was found rigid and cold in the urine-stiff sheets of her dirty bed, sprawled atop a fortune estimated at 20 million bucks? Sound like a plan? I think not. Money may not buy happiness, but it sure as hell can get you a Rolls-Royce Phantom.

"Millionaire Next Door" might have it right in its sociology---and for what it is, Stanley's thesis is meticulously researched, mustered like a well-trained army, and capable of marshalling its teeming forest of facts like a well-drilled martinet---but it's off the map when it comes down to the point of the whole thing: if you've got it, flaunt it.

"Millionaire Next Door" isn't a bad book: it's scholarly, and plods along its own hand-me-down lodestar towards its prophesied conclusion (be cheap! Die loaded!), and perhaps some folks will be astounded to discover there are some real richies down the block who in another day would have been called skinflints.

But as a map to your stars, this one is a little cramped, cribbed, dank, and stinks of mothballs. I think I'll take first class---scratch that, how much did you say that Learjet was going for, again?

JS

</review>
<review>

While this book is rather dry at parts, if you're truly interested in making the most of your money, you'll benefit from its insight. There are several things I keep in the back of my mind whenever I'm tempted to overspend: most millionaires drive regular cars, not new, fancy ones; and most don't live extravagantly, they work hard, spend wisely and let the majority of their money grow. Essentially, most millionaires live like middle class folk, they just know how to live within their means

</review>
<review>

The basic premise after all the wash is done, is that those who are what the authors refer to as 'Prodigious Accumulators of Wealth (PAWs)' have figured out the difference between what they want and what they need; that they aren't sucked into the consumerism machine that the marketing hypnotists attempt to impose upon us; and that they understand that there's more than one way to get the things that they need, which often involves innovation, barter, and yes.... a little effort.

A great read, one you should share with your children at the earliest opportunity

</review>
<review>

I guess that when you think of millionaires, you think of flashy people with nice cars and a lot of bling, but I had no Idea that there were so many BORING millionaires!  I guess it's not really pboring to have over a million dollars, but I want to be able to enjoy my monye.  THeat's the purpose of this book , though- to show that you have to be boring and then you can get to be a millionaire with all the money you didn't spend on fun stuff!  I almost fell asleep a couple times reading this, but when I stayed awake it was really eye-opening.  I won't scoff at those people who don't have "big hats" but have a lot of cattle anymore

</review>
<review>

This book was interesting at first.  It shatters what most of us think the typical millionaire looks and acts like, but that only takes a chapter.  After that, it just keeps repeating itself over and over.  "Who do you think bought the $1000 watch and who bought the lower priced watch?"  Yeah, yeah, I get it; the millionaire has a lower priced watch than the overspending, no real wealth guy.

Then some of the examples are so over simplified or exaggerated that you know they are made up to make a point.  I want real examples.  I don't care if you give them goofy code names to protect identity, but don't come up with such bad comparisons to prove a point if it isn't real.

Then there is the advice on being frugal.  I am pretty frugal, but some of what they said would put me in the crazy house if I had to live like that.  Sure, I could cut out every unnecessary expense from my budget, but then I wouldn't be very happy.  Who cares if I have a million when I'm 60ish if I had to live miserably up until then.  What is that worth?  I know not to go out and buy a brand new luxury car, but driving around my 20 year old Jeep is no fun either!

This book is good for the first chapter and if you are just completely clueless or a compulsive over spender.  People with common sense need not buy this book, just check it out at the library like I did

</review>
<review>

I read this book many, many years ago on a very long flight.  I couldn't put it down.  The philosophy is simple; live frugally, save/invest money every month, and you too can be a millionaire.  It's great advice, especially in this day and age when the younger generation wants the big house, expensive car, and everything else right NOW, with no regard to the future.  Although some of the info is dated (Enron being named as a great company to invest), and some other advice (putting new soles on old shoes) is a bit much, the general message makes plenty of sense.

</review>
<review>

Rent- Interesting. Most authentic in the Collins part
(Allison, baby...) and the JoAnne part (your new production manager...). Play the chords, not the melody

One Song Glory- In the OBC CD, the guitar does that little pluck then echo thing, which isn't great when you try it on the piano. The only complaint I have about this song is that I don't really know when to switch from 'plucking' the notes to actually playing the chords, etc.

Out Tonight- Not what I expected, but can still work. The song itself is very repetitive. Possible to add the melody line here. Takes some improv.

Another Day- Probably my favorite song to play in the book. It's very long, but written SO WELL. The part that I think is the weakest is 'I can't control....is just to be.' When you get to 'the heart may freeze' and 'there's only us' I would suggest playing the broken chordswritten on top. Sounds really good. Make sure to familiarize yourself with that part before you play, it can be somewhat hard.

Santa Fe- This isn't even a song, let alone can you put a piano in it. It needs a bass and drums. VERY DIFFICULT because you're not playing to sung words, most of the song is sung. I'd rather see La Vie Boheme in there...

I'll Cover You- Works a lot. My suggestion would be, in the beginning, to play the intro with your left hand in the bass and just play the chords, until Collins comes in, then play what's written. It's fun to play the reprise- Just slow it down, play the chords, add a little swing to it, and play some Seasons of Love.

Seasons of Love- If you ever want to play a Rent song at a party, a local benefit, or WHATEVER, get a group of friends together and  DO THIS SONG!!! If you play it the way it's supposed to be (not really the way it's written) it will be AMAZING. Since the actual song involves a piano MAJORLY, that will make this much more impressive than something that should be played by a guitar. Keep playing the intro- works best without the melody.

Take Me Or Leave Me- Another song that works well with piano. The melody is a bit wierd, perhaps because it's afunky blues type of song. When you get to the part 'so be wise.......that I'm your baby,' it gets hard and doesn't make too much sense. Just keep working on it.

Without You- Melodic song, but very, VERY repetitive. Not one of my favorites. The melody is the same 1-5 (Do-Sol), it just changes key a couple of times. Simple, but you're playing most of it in bass clef, which adds some difficulty (some people can't read bass clef that well).

Halloween- Kind of hard to get the bass and the treble coordinated. Takes time and practice to get the beats right. Complaint- 'why our entire years....3-D imax of my mind' is not great. I like it though, but it's pretty short.

What You Own- Ehh...One of my favorite songs in the OBC CD, but doesn't do well here. Melody line can work in this song. You need to add your own chords, so become familiar with the song.

Your Eyes- Good, does really well on the piano. I like it a lot

</review>
<review>

The music is great, as well as the songs that are in the book.  It's not  challenging for the piano, so anyone can easily learn to play it

</review>
<review>

Overall -- I am pretty pleased with this selection of numbers from RENT, the best show to ever hit Broadway. I was a little bummed that only 12 numbers managed to make it's way to this book, especially because some of them work -- and some of them don't.

Rent - The song Rent doesn't really work at all. There isn't enough on piano to do, so it just, simply, doesn't work. This one is probobly the most dissapointing in the book.

One Song Glory - It was relatively empty on the OBC (the backgroung music, I mean) so if it soudns bare on piano, I still think it works.

Out Tonight - I actually, for a rock song, think this one transcribe's excellently. It definately sounds different than the OBC, but it's a lot of fun to sing. And all I need to do is bring the key down 2 1/2 steps, change a few of the words, and it's fun for even this guy to sing. One of my favorites in the book.

Another Day - I haven't worked on this one too much, but it sounds decent enough.

Santa Fe - Can't for the LIFE of me think as to why they put this in there. It doesn't work on piano. To me, it barely even works as a song -- but I was dissapointed that this was included. Too much speaking anyway.

I'll Cover You - Pretty enough song, and it works on piano -- but more importantly .. you can use the chords, gospel it up, and there you have I'll Cover You: Reprise.

Seasons of Love - This works perfectly. I like it better when you don't include the melody line in the playing, because then, if you sing it, it is more authentic. I love singing this piece.

Take Me or Leave Me - I think it works better, again, if you don't play the melody line -- but this is another one that I think sounds absolutely great.

Without You - Very repetitive, but that's the nature of the song. It's a nice song, but I can RARELY get to the end of it.

Halloween - Pretty song, and it works on piano. But, as piano/vocal books go, the melody line played in the piano doesn't work, unless you aren't singing.

What You Own - I never play the treble line, I simply play the bass line and add more full chords through the song, and it works very well.

Your Eyes - Pretty song, and it works on piano.

Highlights:
Seasons of Love
Take Me or Leave Me
What You Own
Out Tonigh

</review>
<review>

The music from Rent is so powerful. This book has a good number of the major songs. The music is not too hard to learn and the arrangements don't sound sparce. Definetely a good buy for any piano playing RENT fan.

</review>
<review>

The essence of Rent was absolutely captured in this vocal selections book, with great songs such as  and quot;One Song Glory and quot;,  and quot;Another Day/No Day But Today and quot;, and  and quot;Your Eyes and quot;, included, however I was disappointed to see that songs such as  and quot;Over the Moon and quot;, and my personal favorite  and quot;La Vie Boheme and quot; were not included. Guitar chords above measures in the music make easy for a non-piano expert such as myself to play the songs and sing along. Now this is not an original broadway score, and some songs sound awkward on the piano, but once a person is set with just sitting down at the piano to have fun playing their favorite Rent songs, this book is perfect

</review>
<review>

The selections in this collection match the selections featured on the RENT - selections album. Unfortunately, this means that many of the best songs in the full score are cut out (including: Light my Candle, La Vie Boheme... I Should Tell You, etc.), because they involve sung dialogue rather than  and quot;liftable and quot; songs (songs that work out of context). Another drawback is that in general, songs written for a rock band (featuring extensive guitar) do not transcribe well to solo piano (guitar chords are included in this book, though). With this in mind, however, there is still a lot of good things about this collection. Larson's great ballad-esque songs, like  and quot;I'll cover you, and quot;  and quot;Your eyes, and quot;  and quot;Without You, and quot; and  and quot;Seasons of Love and quot; work very well as piano/vocal. Other, more rock-sounding songs such as  and quot;Rent, and quot;  and quot;Out tonight, and quot; and  and quot;What you own and quot; are still doable. As written they may sound a little awkward, but people who have had experience playing rock piano may find that with a little fiddling with the written notes a decent version can be produced. Even if you don't have experience playing rock piano, if you have more experience playing other Broadway music you can still learn a lot from working with these songs and trying out different things. Other songs included are:  and quot;Take me or Leave me, and quot;  and quot;Another Day, and quot;  and quot;Halloween, and quot; and  and quot;Santa Fe. and quot;  and quot;Take me and quot; didn't transcribe well (esp. the vocal line) due to the bluesy pitches of the song, but the main riff and the chords are accurate.  and quot;Another day and quot; contains both the rock elements and the balladesque elements, but the rock elements do not require many changes. and quot;Halloween and quot; transcribes faithfully and works well;  and quot;Santa Fe and quot; is transcribed well, but since much of it is spoken it is also a little odd. Overall this book is well done. The songs are all faithful in spirit to the album, although at times a pitch is written differently from the orig. broadway cast recording. The song where this is most apparent is in  and quot;Seasons of Love and quot; where it appears that the two soloists' lines were mostly improvised. Although I usually prefer for a song's accompaniment to reflect the actual full score, in the case of these songs such accompaniment is repetitive and adding the vocal line (which is actually a very standard practice for vocal selections) was very welcome. RENT has become a part of the modern musical theater canon, and so this book has become necessary for any Broadway-lover's sheet music collection

</review>
<review>

Sheer Brilliance.  You have to hear it and read it to understand

</review>
<review>

It took me a while to learn to play any of these songs on my guitar... and they sound awesome... It was one of my dreams to play songs such as  and quot;One Song Glory and quot; and others. My dreams it to be Rojer in the broadway play for rent... and this is getting me evercloser to my dream. The music is challenging and quite long. Also once you learn the song on one instrument it sounds sort of strange... but if you have other people playing with you and a singer It sounds exactly like the show... This book is awesome.. definately worth the money! SO BUY IT

</review>
<review>

One of the classic Disney movies I remembered was the Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Reading this novel gave me the same feelings I had in my childhood years watching the movie. I could be wrong but it seems to me that everything in the book was exactly like the movie. Alice was reading her sister's book and fell asleep under a tree. Then she woke up, saw a rabbit in clothes with a clock talking. She then followed the rabbit into this hole. After that she was in a never ending tunnel, which lead her to a strange world. Alice encounters many obstacles in the story and showed how she dealt with them.
I thought the book was just like the movie. I guess was I was reading the novel made me have a better understanding. I was mainly looking for any symbolism of some sort, but failed to do so. I was also shocked at what the things characters were doing in the book and made it into a Disney movie. For example the Caterpillar smoking a hookah. I didn't know what hookah was until last year. I was really confused in some parts of the novel. This book I thought was great for someone that hasn't even heard of Alice in Wonderland. It is a very thin book but it was like reading a children's book. I thought the novel would have a different story than the movie. From a scale of 1 - 10 I would give it a 7. Just because it was interesting and reminded me of the past.

</review>
<review>

In the book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll a young girl with the name of Alice travels to a distant land that seems altogether and quite possibly unreal to her.  The book starts off with Alice in the park with her sister.  She has nothing to do as her sister is reading so when Alice sees a talking white rabbit scampering by, she doesn't hesitate to follow it.  Following the rabbit leads her to a world she could have never dreamed of.  This book can take you to magical places you would have never dreamed of.  Through the use of Carroll's thorough descriptions and dramatic elements this book is sure to take you on one wild ride.  I thought that the book was very well written and very interesting.  I could really imagine what the characters look like and feel how Alice would have felt.  I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who likes a good adventure and lots of twists along the way.  This book is for children and adults alike.  As long as you have an imagination and a great sense of adventure you are sure to love this great tale of a girl and how she found herself in an imaginary world.

</review>
<review>

When I was eight years old, this version of Alice in Wonderland was aired on T.V.  I thought I had watched the best movie ever at that time, and still, to this day, I have more fond memories of watching that movie than any other time in my life!  The songs were beautiful!  I can still sing the song Alice sang to the deer - "Why do people act as if they're crazy?  Why to they behave the way they do? I have to say, this is one my favorite songs of all time!
If you get a chance to purchase and watch this movie, you will witness the beautiful music

</review>
<review>

I LOVED THIS AS A CHILD. IT USED TO BE ON TV A LOT AND I REMEMBER BEGGING MY MOTHER TO TAPE IT ON VHS. WE RECORDED IT ONE DAY AND I WATCHED IT SO MUCH THE VHS BROKE. I AM NOW 20 AND MY BOYFRIEND RECENTLY PURCHASED THIS DVD PLUS THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS FROM SOME IDIOT ON HERE AND HIS COPIES WERE WORSE THAN MINE. HE CLAIMED THEY WERE NEW BUT WE GOT THEM AND THEY WERE OPENED MASS PRODUCED COPIES. WE COULD TELL BECAUSE THE VHS'S WERE BLANK AND THE COVERS WERE NOT ORIGINAL. PLEASE RELEASE THESE MOVIES ON DVD!

</review>
<review>

I was just 2 years old when this movie came out, but my grandfather taped it for me on Beta.. When I was about 3 I started watching the Beta tape.. Let's just say I drove my family CRAZY with this movie! I watched it in its entirety EVERY day.. I memorized every single line. I definitely recommend this movie to everyone!! I now have it on VHS, but am praying one day it will go to DVD because when I have kids some day I would like them to be able to enjoy this movie. It's a fun family movie. It has an all-star cast and is very enjoyable!! I definitely think you all should watch it

</review>
<review>

I first viewed this version when it came out in 1985. I was enthralled by it then and still love it today (I have a well-worn VHS copy from the tv.) It brings the story to life in a way that no other attempts have achieved.
A few friends and I have been searching for this version for ages and are thrilled to have finally found it. It's strange, but I would almost place this particular "Alice" into the cult classic category. Children and adults alike will completely fall in love with this classic, I'm sure

</review>
<review>

This is an abridged version of Alice in Wonderland. The story does not suffer, since much of the omitted material is not essential.

The quality of the reading by Fiona Shaw is flawless. The numerous sound effects are well done and contribute to enjoying the story.

</review>
<review>

I agree with the reviews already posted. This is the only Alice in Wonderland movie in my opinion. As children my sister and I would watch it all the time from a video taped from the television. Years later I saw it in a video store and had to buy it even though it wasn't on DVD. I still have my copies but am waiting patiently for them to be released on DVD

</review>
<review>

This production of Alice in Wonderland is pretty fabulous.  I loved it as a child.  It has a lovely mix of classic stars (Sammy Davis Junior, Imogene Coca) and flavors-of-the-month from the mid-80s (Pat Morita, John Stamos).  It would make a great DVD set

</review>
<review>

Back in the 80's when I was about 7 or 8 years old, this 2 part movie came on TV and we recorded it, of course it was on Beta back then.  I totally fell in love with this movie.  After I only saw it once or twice, I wasn't able to see it again for the longest time because my family lost the tape and TV never showed it.  So I was wanting it for years and finally in the late 90's, like 98 or 99, I just happened to look in the Disney store and saw both Alice In Wonderland (1985) and Alice Through The Looking Glass (1985) and I bought them right away.  They were on VHS but it doesn't really matter because I love them so much.  To this day, at 27 years old, I still love this 2 part film and never get bored of it.

I have watched many other versions of Alice In Wonderland and no other version has had an Alice as good as Natalie Gregory or a white rabbit as good as Red Buttons.  Even Ringo Starr is in this version.  I totally love that rabbit costume and back in the 80's, you can tell, or at least I can tell how much work the director put into this film.  Since 1985, other versions haven't shown as much detail and work like this version has.  Even the roses in the rose garden looks real.  I do hope one day, they will release this 2 part masterpiece on DVD because my tapes have gotten a lot of use in the last 5 or 6 years.  If you own any Alice In Wonderland, own this 2 part one because this one puts every other version to shame!!

</review>
<review>

His principles are 'right on' and he is sincere in his message. So relavent for those of us who seek to better integrate our business lives and spritual lives. Every chapter makes the reader eager to see what's next.

</review>
<review>

I found the book offered great value as you go through it you get inspired to act on what you are hearing. 52 lessons with lots of example and honest comments by the author.

The book added great value to my lif

</review>
<review>

This book is co-authored by David L. Steward and he is a true success story! He has risen from humble beginnings, and confronted many personal setbacks to become founder and CEO of the largest African-American owned company in the United States. Doing Business by the Good Book is his personal story of the faith and perseverance that he credits for his success. Steward shares 52 principles from the Bible that he believes were intended to be implemented in business strategy and conduct. This is not simply a book that blandly presents 52 Biblical principles. It is David Steward's own story of how these 52 principles impacted his personal and family life to eventually build World Wide Technology, Inc., a privately held billion-dollar company. Doing Business by the Good Book is almost like reading a private diary. Steward discusses his own vivid experiences to teach about business management, ethics, strategy and personal leadership. At the heart of his value system are the Biblical scriptures frequently mentioned throughout the book. A central theme is his belief that giving and serving others is an essential ingredient to becoming highly successful. If an organization honestly serves its employees and customers, their response of loyalty will help achieve an impressive bottom line.



This book is organized into 52 short and readable chapters that can be read in one sitting, or digested as one chapter per week for an entire year. The chapters cover virtually every aspect of modern business and decision-making including integrity, delegation, adapting to change, teamwork, risk-taking, confrontation, mentoring, empowerment, accountability and many more. The foreword is written by former president of the United States, George H.W. Bush. Steward gives much credit and praise for his achievements to his supportive wife Thelma.



Doing Business by the Good Book is an outstanding publication to read whether you are religious or not. Steward doesn't preach or lecture. He simply and gently teaches from the perspective of his personal example and experience like a seasoned old professor who has "done it all". At weLEAD, we rarely call a book inspirational, but this book certainly fulfills that definition. This is a needed and timely book, especially when you look at the evening news and see many business executives being prosecuted for serious crimes and unadulterated greed.




</review>
<review>

In Doing Business By The Good Book: 52 Lessons On Success Straight From The Bible, Dave Steward (Founder and CEO of World Wide Technology, a privately held, billion-dollar company headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri), draws upon his many years of personal experience and professional expertise to show his fellow Christians how they can succeed in building their business enterprise upon the solid foundation of Scripture. With the assistance of author Robert L. Shook, Steward has organized his presentation into specific chapters deftly addressing such issues as the entrepreneurial spirit and integrity, the concepts of delegation and adaption, finding a niche, providing good leadership in the service of others, building long-term relationships, taking a stand, the necessity for consistency, teamwork, risk-taking, operating a customer-driven company, handling confrontation, accountability, the role of praise and recognition, letting go and allowing God to work His will, and so much more. Doing Business By The Good Book should be considered "must reading" by all dedicated Christians in positions of managerial responsibility whether it be a local enterprise or an international conglomerate.

</review>
<review>

David Steward's book should be required reading by all pastors and in all churches as well as in today's business world. It's wonderful! Easy to read, yet weighty in substance. Using biblical principles, David successfully shows a spiritually, mature integration of these principles and his faith with success and business workplace ethics.  Churches could also benefit from this refreshing viewpoint of  and quot;doing business by the good book and quot; and note that this  and quot;good book and quot; is just as good for religous business. I see this book being used to teach biblical ethics and for bible study and Sunday School (one lesson X 52 weeks)

</review>
<review>

Isolated, brooding Hill House is reputed to be haunted. One summer, four people gather there to investigate. Dr. Montague wants to prove the existence of hauntings scientifically. Lovely Theodora needs a place to stay for the summer. Luke, the dashing young heir to the house, is supposed to keep an eye on the estate for his aunt. And Eleanor has been waiting all her life for something to happen - something like Hill House.

I'm a big fan of horror novels and ghost stories, and have read more of them than I can count. The Haunting of Hill House is probably my favorite. It's not the flashiest or the scariest (though it certainly has its chilling moments). But somehow, it sticks in my mind, and draws me back again and again. I first read it when I was in elementary school. (It was in the children's section of the public library.) I liked it then, though I didn't love it. As I grew up, I got to appreciate it more and more, and now, thirty years later, I find that I re-read it regularly. Somehow, I always seem to find something new in it.

Is it scary? Yes, but in a quiet way. The horror elements in this book are rather subdued by modern standards. But that makes them even more effective, because they seem more possible. The end of chapter 5 scared me a lot more than any number of Steven Spielberg's skeletons shooting out of the ground at warp 10.

Another reason I enjoy this book is that I've moved to the northeast since I first read it. I don't know if Jackson had an actual town in mind when she wrote this novel, but there are a lot of them like the one she describes. She may have written this 45 years ago, but some things haven't changed much.

Another interesting element in this book: there's a gay character. It's very subtly done, but unmistakable. Okay, it would hardly raise an eyebrow now, but by 1959 standards, it's pretty daring. Beautiful, feminine Theodora is not a stereotypical lesbian, either. She's flawed, as are all the characters, but not a bad person. And she isn't "converted" to heterosexuality at the end of the book.

As for the ending...well, Dean Koontz fans will probably be disappointed, but I thought it was perfect. It's not a very happy ending. And you're left wondering if the house is really haunted, or if it was all in Eleanor's mind. But somehow, it's the right ending for this book.

</review>
<review>

This book is a short read.  The pace and prose is circa 1959, but it fits this story very well.  It is the quintessential haunted house book and offers plenty of creepy moments, always subtle and handled with care, more psychodynamic than cheap surprises or thrills.  If you're looking for blood and guts or chase scenes this is not the book.  It ended a bit abruptly and I was not satisfied with the ending for Eleanor, felt a little cheated in the end.  Great book

</review>
<review>

A classic example of horror that does not rely on pornographic gore and shock value for its chill-factor. Of the two movies that have been adapted from this book, the 1963 black-and-white version is a greater achievement of film-making, while the 1999 version is more visually stunning. Neither movie, however, can quite contain how weird and wonderful this book is. Shirley Jackson, queen of the not-quite-sane heroine, unfolds a quietly disturbing piece that makes the reader question how much of the weirdness is external and how much of it is inside the narrator's head. Excellent companion piece for We Have Always Lived In the Castle, which puts a different spin on the same unreliable narrator technique.

</review>
<review>

This is one of my favorite books. Definately the best haunted house story I ever came across. One of only a handful of books I've reread

</review>
<review>

The Haunting of Hill House has to be one of the best written books I have ever read.  The prose alone makes it recommendable reading.  It is clean, economical and yet certainly artistic.  The story is compelling and keeps you interested all the way through.

This novel, like many other Shirley Jackson titles, explores the themes of alienation and loneliness.  Eleanor, the main character, has lived a life of privation and the first nice thing that happens to her is that she gets invited to Hill House for a summer of paranormal exploration.  I think the novel hinges on Eleanor's search for a home.  She wants to belong somewhere.  In the end, she finds a scary way to remain at Hill House that you will just have to read about for yourself

</review>
<review>

Okay, I went into this book after seeing the remake of Haunting of House Hill. I've never seen the original and can only pray that it does more justice to the book.

It's a short and easy read, but interesting. The characters don't seem too developed, but it is a ghost story, and I think it does it's job at being creepy.

I've read The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, and plan on getting more of her stuff

</review>
<review>

I grew up in a big old Victorian house a lot like Hill House, and one day when I was about 12 years old,and my folks were gone, I started reading The Haunting of Hill House.

let me tell you it scared me so bad I was frozen with fear.

I didn't go upstairs by myself for two weeks!

I suggest you read it in broad daylight with lots of people around.

...and if you must see the movie, make sure it is the 1963 version.

The latest remake is worthless.

That was forty years  ago, and now I'm going to order a fresh copy of the book  so I can scare myself all over again!

If you have friends who "like to be scared". give them a copy of this book as a gift, it will scare the HELL out of them....Bwahahahahahaha!

</review>
<review>

The story  "Haunting of Hill House" has great examples of people changing just to fit in.   Although the "Haunting of Hill House" fits this description perfectly with its eerie description of supernatural tales of the happenings of Hill House; there is more to it than hauntings.  The story starts out with three guests being invited to the house to monitor any out of the ordinary occurrences in Hill House.  Throughout the story the guests experience some ghostly moments.  However during this, one of the guest named Eleanor changes her ways to fit in with the guests. One example would be when Eleanor told lies about herself and her past, and when Eleanor went around the house alone having no fear.  Finally Eleanor became open and spoke out what was on her mind.
In the story Eleanor feels that she does not fit in with the group of people who are staying at Hill House.  She is a person with a lack of confidence so she feels she has to lie to feel accepted.  Theo came through the bathroom door into Eleanor's room, she is lovely, Eleanor thought, turning to look, I wish I were lovely."  This quote shows the lack of confidence she has.  One of Eleanor's lies was when she told the others she lived alone in an apartment. We all know this is to be untrue because she lives with her sister and husband in a house.  The reason she told this lie was because Theo lived in an apartment with a friend so she felt Theo would not accept her. It was sad that there was such lack of self esteem in Eleanor, that she could not be her own person!
I though the story was more than just paranormal things, it was a story of a lost women finding herself!

</review>
<review>

There's nothing like a good ghost story!  And this is a superb ghost story.  It is so incredibly frightening because it is so subtle and believeable.  It seems like it's almost possible that something like that could happen, although I personally don't feel that ghosts are evil.

The writer builds the atmosphere slowly and quietly.  Step by step, the main character Nell is seduced/terrified by Hill House.  This is one of the few books I refuse to read at night, or when I'm alone.  It's that scary and I'm 49 years old!

Can't really say too much about the story because I don't want to give anything away, but this is the best haunted house book I've ever read!

And the fact that not one ghost is actually SEEN merely makes the book that much more terrifying.  I believe the term for this kind of book is psychological terror, which is FAR superior to blood and gore fests!

Here's a little humor about scary books and movies.  Apparently, the characters in these books and movies have never read a scary book or seen a scary movie because they inevitably break what my family and I refer to as the Scary Book/Movie Rules.  They are:

1.  When you get the letter from the stranger inviting you to a remote old mansion in the countryside, don't go!
2.  When you get to the remote village and you tell the townspeople where you are going and they warn you that the place has a reputation, go home!
3.  When you get to the house and it gives you a creepy feeling, go home!
4.  When you are stupid enough to go into the house, and the housekeeper seems a little sinister, and/or warns you about the house, go home!
5.  When the first small, scary thing happens, don't dismiss it, GO HOME!  At this point in time you still have ample time to pack your belongings and your vehicle should be fully operational and controllable by you.
6.  When the incidents get progressively scarier and are not dismissable anymore and you discuss the incidents with the other guests in the house and they all mention that have also had similiar incidents, everyone should calmly, but quickly, pack their stuff and get the heck out of Dodge!  It is still perfectly possible at this point in the book or movie to do this!  GO HOME!
7.  If you're dumb enough to stay, NEVER and I mean NEVER, go off alone!  Because we all know that when you're alone is when the really terrifying stuff happens.
8.  After you've gone off alone and had the stuffing scared out of you, run to your room, stuff your things into your suitcase and LEAVE!
9.  The next morning when you convince yourself that it was all in your imagination and you go into the village, GO HOME!  Don't worry about your stuff, BECAUSE THIS IS THE LAST TIME YOU'LL BE ABLE TO JUST LEAVE!
10.  After you get back to the house and you and your housemates all tell each other that you're all just being silly, get ready for several things after dark that day.  What you've got here is the calm before the storm!  Serious injuries and/or death, an inability to leave the house without great difficulty, vehicles not operational are all in store for you!  SO GO HOME!  Even if your car won't start, you can always walk.  It should still be possible to do that.
11.  If you are enough of an idiot to still be there after dark, write your last will and testament and prepare for death!
Special Section On Vampire Movies:
1.  When you're planning on going vampire hunting, never start for the vampire's lair in late evening.
2.  When heading for the vampire's lair at sunset, make sure that you have several large crosses with you and a few sharp stakes.  And of course, a mallet.
3.  When you realize you don't have a cross with you, at least check your supply of wooden stakes.
4.  When you realize you only have one weak stake, give up and come back the next day at noon!
5.  Have fun opening the vamp's coffin at sunset as she/he awakens!  They'll be happy to have breakfast come to them!

</review>
<review>

This book contains a lot of useful information for the new teacher or the burned out teacher who needs a boost. It's useful in the sense that it tries to get teachers to stop taking negative beahvior personally (usually it's not about the teacher) and to use positive reinforcement as much as possible--always a good idea whenever you are trying to change behavior, be it animal or human! But I had to laugh out loud when the author suggests praising the consistently tardy student for being in class "most of the time." Give me a break!

</review>
<review>

I wish Mr. Sparks would find the voice he wrote with in his earlier novels. That flow and voice I understood so well. At First Sight felt like I was reading a deadline novel. Just words, no insight, didn't make this reader think at all. Sorry, just the way I read it.

</review>
<review>

i loved this book! another great book written by Nicholas Sparks. it was better than true believer

It tells the story of true lovers that are not only dealing with marrage, moving but pregancy. Jeremy has moved to broome creek leaving all he knows to live with the love of his life, but at the same time is going through writters block and is afraid that someone close to him knows more that he does. There are happy parts, funny parts and parts where you can't stop crying.

The only thing i didn't like about it was it keep skipping time, which made it kind of hard to follow and at the end a couple things where left unanswered.

As the story progresses it because one of those books that everyone should read!

</review>
<review>

I gagged my way through The Notebook but thought I would give Nicholas Sparks another try.  I read about 1/3 of the book and decided it was a waste of my time.

</review>
<review>

Although there can only be one "Notebook", Sparks draws you into his stories that makes you want to read them again and again

</review>
<review>

I have laughed and shed tears over all of the authors books. Im am completely dumbfounded as to what he was thinking when he wrote At First Sight.  Like me, you probably loved all the characters in his previous books.  He makes every character in this book NOT loveable! I kept asking myself, who am I rooting for?  Do I care if things go well?  The best part were the medical issues but only a few pages in the book - could have been a story in itself.  I miss the old spark.

</review>
<review>

After being very disapointed in "True Believer" I felt this novel was much more realistic and connected better to the characters. He has redeemed himself in my opinion with this novel. A good easy read, very enjoyable.

</review>
<review>

This book was on the bestseller's shelf at my local bookstore.  I asked an employee about how books were selected for that shelf and was told that selection is based on a number of factors including positive customer reviews.  Shocking.  As a number of other customer's have commented on this site, this book was not worth the money it cost.  It was silly, contrived and unrealistic.

The cover of the book states that the writer is one of the best romance writers of all time.  I typically don't read romance novels but I can't begin to imagine that that's possible.

</review>
<review>

I haven't read many books written by Patterson but I liked The Notebook so I thought I would read some of his other publications.  I didn't find much to like about At First Sight.

The story is totally unbelievable and the characters one-dimensional. It is a boiler plate romance novel. The couple are immediately attracted to each other but something keeps them apart. A wave of a wand and they both know they love each other. The happy couple then find and overcome adversity.

Patterson is not a bad writer. If you are looking to escape from the daily grind and want to find romance in an easy read, you won't be disappointed.  If you want a realistic story and believeable characters, then At First Sight isn't for you

</review>
<review>

I can't believe I didn't know anything about this time in US History before.  The Chicago fair as background to a serial killer is facinating.  This book is very well written.  You'd think a book about architecture might be dry, but its really not at all.  Highly recommend this book.  Its a slo a great book for a book club

</review>
<review>

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS EVER, AND I READ 2 A MONT

</review>
<review>

As a criminologist, I have a small library of books that range from sociological and crim theory to true crime and collective behavior and no book as given me more pleasure than this one.  The research is impeccable and there are so many passages that will never find their way into a textbook, so it is now my goal to utilize this work by incorporating it into my lectures.  This is a must read for anyone interested history, the impact of the industrial revolution on society and a study of the criminal mind in creating the victim-offender relationship.    Bravo to Mr. Larson.

</review>
<review>

Reads like a murder mystery, but represents itself as being factual.  A really incredible story and a piece that should be read by all Chicagoans.  (I live in Colorado but was born there.)  Fran

</review>
<review>

Extraordinarily well written.  Highly recommeded for anyone interested in, not just Chicago history, but turn of the century events

</review>
<review>

A fascinating look into Chicago's life and times at the end of the 19th century with the background of the World's fair and the personalities of the major movers and shakers of the era.

</review>
<review>

A strangly fascinating book...didn't expect it to be so engrossing. Lived in Chicago for a time, and find I knew little about the history.
The parallel plot was a stroke of genius...the bright lights...the century
of progress, and the horror that was patiently waiting in the shadows!!
JUST TERRIFIC!!

</review>
<review>

I learned some odd new things reading this.  Fascinating book- made me do more research on the exposition

</review>
<review>

This book had me from the first line -- a perfect example of real life being more enthralling than fiction.  Two stories are told side by side, one about the fair itself and another detailing the crime spree of a serial killer who makes Jack the Ripper pale by comparison. The result is a book that is almost impossible to put down. It left me with an appreciation of the energy, talent and sheer will it takes to put on a world's fair and the genius of inventors like George Ferris.

</review>
<review>

The author has a decent touch with action sequences (few though they are in this book). And he seems to have a real affinity for martial arts which comes across in his writing and enriches his story. But he is very akward at moving the plot forward and constantly depends on groups of characters sitting around dicussion what happened. "Why did this clue appear earlier? What is the significance of this event? What trends should we see based on events so far." Very clumsy style which veers into Hardy Boys book territory. But when he finishes explaining everything that's happended so far he writes competently. If you got the book free and like the genre it's worth reading on a plane

</review>
<review>

I am drawn to many cultures, ways of life to learn. John Donohue follows the further adventures of martial arts student and master in a satisfying sequel to Sensei. For those who are trying to find Gone With the Wind, fuggettaboutit. For those who like to read of martial arts, tibetan enlightenment, and a continuation of a wondeful cast, this is for you.
Looking forward to the next outing

</review>
<review>

Let me start by saying that I'm a dedicated fan of this genre. That means of course that I've read Lustbader, Trevanian, Eisler, and now both of Donohue's books. This particular book came by recommendation of my father, also a huge martial arts fan (and fellow practictioner). I can totally respect Donohue's effort, because I know first hand how hard it is to put together a compelling martial arts thriller. I recently published a martial arts novel. My book features a Judo/Kenpo master hunting a world-class sniper whose killing presidential candidates. It's more of a mainstream thriller inspired by Lustabader's early erotic martial arts violence. See "Process of Elimination" if interested. End of shamelesss plug!

As another author writing in this same genre, I was very excited to pick up Donohue's "Sensei" (and then "Deshi"). I posted a review of "Sensei" as well, should you care to read it.

In Deshi, Connor is once again called in by the police (his brother and partner) to help with a murder case. There's a lot going on in the book behind the scenes, involving Chinese spies, a Tibetan Lama, some hired thugs, and a martial artist with something to hide. It's weird for me to even say this, but the complication in the plot sort of gets in the way of the story. Even as I finished the book, and I came to understand who was doing what and why, I was left a bit confused. I guess it's because there really isn't any way to figure out the book until Donohue finally walks you through it. It's not one of those stories where you can pick out clues and figure things out. You simply go along for the ride and then listen quietly as the author finally clues you in. Still, I like the authenticity of the martial arts and can overlook the lackluster feeling that I came away with.

Overall, I liked "Deshi" better than "Sensei." The story is unique, and there is more action. Like his first book, "Deshi" is also a quick read (a couple of hours). But complaints aside, I learned some things, and never put it down until it was finished. I guess that earns it 4 stars (but just barely)

</review>
<review>

Deshi builds on the outstanding work of Sensei. The characters of Dr. Conner Burke and his teacher are more deeply and richly drawn. Donohue reveals more about the martial artists who train and study not to fight and spar for trophies but to fight and spar with their own lives. Like great mysteries, the mystery plot is really secondary to the mysterious inner workings of human beings. On that mark, Donohue does an amazing job. He captures a world that may surprise people who know the martial arts only from the one dimensional, chop-socky Jackie Chan/Bruce Lee/Jet Li movies (which I enjoy too). As a black belt myself, I can attest that his insights and conflicts are authentic and well reasoned. Let's hope the series continues because it has the makings of a real classic.

</review>
<review>

John Donohue's Deshi is an excellent tale of clashing cultures, an exquisitely flavored and nuanced mystery featuring college professor/martial arts expert Connor Burke, a character whose background mirrors the author's own.

As in Donohue's first book, Sensei, Burke is asked by the New York City police to help them investigate a difficult case. This time it's the murder of a Japanese-American whose death seems to have something to do with a missing inka, a traditional Japanese scroll indicating accomplishment or enlightenment.

At the behest of his sensei (teacher), Burke also becomes involved with a lama who has fled oppression in his native Tibet but is still in danger. Is it possible that the two cases are related?

Although the publisher of Deshi (Japanese for student) bills the novel as a "martial arts thriller," it is much more than that. True, it has its share of action and suspense, but Donohue's story is also one of insight and reflection, written by an author who understands the dichotomy between East and West and uses that knowledge to flavor his already compelling prose

</review>
<review>

Edward Sakura sees the man in his shodo hut on his Brooklyn estate and knows the intruder is going to kill him.  Before he dies, he creates a message in calligraphy that reads "spring wind".  The police think it is a clue to his murderer and one of the lead detectives brings his brother, martial arts expert Connor Burke, is called into the investigation  since he is an expert in things Asian.  It is learned that Sakura has sent a calligraphic scroll to Professor Hoddington in Georgia for an evaluation.

The evidence shows the professor ends up murdered by the same person who killed Sakura.  The school journalist Kim who gave the scroll to Sakura is found tortured and dead.  The man Connor suspects killed the three men is also interested in Connor's Sensei's friend Tibetan monk Changpa Ripache.  The killer has ties to the People's Republic of China security forces but they don't know why China would be interested in one outspoken monk.  All these events seem to tie back to Kita Tekenobo, an expert in martial arts who wants the scroll destroyed.  At an isolated gathering, all the principal players come together but not all of them will leave alive.

DESHI is a fascinating thriller that gives readers an in-depth look at those who practice the martial arts and how mysticism plays a role in the making of a warrior.  The protagonist has been tutored by his sensei for many years yet still realizes he has a lot to learn especially how the interaction of eastern philosophy and mysticism creates warriors.  The plight of Tibet and the Chinese attempts to destroy Buddhism and the monks who practice it add depth to this creative work of suspense.

Harriet Klausner

</review>
<review>

This is not a connect the dots book. What this book teaches you is not step by step advice on how to go out and make your first million.

What this book teaches you something much more valuable, something that many entrepreneurs do not realize until they have many failures behind them and are already on their way to making their first million.

This book teaches you how to THINK like a successful entrepreneur ("How can you expect to be successful if your idea of what's happening in the world is vague or nonexistent", p.88).

There is advice that is taught using extremely useful stories such as "Make sure both sides come out winning", "Let your guard down, but only on purpose", "The art of public speaking", a self-depreciating funny chapter entitled, "The Art of the Hair", and a somber and intelligent section on how gossips turn into liars.

Anyone who wants to become a personal success first needs to develop the mindset of a successful businessperson. You simply need to learn how to think like a success. This book teaches you just how to get it into your head how to immediately think like a success.


</review>
<review>

This is a really good read, diffidently not a waste of time. I would recommed it to my family and friends. I would also like to recommed Scot Anderson's book "Think Like a Billionaire Become a Billionaire." it has truly changed my thinking and has taken off the limitations that we put on ourselves.

</review>
<review>

Jesus, what a narcassist, I mean is this guy for real.  Why do people buy into this idiot with the ridiculous comb over; the emperor has no clothes, people!  The only reason he has any money is because the banks could not afford to call in his notes, he had such staggering debt, he would have sunk the bank..id love to know what his net worth really is..but you have to give the guy credit he does know how to get press, and his spawn seen to be a chip off the old comb over, they are as arrogant and frankly unattractive as he is, though i must admit his new child is a really cute kid...maybe a paternity test is in order.  How to get rich...drive up ur debt to such a level, and owe so many creditors that they cannot afford to call in your debt..priceless

</review>
<review>

I have a terrible confession to make: I have read all of his books. Do I love trump? No, but it is fun to read about Trump. His buildings are beautiful and he is a fascinating person. Having said that his books have a high degree of self promotion, and if you read some of the other unauthorized books you begin to understand that he is a complicated person, much more so than revealed in these books that he writes.

Donald trump is one of the best know business people in the world. He is not the smartest nor the most, not by a long shot. He got his start in the family business with his father Fred. But unlike his more conservative father that built the business in Queens, the "Donald" embraced risks in Manhattan and later in Airlines and Casinos. Like many successful people he got a head start. I like to say he became a billionaire by starting with 250 million. That might be an exaggeration but he definitely took to business like a fish to water and has basked in all the publicity. He got a running start with his father Fred and the jury is still out on Trump. It is possible that he will still lose his casinos if he cannot make them more profitable. So stay tuned.

Now for the book. I think it is a good but not great book, and in some ways more honest and more human than some of his earlier books such as "The Art of the Deal" written before his first fall. In this book he thanks a lot of people and that is nice to see. He has a lot short one page business comments such as investments, attitude, etc all good general business comments. He then throws in a number of personal details and pictures with famous people, and page after page of name dropping of other famous folk, which are really all just self promotion material, but what the heck, it is entertaining.

Okay from this book you cannot make millions like Trump - unless your dad has a real estate business in New York. But it is fine and not too deep entertainment. It is a mindless and fun read, and will only take an hour to breeze through the 200 pages of large font and photos

</review>
<review>

There are plenty of books around on the technical aspects of
making money. This one deals with the behavioral ones. Donald Trump is correct in saying that you must have "right ideas" to make money. By that , he refers to practicality and the probability of implementation.

He criticizes equivocation because "analysis paralysis" tends to prevent us from taking definitive action in time to close the deal. Great deals can come and go very quickly.
For some people, they come and go while an endless process of
analysis paralysis takes place. The author advises managers to
keep the door open so that a free flow of ideas can come all the
time.

Ultimately, Donald Trump advises to go with your "gut"
feel on an important decision. This is so because our feelings
tend to reflect an overall holistic impression which is correct
more than we think. It's important to connect with people
by telling interesting anecdotes . On major deals, "do your homework".

The author asks that we attempt to craft "win-win" situations
in negotiations. Consider what the other side wants and advance
proposals based upon a concensus formulation. The book explains
the importance of having great assistants who can be counted on
to work hard. Despite the existence of a strong organization,
a manager needs to assume full responsibility and make timely
decisions- otherwise opportunities migrate elsewhere.

This volume will help you make money by structuring the decision
process in an action-oriented way. The methodologies will steer
you in the direction of thinking about opportunities and
acting upon the ones most promising. The bad managers suffer
from "analysis paralysis", "decision-making incapability"
and a whole host of adverse behavioral hangups which get in the
way of seizing upon good or great opportunities.

The author gives advice which is not written in books-per se.
These maxims are in the nature of business common sense and
judgment developed over the period of many years and complex
deal-making

</review>
<review>

When is everyone going to learn - there is no such thing as a how-to-get-rich book.  The title for the book is a joke itself.  Trump and his editors were probably laughing all the way to the bank when they thought of the title.  Seriously, if anybody knows the secret on how to get rich, why would he tell you?  This book is nothing more than a ploy to get some extra dough by capitalizing on the success of The Apprentice.  There is so much white space in the book because there is not much writing in terms of quantity or quality!  The advice is so mundane.  Half of the book is memoirs of a week as Trump - boooring.  And I don't want to read about the show in the last chapter.  I cannot believe this book was published.  The writing stinks and there is even some typos.  Trump may produce quality buildings, but that cannot be said of his books

</review>
<review>

I've been a small biz man for about 15 years.This book changed my direction.I have a deeper respect for The Donald than ever.Thanks D T

</review>
<review>

If you have 10 million dollars and you are losing 100 thousand dollars a day, then this book might be helpful. If you are not a millionaire, then this book is not for you. I can give you better advice on how to get rich than Trump. I understand he knows more than i do, however, he does not share a damn thing with you in his book

</review>
<review>

Well, like everyone else, I'm still wondering how to get rich.  It's implied that if you buy property, develop it into the nicest bling-bling places to live, and sell, you'll be rich.

Also, yell at your contractors a lot.  And hang around beautiful women.  And develop some golf courses while you're at it.

I thought it was an entertaining, quick read, but not too much in depth nitty gritty

</review>
<review>

I recently finished my undergrad in business management, and have decided to return to school to earn an MArch. degree.  This book has helped me in making this decision, as well as in knowing what to expect.  If it does make you change your mind, then architecture is most likely not the career for you.  If it's worth doing, it probably won't be easy.  That said, it is not always as time consuming as people tend to think.  My fiance is working on her bachelor's in architecture.  While she is often very busy, there are times that she has a lighter load than I did in business school.  It depends on the prof. and the project.

</review>
<review>

In this book Roger Lewis outlines the most important considerations in pursuing a career as an architect. I have always loved architecture, and have read extensively on the subject at the level of an interested amateur. When I was preparing for college in the 1980s, I wanted to pursue a five year professional architecture degree, but was dissuaded when I received a full scholarship in biology. That was an unfortunate decision in the long run, although I have been doing well professionally until recently, when my career field went into steep decline. I never forgot my interest in the subject, and while considering a mid-career occupation change, I have carefully considered returning to school and attempting to be admitted to a 3-4 year M.Arch. program.

I am very glad that I read this book (and several others) prior to embarking on a career in architecture. The book is very honest about the rigors of school and the relative lack of money to be obtained in the field, unless you are uncharacteristically brilliant in design (and in selling your services). People like Michael Graves are definitely the exception to the rule. I appreciated Lewis' candor, and honestly the book has made me reappraise my desire to pursue this particular career transition. He repeatedly emphasizes that you should become an architect because of a love of architecture. I also have to be practical in considering that between three or four very expensive years of school and at least three years as an underpaid intern, it is at least seven years to becoming a licensed architect for me, and at this stage of my career that is difficult. Not impossible, but very difficult.

I have not decided what professional avenues to pursue yet, but I will always appreciate the practical nature of this book in educating me about an architectural career. This is the most important book a prospective architect can read prior to committing to the arduous path leading to licensure.

</review>
<review>

I have now been in the work force for 6 years having mostly worked in, now defunct, internet shops. Now I have a sterile job as a financial analyst working for a HUGE company. After being afraid to pursue my dreams again (after an earlier attempt in my mid-20's withered away...), I am seriously looking to get my masters in architecture although I have a liberal arts degree. I first read Cesar Pelli's  and quot;Observations and quot; which inspired me. So I was afraid to get into this book knowing that many reviews here and in newsgroups claim it's harsh or may change your mind about architecture. Actually, it has strengthened my desire to pursue architecture. I won't be making as much money as I do now in my somewhat laid-back job, but there are other considerations far more important to me than working just for money. People who do not wish to be challenged to their fullest or work harder than they ever have worked before should not pursue such careers medicine, law, computer science, etc - architecture is no exception. I already knew architects are rarely rich, work very hard, go through a very tough education, and work in a very competitive environment. None of that came as a shock from reading this. Basically, I can conclude from this book that the field should only be pursued if one LOVES architecture despite all the difficulties. One can dislike medicine or law and not be as discouraged since the money can provide some comfort, but teh same is not true of architecture. Even if this book does talk many out of pursuing architecture, it's better that it tells it like it is. I'd rather know the good and the bad before making a decision. By the way, this book is not nearly as negative as some here have pointed out

</review>
<review>

I like how it gives good information and advice for someone like myself who was considering the profession.  It gave me an excellent idea of what to expect of the profession.  I just wish I had listened even more carefully to his advice when reading the book, especially the advice about taking some time off between highschool and going to school to be an architect.  One thing future architects need to realize is that if you are an architecture major, you will have no free time whatsoever outside of your classroom studio.  So if you have any wild and crazy side to you that just wants to party, I suggest getting that out of your system first and then go study architecture.  If there is any traveling you really want to do, do it first.  Cause architects work hard and on average dont even make that much money.  Anyhow this book contains other useful information for those who are certain they want to be architects as well.  It gives you an excellent idea of what to expect, the types of jobs you will be doing, the skills you will need, ect.

</review>
<review>

I am an architect and a former student of Roger K. Lewis.  This book was a suggested reading before my first year in studio.  After reading this book and then taking the classes, I can truly say that it tells the truth about the field.  If this book persuades you out of going into architecture, you would definitely not have been happy with it as a profession.  If you are seriously thinking about architecture as a career choice, then buy this book

</review>
<review>

Plot: interesting.
Suspence: present.
Entertainment: page-turner.
Hidden messages: not that much.
Book ranking for series: 8th
Mysteries: Quagmires

</review>
<review>

Once again the Baudelaire Orphans find themselves off to another place to live with another sinister guardian.  Mr. Poe drops the orphans off at a boarding school where all of the buildings resemble gravestones.  The rules at the school are horrible and the evil Vice Principal forces the students to live in an even more horrible shack with crabs that live on the floor and bite the orphans' toes.  However the orphans finally make some friends at the school and for a time it seems as though this school will be better than the other places they have lived.  However, Count Olaf, in disguise, gets hired as the school's new gym teacher.  Once again, Olaf finds a way to sneak past the people in charge and trap the Baudelaire's in another trap.

Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events continues to entertain with a writing style that educates along the way.  This series is extremely unique in it's language and makes it stand apart from other serial stories for children.  It's dark tone makes for a fun but creepy set of books that children of all ages will enjoy

</review>
<review>

Series of Unfortunate Events Book #5 The Austere Academy


The book "Series of Unfortunate Events Book #5 The Austere Academy" by Lemony Snicket was about 3 orphans Violet, Klaus, and Sunny. The orphans had just come from another vague ancestor and another encounter with the evil count Olaf trying to steal the enormous fortune their parents had left behind when they perished in a horrible fire. Mr. Poe the banker that manages the orphan's money until violet comes of age (18 years old); decided to send the orphans to a boarding school away from count Olaf. The orphans cannot stay in the dorm rooms at the boarding school because they need parent permission, so they live in an old rundown shack with crabs all over the floor. That afternoon at lunch they met another pair of orphans who were us like them and became friends. Later one night before dinner they received a note from count Olaf telling them to meet him on the front lawn. The gym teacher obviously disguised as count Olaf told them to run laps he made them run 9 straight nights until they were flunking their classes. They were going to be expelled if they didn't pass the test. That night the kids came up with a plan. The quagmires would run while the orphans studied for their tests. They got quizzed the next morning as Mr. Poe came to check up on them; they convinced Mr. Poe that the gym teacher was count Olaf he ran away taking the quagmires with him.
The book was very exiting to read, there was always action going on between Count Olaf and the orphans. That made the book very interesting and kept me reading. The book was very descriptive and made me feel like I was right in the middle of all the action. The conflict of the story is great. Not only is their one main conflict like escaping from count Olaf but there are also a lot of side conflicts. The characters were very well described it felt like I could almost picture them so perfectly I could touch them. The books' ending was a very good one but it was a bit sad when the quagmires got taken away. Overall I thought it was very descriptive and I liked it a lot!
The author's voice is different from most authors. When he says a big word he always gives an example to help you understand, he also writes a little bit scary but with lots of action. The author's vocabulary is very different than those of others. He uses descriptive and understandable vocabulary, and like I said he always defines the big words. Some unique characteristics of his writing are, he never ever uses any boring words or says any word too many times. He also uses a lot of dialogue and it does help the story a lot with the conversations between characters. His tone is always vivid; you can almost never tell his feelings as he writes but the characters feelings are well described.
I would rate this book very high especially about his descriptiveness, the story is very good and the mood is one you will enjoy. It can be read by kids or adults of any age and I am sure you will like it. I think this book is a book for any type of reader that enjoys a good book.
I really liked it! Of course I've said that a million times but I mean what I say and you will really enjoy this book. It has everything in it from humor to sadness from sports to music. This is the right book for you to read!

</review>
<review>

Dear Reader,

When we last left the poor Baudelaire triplets, they had once again escaped from the clutches of evil Count Olaf, though they had witnessed a gruesome accidental death at the Lucky Smells Lumber Mill.  Unable to find a relative to look after the children, Mr. Poe finds a boarding school that will take all three of the orphans in:  Prufrock Preparatory School.  The Baudelaire's are at first hopeful.  After all, they've never been to a boarding school before.  But their optimism soon disappears.

The school is run by Vice Principal Nero and he forces the children to sit through dreadful violin recitals.  The children are forced to live in a tiny shack filled with crabs and dripping fungus.  And to make things worse their new P.E. teacher is none other, than Count Olaf himself.  Oh dear!

Yet, there is some less-sad news, at the austere academy the Baudelaire's meet and befriend the two Quagmire triplets.  The two sets of children discover they have a lot in common (did you know that both their homes were destroyed by a fire and both sets of parents were killed in the fire that destroyed their homes). But what happens to the Quagmire triplets, oh it's too dreadful to reveal here.  If you want to find out more you'll have to read it yourself.

I think I'll go for a midnight jog.

Sincerely,
Uncle TV

</review>
<review>

Jesus Gomez
Ms. Salinas
Period 4
08-12-06


The Austere Academy



The main characters of this story are Violet, Klaus, Sunny, and Count Olaf. This book part of a series named "A Series of Unfortunate Events". The series is about three rich kids that are left orphans when their parents die in a fire. They are then put to the care of Count Olaf, but quickly left because Cout Olaf was only trying to get the Baudelaire fortune. They are put to the care of several other guardians, but Count Olaf shows up everywhere they go. Fortunately for the orphans they are very persistent and never give up on uncovering Count Olaf's plan. In this book of the series the three children are put in an academy instead pf getting a guardian. At the beginning of the story the children are left in the academy to stay in a very nasty room. The floors are covered with crabs. Then Count Olaf shows up disguised as a P.E. teacher. The children knew that the P.E. teacher was really Count Olaf, but no one believed them. Count Olaf's plan was to get the children as tired as he could so he could kidnap them easily. As a P.E. teacher he made the Baudelaire children run at night and didn't let them stop until the sunrise. Fortunately they had two friends that helped them out they were the Quagmires. The Quagmires disgused themelves as the three Baudelaires and ran at night while the three orphans got to rest.at the end of the book Count Olaf takes the Quagmires instead of the Baudelaires. This book changed the way I Think because it showed me to never give up and preserver even though things don't look very good. It also showed me the value of friendship because the Quagmires risked their lives to help out their friends. I liked this book because it kept me entertained and I didn't get bored when I read it.

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You think that the children will be better off now that they are in an orphanage. But beware... it only gets worse for the childen that you have learned to care about... thanks to Snicket's great story telling abilities.

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i love this one because they haev to go to school and count o. is the gym teacher adn makes them run for a VERY  lond time and is a great boo

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In "A Series of Unfortunate Events #5: The Austere Academy," the Baudelaires are sent to live with Vice Principle Nero at the Prufrock Preparatory School while Mr. Poe tries to find them a new guardian. Unfortunately, they get treated miserably by the female bully known only as...Carmelita Spats! The children, at least, make some new friends in their new temporary home. Their friends - Duncan Quaqmire and Isadora Quaqmire - are triplets who also lost their parents AND their third sibling (Quiqley Quaqmire) in a fire. Too bad the fate the Baudelaires and the Quaqmires must suffer at the end of the book when they meet the religious Coach Genghis, as well as their two awful and weird teachers - Mr. Remora and Mrs. Bass. The best in the series so far, and the one you really need to buy! But beware: you'll probably hate Vice Principle Nero as much (if not more) than Count Olaf..

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Imagine Michael Crichton crossed with Stephen King and you have some idea of what's in store with To Wake the Dead.  The novel is essentially split into two parts, the first dealing with the discovery of "the Talent"- the ability to resurrect dead animals/humans for a short time- and the second with business and government's attempts to capitalize on the Talent.  Dr. Woeste puts his expertise in molecular biology to good use here, creating a plausible scenario of research into the previously unthinkable and the Talent's reception by the scientific community.  I can't help thinking that if someone were to discover something like the Talent in real life, events might play out very much as they do in To Wake the Dead.

The second part of the novel jumps forward several years, and includes harrowing imaginings of how the Talent might be used for altruistic- and later, more sinister- purposes.  This is where Dr. Woeste tangles with ethical questions through the detached lens of his narrator.  Ed Harris (later his last name changes in a minor editorial slip) is a departure from standard science fiction heroes.  He's a creature of routine, rationally minded and a little bit misanthropic.  He does his job, worries about the state of the world, and keeps to himself.  Although Ed might not be to everyone's taste, I enjoyed reading the story through his eyes, because it allowed me to layer my own thoughts and feelings onto the situation- Ed became a camera recording events for me which I was then able to interpret as I saw fit.

In the end, I thought To Wake the Dead missed out a bit on some of its initial promise, leaving some of the juicy ethical questions hanging, but I still enjoyed where it led.  Steven Woeste has told an engaging and creepy story.  I can't help thinking that with some editorial assistance, it would have been even stronger- but I found it very enjoyable.  I know Dr. Woeste personally, and he is a fascinating person, with a bone-dry sense of humor and a taste for good horror.  I think he's a worthy new voice in the genre, and I hope he's picked up for wider distribution and gets the chance to further hone his storytelling talents.  Well done

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I just finished reading To Wake The Dead by Steven Woeste.  I found the story to be both enjoyable and compelling.  Dr. Woeste's research and science background give a deeper level of believability to the phenomenon of re-animation.  This page turner  was certainly a fun read with enough twists and turns to keep one thinking.  I will never look at road-kill the same

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Animal physiologist Ed HARRIS receives an email from a scientist friend Tom urging him to come over to his university. Over there Tom shows him what he brought back from his latest field trip - an undead dog! The two scientists examine the poor creature and try to find out where it came from and how it got back from the dead. This introduction with the scientist's lab experiments and their subsequent investigation is a bit CSI like (e.g. they detect a .22 calibre bullet in the undead dog's skull and back trace it to a gun buff club). It turns out eventually that there are people, who have some strange supernatural ability (the Talent) to resurrect the dead. When the scientists present their findings at a conference of the National Society for Research Scientists they are met with disbelief, outrage and hostility by the scientific community, prompting Tom to commit suicide.
Fastforward ten years in the future: Men and women from around the USA with the Talent (including Ed HARRIS) are concentrated in an Institute, where they are given assignments.Grudgingly accepted by the population, resurrection of the dead for the benefit of society (e.g. resurrecting a shot crime victim for gaining eyewitness testimony) is commonplace. However, there is something horrifying in store for Ed HARRIS...

TO WAKE THE DEAD is an unusual entry in the zombie genre. There is also a bit of political paranoia thriller thrown in for good measure. My favorite scene is when narrator Ed HARRIS (the book is written in the first person) has to confront a fellow Institute agent and his undead son in a cinema. Great!  Important: Do NOT expect a gore fest, or you will be disappointed! Also don't be put off by the fact that the novel is selfpublished (iuniverse). This is NOT the usual awfully written fanboy fiction that gives self-publishing a bad name. The style is very good and vivid. The author manages to keep you hooked throughout.
On the down side there are one or two spoofs (e.g. the new institute director enters a room although it was established earlier that he is already there), but it is nothing overly distracting.
Overall an entertaining read and a clear recommendation

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Steve Woeste's  To Wake the Dead will keep you wanting to know what comes next.  Actually just when you think you know what will come next, it doesn't, and a new spool unwinds.  It's quite imaginative and suspensfull.  Although I am not much into sci fi, this book is different - it will have a much wider audience.  It's well written and a quick read.  I highly recommend the book

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At the beginning of each chapter, I wanted to know what would happen in that chapter.

At the end of each chapter, I wanted to know what would happen in the next chapter.

I am certainly glad I read To Wake the Dead.

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Right from the beginning I found myself hooked on this story as I followed the main characters, Ed Harris and Tom Bullock, in their quest to make sense of their "discovery". My curiosity only grew as I turned each page and I soon raced to the end. The author keeps a fast pace with little clutter; giving just enough information to keep you asking questions. Definitely a good read

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I highly recommend this book. The author writes crisply and eloquently and tells a captivating story. As summer approaches, this is a very enjoyable read for the beach or any other vacation. The chapters move quickly and the action never gets bogged down. In other words, it's a real page turner

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Although this score does not include all the intermittent recitatives and orchestral arrangemtnts, it does offer a good piano transcription of the major songs with words.  For anyone wnating to use any of the songs of JCS, this publication is very good

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For the most part, I was pretty impressed with this. There are some problems, most mentioned already. My biggest issue with this is that it doesn't include "Damned For All Time/Blood Money", my favorite song on JCS.

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The songs included in this book are Heaven on Their Minds, Everything's Alright, Hosanna, Pilate's Dream, Last Supper, Gethsemane, King Herod's Song, and Superstar.  A few things should be noted:  Firstly, Heaven on their Minds does not include the  and quot;all gone sour and quot; last four verses that are used in live productions of jcs.  Instead the song is written to fade away.  That might present a problem to people performing or using that song for an audition.  The last supper only includes the chorus that the apostles sing.  Superstar is tuned to a C instead of the original E that is on all of the recordings and live productions.  Other than that, all the other keys are the same as you might hear them on cd recordings, 1973 movie, and live productions.  Chords are also included for guitar players

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I bought this book when it first came out and love all the nice vocal selections in them.  Now that it is the Lenten Season... Great time to go back and play and listen to them again on my old LPs! Have a nice day! BUY  THE BOOK

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This is my second and probably last Lehane book.  It's not bad.  I found it to be worth finishing, so that warrants a weak 4 star rating.  But, I read this book shortly after reading George Pelecanos' latest novel, The Night Gardener, and this one suffers pretty severely in comparison.  Lehane seems to me to lack confidence in his ability to deliver a realistic, believable and still interesting story.  He reaches too far to make his characters and scenes a little cooler, a little more powerful and ultimately a little less true to life.  That's what people want, I suppose, from action thriller books.  But, I'd rather read something I can really see as realistic for crime drama.  This book is not quite that

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What it must look like to be inside his brain!  Another good read, got a little confused on one part, but overall a great book. But don't forget to finish up with Prayers for Rain, it's greatness

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Investigating the kidnapping of four-year-old Amanda McCready, daughter of a neglectful single mother/druggie/barfly in Dorchester, Massachusetts, private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro get caught up in one of their most challenging cases.  The fourth in the Kenzie/Gennaro series by Lehane, this case is not "just" a kidnapping on their home turf.  The pair also investigates Cheese Olamon, a Scandinavian giant they knew when they were growing up--now a drug dealer with serious underworld connections, a convict and enforcer.  Amanda's mother has been involved with Olamon and may have lucked into a $200,000 payoff meant for him, within moments of Cheese's arrest and incarceration.  No one knows what happened to the money or whether it is related to the kidnapping of Amanda.

Investigators Kenzie and Gennaro, who live together, become emotionally involved in this wrenching case, tracking down clues that suggest that Amanda is dead.  They are also forced to deal with renegade members of the Boston Police, who do their own enforcing, which is faster and easier than dealing with the justice system.  Some of these renegades have their own secrets to hide, and Kenzie and Gennaro soon prove to be dangerous to them.  Meetings in the woods at night, shootouts, executions, crosses and double-crosses leave Kenzie and Gennaro no closer to finding Amanda, and time is running out.

Always adept at creating characters, Lehane creates new conflicts here between Kenzie and Gennaro as they deal with their discoveries and try to agree on their actions.  Do they follow the book, or do they do what is "just"?  Can they even agree on what justice is?  Throughout the novel, their past relationships with people from Dorchester whom they have known all their lives provide additional complications, at the same time that they create great reader identification as the two private investigators operate in their  home neighborhood.  As characters, one by one, meet their deaths, the tensions and sense of forboding rise, until Kenzie and Gennaro are close to the breaking point, both personally and as a couple.

Combining snappy and realistic dialogue with outstanding description, Lehane shows Kenzie and Gennaro dealing with people who live on the fringes, those who do whatever it takes to get by and never second guess their choices.  Often as violent as the criminals and police with whom they are engaged, Kenzie and Gennaro face crises here which test their relationship, endanger their lives, and force them to decide what is right--one of their best cases. n  Mary Whipple

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If you haven't read Lehane's illuminated manuscripts then stop what you're doing (afer you finish this).  Put your mouse down and click on BUY because you will not be sorry. Lehane is all I ever wanted in a writer (and boy, do I want A LOT!), so if you want everything and more in a mystery, then Lehane is The One.  Just be ready because he WILL blow your mind.  (Isn't that what his name means in French?!  A massive explosion high in the air...) How appropriate.   This guy is no faker.  Dennis is a gift from the gods.  Er.  Wait.  He IS A GOD!!!  He certainly is tuned into frequencies we mortals cannot see.

Thank GOD for Dennis Lehane!

One caveat with this book.  DL writes tough, provocative fiction that makes me dizzy with questions sometimes because the stories are so thought provoking (especially the short stories).   Even thought this specific book is a series detective novel, it is definitely NOT for the timid.  If you're an average romance reader, you should look elsewhere because Gone, Baby, Gone deals realistically with some seriously offensive subject matter: the abduction of children.  The way Lehane breathes life into his stories, lifts the characters up off the page for the reader and creates a complete atmosphere in a book, it's easy to believe this stuff as real and it is pretty awful.  So be forewarned about the bad stuff.

My husband says this book "still haunts" him, but he also says Lehane is probably the best crime fiction writer working today.  On this, DH and I wholeheartedly agree

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To say this novel was a mystery does it an injustice, it was so much more.  A fully realized literary treat for avid readers of Lehane's Angie/Patrick series, or for just a casual reader in general.  You do not have to have experience with the other novels in the series to appreciate this one, though it does help immensely if you have knowledge of the respective pasts of Angie and Patrick in establishing their character for this novel.  Lehane tackles a tough, disturbing subject in a manner that makes you think.  There are no easy answers here and for readers wanting a neat, tidy ending, you will not get one in this novel. In that way it is true to life often.  If he had ended the series here, it would have been alright because nothing will ever top this novel.  I read somewhere they were trying to make a movie of it, and I will see it, but the emotional intensity of the novel will be tough to match when condensed to two hours.  To sum up my feelings about this novel, I will say this, Michael Koryta (young mystery author of some acclaim) credits this novel for turning him into a writer and making him want to write.  For those of us without the talent, this novel makes us wish for more, that we could somehow have penned Lehane's words as they are heartbreakingly true and real

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Four year old Amanda McCready disappeared from her bedroom one night while her mother was next door visiting a neighbor. At least that's what her distracted, chain-smoking mother, Helene, says. When Amanda's Aunt and Uncle want a little bit more attention paid to Amanda's disappearance than Helene does, detectives Gennaro and Kenzie agree to take the case. When they start digging around for clues, they find themselves surrounded by disreputable characters, drugs, money, filth and dead decaying bodies.

This book is not for the faint hearted.

I read Mystic River a few years ago (before they made the movie) and loved it. Lehane's writing style is uniquely suited to depict the gritty reality that made Mystic River memorable. I picked this one up in my local bookstore (it came highly recommended by the store's owner) and took it on vacation with me. I found that Lehane's style is evident in this book, too, but not quite as fully developed. Perhaps I've read a few too many books in this genre lately and need a change, but about three quarters of the way through, I just wanted it to be over. I peeked at the end of the book and was fully satisfied with the conclusion. That was good enough for me. I will watch for Lehane's novels in the future-when I'm once again ready for gritty, hard-edged, well-written stories

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Left alone in a squalid Boston apartment by her neglectful mother, four year old Amanda MacCready is kidnapped, creating an instant media sensation. Impatient with the police, Amanda's aunt and uncle plead with ex-cops Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro to join the investigation. Acting against their instincts, the lovers reluctantly accept the case. The search for Amanda takes a heavy toll on all involved, especially the private detectives -- they uncover a dark conspiracy that drains them physically, mentally and emotionally, causing them to question their beliefs and ideals. Normally sharing the same world view, the duo find themselves in opposition when confronted with a morally ambiguous situation at the end of the novel. The decisions they make at that crucial moment have a profound impact on their self images and on their future together.

Besides its gripping subject matter, the most intriguing thing about this book is its twisting, labyrinthine plot -- Kenzie and Gennaro face steep odds in their quest to uncover the truth behind Amanda's disappearance. Lehane is in absolute control of this material, pointedly commenting on many of society's ills along the way. A memorable addition to the Kenzie/Gennaro canon, the events of GONE BABY GONE will linger in your memory long after you finish.


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Dennis Lehane and Clint Eastwood have something in common.  They are the masters of stories that grip you and keep you turning the pages, but finally depress you about the state of the world and its unanswerable dilemmas.

Gone, Baby, Gone fits right into this category.  The book has a deep and twisting plot that keeps you guessing to the very end.  Lehane is great a depressing you and then relieving the pressure in smooth alternation.

The characters are well drawn and interesting.  The righting is tight and smooth, and the plotting is excellent.

This book is NOT for the faint-of-heart (or stomach) or young.  I would not recommend it to a young teenager and certainly not to a pre-teen

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Lehane writes best when writing about the escapades of the kenzie/gennaro team, and this book is at the top of the five he has written about them so far. the action is relentless, the suspense is biting, and the humor is suffocating. a must-have

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I was impressed by this book.  I struggle with casseroles, but long workdays necessitate the need for me to master them.  If you are familiar with Cook's Illustrated, there's nothing new here in terms of format.  I do applaud them for approaching casseroles in a new way by including one-pot meals, slow-cooker meals, skillet versions and more exotic casseroles.

I have read other reviewer's complaints about the lack of healthy recipes and vegetarian recipes.  This book is light on both, as are most CI books unless it's a book dedicated to the subject.  Besides, most casseroles contain cheese and condensed soup.  CI's main goal was not to make the traditional healthier, but to update and freshen the flavors.  Unfortunately, fresher flavors mean more prep time.  This is why casseroles were lauded in the 50s -- processed foods cut the need for prep.  To help with timiming, CI has noted which steps can be done ahead and which casseroles can be frozen in advance.

I honestly enjoy this book and will probably use it more than my other CI volumes.  It will especially get use during the winter.  There is a large number of recipes and as usual, a wealth of background information to tell you why a recipe works.  If you're looking for traditional dump and bake casseroles, this isn't the book for you

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I love that the authors did multiple tests on every recipe to come up with the best final version AND told us why, what went wrong and the reason for each process.
You don't have to read everything when you're in a hurry to get the recipe done and on the table but if you read cookbooks for pleasure as I do you'll get a lot out of this one.
As usual I checked it out of the library with many others on the same subject and this is the one I bought after reading them all. It passed the test of being a useful addition to my cookbook library. Since I have limited space and money that is a high bar to pass

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Many of the recipes use an abundance of heavy cream, half and half, whole milk or butter. I'm sure these dishes taste good, but people I cook for don't need to eat such rich food.

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I am a cookbook lover.  I love to read cookbooks, and this book is great for that.  It is filled with tips from Cook's test kitchen about the best way to do things.  But I also like to cook and to be able to make things that my husband and children will eat.  This book has given me enjoyment on both of these levels.  I have made many of the recipes and have not been disappointed and plan to make many more.  The mac-n-cheese recipe is excellent, the lasagna great, and I recently served the potato, bacon and egg casserole to rave results.  In fact, my mouth is watering just thinking of how that smelled while it was cooking.

This book is especially helpful, because it features one dish meals, but not casseroles that you throw together with a can of cream soup and bake for an hour.  This is good tasting food!  Each recipe features tips on when/if it can be frozen, or steps that can be done ahead.

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I own four other cookbooks from the editors of Cook's Illustrated, and I subscribe to their two magazines.  Their recipes are consistently delicious, easy to follow, and compliment-garnering.  This "Cover  and  Bake" cookbook is no exception.  I have made five dishes so far, and each one has been a 'Wow!' The flavors are absolutely fantastic.  The preparation is smooth, uncomplicated, and quick.  These are recipes I will make again not only for my husband and myself, but for company, as well.  Yes, they are THAT GOOD (truly, the Smothered Pork Chops alone will make you swoon).  I appreciate the equipment and food brand recommendations throughout the book, as well as the clear explanations on food preparation technique.  This is a cookbook to get excited about

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I have many cookbooks, especially American Homecooking types. One-dish meals are my favorites and this book answers my requirements for a home cooking cookbook! I have been a subscriber to Cook's Illustrated for several years now, and have four of the "Best Recipe Series" books. Cover  and  Bake is true to form and is another outstanding, very useful, well illustrated and written cookbook! I will make it a Christmas and Wedding present book, as it has appeal to all cooks. My "Thanks and Hats Off to Cook's Illustrated

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I have been looking for the cooking book that I can really trust for the taste.  I used to love cooking with challengeful recipes, but with my baby, I just don't have enough time for the long complicated recipes anymore.  When I saw this book first I just wanted to try the skillet recipes.  It just looked very simple and quick.  I really just followed the instruction step by step and both my husband and I agreed it was super delisious.  Not only that! They are easy to follow (very detailed instructions) and most of all, very quick to get done by dinner time even though I'm always busy with my baby!!  Thanks heavens :

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I love to cook.  I love to eat good food.  But, I have a job, a preschooler, an old house, elderly relatives that need my help...the list goes on.  Life is too busy for all of us and we are all guilty of making poor food choices because of our lack of time.

I'm not going to repeat the praise offered by other reviewers; I concur with all of it.  The reason why people should buy this book (or give as a gift) is because each and every recipe has detailed instructions for making these dishes ahead of time and refrigerating or freezing them.  Most of the dishes can be frozen for at least one month, many for two or even three months.  And, best of all, they taste great no matter when they eat them.

This cookbook has made my busy life simpler.  I love to share good food with my friends and family, and Cover  and  Bake makes that easy to do.  I have relied on recipes from Cook's Illustrated for years and now, when I'm at a time in my life where time is scarce, I can continue to produce great food in a short period of time.

Just a sampling of how I've been able to utilize this book:
1. Spend one day every month preparing 4-5 casseroles that go straight into the freezer.
2. Make one "fresh" casserole each week that is eaten right away.
3. Prepare the food for a party 2-3 days in advance so my final hours before the party are focused on cleaning up after my preschooler!
4. Share one casserole each week with elderly relatives; I can even make up individual sized portions easily.
5. Made a few casseroles for a friend's freezer while she was recuperating in the hospital.
6. Shared a few casseroles with a friend who was at home with her new baby.

This is a great cookbook to have, and great cookbook to give away.  I am excited by it

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First, it is not true that "none of these recipes seem to be original." I too find it very irritating that Cook's repeats so many recipes from publication to publication, but that is not a significant problem with this volume. Some things that may appear to be repeats actually turn out to be reworkings--ie, Chicken Vesuvio has been reworked into a "weeknight" casserole (a slightly optimistic description), and the gumbo here has chicken rather than shrimp (a change from their previous recipe). I usually get the new books from the library and copy out the new recipes that interest me, but this one would be worth buying.

What actually irritates me more than repeating recipes is when Cook's does a complete turn-around without explanation. For instance, the Best Recipe macaroni and cheese recipe uses evaporated milk, but here they say they tried evaporated milk and immediately dismissed it as horrible.

Nevertheless... these are delicious and practical recipes for families (well, apart from their penchant for putting wine in everything), all reasonably easy to prepare. Too often CI recipes are for things I'm just never going to make on any kind of regular basis. Not so here. I have made several things and enjoyed them all. I can definitely recommend this one

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If you ever have a chance for a collector to show his collection, you run the risk of being terribly bored.  Unless you yourself collect stamps, coins, thimbles, Hummel figurines, or Corvettes, you are unlikely to sympathize with the delight the collector takes in his hoard.  Ricky Jay is a fascinating man; he is a master magician, a historian of show business (especially of novelty acts), and an actor in David Mamet's movies.  He collects something few others do: showbills for the jugglers, magicians, animal acts, ventriloquists, and other eccentric and novelty performances through almost four centuries.   Don't worry, it is far from boring.  Around eighty of his specimens are on display in a large format book, _Extraordinary Exhibitions: The Wonderful Remains of an Enormous Head, the Whimsiphusicon  and  Death to the Savage Unitarians_ (Quantuck Lane Press).  The broadsides are funny and beautiful, and Jay's learned and enthusiastic commentary about each one is on the page facing each specimen.  It is all thoroughly entertaining, and like any show advertising, the posters make you wonder if the acts are really as described.  There is so much verbal and graphic hyperbole on display here that a bit of incredulity is only sensible, but still: who, if confronted by an announcement for Signor Cappelli and his Learned Cats, with assurances that after he introduces his cats to the audience, they will "beat a drum, turn a spit, grind knives, strike upon an anvil, roast coffee, ring bells, set a piece of Machinery in motion to grind rice in the Italian manner with many other astonishing exercises", who, I say, would let incredulity overcome a wish to get a peek at the show?

Let me just take the three displays mentioned in the subtitle.  "Wonderful Remains of an Enormous Head" were on display in London around 1840, and it was, if the description is to be believed, truly enormous, eighteen by seven feet, and weighing 1,700 pounds.  What the head was, we do not know; one observer said it was likely that of a whale, and another said it was an obviously gigantic bird, fish, or lizard.  The Whimsiphusicon had one of those fanciful names showmen of the 19th century enjoyed.  It is advertised on a playbill for the ventriloquist Christopher Lee Sugg in 1816.  Jay says, "Sugg, like a number of early magicians, was a proponent of theatrical neologism used to entice, or more likely confuse, the public."  Indeed, Sugg explained on the playbill that the device was also dubbed "The Wandering Melodistical" and was a "Pill to Banish Melancholy," but it is safe to say he didn't give any secrets away until the performance.  "Death to the Savage Unitarians" is on an Argentinean bill from 1842, and does not refer to the members of the religious sect, but to the country's Unitarian political group who favored a liberal rule of law and a strong central Argentinean government.  They opposed the dictator Juan Manuel Rosas, and probably the phrase was included by the publicist who had drawn up the bill to ensure it would not offend the dictator.  It caps an ad for "Robert and His Wife" who did magic and juggling, including "the new trick of the ceramic plates that will very much please the spectators" and "the lovely balancing act of the two dogs dressed as a Marquesa and a Marquis."

There are scores of other playbills for acts in this beautifully produced book that shows some astonishing curiosities, well annotated by the erudite collector himself.  It is full of jolly whimsy, for every act depicted is shown at its best, even though it might be promising more than it could actually produce.  There is a taint of regret, here, though, on every page.  As the playbills frequently remind us, the like of these productions will never be seen again.  Oh, how I would love to see Daniel Wildman, for instance, the first and foremost equestrian apiarist of two hundred years ago, who rode his horse standing up while five swarms of bees covered his face, swarms which would thereupon alight on specific locations the performer designated by his command.

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This is a wonderful book by a truly genius author.  Also, make sure you put Ricky Jay's other books on your list.  He has a great mind and his books are phenomenal!
Harry Monti
Society of American Magicians
National President 1999-200

</review>
<review>

Ricky Jay is a national treasure.  He's the head curator of a continuing collection of the curious, marginal, sometimes macabre but always compelling congregation of entertainers who have slipped through the trapdoor of time's stage.  His newest masterpiece, Extraordinary Exhibitions, is a catalogue of broadsides heralding some of the strangest performers that ever graced an auditorium or a sidewalk.  You'll meet Pietro Stadelmann, a seventeenth century armless dulcimer player.  As well as the nameless 27 year-old Angolan "Famous African Hermaphrodite".  And a South American trio whose huge excrescences extruding from their chins gave them their stage moniker "The Monstrous Craws".  You can sit at the feet of Joice Heth, the 161 year-old former nursemaid of Little Georgie Washington, the marvelous showman P. T. Barnum's first client.  There's singing mice, educated fleas and a Rabbi whose demonstrations of his prodigious memory were endorsed by the Pope himself.  To paraphrase the immortal Charles Fort, you'll see a procession of the damned of showbiz.  And thanks to the wonderful Mr. Jay, they'll walk (and bark, tumble, juggle, catch bullets, arm wrestle, rope dance and eat stones) again.

</review>
<review>

I first read this book in 1993. (I was out jogging one day and overheard two people discussing how it had changed their lives.I immediately bought it.) I especially like how it helps you to develop a healthy disregard for unsecured debt. Too often, we buy things on credit because we believe that we can't wait until we have the money. This book will help you to develop the proper mindset toward debt. With that essential foundation, you then address the problem of your specific debt. I especially appreciated his frequent reminder that you're not a bad person just because you owe money. I've recommended the book many times through the years

</review>
<review>

I bought this book at least 10 years ago, when I was a single mom and deeply in debt. It completely changed the way I thought about debt and financial freedom. I titled it my Debt Bible because 10 years later, I still refer to it when I need a reminder or some inspiration. It's not about deprivation, it's about living a good life without having to go into debt. This book is awesome. I've recommended it to all my friends.

</review>
<review>

thank you for a great book

</review>
<review>

This book saved my life. Here is the thank you e-mail I sent to the author:

Dear Mr. Mundis,

I am writing to thank you for essentially saving my life. For the last 10 years, since I was 21, I have been drowning in debt -- student loans, credit cards -- and filled with anixety and depression. Every time I dug myself out, I did it by throwing every single penny I had into my debt, then needed to borrow again right away to pay for expenses that arose.  Even though I make a decent salary, I haven't had money to buy simple things like clothes because I am putting all my money toward debts. I have put off graduate school and other things I really want to do in my life for years while I try to deal with this. I am guessing I am not that unusual, but I never really talked to anyone about it until a few weeks ago.

Someone I respect a great deal recommended "How to Get Out of Debt, Stay Out of Debt, and Live Prosperously," and I finished it in a single sitting. I was completely stunned when you said that I came first and my creditors came second -- those words really changed my life. I put needed expenses and expenses that make my life fulfilling back into my spending plan and started from there, as you recommended. And I decided to work with a reputable credit counselor to help negotiate my horrific credit card interest rates down from 31% and 29% to 8% and 9%.

I now actually have a completely reasonable plan to pay off all of my debt in 4.5 years -- and that assumes no increase in my income over that time, and I expect it to increase. I can also afford to take the prerequisites I need for graduate school and put $50 a month toward clothes. I can even put a tiny amount into savings for a contingency fund in case emergency expenses arise. I am again completely stunned.

Your book is so straightforward and blunt while at the same time completely compassionate. I was expecting scolding and shaming, which is basically what I've been doing to myself. Your advice was completely doable, and I really believe I am on my way to being debt-free.

Thank you, thank you, thank you

</review>
<review>

First off, If you make minimum wage or live paycheck to paycheck, this book may NOT change your immediate situation.  IF every cent you have is going to necessities (food, clothing, utilities, rent/mortgage), you may not have a penny left over. You may even be living with the help of credit cards and getting deeper in debt.

So you have to start with two basic principles and THEN you may be able to use the very valuable info in this book.

Those principles are:

1. If you don't make enough money to pay your bills (for necessities, not just wants or "luxury items"), then you simply HAVE to find a way to increase your income - whether it is by seling your house, downsizing, taking a second job, taking extra courses to move up at work...whatever. In short, you have to either invest in yourself (become more skilled and desirable as an employee) or you have to cut expenses and put all the extra towards getting (and staying out of debt.

DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK UNTIL YOU MEET THE CRITERIA for Principle one #1 (above).

2. Next principle - reduce spending, eliminate debt, be pro-active and aware as a consumer about how to save and spend your resources wisely. Know where your money is going and don't underestimate the power of saving even a dollar a day ($365.00 a year..so you can imagine what saving $5-10 dollars a day does - you do the math).
Put aside enough for retirement. Have an emergency fund (or a source of emergency funds that won't put you deeply in debt). When it comes to principle 2, this book could be a major asset. I would NOT advise throwing your bills in a box for a month and giving yourself a "break" from the worry. That might not be so good for your credit rating or Fico score and could backfire with even HIGHER interest rates on debt you are trying to eliminate. Lower interest = quicker repayment, slower buildup of debt - if you play our cards right.
I do think becoming aware of what you spend money on - and whether it is necessary - is very worthwhile advice. Also, balance immediate goals with longterm ones. Eventually, the odds are high you'll retire and you might want a nicer lifestyle...or at least enough to eat, sleep in a safe place and pay for the basics.
Keep track of your progress from month to month, year to year. Have you reduced your "average" grocery bill? Seeing it in black and white might help. Cut clothing costs? Again, helpful to see. And, of course, everyone gets a thrill to see their debt evaporating.
Whatever your goals, this book has valuable advice. Just don't buy it until you have a bit of "give" in your budget. If you don't, then don't fool yourself and work on increasing your income so that you have enough money to cut debt. No book is a miracle worker.

Still, this one has valuable info. But people in the lower middle class or those who are struggling to get by with no backup money to cover an emergency are fooling themselves to think this book can immediately change their situation. It can't.

It CAN, however, get you the info you need to get on the right path. It might take hard work to get there...but get there you can...one step at a time.

</review>
<review>

And make no mistake, you can make zilch or millions each year, and still get finances and everything related to them hopelessly, destructively wrong. All it takes to accomplish that is ignorance, a self destruct wish, or even just simple mismanagement of everyday debt. Aside from the ilk of Bill Gates, almost nobody in America is financially independent and self sufficient. We live trapped in a "Gotta Have it NOW" mentality and credit is our crack pipe.

If you feel like you aren't yet prosperous enough to need this book, then try reading his Making Peace with Money or visiting a Debtor's Anonymous meeting and get in touch with the fundamentals of finances. People living paycheck to paycheck should NOT ever pass up learning all they can. The next step down after living paycheck to paycheck is homelessness - especially since Bankruptcy laws now favor the credit card corporations instead of the consumer.

</review>
<review>

This book is awsome. And it make so much sence. I have read it 3 times and highlighted parts. The best debt reduction book around. Worth every penny when you can see that there are ways to get out of debt. No more worrie

</review>
<review>

I think this book is just great.  It really helps you think about the performance of your direct reports and to articulate it clearly.  I appreciate the way the book is laid out too - very helpful "goals" section helps you give constructive feedback to your employees.  This book literally sits open on my desk as I write each review

</review>
<review>

As soon as my book arrived, I started flipping through the pages reading a few of the phrases on each when I realized this book is exactly what I need.  I've been putting off my own performance review for several months now (yeah, I work for a manager - the CEO - who is very bad at completing performance reviews).  As if writing an effective performance review isn't a daunting enough task, for me at least, it's ten times more difficult when it's my own performance I have to rate.  I'm my own worst critic and this book is going to help me be more objective. Every page contains relevant phrases that I know I'll use over and over again.  This will become an integral part of my HR Toolset!  P.S. - I stayed up past midnight  and  completed my performance review.  It was a breeze!

</review>
<review>

Bart Ehrman's The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot is a one-stop survey of every facet of the headline-making find: It's discovery, authentication, content, and significance. I wondered a little whether Ehrman would be able to keep it interesting: once you get past the initial glitter, there's a fact which Ehrman has commented on in his other works, that ancient gnosticism was pretty weird and hard for the average person to maintain a deep interest in. However, Ehrman handles it all as skillfully as I've come to expect from his previous works, such as Misquoting Jesus and Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millenium.

One thing I didn't expect was seeing Ehrman's skill at narrative. The opening chapter gives a first-person account of Ehrman's intial encounter with the Gospel of Judas when he was called in to help authenticate it. It reads like The Da Vinci Code. Particularly memorable was a passage where one of the experts was asked who could have forged a document like the one thay had. Response: four, "And two of them are in this room." If I were Ehrman's editor, after reading this, I would be pressuring him to try his hand at writing a historical novel on the early years of Christianity.

After explaining how it eventually was authenticated, Ehrman goes into a discussion of how Judas is portrayed in various documents through the middle ages, showing that a Gospel of Judas would be necessarily unique by putting Judas in a positive light. Then come an explanation of how known literature had hinted at the book's existence, and after that is a summary of how the book came, from the sands of Egypt, through the hands of scheming antiques dealers who caused heavy damage to the manuscript, up to its final destination in a place where it could be sudied by scholars. Following this is a discussion of the gospels context that places it in the context of the countless strange varieties of Christianity that existed in the ancient world--these varities of Christianity being one of Ehrman's specialties.

Perhaps the best part of the book, however, are the final three chapters (before the conclusion). These deal with the question that is the real source of interest in the Gospel of Judas: who was Judas, and why did he betray Jesus? This involves a delve into the apocalyptic nature of Jesus' ministry, a conclusion defended in part by the observation that it is necessary to make sense of Jesus' death. It also includes a skillful reading between the lines regarding how Judas betrayed Jesus, though I won't spoil that bit here.

Once again, Bart Ehrman has shown himself to be a first-rate popularizer of Biblical scholarship. If there's anything to complain about, is that some things were not covered in as much depth as they could have been, in part a result of the wide range of topics covered in the book. It's hard to argue for cutting anything, though, and other resources are available for those who want to read about this issues in greater depth. It's a good buy for anyone interested in Biblical scholarship

</review>
<review>

This is a good read for anyone interested in church planting strategy.  Obviously this includes church planters themselves, but it may also include sending Christians who want to learn more about mission strategy.  Unfortunately, there are missionaries that do not allow future potential leaders to develop into leaders.  This book stresses the importance of developing Christians that will be able to lead.  Missionaries need to train and develop Christians in a way that allows them to be trusted with ministry.

This book does an excellent job of showing a very obvious fact about missions- planning is good.  We obviously need to be dependent upon God for everything in our lives- but this doesn't mean that we wander aimlessly in our mission work with no planning or strategy (based on a Biblical worldview of course).  Another excellent point that is continually covered in the book is the danger of paternalism.  Never will believers or churches mature if they are never trusted to live their own Christian lives and minister on their own.  A good church planter will recognize and apply this.

This is an excellent book and I don't want the following two criticisms to override the review of this book.  But here are two areas that I found negative about the book.  FIRST, a term that the author employs frequently in his book is `phase-out.'  The relay-race is used in the book (and the title) to illustrate `phase-out.'  While I personally believe that it is an important goal to develop leaders that can lead churches, I also believe that this emphasis can be detrimental if taken too far.  In our efforts to `phase out' of a location, missionaries can actually communicate to the target people that they do not belong to the universal body of Christ.  We work so hard at making them a `three selfs, phased-out church' that we forget that they are brothers and sisters in Christ.  Love and Scripture-based living need to take precedence over planting a `textbook' church.  SECOND, there is a lack of Scripture in this book.  There is a small section in the second chapter entitled `The New Testament Perspective,' but it hardly comes to any convincing conclusions.  I would have appreciated more of the author's strategies and ideas based on Scripture

</review>
<review>

This book was very helpful but still going to have to bring this crazy dog to classes.

</review>
<review>

I bought this book since it had such a low price and the reviews were good, even though there were only a few reviews on it. I found it very informative and it makes a lot of sense. I do not have my puppy yet to see if the suggestions work, but I will definately be following it once I do get the puppy. It is pretty basic though, telling you how to teach sit, stay, come, and heel, plus has chapters dedicated to dog problems such as barking, jumping, and so forth. It focuses mainly on clicker training, and also goes over crate training for housebreaking. I would have preferred more pictures to illustrate the different things talked about, and maybe a couple of sample forms to give you examples of the logs to keep for training and all, but those are not all that necessary

</review>
<review>

I highly recommend Gerilyn J. Bielakiewicz's "The Only Dog Training Book You Will Ever Need" which gives you the A-Z of raising those cute but oftentimes unruly pups. The book is written for novices in mind and had been a major life-saver when I was at a complete loss as to what to do when I adopted a 3-month old Pembroke Welsh Corgi (a notoriously difficult breed to raise) a couple of months ago. The book delves into the highly effective method of clicker training for dogs at length, resulting in my teaching my pup over 10 commands in just days (!). Betsy Brevitz's "Hound Health Handbook" is also another excellent reference book which offers credible advise from a writer-turned-vet behind the award-winning website, .... These books are must-read for owners who are experiencing problems in obedience training and/or understanding their dogs. Prospective owners who are contemplating what breed to buy and the pros and cons of adopting a dog to complete their lives and homes will also find them useful. "Puppies for Dummies" is another book written with the novice in mind: it offers practical clues like playing classical CDs on repeater mode while owners have to leave their dogs alone; to not make a song and dance when owners have to depart for work or retire to bed(no-no to "grandiose departures/returns gestures"); to what to look out in dog food labelling et al. 5 Stars for their comprehensive contents, readability and effectiveness!

</review>
<review>

This is a great book and is good to accompany other training books such as "Good Owners, Great Pets

</review>
<review>

This book starts in chapter 1 going over man's condition, how that man has gotten away from God, and needs to come back to Him.  Chapter 1 also tells how depraved man is and has a need for the Savior.  Chapter 2 continues in  the same vain as Chapter 1.  Chapter 3, 4, 5, show man is a sinner, there  are none that seek after God, but God seeks them.  Chapter 5 mentions that  Adam fell in the garden of Eden, but that Jesus as the new Adam did not  fall and that Jesus has paid our sin debt.  Chapter 6 tells how that those  who have accepted Christ are no longer are the Law of Moses but are free  from the penatly of sin.  Chapter 7 teaches about man's desire to do things  that are sinful, and that it is easy to do things that are sinful, but hard  to do things that are right.  Chapter 8 mentions that those who are in the  Spirit with Jesus and are joint heirs with Him. Chapter 9 tells about  Abraham and Elijah, as well as the fact that Sarah would have a child is  told about.  Chapter 10 tells about man's need for Christ and how that man  can accept Christ.  Chapter 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16 cover the Old  Testament people, the fact that Christians should offer up themselves as a  living sacrifice to Christ.  The obeying of laws of the land, and to higher  powers.  That after accepting Jesus, He will be our comforter, our help in  time of trouble. Chapter 15 talks about Paul's ministry, and Chapter 16 is  a personal greeting to those he knows who have accepted Jesus Christ as  their Savior

</review>
<review>

Just read Jane Adams' review on "LA Dead" by Stuart Woods.

I'm not accusing Jane of plagiarism, but her "Arrington Barrington" playful dig at the author comes directly out of Mr. Woods' 2nd Stone Barrington novel "Dirt" (Pages 96  and  97), when Stone meets Arrington for the first time.

Quote "This is Arrington Carter" the actor said after shaking Stone's hand, "Arrington, this is Stone Barrington".
"Mr. Barrington" the young woman said with a pleasing southern accent, you and I must never, ever marry" Stone and Calder both erupted with laughter, while she regarded them coolly, "Gentlemen, you make my point for me". End quote.

As for the book, it was a standard Stone Barrington, if you like that sort of thing, which I happen to do.  I am working my way thru the Stone Barrington series and really haven't been disappointed yet.  I especially like the way the author use characters from other books as minor characters in his other books.  I think I'm going to expand my serial reading to all Stuart Woods books so I won't miss how any of his character's develop along the way.

</review>
<review>

I am surprised at the low star rating on this book as it was truly a good read.  However, having said that, I'm still in a quandary about who did it!  Who killed Vance Calder?  I used to think Arrington wasn't too bad, but in this book I really lost respect for her.  She's a weak whiner and doesn't have much understanding for others or a backbone to stand up for herself.  Stone, of course, continues to be a whore and sleep with every beautiful dame that comes along.  I really hope he's finished with Arrington, but I have my doubts.  Is Arrington's son Vance Calder's or Stone Barrington's child?  We still don't know, but we have our suspicions because Calder had enough money to get the original DNA tests skewed.  I simply love Dino and Stone sure should have listened to his partner about getting involved with Dolce.  What a frightening mess that woman is!  Truly, it's a fun ride in the life of Stone Barrington...especially if you want to listen to the book on tape

</review>
<review>

Whodunit?  We're all left not quite sure at the end . . . but we have a great deal of fun getting there.

Stone, determined to complicate his life as much as possible (and forget the love of his life, Arrington, who is married to the movie star Vance Calder) has traveled to Venice, Italy to marry Dolce, Eduardo Bianci's daughter (and his best friend Dino's sister-in-law).  He is informed that for the marriage to be properly realized in Italy, there must be both a civil and religious ceremony - however, only the civil ceremony has been performed before he receives a frantic call from California.  Vance Calder has been murdered and Arrington is asking for him.

He arrives to find that she appears to have a form of amnesia that had originally wiped out all memory since their ill-fated planned trip to St. Mark's a couple years earlier; finally she remembered enough to get her up to the day before Vance's murder, but she never could, she says, remember the murder itself.  Stone finds himself locked in a battle against forces that seem to have the evidence stacked against Arrington as the killer while ignoring any evidence that seems to point away.

To complicate matters, he realizes that he still loves Arrington and decides to call things off with Dolce, which doesn't sit well with her, and she begins to stalk him and cause lots of trouble for him.

Woods' descriptions of Hollywood are amusing and his descriptions of the lifestyles of the rich and famous are fun for us looking from the outside in.  Although the story doesn't wrap up with a nice neat bow (like many of the Barrington novels, we're left with a bit of a question mark at the end), it is nonetheless a satisfying story with a lot of great twists, turns and suspense.  I read it in an afternoon.  Definitely a recommend from me

</review>
<review>

wow, this book was fantastic...from the very beginning I couldn't stop turning the pages...i'm not sure why this book had a lower average rating, but I thought it was fantastic..

there's lots of things going on in this book, but that's one of many things Woods is good at: having multiple sub plots but using them in such a way that the reader doesn't get lost trying to keep track of everything....everything flows really well..

if I had to pick a gripe about the book it would be the ending...it's one of those 'did they or didn't they??' type of endings....which is cool, but if you're like me and you need to know everything, it'll drive you nuts! =)

as with the other books in the Barrington series, i'm sure the events of this book will impact stone's later adventures..

gripping and fast paced

</review>
<review>

Save your time, money and patience.  This may be the worst book I have read since the equally monotonous, predictable Stone Barrington novel "The Short Forever".  Wow, this one stinks.  Like others, I put up with the shallow characters, ludicrous dialogue and endless parade of showers, boobs and guns to figure out whodunit.  Unfortunately, this book had an ambiguous ending that seeks to be clever but is instead is just stupid.  Who on earth did kill Vance?  And come to think of it, who gives a damn?  I don't what women did to Stuart Woods but he sure seems to hold them in complete contempt.  Every female character, save for Isabel the maid, felt compelled to practically rape our handsome hero.  Each is flawless and gorgeous but also all are dumb, vacuous, self-centered and thoroughly unlikeable - hey a couple are even truly psychotic!  The only normal female character who spared Stone, Mary Ann, unfortunately has a room temperature IQ.  I am hardly a prude, but I lost count of how many women either Vance or Stone made love to in the course of one short novel and felt the need to take a long hot shower to rid myself of the feelings of filth.  Mr. Woods either lives in a world of complete ignorance or the reading public is a lot less discriminating than I thought

</review>
<review>

Okay, it's a collection of Far Side comics, which is what I want, so it's awesome for that reason.  BUT, the actual final product in book form is a little disappointing.  First, all the comics are black and white.  Yeah, it's not about the art and you don't miss much without color, but come on, would a little color kill anyone (especially ones that were originally color)?  Second, it's pretty thin on strips, with 4 to a page most of the time (a good amount) sometimes 2 on a page, and even occassionally one comic on a single page!  It looks pretty silly with just one giant comic on a page.

</review>
<review>

Some of my earliest memories are filled with reading The Far Side on my father's lap after the evening meal.  Whenever I asked my parents for a one of the standard collections, they told me to wait, one day they would all be in one book.  Then, for Christmas one year, I got this book.

What can I say, but thank you Mom and Dad and thank you Mr. Larson!  The Far Side was, and still is, funny, original, and timeless.  This collection gives you some of the best of the original strips and lends itself well to watching the progression of humor up and through until the end

</review>
<review>

Gary Larson never ceases to amaze me. I've been a religious follower of The Far Side for as long as I can remember. I love the way he looks at the lighter side of life, yet some of the comics really hit home. My favourite still is the deer with the target as a birth mark! Go Larry - you're my super hero

</review>
<review>

LOL!!!!This is one brilliantly funny comic strip from one brilliantly sick (in a good way) mind. The Far Side is timeless. I laugh every time I read them, and that's a good thing.

</review>
<review>

How Gary Larson keeps coming up with this stuff I have no idea.  It seems like the more I read, the more I begin to laugh.  This particular Gallery is totally hilarious.  If you don't get the humor in "The Far Side", my guess is your brain is wired for something different than reading books. In fact, I heard the current President hasn't got a Far Side chuckle since 1991.

</review>
<review>

The Far Side is my favorite comic, out of all. It is positively loaded with randomness that will catch you off guard. Larson's comics are the kind that makes you think about what is going on, comparing the picture to the caption, and it is hysterical. There are scizophrenic kangaroos, plane driving sheep, duck relays, and pretty much any other twisted idea out there.

ANY Far Side book is one that will never fail to please.


</review>
<review>

Sick, absurd humor is Larson's specialty, and in this collection, Larson is at his best. Many of the cartoons involve reversals of the roles of species, where animals get their revenge on humans. Others are based on themes from popular culture, such as Tonto on his horse outside the outhouse telling Kemosabe that the music is starting. They are funny, but there are times where you have to spend some time interpreting the diagram. If you are a fan of Larson's unique brand of humor, then you will love this collection.

</review>
<review>

 and quot;Why not write a cartoon book that doesn't bother with a main character and where each joke is totally different from the next?! and quot; That must have been similar to what Gary asked himself when starting to write his hilarious comic books. Every joke is truly different from the next one! And every joke is refreshingly original! Each joke comes from a thoughtful, clever and of course playful mind

</review>
<review>

I don't know how the guy does it. They keep getting funnier and there are always ones I've never seen before, as well as the ones I've always loved. You won't be disappointed if you are a Far Side fan. If you're not a Far Side fan, well, then I can't help you

</review>
<review>

When I started work at my present job almost two years ago, I found that the place needed a little 'lightening up'.  It was casual already, to some extent, so on my next 'office supply' shopping 'trip'  I picked up this calendar for my desk.  Well, it began a new office ritual; everyone wants to know the  and quot;Far-Side-of-the-day and quot;!  Sometimes, it's the only funny thing to happen all day.  Larson needs to come out of retirement

</review>
<review>

My cassette tape version was read by John Ritter who was one of the few people who could actually read Dave Barry correctly - he puts the emphasis in the right places and pauses to make the jokes work perfectly.

On to the material -

It was  a bit up and down, but mostly up (even the downs weren't down very far). His time-share condo essay is a gem that should be printed off and handed out to people before they go into a time-share condo presentation. His "Diplodocus" essay was funny and touching all at the same time. One of his best ever. The "Can New York Save Itself?" essay was a prime example of Dave taking a joke and running it into the ground. It was mildly amusing but it kept going and going and going and going and ... you get the point.

So, this one gets a B+

</review>
<review>

I don't read much, I just don't really like to. But reading this book is not like reading at all. This is by far the funniest book I have ever read. Dave Barry is the funniest man alive. I don't laugh much or loud, but as I was reading this book to myself I would find myself laughing out loud very very often

</review>
<review>

My husband requested this book, not remembering he had already read it.  Never mind.  He loves Dave Barry's writing so much he read it over again.  I wonder whether he will pass this copy on to the same cousin who got the first copy

</review>
<review>

Dave Barry fans will love this compendium.  For newcomers, it is a very good intro.  I can take Barry only in small doses (one essay at a time), but those doses are so enjoyable that I find myself craving the next... and the next... and the next.  Uh oh.  Am I a junkie

</review>
<review>

I was born in 1984; I didn't even know who Oliver North was before I read this book.  But Dave Barry is so funny it's worth doing not-required-for-school research on public figures of the 80's simply for the payoff of getting his jokes about them.  And, of course, there are plenty of timeless inter-generational jokes about etch-a-sketches and boogers, too.

One reviewer said that this isn't really a "greatest hits" because it isn't excerpts from his other books.  That's because it's the "greatest hits" of his humorous newspaper column he wrote for the Miami Herald

</review>
<review>

The cover of my book features its author badly sunburned holding a keyboard on the beach and squinting into the camera. The collected columns display the same kind of amused perplexity. With quirky wit, Barry skewers such tempting targets as Ed McMahon, baseball fans, Tupperware parties, mutant fleas, inept motorists, chipper ski instructors, and of course, the dangers of indoor plumbing.. There's even a brief foray into serious territory with the genuinely touching. "A Million Words." A must for Barry fans.


</review>
<review>

A humorous collection from his newspaper column.

Every two or three page rant was good for a laugh, and often more than one - what more can you ask from a humour column?

Barry is a funny guy, who can take something mildly amusing or ironic in the every day and articulate it into something really amusing. On a particularly good day he even goes a bit surreal.

He's consistent (or, at least, selective in this compilation). I'm glad I came across him - I'll be back for more.

</review>
<review>

There are a lot of Lincoln books out there and I was looking for, and found, a good starting point.  I thought this was a very even-handed portrait that gave you a sense for the man and provided just enough information on the politics and events of the day to provide context, without bogging down the epic story.

</review>
<review>

The Lincoln who emerges in this well-crafted but sometimes tedious biography is not the Lincoln of northern hagiography or southern demonology.  He was a moderate who avoided controversial decisions as much as possible.

Lincoln did what he had to do, not always what he wanted to do.  It becomes clear reading this book that the biggest mistake was made by the southern secessionists.  In Lincoln they would have had a president who understood the contradictions of having blacks in America, who did not think they could become Americans and wanted them colonized abroad, and who certainly could live with slavery which he considered likely to disappear with time.

The southern fanatics misunderstood Lincoln and started the civil war.  New England fanatical abolitionists are the real evil doers in this story.

Given our experience with segregation and failed integration perhaps slavery should have been left alone.  It would have disappeared and perhaps the result would have been better than what we got through the civil war and reconstruction

</review>
<review>

After reading the book "Leadership on Lincoln," I wanted to learn more about the life of this fascinating figure in American history.  This title provides many details about the man, his many tragedies and failures, and his ultimate success as a leader.  The author does well in not standing in the way of his subject -- he simply unfolds the story before the reader's eyes.  This volume is rather large at 600 pages, but the read is an enjoyable one.  For anyone wanting to discover a thorough treatment of the life of Abraham Lincoln, this book is an excellent investment

</review>
<review>

This biography has a flow that pulls you in. I was surprised by some of the revelations, such as the complexity of internal politics he had to deal with. It gives an image of an honest, ambitious, great leader. A leader who himself is unsure of many things (such as the civil war). Recommended

</review>
<review>

David Herbert Donald truly does the work of the historian and allows the reader to come face to face with the real Lincoln.  The importance of the subject demands as much: the upbringing, temperament, private life, politics, pressures, shortcomings, and ideals of the man who headed the United States during the civil war and ended the institution of slavery.  Donald's biography captures all of this, but what I appreciated most was getting to see how Lincoln lived the conflict between some of America's greatest ideals and grimist realities in both what he was faced with and how he conducted himself as president

</review>
<review>

Easily one of the best written Lincoln biographies of the last quarter century but not of all time. Donald's book has been labeled a masterpiece and while it comes close, I myself wouldn't go so far. I think it's an easy book to read and it flows very well. However, David Herbert Donald made the mistake (in my opinion) of leaving out the text of Abraham Lincoln's greatest speeches and letters (ex: the Gettysburg Address)if even for reference. Other than that, it is an amazing story of an amazing man. Abraham Lincoln has inspired many over the years and truly came from the most humble of beginnings to become the savior of the American Republic - one of the first American dreams realized. After reading this book, I guess the one thing I previously didn't comprehend is how Lincoln wasn't a hero during his presidency nor was he a master statesman - as history has since rightfully judged him to be.  No matter how much you read about Lincoln, his life never ceases to amaze. "Lincoln" is good brief general biography of this amazing man and well worth the effort.

</review>
<review>

The more I read about Lincoln the more I realize what an incredibly extrodinary man he was. No one book can cover all of the complex person Lincoln was, nor of all that went on while he was alive.

What this book does is paint a very complex picture of the man and his life. Every page is very well written and very informative. You just can't put this down.

One of the best books, not just about Lincoln, but also about the Civil War

</review>
<review>

David Herbert Martin gives readers a very personal view of Lincoln.  We see that Old Abe was honest and gifted, but also calculating, ambitious, and burdened by self-doubt.  Perhaps that's normal for an introspective man who overcomes poverty, depression and tragedy.  The author maintains this very personal focus as he details Lincoln's rise from young legislative leader and one-term Congressman to national figure as visionary builder of the nascent Republican Party in the 1850's.

Martin continues his personal focus on President Lincoln.  Readers see that Lincoln was slightly unsure at first, a bit slow with emancipation, and he made some poor choices for military leadership.  But Lincoln was a masterful politician, and his leadership, eloquence, and vision helped keep the nation together through tragedy.  Finally, readers sense the gut-wrenching pressure Lincoln faced on a daily basis.  In short, the author correctly shows Lincoln as great but imperfect, and readers should come away believing that Old Abe did a better job than would have William Seward, Stephen Douglas, or other top contenders.

I gave the book just four stars due to the author's somewhat thick writing style, and his absence of summary writing after Lincoln's passing.  Still, this superbly personal biography is well worth reading.

</review>
<review>

The Lincoln book gave a good brief overview of his life.  If you are looking to write a college paper on him this is not enough information, but good for general knowledge.

</review>
<review>

How I wish this book had been around for the many years I taught "Catcher in the Rye" and "Franny  and amp; Zooey" to my high school students. I read half of "Love and Squalor" on my feet at a bookstore; I couldn't stop reading long enough to buy it until the place was closing -- 14 gifted writers responding to their experiences with not only  and quot;Catcher and quot; but the whole scanty Salinger cannon. How I wish there had been 28! The writings range from the good to the extraordinary -- I particularly loved Charles D'Ambrosio's beautiful piece about suicide and  and quot;crappy, broken-down families and quot; (and can that phrase please replace "dysfunctional"?), John McNally's insightful observations on the fabulous minor characters in  and quot;Catcher and quot; and Karen E. Bender's lovely literary 'first kiss' with Holden. Best of all, the book has introduced me to these three wonderful writers, all of them new to me. After reading "Catcher" more than thirty times over the years, thank you all for making it new to me again

</review>
<review>

This book is very well researched and interesting.  It traces the history of American success literature from Ben Franklin up to the time of publication.  There is a lot of interesting material.  The only downside is it reads somewhat typical of books of its time period.  It is a little dry and even though the material is good, the book isn't a page turner.

What makes the book worht reading is that it is comprehensive and it is about the only book on the subject.  If you are at all into today's success books, read this one first for a nice historical perspective

</review>
<review>

Richard Huber's book should be required reading for anybody who wants to know what makes Americans tick, and the values they embrace on the road to success. In a fascinating historical narrative, he shows how capitalism and  spiritual values have been intertwined since before the revolution. Today's  bestseller lists are topheavy with writers who promise a spiritual path to  financial riches, but Huber's great contribution is to show how old an idea  this really is in America, and his research is extraordinary. In some  cases, the same language describing  and quot;positive thinking and quot; today can  be found in historical tracts over 100 years old. All in all, a worthy  contribution to the literature and a splendid look at American economic and  intellectual history

</review>
<review>

No single book will prepare you for any certification exam and with what the CISSP exam costs you will want to make sure you are fully prepared. I found this book worth the money.  It's a good book to start you on the path to the CISSP exam or for a final review of the subject matter. It covers all the ten domains and unlike some books, which seem to read like stereo instructions, the language in the book was clear and understandable. So get yourself several texts to study for the exam and make sure this is one of them. You will have a good head start towards passing

</review>
<review>

Cute describes these books in the 10-mintues-a-day series.  Pleasant, a little fun, a little insipid.  But, really, not so bad just to get a taste of the language before you decide to move on to deeper study.

Actually--in contrast to more than one other reviewer--I found the word-substitution presentation to be quite helpful in anchoring the meaning of the word into my memory.  This is not an untried method, being also used in the EasyLearn Language audio programs, and other texts.

Those word stickers don't stay on too long, though.  Be prepared to lose a lot of them

</review>
<review>

This book really came in handy on our trip.  The menu cut out cards and the flash cards proved to be very valuable to us, especially since a friend gave us the bad advice that everyone spoke some English.  Don't believe that, there were a number of people that did speak some amount of English but we both wished that we had taken more time before our trip to learn a littlem ore of the language

</review>
<review>

My wife and I have now spent a good month "learning" with
this book. In fact more than 10 minutes a day,
more like 30 minutes per session.
We both speak other languages, so we can compare.

GOOD, nice thematic picture groups,
and you need to learn the words associated with them.
(We did.)

BAD, again, and again Ms. Kershul introduces words,
and grammar which do not fit into the "just mastered"
scheme of things.

IRRITATING to the extreme:
Ms. Kershul gives her instructions in a mixture of English
and Italian in one sentence.
(We would have preferred one line of Italian ONLY,
followed by one line --say in italics--
providing the English translation, in many cases preferably,
with an explanations "how this compares to what was done yesterday".)

BAD:
In attempt to NOT introduce grammar, you are left high
and dry figuring out gender, declinations, and worse
conjugations by yourself.
(We have not yet seen satisfactory forms summarizing 'things',
and we are half way through the book).

In anger, we finally went to the local library
and got a 70 years old Italian grammar for High Schools.
That did solve our problem and left us convinced
that "new and improved" does not necessarily
provide a better learning experience.

Somewhat IRRITATING:
Ms Kershuls's choice of vocabulary seems to assume that
1. you wish to visit lots of relatives
(not an uncle, niece, grandson, cousin, grandparent, or daughter
is forgotten in the family tree),
2. you wish to order meals and "buy stuff" constantly
(we assure you, that is the one thing Italians
are very good at, understanding English when you want to
buy things or order a meal)
3. you wish to tell Italians that you are "American"
(as if our accents and clothing are not dead-give-aways)
4. you pray "catholic", "protestant", or "Hebrew".
(the Italians we know couldn't care less
-- how about instead "politics", "music", "movies", "soccer"
and the "bella ragazza" over there)

In summary, we are ready now to look for a book which
does not claim to be "easy, in 10 minutes a day",
but emphasizes grammar,
groups vocabulary (and discusses alternatives for each new
word),
provides clearer indication of emphasis in the pronounciation
(example: telEfono, versus incorrect tElefono)
Teaches Italian as a language of "constructed" full sentences, rather than "single catch words".
------------------

Our final test,
No, we would not recommend this book to a friend

</review>
<review>

I've bought and used Italian tapes and they were OK.  I still use them in the car.  Something was missing, though.  I really needed to see the words because some of the pronunciations on tapes made it tough for me to really understand the word.

I found this workbook and snapped it up.  Why?  It reminded me of the learning activities that I see every day in the primary grades in which I supervise student teachers.  I asked a language teacher friend to tell me if these exercises would be effective and she said "YES!"

I like the pace of the book, with quick exercises that are each logically related to the exercises before and after it.  You get to SAY a word or phrase, REPEAT it, WRITE the word several times.  The repetition has helped me quite a bit.

This book has a feature that I find particularly enjoyable - paragraphs of instructions are sprinkled with Italian words and I find myself reading the Italian word and understanding it immediately.  Wow! Reading in Italian. Not a lot, but Italian nevertheless.  It's progress.

The coolest part of this workbook are the stickers - well, maybe not the coolest part, but very cool.  Also, you get these little word labels that you stick on things around the house and you get little flash cards.

For me, this seems to be working.  I think that if fits my learning style.  It might just be what you need as well.  Italy should be a little easier for me this summer.

</review>
<review>

I used this book in preparation for a trip to Italy last Spring and I found it very helpful. At first I wasn't expecting much from a work book, but they do a very good job at helping you understand the relationships between words, places, and things. I found it a good compliment to also listening to audio learning guides such as Pimsleur or Michel Thomas (you can borrow these from your local library!). I definitely used this book for more than 10 minutes at a time

</review>
<review>

I know few languages but have never really spoken Italian, only watched a few movies. I am hoping to chat it up in Italy. I may not chat it up but with this book I will be able to defend myself. The whole concept of a little study everyday works and the variety of practice styles aid different learning styles. I have used this series to teach English as a second language and I have seen it start a non speaker

</review>
<review>

This is a great way to learn the basics.  The workbook concept works for me as I learn better if I write down concepts.  The only way this could be improved would be if a audio aid for pronounciation would be provided

</review>
<review>

This is a great book to help you learn Italian. If you really want to learn you need to study longer than 10 minutes but this book breaks it down for you in small segments. I have the little stickers all around the house and find myself using Italian everyday now without even thinking about it

</review>
<review>

It's always difficult to find the perfect "learn a little of the language before you go" book. This one's not bad; and I did learn what I needed to: "how do you get to ...", "where's the toilet?", "how much is it?" and other assorted phrases, as well as enough to understand at least part of the answers.

I did like the way the book presented pronunciations, and I'm pretty picky in that regard.

If you will be using the book ONLY before you go, and NOT as a resource while you're there, then this is a good buy for you. It's not a good carry-with resource, though, due to layoug and lack of index.

The stickers were a fun idea; if you are taking children with you, the stickers will really help your kids learn a few words as well

</review>
<review>

One of the "gimmicks" of this book is that it comes with stickers you can place on objects around your house, labeling them in Italian. It may sound silly, but it works. I will never forget what to call the door, the mirror, the cat (okay, he's not really wearing a sticker), or dozens of other common items around the house. Writing a word or phrase over and over again and repeating it out loud may seem like tedious exercises, but there is a reason why these kinds of drills are used in schools throughout the world. Writing and saying words is an effective way to reinforce them. The pronunciation guide is helpful, although its weakness is that it does not tell you which syllable gets the emphasis. This book is a terrific way to get started, but you will also need some kind of audio course, or a live teacher, to master the sound of spoken Italian

</review>
<review>

What this book says is to eat less and exercise more.  This is supposed to be new and insightful advice?  The step counter that came with the book is crummy.  The battery rattles around in the thing and the steps don't count correctly

</review>
<review>

A very interesting and different way of looking at weight control.  30 pounds in 12 weeks - I guess it works!!!

</review>
<review>

This book has really opened my eyes up to one thing...why I hadn't lost weight. I've been dieting since I had my son but  hit a plateu. I hadn't been exercising regularly and with a long commute to work 3 hours round trip) and then sitting at a desk all day, I wore the pedometer before trying anything in the book to see how many steps I was getting before making a conscious effort. I was shocked to learn that I had only been taking 1500-2500 steps a day, on days I worked. Days I didn't work I averaged more around 5-6,000. Still that wasn't very good since the book gives you a minimum of 10,000 a day.

I am now usually at about 12,000 a day, depending on the day. I am incredibly motivated because I am competitive with myself and how many steps I can get in a day. I go walking 2 miles with my dog which is about 4,500 steps and make sure I am active throughout the day at work or at the store etc. I have only lost a few pounds so far, but my clothes are looser and I feel thinner.

I am loving the stepometer and am going to invest in a better one. It was a great starter and I found it to be pretty accurate, just very basic.




</review>
<review>

I'm stepping the pounds off!  This book has great information on energy balance both for loosing weight and for maintaining weight.

The pedomenter included in the book is very motivational!  On days I have walked a lot of steps (12,000 to 18,000) it feels real good and gives me a great sense of accomplishment.  On days that I have not gotten in many steps (4,000 to 5,000) it motivates me to take an evening walk around the neighborhood.  I'm down six pounds in six weeks!

I thought this book was so great I sent my mother a copy too!  Mom has lost five pounds in less than a month.


</review>
<review>

Excellent approach to increasing exercise in your daily life while at the same time monitoring food intak

</review>
<review>

This book is very motivating.  I wear a counter (included with the book) to count my steps daily.  After several weeks, I've determined that I can commit to achieveing 15,000 steps a day (their minimum is 10,000).  This book gives me a good understanding of what it takes to balance food intake with energy burned.  I've lost about 10 pounds so far, with 10 more to go

</review>
<review>

Although over 50 diet books grace my bookshelves, I did not order, "The Step Diet" for over a year.  I thought that it would be "too simple."  I saw the pedometer that came with the book and thought that it was "just another gimmick" in the diet book lineup.

I was so, so WRONG. In fact, this may be the ONE APPROACH that will help kids, seniors, teens, and the most stubborn of "diet failures."  It is a wonderful tool to help motivate anyone.

This is SO MUCH MORE than a book that tells you to log your steps with the pedometer. It provides the science behind what they specifically suggest regarding how you build up to the required steps, how long you should do the program, and how many steps are required to lose and maintain your specific weight.

Ironically, one of the problems that made me resist this formula was that I often wear dresses and really wasn't sure about how to log my steps. This book gives you plenty of options.

This is a great book to follow in conjunction with a particular diet or with their suggestion to reduce your regular daily intake by approximately 25% less.

But most of all this is the best book to get a family or work place or group (teens, young moms, seniors, ANY group!) motivated. The two most important people in my life are over 60 and I have been concerned about their health and longevity. For my birthday, I asked for one gift: That they would join me as a group for a 12-week period on this program, where we could keep track of our progress and encourage one another. The results were astounding and did more to get ALL of us moving than anything else we have done.  I CONSISTENTLY found that I went out of my way to park farther, take the stairs, etc., just to get more steps in.

If you have tried everything else as I had, you may surprise yourself with this simple, but effective tool.  It works

</review>
<review>

A really great book with a simple idea. Walk a little more, eat a little less. Solid basics that are simple and fun. The book is motivating and easy to read, although I wouldn't use the pedometer that comes with the book, it's inaccurate.

The one complaint I have is the meta-steps. The book makes the claim that you can forget about counting calories, but the meta-steps is just like counting calories. As is the steps that equate to different types of exercise, for example, 1 minute on a bike is 100 steps. You are just counting calories in a different way, but it is no big deal if you don't mind the counting.

Otherwise, it is an easy way to exercise and get fit with lots of science and stories to back it up.


</review>
<review>

"The Step Diet" is a compact 7 and 1/2 by 5 and 1/2" book that explains exactly how you can lose weight by walking and making small dietary changes. According to the authors the average American will gain a little bit of weight each year. You can prevent this gain by adding 2000 steps to your daily walking. To lose weight you add more steps and cut back on what you eat.
These simple changes can be made one at a time and add up to permanent change thats easy to incorporate into your everyday life.

The book teaches you how to determine your current average step amount and increase it week to week. There is also a chart to show how to convert other activities into steps so you can track all of your activities. Information is included on how to make minor dietary adjustments so you can reap the reward of a fitter, slimmer body.

Overall the book is excellent at helping the reader learn how to regulate weight through step activity. The authors do however confuse the issue with "megasteps". The authors help you determine your megasteps and then at the back of the book they list common foods and tell you how many megasteps each food is equal to. For example an egg will cost you approximately one megastep. praline ice cream about 6. This is just another way of calorie counting and really not needed in the book in my opinion.

Instead it would have been nice if the authors had included the number of steps you would have to walk to burn off certain foods. For example to burn up an order of small fries (210 calories) you would have to walk about 4,200 steps. This type of information in the book would have been great. But it's not included.

A pedometer comes with the book. As others have noted here I personally have and would recommend that others purchase a better quality, more accurate pedometer.

The book is linked to the americaonthemove.org website and its GREAT! A lot of information on walking for individuals or groups. You can set goals at the site. For example you can pick a trail like the Lewis and Clark trail which requires you step about 9,000 paces a day. Each day you record your steps and see visually how far you are on the map and your average steps, plus you can read about the area. What fun and its free!

Overall, the book is a "breath of fresh air" with it's focus on making small changes in eating and increasing walking activity (not killing yourself with intense exercise programs) to see big results

</review>
<review>

I have read "Crossing the Chasm" and "Inside the tornado" by Moore, both very good books! When I first laid my eyes on this book I had a slight feeling that there might be risk of overlap. I think Wiefelds saw this as well and got a good endorsement by his colleague Moore - to state that this is a complement, not a repetition. That the book was published after the dot-com, in 2002, felt reassuring though - a lot of good lessons were probably to be learned for the reader. Ok, so I had high expectations, but felt a slight doubt.

After reading the book I have two statements:
1. The book delivers some more hands on the two books it referrers to, some really good lists. All in all about nine pages of good ROI-of time material.
2. I am very sad that Wiefelds did not listen to his own good recommendation: don't talk about your product as you know it - know your target group! Wiefelds should know that I am not planning on reading this book for fun - I want a high gain/time-quota, not 352 pages that take a week to read, when a 20 page leaflet would be sufficient! Because the book is repetitive - very!

To summarize:
The book offers some good hands on tips and lists, but should have been a 20 page leaflet.

</review>
<review>

Wiefels get to the heart of high tech marketing.  Nothing I have read has more insights or is more useful in the practical application of marketing constructs for high tech.  Anybody in high tech, indeed in marketing of any sort, can benefit from these concepts

</review>
<review>

It's a very simple and clear framework to keep in mind, with VERY practical results in day-to-day activities of product management (specially for those, like me, come from "techies" backgrounds). It's reccommended to read the other 5 books of Chasm Group to fully understand the concepts, but to start using as product manager, this is THE guide

</review>
<review>

I have been a keen student of the Chasm Group publications for a number of years and this book starts to bridge the gap between the theory of visionaries, tornados, gorillas etc and the application of the concepts in practice.  The style is very readable and filled with good  and quot;common sense and quot;. I have already started using it in earnes

</review>
<review>

He gets a bit off the wall towards the end, but overall a great read about the way that the changing face of technology is empowering individuals to do things that it took big companies to do just a few years ago

</review>
<review>

Glenn Reynolds has written a book that will be the starting point for many a future conversation.  I recommend it highly to anyone interested in informed commentary about the rapid changes our culture is undergoing.

Is the book encyclopedic?  No, in fact the conversational style and overview of topics create a very readable book that can be finished on a plane ride.  Bear in mind that this is an overview of the subject.  If you are looking for detailed analyses of trends, this may not be your book.  Readers of Prof. Reynolds' Instapundit blog will be familiar with many of the topics, as the book essentialy is a distillation of what he has been writing there for some time.  Still, even for those who have read some of this before, it is good to see it  set out as a single, coherent argument.

In summary, An Army of Davids works very well as an introduction to cultural trends which, whether you like them or not, will be shaping your future.  The title itself has already worked its way into the American lexicon.  The folks who will be shaping your future will be reading Reynolds' book.  I recommend you join them

</review>
<review>

Beginning with the tremendous impact that blogging has wrought on top-down institutions such as government and big media, Reynolds uses the "Army of Davids" metaphor repeatedly to advance his theory that loose, decentralized networks of individuals will be the diriving force behind a multitude of amazing changes taking place over the next 30-50 years. When I say "amazing", there's not much hyperbole there- the colonization of space (seriously!) is one such dramatic change that Reynolds hopes will be come about thanks to the power of the individual bypassing the beaurocracy of a government.

Reynolds also describes some trends that, rather than being powered by the "Army", will instead benefit it: If scientists succeed in slowing or even reversing the aging process, Reynolds argues that the single individual will become even more empowered, leading to a dramatic increase in personal productivity, creativity, and the like. These are just two examples- the singularity, space elevators, and artificial intelligence are also discussed.

If you think the topics of the previous paragraphs are the stuff of science fiction, I might've agreed with you just a few days ago. But after finishing Army of Davids, I'm excited to learn more about some things I once thought of as fantasy that Reynolds argues are already well underway.

The book is a quick read- I digested it in just a couple hours- but that is far from an insult. Rather, I suspect Reynolds' conversational, at times swift-moving prose and frequent long-form quotes are designed to assume the reader's intelligence, rather than condescend to it. Supplementing the wide variety of subject matter are copious citations, especially helpful when Reynolds cuts broad strokes through his often unfamiliar (to many) subject matter.

On his blog, Reynolds has, on at least two occasions, referenced reviewers who met with confusion as the latter half of the book veered away from blog-related topics and moved into more scientific and even sci-fi-esque territory. Personally, I didn't have a problem with the book transitioning into trends of the near future. Because Reynolds is perhaps best known as a blogosphere celebrity, I'm guessing some readers expected the book to remain media-centric. However, I'm pleased that Reynolds guided his book away from a pleasing yet tiring re-hash of recent memory and instead took a risk by exposing readers to a some tip-of-the-iceberg stuff that I, for one, would likely have never learned of otherwise.

So if you're expecting a light read about the impact of blogging, look elsewhere. But if you're interested in the extension of trends that blogging is only a small part of, you'll probably learn a great deal- and become pretty excited- about the future that An Army of Davids foretells

</review>
<review>

Glenn Reynolds isn't known as the "Blogfather" for nothing. The Tennesee law professor was one of the first among the intelligentsia to see the potential of Web logs, or blogs, to change the media landscape. As a daily reader of Reynolds' Instapundit.com for 5 years, I am continually impressed with his analysis, breadth of interest, and good-naturedness. His posts are short, pithy and droll.

But judging from "An Army of Davids", those bloggy qualities that have made Reynolds an online force don't carry over well into the book world. Reynolds' conversational style serves him well on the Web, where his analytical one-liners and nuggets of insight perfectly suit today's scroll-and-scan online attention span.

"Army" is basically a collection of lengthy blog posts united by the theme that technology is increasingly empowering individuals socially, economically and politically -- for better and for worse. Reynolds makes this argument most effectively in the first half of the book, when the discussion focuses on blogging and media. The second half ventures into more fantastic territory by touching on biotech, nanotech and space travel, and it's here where the book transmogrifies more into futuristic musings about Reynolds' pet causes: a cure for ageing, homebrew molecular manufacturing, and nuclear powered spacecraft (that's bombs, not reactors). All fascinating stuff, but I'm still not sure how that fits on the same page as citizen journalism and home music studios.

That brings me to my main problem with "Army": in the end it's less a systematic study of the probable areas where technology enables average people to nudge society in new directions than it is a collection of stuff that Glenn Reynolds finds really cool and sort of crams under this broad umbrella of individual empowerment.

One specific complaint I have focuses on the chapter on space travel, titled: "Space: It's Not Just For Governments Anymore". Reynolds rightly points out the deep flaws in our NASA-oriented, top-down approach to space. He illustrates how entrepreneurs like Burt Ratan to Jeff Bezos and John Carmack will drive the next era of spaceflight, at costs that are a tiny fraction of the government's approach.

But in the next breath, Reynolds laments how we are in danger of losing the spacerace to China, which is pursuing exactly the big government, highly secretive, top-down approach that has led the U.S. to a cosmic dead-end. Not only that, Reynolds speculates the Chinese could beat us with the aforementioned nuclear bomb-powered spacecraft, an approach that was abandoned by the U.S. decades ago due to significant technological, environmental and diplomatic risks. China has made exactly two manned spaceflights, both using 1950s era technology copied from the Soviets. Their nuclear arsenal is limited to a few score of warheads. But suddenly they are going to find enough fissionable material to create the thousands of bombs needed to power such a spacecraft, and moreover manage to test prototypes in complete secrecy without triggering any suspicious seismographical readings? It just doesn't compute.

I also find it odd that "Army" was published as a traditional dead-tree book. You'd think that Reynolds' enthusiasm for cheap new technologies would lead him to offer it as a PDF download or even an e-book. Of course, online media is not a replacement for print media, any more than TV was a replacement for radio. And no one can begrudge a desire to see if it's possible to translate online success into a publishing one. But it would have been the ultimate validation of the very technologies Reynolds spends 270 pages endorsing

</review>
<review>

Entertaining, enlightening, empowering and throught-provoking!!

</review>
<review>

After reading An Army of Davids, I thought back eight years earlier when I still subscribed to the Los Angeles Times and one of their Princelings of Political Correctness announced that hereafter the LA Times would apply affirmative action guidelines to the sources of articles. The article was such an unintended parody of political correctness that I rechecked to make sure that Rush Limbaugh had not written it.  How can these people get away with it?

Well, according to Glenn Reynolds, not anymore. Not when the internet and inexpensive blog hosting services put news reporting in the hands of ordinary people; people with time and talent but not capital can go into the pundit business themselves.  Technology has neutralized many of the advantages of capital.  Army of Davids explains not how this happened but why it happened and why it will move out in the future to the other arts and to other commercial products. He is an optimist who believes that people will have much greater control of their lives in the future.  Control of all aspects of their lives.

I bought this book because I'm a great admirer of his Instapundit weblog, which reflects the interests of a well and widely read man.  He is a later day Benjamin Franklin or Jefferson in the scope of his curiosity.  Well Worth i

</review>
<review>

I read this book to learn about conservative thought. Although not a conservative myself I was interested in learning what the other half thinks. I believe I have made a start in this but only a start. The chapters in this book are short introductions to facets of conservative thought such as opposition to big government and opposition to affirmative action except for the authors support of socio economic affirmative action. Throughout, the philosophy of conservative thinking such as the belief that traditional values should be upheld is espoused. I believe I got a good introduction to conservative thinking from this book. As an added bonus the author lists books for further reading at the end of the book. Although this book has not changed my underlying moderate philosophy it has made me think. It is interesting how people can take the same set of data and come to different conclusions about it. D'Souza thinks that the increasing gap between the rich and the poor is a sign of progress in that there are more rich people while liberals are worried about it's consequences. I recommend this book for anyone wanting to learn about conservative thinking.

</review>
<review>

I love this book. Dinesh writes many useful things in this book. Some things are even funny. Like his pamphlet ideas. Dinesh says if you want to cause a controversy on campus, make some pamphlets. One of the pamphlets he suggests making says "Feminist Thought" on the outside and to leav the inside blank. tee hee hee. :)
All conservatives should read this book. A

</review>
<review>

I read this book when a conservative friend recommended it to me and expected great things. I was not dissapointed. Unlike a lot of political books out there, this one is easy to read, entertaining, and to the point. If you have any questions about what conservatives believe and why, or just want to better aquaint yourself with hot political issues from a conservative perspective, you need to read this book. In fact, whether you are young or old, conservative or liberal, you need this book to round out your library

</review>
<review>

First off, I am a young conservative, and as such I should like this book. A lot of my friends have recommended it to me, and I loved "What's So Great About America" and got a lot out of "The End of Racism." However, I have three problems with "Letters": Its arguments are too superficial, it has no logical target audience and its arguments are sometimes faulty.

For the record, I know that the book is designed to offer brief arguments for a wide variety of conservative positions. But four pages or so apiece? The ideas barely scratch the surface of conservative thought. If D'Souza increased the length of the book by about 50 percent, and cut out some of the lesser essays (the one on gun control might as well have been two words long: "John Lott"), he could get more into each issue.

Second, it's hard to tell who the book is aimed at. Its title would imply that young conservatives should read it, but if you don't know almost everything that's in this book, you aren't knowledgeable enough to call yourself a conservative.

Maybe young liberals can learn something about the right-wing perspective. But if they know enough about their own positions, they probably also know everything contained in this little "gem." There's an argument to be made that high schools and colleges don't teach conservative thought, so some of the ideas here might be new to a young liberal - but in that case, lefties are sure to be put off by the tasteless jokes about homosexuality and the often-sarcastic wording.

Ditto for people who know almost nothing about politics. They're likely to end the book thinking that conservatives simply delight in making others uncomfortable.

Finally, as basic as most of the essays are, some of them have flawed logic. For instance, D'Souza states that liberals think human nature is good, while conservatives think it's bad. This can't explain why liberals think people need to be forced to give to the poor. Nor why conservatives think humans are capable of making their own economic decisions. Both liberals and conservatives think human nature is good and bad, only in different ways.

Another ridiculous argument is when he responds to allegations that quotes in his previous books are taken out of context. He says that all quotes are out of context; otherwise, he'd have to quote the whole speech or book in question.

I'm sorry, but this has no merit. If I'm talking about Monopoly and say, "I always beat my girlfriend," and then someone puts that in an article about domestic violence, that's what we commonly refer to as "out of context." It's ridiculous to deny that "out of context" can ever be a meaningful concept.

Essentially, this is far from the end-all-be-all of starter books for conservatives. I wish I had something else to recommend in its place, but every time I've read a book like this I've ended up disappointed. I'd advise getting into each issue separately. For this, D'Souza's recommended reading list at the end is actually useful

</review>
<review>

I read Dinesh D'Souza's "What's so great about America?" and it is one of my favorite books.  So, I decided to try another, and I have to say that there is much to like about this one - even though, in reading conservative books, I have found that I agree 99% of the time with the social and moral positions, but only about 1% of the time with the economic positions.

Unfortunately, there is one major social and moral issue with which I must disagree.  Mr. D'Souza feels that gays should be allowed to adopt children rather than leave them to foster care.  If one believes that such people are psychologically well balanced this would be reasonable.  But, after working in health and human services and discussing this issue at length with investigators in adoption and foster care, I am convinced that these people are dangerously dysfunctional.  Specifically, I feel that gay men hate themselves and lesbians hate men because of overpopulation and that they pass along their hatred to children, if left in their care.

Other than this one very important issue and the economic positions, it was an enjoyable read.  It is well written with an interesting format and many excellent arguments.  If you are a young conservative - read it!



</review>
<review>

I am impressed with this book.

It is basically a written "dialogue" between Dinesh and a Student named Chris.

Dinesh responds to Chris' questions and manages to tie in background information and detail that support his positions.

He also tries to keep it light hearted--which helps.  Some who read this in a dour state most certainly don't get it.

On page 102 he nails down the absurd and implausible efforts to populate university education with "proportional" feminist writing.

He makes a very good case that color blindness and merit are the only way to ensure a heathly multicultural society.

On page 216 he talks about how in the short-term Repbulican's need to let the Democrats be the party of the blacks and black demands.  For the long term his advice is to continue efforts to grow the economy, increase national unity, merit and color-blindness.

A phenomena for me personally is that Mr. D'Souza takes issues which I have historically "felt" more than understood and articulates them with erudition I envy.

It is an excellent work.

</review>
<review>

If you want to get introduced to the radical conservative concept in plain english you can probably read the book. The book, quite disappointingly, doesn't present logical arguments which is quite putting off for a rational reader. I'll quote an example from Chapter 9 (Why Government Is The Problem):

"It is one thing for the government to provide the basic necessities of life to the "truly needy," people, a group that would include the poor, the sick and the disabled. It is another thing for government to take resources from one middle-class family and give them to another middle-class family. This happens when, for example, the government builds a mass transit system. People who prefer to drive cars must prefer to pay for the transportation preferences of the people who prefer to take the subway."

Now from above argument it seems that people driving cars are doing some kind of charitable favour to people taking the subway. But how about people riding in subways paying for the freeways/highways other people drive their vehicles on.

And similarily all over the book the arguments are pretty loose and unappealing. Another example in chapter 14 (Why Professors Are So Left-Wing):

"Conservatives tend to go to business because they care more about money; liberals tend to into the academy because they care more about power".

I am not sure if I understand the above argument but it seems illogical for people to join academia if they are hungry for power - don't know if there is a "How to become a US Senator for Dummies" but I don't think it would recommend becoming a faculty member in an Ivy League school if one is looking for a seat in Congress.

</review>
<review>

This book, while mostly fluent and often entertaining, is fundamentally flawed.

(In the interest of full disclosure, I come to this judgment as a fan of both G. W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, as a Catholic-raised and Jesuit-minded atheist, as an open 'bisexual' who rejects the notion of 'gay' identity, as a well-read fan of the likes of G.K. Chesterton, Christopher Hitchens, Ann Coulter, Ayn Rand, Camille Paglia and William F. Buckley, and as a reader who wanted to like this book.)

The work has three main flaws.  It is too ambitious for the skill and effort demonstrated.  It preaches to the choir. And it is gratuitously snide and self-contradictorily condescending.

The book gets off to a rough start on page three where D'Souza begins:

"The term "liberal," in its [!] Greek meaning...."

This is a sloppy mistake from a Stanford scholar and former senior White House analyst.  "Liber-" is a Latin root, the Greek for free(man) is "eleutheros."  The author and editor both deserve a ruler across the knuckles from Fr. Grammaticus, S.J., for that mistake.

Saying he has matured from his sophomoric days, D'Souza tries to hard to be serious yet funny.  At best, he comes across as less witty than Buckley, less biting than Coulter, less self-aware than Paglia, and totally out of Rand's league, whom he damns with faint praise in his suggested reading list.  (Perhaps this last comparison is unfair.)

And, of course, as D"Souza says, making "lefties" turn apoplectic is loads of fun.  A politically correct, tweed-and-goateed college professor once told my (all white) literature class that we were all "ignorant racists" who "couldn't even prove [we] exist[ed.]" In response, the editor of my college paper threw a penknife at the prof's head which stuck in the wall behind him with a thud, six inches from his left ear.  When asked whether the knife "existed?" the professor responded, "Class dismissed."  D'Souza's reported college exploits pale in comparison.

Second, the book never puts forth any original solutions or formulations.  It merely reassures an admittedly "young conservative" that liberals are often worth laughing at.  This may be quite true, but Republican Ann Coulter and (?post-)Marxist Christopher Hitchens do so, write so, and say so much better.  Their works are quite highly recommended.

D'Souza offers no arguments other than the implied equation Christian=moral=Republican=Justified

Finally, D'Souza's repeated jabs at homosexuals are inappropriate, and his suggestion that conservatives "forget about" the 'black' vote is abominable.

His homophobic (a word I hate, but which here has no substitute,) references are embarrassing.

At one point, D'Souza nervously jokes that a man says:
"I approve of homosexuality he said, half in Ernest."  [Sic.]

During college orientation, the fetching D'Souza is told to "look the person on either side of him" and realize that at least "one of the three" would have a homosexual experience before leaving college.  Rather than ask, as I did at mine, "How do you know, and what gives you the right to lecture me on the topic?" he makes a mental note to "avoid" the two men for his stay at Dartmouth.  Fearing what?  This is more like a bad frat joke than the work of a serious scholar.

He describes the homosexuality as a "lifestyle" choice, yet also seems to believe that homosexuality is involuntary.  He conflates the "gay" movement (which he sometimes seems to realize is a silly modern leftist aberration) with _homosexuality_ which is universal in all cultures.

[The curious and unafraid "young conservative" should research the words _shaman_ and _berdache_ and the stories of Achilles, Hadrian, and Alexander the Great, and their loves.]

And while I agree entirely with D'Souza's critique of `gay' marriage, (for which he puts forth no serious arguments) I don't see him reaching out here to young homosexual conservatives.  We do exist.

His comments on homosexuality in the military were ignorant, and frankly incoherent.  (Again, see the Greeks)

He also nominally distinguishes between individuals of `African-American' (i.e., former-slave) heritage and the existence of a so-called `black community.'  Yet he advocates that Republicans "give up" on blacks and work on attracting Latinos and Asians as a more expedient political tactic.  This is rank Us-versus-Them tribalism. Partisanship - not principle.

[And, by Asians, does he mean Anatolians?]

To be brief, after reading Christopher Hitchens' work "Letters to a Young Contrarian" in the same series, I fully hoped to enjoy this book.  But I cannot say it was worth the purchase price.

I rated it with one star to weight the bias of reviews that praise it, the book is worth perhaps two or two-and-a-half, if one is charitable.

I have not read D'Souza's other works, yet am willing to give him a second chance - from a lending library.

Pick up a copy of Ann Coulter's paperback edition of "How to Talk to a Liberal" Instead

</review>
<review>

My only conclusion about the popularity of D'Souza is that he writes what his audience loves to hear.  His opinions, and that is all they are, opinions with little concern for research, analysis, and refutation because they are so general, must strike a nerve in many 'young conservatives' who feel they are unappreciated.  However, that doesn't make his ideas right regardless of how much one wants them to be. That any author would presume to be able to make a comprehensive analysis of current political ideology in so short a book is rather insulting to people who spend their entire lives seeking the truth.  That this forum is in the form of a 'letter' is condescending to individuals who want to arrive at truth.  If one is inquisitive about how the world works, why read the pre-digested views of someone who immediately places himself in a one-up position with the reader?  Why not go out and learn about the world yourself?  Are people so afraid that their biases just might be unfounded?  If so, it does not say much for one's self confidence.

That said, here is a brief deconstruction of the sadly poorly reasoned perspective of the author, chapter by chapter.


1	Conservatives vs. Liberals:  Phony dichotomy, as if the country were divided into two mutually exclusive political camps.
Enough said.
2	The Libertarian Temptation:  If you're considering what political agenda suits you, you use reason to arrive at conservativism.  Any other choice is emotional indulgence.  Not that Bush promulgates emotion (bring 'em on, for or against us, ad nauseum; or Cheney (yelled out. F__ Y___ at a Democratic senator during a photo shoot; Cheney the only Congressperson who voted against banning armor piercing bullets during a house vote proposing to ban said ordnance that went through police officers' bullet proof vests-Well, I guess one libertarian temptation doesn't count)
3	The Education of a Conservative--This sounds like you were born conservative and needed educating.  Is this a new variation of trait theory?

4	Pig Wrestling at Dartmouth--I guess every serious book needs a comic chapter title, but you're no Shakespeare.

5	Fighting Political Correctness--You mean political correctness to which you are opposed.  Business suit, white shirt, red power tie, well-groomed: it's the photo of you on the cover! Suggested title "Fighting political correctness by being the correct form of political correctness."

6	Authentic vs. Bogus Multiculturalism--There's authentic and bogus everything: politicians, agendas, $20 bills, televangelists, etc. If you need someone to tell you what is the real thing and what is junk, you will always look to others for advice.

7	What's So Great About Great Books: Logic 101: define "tautology." Besides that, if you have to explain this to your readers, it doesn't say much about their own discernment.  No one should have to explain what is 'great.' Learn through experience.

8	How Reagan Outsmarted the Liberals: Drug dealers outsmart the police all the time.  Advertisers outsmart consumers.  So??? Is 'outsmart' a positive word?  Not to me.

9	Why Government Is the Problem: You're not talking about the morass of Iraq, sponsored by the Republican party, or the abysmal failure of the Bush FEMA program, or the indictments of top-level conservative politicians, are you?  Are fire departments the problem?  Is government--the entity that created the protection of free speech so people like D'souza could write books the enemy?

10	When the Rich Get Richer:  Another lame trickle-down economic theory; the trouble is two-fold: the rich don't buy things; they already have everything; they can invest their profits, but the big money is in investing overseas.

11	How Affirmative Action Hurts Blacks: THe old argument about class vs. race.  How about a new problem: "How outsourcing high tech jobs to India hurts Whites" Won't win too many conservatives with that one.

12	The Feminist Mistake: You mean there is only one??? I made at least three mistakes today alone! I bet if you ask him, D'Zousa would say he doesn't make any.  Everyone and every ideology makes mistakes.  We're all human.

13	Who Are the Postmodernists?  Corporations that rip-off 1920's car designs and haute couture and make a fortune are the only ones of import; the rest just sit around bee-esing.

14	Why Professors Are So Left-Wing: Since Business is the number one college major and the M.B.A. is the most sought after college degree, this argument is very old and lame.  Not too many Finance, Marketing, and Management professors are so called "Left Wing": whatever that means.  The 60's are over, dude.

15	All the News That Fits: Are you really going to rip-off a old joke that appeared in "Mad Magazine"?

16	A Living Constitution?  If the Constitution sat in a vault and no one knew it, would it be a constitution?  I suppose it's all how you interpret it; of course, those who are alive and who interpret it make it a living constitution.  If such people agree with your version, it's valid; otherwise, it's a chimera, I suppose.

17	More Guns, Less Crime: Households with guns have double the rate of suicide than those without guns.  Suicide is a crime.  I guess you weren't referring to THAT crime.  Yes guns don't kill people, Americans with guns kill people, at least in terms of so-called 'civilized societies.'

18	How to Harpoon a Liberal: Very revealing metaphor.  I guess when the whales are all extinct, you have to get out your aggression somewhere.

19	Lies My Teacher Taught Me:  Like the one that stated Teddy Roosevelt charged up San Juan Hill? Why didn't you mention that one?

20	Was Lincoln a Bad Guy?: John Wilkes Booth thought he was.

21	The Self-Esteem Hoax:  You gain self-esteem by hard work and accomplishment, like the ambitious young men who make fortunes dealing drugs.

22	Who Cares About the Snail Darter?  This is the tired argument about the expendability of endangered species for the sake of economics.  The U.S. has--I mean had--a long history of conserving nature.  It was part of our culture.  In the Philippines you can eat dog for a main course.  If you objected, some nice Filipino might ask "Who cares about dogs?" You do, because it's part of your culture.  Who's right?  Did you see the episode of Twilight Zone where beings came from another planet with a book "How to Serve Man," and it turned out to be a cookbook?  Be careful for what you wish for.

23	Against Gay Marriage: Look at Canada and the evil consequences it has caused there like low divorce rates, low levels of child molestation, low incidents of juvenile deliquency, etc.  Now check with the Moral U.S.A.

24	Family Values Since Oedipus: You left out your hero R. Reagan in this chapter: the only American president to have been divorced.

25	Speaking As a Former Fetus: I'd love to read Hitler's or Stalin's version of this.

26	The Hypocrisy of Anti-Globalists: If you can tell me where I can buy a DVD player made in the U.S.A., I'll run right out and buy one.

27	Are Immigrants to Blame?:  Sure they are to blame.  Just blame them.  They won't talk back.  They could get deported.

28	Why Liberals Hate America: Name three... Come on...You can do it.   I'm waiting....OK, get back to me later on that one.

29	A Republican Realignment?  You mean like the way they are lining up to protest stem cell research and praising the war in Iraq? Or maybe the way they're lining up to get fingerprinted with Delay in the lead and Libby right behind.

30
Why Conservatives Should Be Cheerful: At least one conservative should be. You. If enough suckers buy your book, why wouldn't you be?

</review>
<review>

I was expecting new and interesting ideas from this book, but was disappointed.  If you truly have no idea how to find a sales baseline for your business or don't know how to track trends, this book is for you.  If you are like me (you know the basics but were trying to find a more thorough approach), I wouldn't buy the book

</review>
<review>

I read the book from cover to cover and was thoroughly enlightened. From a content perspective, the book is first rate. Carlberg not only explains how to forecast, but he also clarifies the pros and cons of the various methods, explains how to reduce forecasting error, and offers excellent insight into regression and the other statistics involved in making and evaluating a forecast.

Carlberg also masterfully integrates theory with practice by clearly explaining how to best utilize Excel for forecasting. I consider myself a very advanced user of Excel, but nevertheless benefited from Carlberg's sophisticated understanding of Excel. He provides an excellent overview of the pros, cons, and pitfalls of using the Analysis Toolpak vs. spreadsheet modeling, and offers a number of arcane Excel tips that I haven't found elsewhere. For example, despite years of Excel experience, I never understood (or, more accurately, noticed) the difference between a `Category Axis' and a `Value Axis' in an Excel chart.

I almost gave Excel Sales Forecasting four stars, for one important reason: The book was poorly organized. The main topics in the book - moving averages, exponential smoothing, and regression - were broken up into too many pieces, such that each topic was covered multiple times with a lot of unnecessary repetition. I realize this is, to some extent, the nature of Dummies books, which are not necessarily meant to be read cover-to-cover. But as a result, I often found myself needlessly re-reading material several times and, conversely, often had to flip back several chapters because I had forgotten some of the nuances of one of the methods by the time I got to a more advanced section. Having just finished the book, I still feel like I need to review it one more time, by topic, to put all the `pieces' back together in my mind.

With the exception of the final rant above, the book is outstanding and provides an insightful introduction to someone like myself who knew nothing of forecasting.

I'm not one to normally quote old sayings, but this book brought to mind the Chinese (Confucius) proverb: "I hear, I forget.  I see, I remember.  I do, I understand." Learning forecasting via Excel helped strengthen my understanding. The author and Wiley (the publisher) deserve a lot of credit for producing this unique and valuable book

</review>
<review>

If "For Dummies" means, clear, comprehensible, well illustrated, and fun to read to boot, then "Excel Sales Forecasting for Dummies" is true to its name. When you put together a guide to one of the most powerful and useful pieces of software in any company's arsenal with the genius of Conrad Carlberg to lead even the neophyte through the intracacies of sales forecasting, the combination is downright unbeatable. Carlberg has won awards for a string of some of the best "how-to" books on EXCEL and Microsoft Office. This new one gets my personal award for "best EXCEL guide of the year.

</review>
<review>

I know that Dummies books are supposed to be easygoing and offer a lighter tone than most, so I was surprised to see this topic getting the Dummies treatment.  I'm glad to report that it works.  Excel Sales Forecasting is very reader-friendly, and it demystifies intimidating concepts like "exponential smoothing" and "mutiple regression."  I've done a lot of numeric analysis but not much forecasting, mainly because the available texts are so dense and inpenetrable.   No more!  This book provides the material I need to understand, clearly and with useful detail and examples.  It covers the basics and also dips into some more advanced topics.  It considers not just the number crunching aspects, but also the business context that you're forecasting into.  And it's fun to read!  We dummies have a secret:  we're smart enough to get books written for us that don't make our eyes glaze over.    This one makes the grade.

</review>
<review>

I picked up this book at random at the airport for something to read on my flight.  I am so glad that I came across it.  I can't wait to read John Grisham's new book about a similar case in Ada.  Sounds to me like they need to get a new DA and take a better look at this case.  I would imagine that his career is pretty much ruined now though, heh.  The girl on the first page mentioned that she was Donna Denice Haraway's niece and that Tommy and Karl did commit the crime and that this book is full of lies.  With all due respect to that girl, as I know her family has gone through a lot....but she was only 4 years old when it happened.  There isn't honest closure if the real murderer is still walking.  Who knows how many others he has hurt. Who knows, maybe it was the same guy that killed the other girl, the one in Grisham's book

</review>
<review>

Mayer's missive about miscarriage of justice in Ada, OKlahoma, has been re-released to coincide with best-selling legal thriller author (and attorney) John Grisham's first foray into non-fiction True Crime, *The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town.* Although chronicling different crimes and different cases, they occur on common ground. Both constitute a grippingly nauseating expose of Ada, America, run totally amuck. (Be afraid.  Be very afraid that this can and IS happening right here, in the "Land of the Free")  In the Afterward to this update, (no pictures :-(   Mayer aptly describes the obscenity of District Attorney Bill Peterson (WHAT?!? He's still there, in his absolute power?!? Proving what they say about absolute power - it corrupts absolutely) and his band of Good Old Boys as "Kafka in Oklahoma."
Coerced, by interrogators who would make the SS  and  KGB proud, into dreaming up implausibly impossible "dreams" of what could have happened to a missing convenience store clerk, 2 then-young men have been matriculating in the Oklahoma prison system for over 20 years now.
This reviewer, graduate of the University of Oklahoma's College of Law, is simply dumbstruck. I have dreams of Peterson storm-trooping through his Pontotoc County Courthouse to the swirling strains of "Darth Vader's Theme." As another son of the South would ask:
People of Pontotoc County, What Are You Thinking?
And shame on the rest of you all, Oklahoma, for allowing this boil on the buckle of the Bible Belt to not merely fester, but prosper.
Both books should be required reading for those who profess to believe in Liberty and Justice for All.
[and see wardandfontenot.com]
/TundraVision, Amazon Reviewer

</review>
<review>

Denice and I grew up in the same small town in Oklahoma. It is of the utmost importance to understand how those of us who knew her were profoundly affected by her death. This heinous crime not only shook Ada, but also shook those of us who grew up with her in Purcell,OK. Denice was a sweet girl who had a smile that would light up the room. She was a year behind me in school. I recently pulled out a old High School annual. Looking at her photo brought back a rush of memories. Memories of a beautiful, innocent young woman who's life was ended in the twinkling of a eye. As important as it is that justice has been served in this case, it is even more important for all to understand that we will never forget Denice.


</review>
<review>

Tommy spent many nights, days weekends with my sisters and mother and is not the type to do harm to anyone. He has even slept across my sisters feet in the winter when the electric was turned off, just to keep her feet warm. I have seen and spoken to him many times since then and eventhough he has been convicted of a crime he didn't commit, he is still a caring person. His only crime was to DREAM or in this case have a nightmare. He will eventually be set  free

</review>
<review>

I read this book well over a decade ago when Tommy told me about it in a letter.  I knew both of these men fairly well and spent a great deal of time with them in the year before this crime occurred, particularly Tommy.  Karl was a little "different" (mentally slow) but he was always kind to me and Tommy somewhat protected him because of what Karl had been through with his mother's death.  They had many opportunities to hurt me as they spent a great deal of time in my apartment and I had been over to Tommy's mothers' home a couple of times and his brother's home on several occasions - I moved away from Ada just a few weeks before Donna (who I did not know) was killed.  I also knew (or knew of) most of the other individuals in the book...and if I had to choose who would be most likely to commit a murder, Tommy would have been the last one I would have ever chosen.  When I knew Tommy he was one of the gentlest souls I'd ever known - I can still see him talking and playing with his pet bird and how obvious it was that he valued life, even that of a a small creature.  I don't believe he did it and I will never believe it.  This book will keep your attention...and it will capture your heart as well.

</review>
<review>

I have read many true crime books in my life.
Out of these books I would estimate 10% qualify as truly excellent or great true crime books.
This is one of those books.

A Book Review should not be debating the guilt or innocence of the suspects mentioned in the book.

What the average reader wants to know is will this book keep me up all night turning the pages?

The best true crime books are better than their fiction counterparts because the things people do to each other are more unbelieveable than anything a fiction writer could invent.

This book qualifies as a book that will keep you up all night and the next day when you try to read it while eating lunch.

My sympathies are certainly with the relatives of the victim but nevertheless this is one of the best True Crime books I've ever read.

By the way, my secret to finding the best true crime books is to look at the bottom of the outside cover of the book. If the book was a Book of the Month Selection or an Edgar Award Winner or Nominee...buy the book. (This book was an Edgar Award Nominee) You won't be sorry.

Here are 5 others that will keep you up all night:
1) Minds of Billy Mulligan
2) Zodiac
3) Unveiling Claudia
4) Zebra
5) Careless Whispers





</review>
<review>

I grew up in Ada. Tommy was one of my older brothers best friends. I know Tommy had many faults but he is not a killer. He was very respectful of me and my sister and had a gentle heart. I think this book tells many truths but several are not researched in enough detail. My oldest brother Melvin Hardin is mentioned in this book but the information is only minute as to what actually occured. However, I do think this book served its purpose as to get the finger off Tommy and Karl and will hopefully serve justice eventually. I hope Tommy and Karl are released to at least live the rest of their lives as they choose

</review>
<review>

I really enjoyed packing volume three with me on a recent vacation trip.  Feynman amazes me with his clarity of thought, clear explanations, and wonderful sense of humor.  Why should there be anything difficult about the fundamentals of nature?  You really see how simple things are at the bottom, and only get clouded when working out the details.  Feynman clearly separates the essence from the messy mathematical details of implementation.  I love how he beats a horse to death in one dimension before generalizing!  I'm sure that's how all great minds work.  Few books on quantum mechanics are of such a high caliber.  Volume three is a treasure

</review>
<review>

These lectures are a boon to anyone interested in having a go at understanding both the micro and macro of our universe and what part we have in the scheme of it all. Feynman is both the essence of clarity and he provides the tools for scientific thought about the origin of the universe

</review>
<review>

I purchased the Feyman Lectures on Physics because I always wanted have this material to prepare my lectures. I did my graduation in French Universities and the physics lectures there are something diferent from the Anglo Saxon way. I always wanted to take advantage of my formation and the fact that I have acess to Physics books from the US or UK to have another look to Physics. For this Feyman Lectures are essential. The clarity and the originality of these lectures continue to inspire generation of teacher. Sometime I regret that the mathematical formalism is not more present, but this is due my formation.

</review>
<review>

When I was 13 years of age, a family friend (a professor of math and physics,) loaned (and never received back) this set of books, to me.

I was doing a report for class on probability and statistics, but not knowing what "age level" for which the books were intended, due to the number of illustrations and accessible wording, I devoured, and learned.

Whether a person is in college, or simply interested in more than a public school can teach at a given grade level -- I recommend having these books around, on the bookshelf, coffeetable -- anywhere.

Plus, the guy plays bongos! I mean, how can you not love a book by a physicist who plays bongos and has a picture of that in the front of the book?


</review>
<review>

These lectures are a gold mine about physics. I use the analogy of a precious metal lode in its full sense; nuggets that will make you wealthy mixed in gravel. For example, Feynman's discussions on Brownian motion, leading to the derivation of Binomial and Gaussian statistical distributions and the Central Limit Theorem are so insightful and profound that they border on being revealations. On the other hand, he spends just as much time talking about storms and lightening. (If I were one of his students in the lecture hall, that's when I'd work on the homework for my next class.)

Overall, this an extremely "rich mine"; regardless of the depth of your knowledge of physics, you will be enlightened, enriched and entertained by Feynman.  The way he homes in to the heart of a problem -- "cut to the chase"  -- when he lays out the first defining equation to a phenomenon, you know you are in the presence of a rare and great mind.

These are LECTURES, a professor sharing his interests and demonstrating how he thinks to his students. These do not claim to be a comphrehensive TEXT on physics, the reader should not confuse the two

</review>
<review>

A one of a kind,down to earth, no nonsense physicist and the best sort of teacher.
Wonderful!!!


</review>
<review>

I read all three of these books over a six month period. They are a fairly comprehensive study of college level physics at a beginning to intermediate level. The most through treatment is given to the subject of Electromagnetism.
As others have mentioned the style is very informal which may be why it appeals to many. I however found the style to be too informal and in particular lack mathematical rigor. At least for me  lack of mathematics made understanding the issues more difficult.
These books do not have any exercises. In my opinion it is impossible to really learn physics without doing problems. The more problems you do the better your understanding. I would advise anyone using these series to complement it with books with problems such as Schuam's outlines. You will need to get the appropriate Schuam for the particular subject you want to dive deep into.
On the whole I found the experience of reading them rewarding. I would recommend these books but not as the only source for the subjects

</review>
<review>

It's exactaly the book for me. The autor is a genius. He Show the ways for a to think diferent.
Thanks..

</review>
<review>

Richard Phillips Feynman is showing physics with an extremly clear view, providing all essentials of classical and quantum physics. His lectures` are the best an undergraduate can read to understand. The nobel laurate from 1965 was able to explain everything in his own very intuitive way of thinking. He is writing precise and shows a combination of experimental and theoretical physics which is searching still for competition. Sometimes, I thought, even Albert Einstein was not able to to describe thing smore simple. Very inventive are his ideas on the General Theory of Relativity in Volume two. It should be emphasized, that his physical intuition was leading him to the very important description of the Aharonov-Bohm effect in chapter fifteen of volume two. He shwos, that the vector potential must be a real field. All in all, Feynman`s work should be read more than once by every physicist. I personally know men, who are experts in fields like superconductivity or gravity and still are consulting for these Feynman lectures sometimes

</review>
<review>

Jennings is always interesting and provocative, but also careful and accurate.

It is unfortunate that one reviewer below (Robert) has lessened the score of this terrific book with a one-star review. The reviewer seems not to have read very carefuly; anyone interested can use Amazon's Search function to read Jenning's description of the Adams/Hancock episode on page 155-157. Jennings retells historian David Hackett Fischer's story about the pompous Hancock; nothing unkind is said about Adams at all

</review>
<review>

American history never made sense to me and now I know why.  As voltaire said,  and quot;History is the lie commonly agreed upon and quot; and that's what was taught to me in school and is now taught to my son.  Francis Jennings tries to change all that with a  and quot;revisionist history and quot; asking the questions that when posed by students in school are ignored by teachers. How did material progress evolve in a country that was already populated by over 25 million inhabitants?  Who owned america?  How did we shift from a policy of cooperation with the indians (a la Thanksgiving) to one of aggression. How much of our revolution was political and how much economic?  How did relations between colonialists and Great Britain deteriorate so quickly after so many years of harmony?  This book is an overview of much that Jennings has written in earlier books with some further thoughts and ideas.  What is most enjoyable is that he is willing to speculate, to question accepted fact and wisdom, to go out on a limb, to offer an opinion on various events, characters and situations.  For the first time american history became real to me: the people human, the events complex and contradictory, the struggle for independence understandable.  In the end a history not much different from what has been happening recently in Washington. The prose can be turgid; parts of it are somewhat academic but Jennings moves the story along and makes for me (a non-historian) very telling points. He left this reader with much to think about. I have since gone out and bought his other books and will be reading those in 2001.  A good balancing piece after this book is A Struggle For Power by Theodore Draper

</review>
<review>

I tried reading this book but found it so turgid and poorly written that I put it down in frustration.  It reads like a translation from another language by an academic bureacrat. The theme is interesting, the execution poor.  Cannot recommend

</review>
<review>

Hull is the one stop shop for learning (and using as a reference once you have learnt "it") almost any topic in Quant Finance. This book really has it all - options, interest rate models, volatility modeling, credit derivatives, you name it. However, use it as an introductory book - learn the main concepts from here and then move on to advanced books. As a current student of quant finance, I find Hull's book to be indispensable

</review>
<review>

I recently entered the field of quantitative finance from physics, and this book has been by far the best resource as both a learning tool and reference.  Its bredth of coverage is outstanding, covering topics as simple as bond yields and zero rates, to sophsticated libor market models, weather derivatives, bermudan swaptions, etc.  While a bit wordy at times, Hull does present all the mathematics in a tractible manner.  Books with more mathematical sophistication, such as Brigo  and  Mercurio, while interesting, are far less useful on the trading floor.

With each chapter Hull presents several "Business Snapshots" providing practical real life illustrations.  Overall, this is a great purchase someone with a quantitive background new to finance

</review>
<review>

Insightful, shines with intuition, easy to follow. Good start point, inspire further study, and visit it regularly you'll get more.

</review>
<review>

I actually learned a lot math and physics from finance AFTER I earned my PhD in physics and started working as a senior analyst at a Houston based energy firm (NOT ENRON), and Hull's wonderful book got me started in econophysics, or econometrics as it is often called.

Before Hull's book, I truly knew diddly about financial markets and derivative instruments.  Hull gets you started by giving the reader the ins and outs of the various types of options markets, carefully defining terms and explaining business procedures.  He then builds up the statistical concepts necessary to estimate the variance of stock price returns, the Ito stochastic calculus, and finally proceeds on to the Black-Scholes-Merton (BSM) partial differential equation (PDE) and its analytic solution for pricing European options.  American options follow, which can be solved by various means, e.g., binary trees, Monte Carlo methods, and numerical methods.  There are then several chapters expounding on options trading strategies such as straddles and strangles and so on.  Some treatment of exotic (beyond plain vanilla) options is also developed.

I thought the material on Variance at Risk (VAR), the volatility smile, the term structure of interest rates and so on are lucid. Throughout the latter part of the book, the BSM equation and solution methods are extended to other market instruments such as those traded at the LIBOR.

Critiques:

1. I thought Hull's developement of Martingales is too cursory.

2. When I wanted to actually code numerical PDE solutions (or trinary trees equivalently) I found I needed to use other texts such as Wilmott's Option Pricing book.

3. Wilmott's book shows how one can transform the heat PDE equation into the BSM equation.  This is amazing: from diffusion physics a connection is found to finance!  And a connection, by turning t to it can be found to the path integral methods of quantum field theories.

Notes for the doctoral physicist:

Beyond the standard graduate semester of thermodynamics and statisical mechanics, I found by studying finance that there was much to statistical mechanics I truly hadn't mastered.

1. To understand the variance and expectation parameters of the BSM equation, it is important to understand the concept of propagation of errors.  I honestly believe that many experimentalists don't have a real grasp of this concept.

2. Solving stochastic PDEs is not part of the standard background of a PhD in physics.  Those whose speciality requires solving stochastic PDEs use the Monte Carlo methods developed at Los Alamos during WWII.  But there are other, more formal methods available outside of Monte Carlo, such as the Ito calculus which is built from graduate probability theory.  Prior to my PhD in physics, I earned an MS in math (non-thesis, 36 hours).  I learned a bunch of seemingly dry and useless measure theory (Rudin; 'little' Royden; Royden), precious little of which is even mentioned in the standard year of graduate quantum mechanics.  BUT when I ran into graduate probability texts that developed the Ito calculus, I realized all that measure theory, redressed as probability theory, made a helluva lot of sense. One of the central themes is how to integrate a stochastic function.

3. The history of finance and physics actually goes back to the turn of the previous century, about the time Einstein was working on Brownian motion. The BSM equation is the tip of the iceberg of stocastic PDEs in finance: there are, for example, reversion to mean stochastic PDEs used in pricing electricity and so on.

4.  Our (physicist) way of looking at time series and parameter estimation (usually Fourier methods) are limited.  Look up autoregressions and heteroscedasticity, ARIMAs, ....

Alex Alaniz Ph.D.

1. Please see the reviews of my own strong science fiction book: Beyond Future Shock about the near-terms perils and promise of advanced bio/nano technology in a world still roiled with Middle Age religious conflict and ever growing extreme wealth gradients.

2. I have REVIEWED many books from undergraduate to graduate in: PHYSICS, MATH, ECONOMETRICS, and HISTORY among other areas

</review>
<review>

Hull is known as THE expert on the options and derivatives.  I found the book easy to read and the examples are insightful.  However, the book is not meant for skimming.  One needs to focus on the material or important insight will be missed.  I have had to re-read some portions of the chapter to completely understand what Hull is saying

</review>
<review>

Was expecting a book that really helps fairly new readers to the concepts of financial engineering. This book is not well written and throws the reader into a lot of topics without any real-world, practical examples. A much, much, much, better book is Investment Science by Luenberger. Get that book. It kicks Hull's ass

</review>
<review>

The book "Options, Futures and Other Derivatives" is for me the best book out there for Finance majors and professionals. I haven't finished the book but I feel confident now to review it. The structure and presentation of the book feels right, it starts with an introduction to Forwards, Futures and Option contracts and it later builds slowly on the mechanics of markets and the determination of their prices. Then it moves to more complex instruments and subjects (in my opinion) like the pricing of these instruments (Black  and  Scholes, Binomial Trees, etc.)  and some risk management instruments like Value at Risk. In synthesis this book is a most have for any finance major or professional. There is not much I can say that it hasn't been said before. This book is the one that will give any student the necessary foundation to dwell into the more advance topics and pricing calculations. The only thing, I would like to recommend is that this book could be used with the Financial Toolkit of Matlab. It is a great teaching combination in my opinion. Currently my work prohibits me from teaching but if I could I would give classes of Derivatives using this book (+) Matlab. I think it is a nice combination and it helps students that don't have the necessary mathematical background to understand it right away. John C. Hull is one of our most valuable authors we have in the Financial Industry and his book should always be regarded as a jewel of finance

</review>
<review>

It is not surprising that Hull's book is the standard text in introductory graduate derivatives courses.  You clearly see a no nonsense format in his book that is the same for all serious finance books (i.e. black text on a white background with only shades of gray).  Being an intro book, he jumps steps in some of the more challenging derivations for the beginner like in the Black-Scholes options pricing model and doesn't discuss Ito calculus in much detail.  However, there are clearly books that focus on those topics and they are clearly more advanced than for an intro course.  This book is a definite must buy

</review>
<review>

Although John Hull's book "Options, futures, and other derivatives" is considered by many to be the bible for understanding derivatives , I think this book took the same shortcut that many books on this topic have taken. That is, they've focused on options where the underlying asset are stocks, exclusively. I suppose Hull's reason was to simplify an already complex topic. Yet, as a recent graduate with a degree in economics, I was hoping to find more information on options with commodities future contracts as the underlying asset. The book is fairly easy to follow. the dialogue is interesting without being boring. However, if your interested in a beginning book about derivatives, look somewhere else. If your interested in a book about derivatives that offers strategies, some useful math, and bases most of the discussion around stocks, this book might just be for you.

</review>
<review>

The Boston based author, Dennis Lehane, wrote a great detective story with a social background so great, it is almost more important than the plot. "Mystic River" differs from Lehane's other books and indeed raises him to the next level as a writer.

"Mystic River" is set in the fictional Boston suburb, called East Buckingham (the author explains it as an amalgamate of Dorchester, Charlestown and South Boston and it really feels like Dorchester), home mostly to white working class, with plenty of crime. I liked the background info especially since I could relate to it, knowing the area...

The first part, which is the base and explanation for later events, takes place in 1975, when one of the three eleven-year old neighborhood boys playing in the street is abducted by two men in an apple-smelling car, and although he comes back after four days, his life as well as his friends' is changed forever. The ways of the boys soon part, Dave (the boy taken by the men) lives a quiet life, has a wife and a son, and likes his memories of being a football player in high school. Jimmy, the "bad boy", after doing some time in prison settles down as a storeowner with a nineteen-year old daughter from his first marriage, second wife and their two daughters. The third boy, college-educated Sean, becomes a policeman.

When Jimmy's beautiful daughter, Katie, is found murdered in the park after a night out Dave comes home covered in blood, Sean gets assigned to the case. There are many leads to different people... But the case is difficult. Meanwhile, Jimmy and his family embark on the search of their own.

The plot is very good until the end, and psychological details as well as the insights into the society are extremely accurate. The characters are very real, especially Jimmy and Sean, who are central to the plot. Their trauma after Dave's abduction made a lasting effect on their lives - in very different ways. They are complicated, multifaceted people, very well developed as literary characters. Some side protagonists, depicting perhaps types rather than individuals (Bobby, Roman, the Savage brothers, Sergeant Whitey), are very good. I was in the grasp of this book until the end - it is not only great entertainment, but also food for thought.

The movie based on "Mystic River" with Sean Penn is equally moving - recommended for those with little time...

</review>
<review>

What's wrong with all you Amamzon reviewers?

I actually quite liked Shutter Island but this was total garbage. The morose tone is totally overdone throughout, and the end is pathetic. The interesting situtation setup in the first chapter is never satisfyingly integrated with the rest of the story.

Avoid

</review>
<review>

Three childhood friends from a Boston working class neighborhood, who lost their innocence through a tragic shared occurrence, are forced together again as adults when one of their daughters is murdered.  Each is wrapped tightly into the investigation, but each must also unwrap themselves in order come to terms with this latest tragedy and its conclusion.

An exceptional book.
A powerhouse story so well written, that Mr. Lehane's words allow you to slip unseen into these charters lives and walk around with them for a while (which is not very pleasant during some events).

Although the story is essentially a murder mystery, the real gems are the characters.  The charters are so well thought out and contain so many layers, that it is a joy to experience these layers being peeled like an onion to reveal their true nature.  In fact, the actual mystery (or "who done it") is almost secondary to how the main characters will be affected by each action and layer being revealed.  Of course the "who done it" is pivotal, but when the killer is revealed, the gas tank has already exploded and no conclusion could justify the actions taken.

A story about survival and awakening, with a hell of a mystery to push it along.  It was awesome.

</review>
<review>

This is a brilliant novel that I can't recommend highly enough.

While the mystery of who killed the teenage girl is good, Mystic River is so much more than just a murder mystery. It is a dark, affecting, moral drama.

The Boston setting is gritty and real and the characters are complex and fascinating. This is a novel about loyalty, friendship, and family. While the murder mystery is solved in the closing pages, the ending to this novel is messy and complicated - like life is.

Lehane has written a powerful novel with sharp dialogue that never sounds contrived. It is filled with raw emotion; the anguish of losing a child, the horror of child abduction, revenge and madness.

Don't read this novel if you like murder mysteries that are solved by a cat or the ladies sewing circle. This is a human drama; an unflinching look into the dark side of human nature.

</review>
<review>

It's a crime novel. It's human drama. It's gritty eloquent and literary. There are few other writers to whom to compare Lehane. He has a style all his own and a beautiful way of weaving old fashioned crime fiction into a tapestry of moral drama and psychological examination.
Three childhood friends grow apart as they age, though each remains in South Boston, where the novel is set. There is a horrific crime and the old friends are drawn together again through coincidental circumstances. As a reader, you care deeply for each character and you become invested in them from the start. Once Lehane owns you that way, he begins to unravel a classic murder mystery with a few jaw dropping revelations along the way.
In many ways, Lehane does for Boston what Stephen King has done for Maine. The southie backdrop is every bit as vivid as the characters who pop off the page. Great writing, great story. The kind of book that will keep you up until the birds start chattering outside

</review>
<review>

Wow! An intense read. At time the subject matter can be difficult to handle, but the story is amazing.  The movie does not do the novel justice

</review>
<review>

When I bought the book I did not know that they already made a movie out of it but I learned about it later on. So I was really excited when I started to read it - also because other comments were really good.
Unfortunately the book could not live up to my expectations at all.

First the story development is really slow- it takes an awful lot of pages before the actual crime happens.

Second, several passages in the book do not contribute anything vital at all to the story but only slow down the pace significantly.

The worst part of the book though is its style: It does not matter if a person really contributes anything at all to the story or the crime - he/she gets an extensive characterization. Most of them are several pages long and bore the hell out of the reader. Without this absolutely unnecessary amount of information this book easily could be about 200 pages shorter.

But even if the pace is slow and the book should be shorter, couldn't it still be an interesting book? Unfortunately those of you who hope to find a decent crime story will be disappointed big time as well. The detective aspect is so simple it could be told in less than 100 pages. On top of that the solution to the crime is so simple that after the first clue you know who the murderer is - and wonder why you need to go through over 200 pages to find out officially.

Conclusion:
If you are a psychologist and/or like in-depth character studies this is exactly the right book for you.
BUT for those of you who like fast-paced stories, ample twist and turns, surprises, action, thrilling developments and/or elaborate detective stories this book will be an absolute waste of your time. Please do not come anyway near it. Watch the movie instead - this way you will see some really great actors and are over with it in 2 hours

</review>
<review>

This book is very touching you get caught up with daves character.This book pulls you in and keeps you on the edge waiting and wondering what would happen next. It takes a turning point when one of the friends gets kidnapped by two man claiming to be officers. During that time they fall apart at lease one of them does. They lose there friendship  after the incident and become friends again but not to the same strenght they did before.Until another problem occurs then all of them come back into contact with each other again.It makes you think how far does friendship go? Alot of people that had friends when they where younger dont anymore. So i ask my self a question how strong is a friendship after a traggic situation. This book tells more info then the movie did and i like that. I feel bad for one of the friends cause after all that happened to him he was different

</review>
<review>

I was really looking forward to both the book and the movie. Unfortunately I think both are very much overrated. Character development is non-existent. We're supposed to believe that the haunted, passive, timid character Dave was an all-star shortstop in high school? The book had a great premise and good beginning, but went nowhere interesting. The handling of Dave's character relies on cliche and we never really get insight into the book's most intriguing character.

</review>
<review>

Dennis Lehane's Mystic River is a suspenseful, mind-teasing thriller that keeps the reader geussing and wanting to read more.  One of three friends gets kidnapped and molested as a child, but manages to escape four days later.  Twenty-five years after that, the friends have grown apart, and one of the men's daughters has been mysteriously murdered.  This tragic event brings the three boys back together again and shows that the past can never be hidden or forgotten.  I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to be kept geussing with a suspenseful murder mystery

</review>
<review>

Dear Reader,

When we last left the poor unfortunate Baudelaire siblings they had hidden themselves in the trunk of evil Count Olaf's car and were being rushed away from the burning Heimlich Hospital.  Klaus and Sunny had just saved Violet from having her brain removed.  It was terrible.

But things become even worse.  The Baudelaires find themselves at the Caligari Carnival out in the Hinterlands.  They are forced to don disguises from Olaf's trunk and pretend to be freaks while they try to discover from Olaf and the mysterious Madame Lulu secrets about their parents.  Madame Lulu's motto is "to give people what they want" and she always seems to give Olaf just what he wants.

No one recognizes the Baudelaires, but Olaf has a devilish plan cooked up anyway.  He wants to feed a freak to some starving lions to bring in more money.  Oh, it's so dreadful.  There's so much that goes on.  The Baudelaires begin to learn about the V.F.D. and what it is and was and they gain some more knowledge about the questions they have.
Knowledge comes at a price, however, and the price that the Baudelaires and others pay is very high.  THE CARNIVOROUS CARNIVAL becomes so violent and the book ends in a most horrific way.  Read the book if you must, but be warned that there is no happy ending here.

Sincerely,

Uncle T

</review>
<review>

Here is the ninth volume in Lemony Snicket's bestselling children's collection A Series of Unfortunate Events. The Baudelaire orphans had hidden in the trunk of Count Olaf's car at the end of The Hostile Hospital to escape from a fire that Olaf and his "associates" had set. With The Carnivorous Carnival They arrive at the Caligari Carnival out in the middle of the hinterlands and are able to get out of the trunk before Count Olaf discovers them. Klaus, Violet, and Sunny disguise themselves as Carnival Freaks so that they can stay at the Carnival and have the opportunity to discover some facts about the possibility of one of their parents still living and the rest of the "Snicket File". Klaus and Violet are disguised as a Two-Headed Freak Beverly / Eliot, Sunny is Chabo the Wolf Baby. They join with other freaks, like Kevin the Ambidextrous Man, Colette the Contortionist, and Hugo the Hunchback.

Laced with dark humor and Snicket's signature warnings about continuing to read the book because of the horrible things the Baudelaires will go through, The Carnivorous Carnival is another excellent entry by Lemony Snicket and with this book and the previous one Snicket has brought some fresh energy to a series that had a sense of a paint by numbers formula. No longer are the stories resolved neatly by book's end being led to a conclusion which may be a few books away but feels immediate and fraught with tension and danger.

-Joe Sherr

</review>
<review>

This book is good, as always when it comes to Lemony Snicket (Daniel Handler.) However, it was as not as good as I thought ti would be. I would have to say, this book is my least favorite in a Series of Unfortunate Events, but it is still very good.

If you want ot buy this book, but have not read the other books before this, read the other books before you read this, or you will have no idea whatsoever what is going on.

Lemony Snicket, or Daniel Handler, is a great writer, in my opinion, but only devoted Snicket fans will actually appreciate his talents.

But of course, there are devoted Snicket fans all over the library.

</review>
<review>

this book is the kids go to a carnival and the count is there again lol

look at my site katsbookclub.bravehost.co

</review>
<review>

This is one of my favorite in the series so far. The characters are well developed proportional to their respective roles. Also, this book develops the overall series plot well. As usual, Snicket brilliantly contrasts the loathsome adults with the children to create his upside-down world; in this book, the adults are especially unlikable. There is also the beautiful twist at the end for which Snicket is known

</review>
<review>

The carnivorous carnival was a good book
The book was about the baudelaire orphans Sunny, Klaus, and Violet. There are accused of murdering a guy named Count Olaf. He is the real bad guy that is after them for there money.

They are running from Count Olaf and they find this carnival. They decide to disguise themselves as freaks and go join Madame Lulu's house of freaks. They meet the other freaks and become friends with them. Count Olaf comes and stays at the carnival because he thinks they are there. Count brings a new attraction to the park. Lions, he is going to throw a freak into the lions pit for money. The Baudelaire's excape and look into madame Lulu's cristal ball. They see that one of there parents are still alive. They are hiding in the Mortmain Mountains. They're new goal is to find there parents but there is some obsticles on the way.

I thought this book was pretty good and I recommend this book to kids that like mystery because there is a lot of thinking in this book or adventure because they are running around a lot and hiding from the bad guys. The suspence will keep you standing and the end of the book is a real cliff-hanger

</review>
<review>

There is one single reason why I've bought this book: I was looking for the best quotation dictionary available, at a low price. Every now and then I want to use a quotation in a text I write concerning to my work as a lawyer, but I never found such a book in local bookshops. My search ended when I got to this book. Have yourself a copy as soon as you can. You won't regret. I assure you that

</review>
<review>

I regard this book as an indispensable and practical tool for personal leadership development. Quite often, we get or give 360 feedback where a growth opportunity is evidenced. This book not only reviews each area of skills, but more importantly provides valuable examples that actually drive change

</review>
<review>

This book is a tremendous rescource for anybody who leads a team or organization in a increasingly complex, dynamic and global world. It's filled with practical advice, stories, studies and book references

</review>
<review>


Just about all of the advice in the book will help a real estate investor enhance his returns through smart tax planning. Saving money on taxes means more to the bottom line, which increases returns. This is not a rah-rah get pumped up to do deals type book, more of a step by step type explanation of how to best protect yourself (using LLC's or Corporations) and how to save on taxes (1031 exchange). They also touch on the relatively new TIC (Tenants in Common) structure, which is looking more and more useful because it will let partners out of a deal to do a 1031 without having to sell the whole property.

Overall it's all stuff a real estate investor needs to know, but I personally would have liked more real life deal examples. In Dolf's 52 homes in 52 weeks there are lots of examples (52) of him doing deals with a breakdown of the profit or loss on each.

By Kevin Kingston, author of: A 20,000% Gain in Real Estate: A True Story About the Ups and Downs From Wall Street to Real Estate Leading to Phenomenal Returns

And my blog is: The Real Estate Investors Blog

</review>
<review>

I thought "Real Estate Investing Loopholes" was put together really well.  It has a lot of information that will help you find the tax loopholes that will help you best.  My favorite Chapter was "Be Paid to Live in Your Home", by having a home office I have been able to write off more expenses and pay less tax.  It works.  I highly recommend this book.  Thanks Diane and Dolf

</review>
<review>

I really liked the chapter, Smart Business Structures That Reduce Risk and Tax. Now I think I better understand the differences between the possible structures and will be able to ask better questions when I am ready to start investing. Also, I like that this book has practical information and is not just trying to dazzle me with get rich quick nonsense. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in real estate.

</review>
<review>

I just finished reading Real Estate Investing Loopholes and it is just simply brilliant! I have started investing for cashflow and already can see the benefits.  What I have learned the most from your books is the importance of having a plan and due diligence. Thank you so much. Keep writing and we will keep reading.

</review>
<review>

Page 202 says that 48 plus 15 equals 73.

I have heard at least one other teaching tax accountant say that depreciation not taken will not necessarily be recaptured by the IRS upon sale of the property, in contradiction of Diane's claim.
I liked the fact that she talks about paying by check. I also liked the fact that she admits there could be tenant resentment when they decide to forfeit non-refundable option consideration
for whatever reason, and accordingly offers them some recoupment opportunity. Diane sticks with Robert Kiyosaki's definition of an asset- if a house appreciates $100k and cash flows 10K negative it is a liability. That surprised me. Most accountants would say the house is the asset and the encumbering loan is the liability.
Other than those quibbles, the book is good.

</review>
<review>

I ordered this cookbook for my daughter who is away at college.  I reviewed it before I sent it to her.  It has all the basics, how to shop for food, how to store it, how to prepare it, even basic cooking utensils that a beginner would need. She loves it and uses it all the time.  So I think this the true measurement of the book being user friendly.

</review>
<review>

If you're one of those "Sure, I know how to cook...except I don't want to" people, you need this book. This book gives you the basics on how long you can keep meat, how to pick good cuts, what to do with vegetables, and the essential hints on everything you need to get started. The best part of this book aren't the recipes, but rather the reference guides on the things you never quite know, like how to cook specific vegetables and how to build a soup or smoothie. Great for someone who has just moved into an apartment, or for anyone who wants to get a primer on cooking. If you are puzzled about what tools you need, fear not--it's all very simple, and there are many, many diagrams in case you freak out with too many words.

I would say it's useful for anyone with less training than professional cooking experience. The pictures are wonderful.

</review>
<review>

This book is incredibly informative. It's everything I wanted to learn about food, but was too lazy to ask -- where it comes from, what to look for when buying it, how to cut it all up... and that's aside from the great recipes. This mass of info is fortunately so intelligently written and laid out that it never really feels like overload. I'd put the book on my coffee table if I didn't need it so much in the kitchen.

</review>
<review>

I like to eat - other people's cooking.  This can be a problem as friends sometimes expect you to reciprocate and invite them over for more than beer and peanuts.  Thanks to this book, I was actually able to have a dinner party - well two friends - over to the house on Saturday and feed them a roast chicken and green salad.  That may not sound like much to you but it was a big deal to me.  The nice thing about this book is that it doesn't make you feel stupid even if you know nothing about cooking.  For know nothings like me, it can start you at the beginning, but if you already have your four standby recipes it looks as if it could help you double or triple that number.  I recommend it for everyone

</review>
<review>

This is a history of various market declines and panics.  Providing some useful insight, it is well written and deviates from the normal how to buy stocks book.  If you want a good read and like stock market and finance books, you should like this

</review>
<review>

John Rawls is indisputably the most honorable spokesman of political liberalism of the past twenty-five years. His theoretical committment to and devlopment of liberalism is an inspiring attempt to reconcile the  difficulties inherent in a heterogenous society in which different  conceptions of the good life and varied value systems, beliefs, and  principles can coexist and yet affirm the political conception of a  constitutional regime. How can a nation entreat its inhabitants to carve  out their conception of the good life and their own value systems and yet  achieve agreement on a set of principles that all citizens may abide by? It  is the answer to this question that Rawls's works have sought to answer.  The Law of Peoples is no less concerned with this question. Rawls's  attempts to extend a social contractarian approach to human existence on  the international level is thorough and nuanced. Liberal peoples, he  argues, have three basic features. They possess a reasonably just  constitutional democractic government that serves their fundamental  interests; they are united by common sympathies; and above all, they have a  morally mature nature. Critics who claim that Rawls's brand of liberalism  invites a form of moral agnosticism had better think twice. Moral maturity  and its genetic antecedent--human moral nature, are the preconditions that  underly the moral basis of liberalism in general: deep respect for human  beings and the necessity of treating them as ends in themselves.  Rawls's  development of a Just War Doctrine should force us to re-think traditional  concepts of sovereignty and undermines the claims to legitimacy that outlaw  states seek to impose on moral communities in the name of cultural  authenticity. In this respect Rawls' work is indispensible to young liberal  scholar's such as myself. In fact I have depended on his theoretical  approach to ground much of my highly controversial and hotly contested  book,  and quot;Becoming a Cosmopolitan: What It Means To be a Human Being in  the New Millennium. and quot; I argue, however, for a more pugnacious form of  liberalism by rejecting outright, as conceptions of the good, all forms of  tribal (racial/ethnic and national)identities and argue for the  obliteration of all cultural practices that undermine human rights. For  those who believe that moral progress is possible and who wish to further  advance the idea that liberal democracies represent a superior and more  evolved form of social and political living, The Law of Peoples is a  detailed and rigorous application of this idea

</review>
<review>

Our planet, Gaia, is sorely in need of healing. Her earth, waters, and air are polluted. Natural resources are being depleted. Thousands of plant and animal species are becoming extinct.

In this classic book, Thomas Berry summarizes and discusses the dire needs of our planet for healing. While not going so far as to advocate spiritual healing as a solution, Berry strongly advocates for awareness of the innate intelligence of Gaia.

Berry masterfully explores the mind-sets that have contributed to the dangerous depletion of our planetary resources. He suggests that we have yet to find the guiding myths and images to inspire us to relinquish our focus on personal and national material gains in order to properly focus our energies on relating to Gaia in a harmonious way.

The annotated bibliography invites focused further reading.

</review>
<review>

Thomas Berry has put together in this one book what a thousand other writers have attempted and that is: a complete format for human perception of reality that should and can pervade through all our earthly activities, esp. religion, politics and economy. Let Earth and it's biolgical processes teach and guide us to a rational, sustainable, regenerative, healthy existence.

There are many potent passages all through this work and I picked out one that I felt was inclusive of the gist of the book.

..."This universe itself, but especially the planet Earth, needs to be experienced as the primary healer, primary commercial establishment, and primary lawgiver for all that exists within this life community. The basic spirituality communicated by the natural world can also be considered as normative for the future ecological age."- Page 120

This is an excellent treatise on reverence for the creative life forces that sustain us and treat us daily to a plethora of interactive life processes and our need to acknowledge this gift by treating it with the awe and respect it deserves

</review>
<review>

Don't be misled.  Because Thomas Berry is promoted as a Catholic priest, many people are falsely led to believe that his books present Catholic or Christian teaching about the environment.  Instead, this book presents a New Age blend of do-it-yourself religion mixed with pseudo-science.  If you're into that, you'll probably like this book..

</review>
<review>

A friend recently recommended this book. In this deep-ecology classic, Berry examines man's relationship with the earth.  He explores our mistaken beliefs that we are separate from the planet, and that it exists solely for  human destruction, pollution, exploitation and profit.  He encourages us to  take responsibility.  This book forever changed the way I will look at our  world.  Read it.  Then read Wes Nisker's  and quot;Buddha's Nature and quot; (1998/2000)  to learn, from a buddhist perspective, how to put Berry's  and quot;dream and quot;  into everyday practice

</review>
<review>

Berry is the first to clearly uncover the foundation.. the very fabric of the universe... as found in fundamental earthly reality.  This reality expressed as differentiated reality, subjective reality, and communion reality represents the essential trinity contained within all elements of the within and the without of all existence.  This foundation will enable us to move forward and grow our understanding of  unfolding cosmogenesis well beyond todays dreams. This triple reality though largely hidden will become like a modem and enable the unfolding transformation of inner trinity to emerge as conscious objectivity.  And it is interactions within and among differentiated, subjective, and communion realities which are at the heart of and in fact represent the incipient communion experience which each reality of the universe offers to every other reality in the universe.
Simply stated we will grow only as we interact

</review>
<review>

I loved this book!  I had absolutely no idea what kind of dog I wanted to get before reading this book.  This book separates the breeds into very logical chapters and also cross-references other chapters that the dogs would fit in.  I love dogs so much that I was only able to reduce the number that I'd love to 19, but it made me consider breeds that I never would have before.  Once I reviewed my 19 with my family, we were able to bring it down to 6 and I'm now doing research on those 6 in order to determine which one we'll buy.  This is a great read if you're toggling between a few breeds and want to make sure you consider the good and the bad in the breeds

</review>
<review>

I wish I could afford to give a copy of this book to every library in the country.  I have been a volunteer for different animal shelters and rescue groups for many years.  Most animals are turned in to shelters because of a mismatch between the owner and their dog, or because people are unaware of what's involved in pet ownership.  The authors give a very realistic appraisal of different breeds.  I love  "Dog Fancy" magazine, but so many times when they profile a breed they will describe "good with children if they are raised with them."  "Paws to Consider" will be straightforward in telling you that a particular breed is not good with children.  This book also helps you decide when is the right time to add a dog to your household.  Too many dogs are given up because the owners have decided to have a baby and don't want to have a dog around the baby.  Or an owner makes an impulsive holiday purchase and comes to regret the decision.  It is frequently devastating for a family, especially the children, to give up a dog.  It is also traumatic for the dog to lose its home and most of these dogs will be euthanized.  "Paws to Consider" goes a long way to promoting happy endings for people and the dogs who join their families

</review>
<review>

This book should be mandatory for anyone even thinking of getting a dog.  Even if that dog is ten years off.  Since I became interested in dogs and dog welfare, I have heard and seen too many times the unhappy scenario of dogs being dumped because their owners just did not bother to do ANY reasearch.  Families duped by Beethoven, Lassie, and 101 Dalmations decide tv never lies and buy one for their young children.  People who want a guard dog buy a Rottweiler for "protection" and dump it out in the yard.  A calm couple wants a "small, quiet, easy-going dog", so they judge on size and get a terrier.  A jogger wants a partner and thinks a great dane will keep up.

I love that the book lays it out flat that almost half the breeds listed require more exercize than the average Joe is willing to give them.  Sure, we're all charmed by those Weimaraner costume photos... but will you spend at least an hour every day playing with it? Do you even have space for it to do so?  Lack of exercize spawns so many behavioral problems that it cannot be emphasized enough.  I know another reviewer complained that "too many negatives" were listed for each dog; I prefer it that way.  Better that someone realize that the dog they want is too loud, too big, too headstrong, too energetic, too needy, too expensive, or even too gassy, than to get one and then dump it somewhere because they did not realize the mismatch.  Or, even better, it may give someone new ideas as far as what is a good match.  (Everytime I mention I would love a sighthound, especially an ex-racing greyhound, the immediate reaction is that I shouldn't take something so hyperactive.  I say, uh-uh, if I wanted hyperactive, I'd get a lab!)

The book's organization is excellent.  It starts off asking why you want a dog and what you want in one.  It gives you a starting point as far as where to look for one, and I was ecstatic to see rescue groups mentioned, although I do not think the book went into them enough (it would have been great to say that you can easily find one by googling "[x breed] rescue [your state/area]", or, nowadays, on [...]).  I understand that the authors assume the reader wants to buy from a breeder, because I think those people are the ones who will be perusing breeds, and the ones who really need the most assistance.  (It's not mean, it's true.)  Then the book does something essential - it goes over groups of dog breeds and what jobs they were INTENDED to do, and explains how it affects their behavior and temperament.  I recently heard of a man lamenting that he bought a mini schnauzer who was obsessed with his rat cage and would not leave the rats alone.  He had not read up that these dogs were originally bred for ratting!

There is a lengthy section going into individual breeds.  There are always both pros and cons.  Looking into my dog experience and research, I have to say these people know what they are talking about, even without looking at their credentials.  The only drawback is that they do not touch on every breed, but then again there are so many it could make this book three times its size.  I also think the "not for everyone" section is great, but could use more info.  The more people are discouraged from getting Rotts and Pits on a whim, the better.

I personally think there is enough info here to find that dog you want, but it is always recommended that you look to other sources; the book itself says so.  Spend time with members of your chosen breed, search the web, read other books.  Then buy Kilcommon's/Wilson's Good Dogs, Great Owners, and you're on your way!

</review>
<review>

The best thing about this book is the common sense advice the authors give--("If you live in an all-white house, don't get a Bouvier des Flandres").  The realistic expectations, both good and bad, outlined for each breed are infinitely more helpful than, say, the breed standards promulgated by the AKC.  Most of us want a pet, not a show-dog.  While the information on each breed is very specific, there is helpful information in the beginning for any dog owner or potential owner.  I also bought "Good Owners, Great Dogs" by the same authors.  Great book as well.

</review>
<review>

DO NOT, I REPEAT DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK, BRIAN KILCOMMONS AND SARAH WILSON ARE BOTH COMPLETE IDIOTS. WE USED THIS BOOK AS A REFERENCE WHEN WE BOUGHT OUR BICHON FRISE, WHAT A MISTAKE. IN THE BOOK IT STATES A BICHON CAN BE A 9-5 DOG SO WE BOUGHT ONE. BICHONS ARE EXTREMELY HARD TO HOUSEBREAK,ALL THE BOOK SAYS IS THEY 'CAN' BE HARD TO HOUSEBREAK. THIS BOOK HAS COST US HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS. WE ENDED UP GIVING OUR DOG AWAY TONIGHT BECAUSE WE COULD NOT GET IT POTTY TRAINED AND AFTER FURTHER RESEARCH FOUND OUT THAT BICHONS DO NOT LIKE TO BE LEFT HOME ALONE. THE BOOK ALSO SAYS THAT A SHIH TZU IS A NINE TO FIVE DOG BUT AFTER RESEARCHING THAT BREED THEY ALSO DO NOT LIKE TO BE HOME ALONE ALL DAY. THESE TWO AUTHORS NEED TO FIND A DIFFERENT LINE OF WORK BECAUSE THEY ARE COMPLETE IDIOTS WHEN IT COMES TO DOGS. THANKS BRIAN AND SARAH FOR WRITING SUCH A CRAPPY BOOK!

</review>
<review>

"Paws to Consider" is an invaluable reference for the average pet dog owner who's looking to expand the family. The breed descriptions are concise and direct, and for my money, right on point most of the time. As a professional dog trainer and canine rescue volunteer, I see far too many dogs selected for their looks, or perhaps what a similar dog appeared to be on television or the movies. In the past, most folks only had the "breed books" to use as a reference when trying to make a selection; unfortunately, most breed books are not going to be too forthcoming about a breed's drawbacks as a family pet (when most of those characteristics were specifically put there as the breed was developed, for a specific purpose!) Thanks to Brian and Sarah for putting the real deal out there and providing a road map for the average family pet owner when navigating the windy road of breed selection!

Barbara Davis
BADDogsInc
Corona, CA

</review>
<review>

I sure am glad I did not waste my money on this book. The author had very few good things to say about any of the breeds. This book had so little information on my breed of choice, though it was seen on the cover, that it was a total waste of my time. It almost seemed as though the book was written to turn people off to getting any type of dog at all! Lots of negatives about the breeds, not alot of positives. Alot of generalizations

</review>
<review>

This is a great book, the best of its kind that I've seen. I would, however, take issue with the authors' advice not to pay for a crossbred dog. In my experience, a crossbreed (especially a poodle cross) is often smarter and better-tempered than some of the purebreds - and a good dog is always worth paying for

</review>
<review>

Very good book.  A must read for anyone looking for a dog.   I have trained dogs for 11 years and this was right on the money

</review>
<review>

I've yet to read something written by Nora Roberts that I have not been completely satisfied with.  She's the kind of author that gives you everything your looking for all in one place, and always leaves you craving more.

</review>
<review>

i'm a nora roberts fan, so picking up a book of hers to read is something i look forward to. after reading "born in fire", i was eager to find out what kind of romance the cool and collected brianna would find in "born in ice".

brianna is a young woman who is uncomfortable with conflict, and because she grew up in a household where her fiery sister maggie and embittered mom maeve were always battling, she developed the ability to keep a calm facade in the face of a storm. she has done a good job of disciplining her emotions to the point where they can't create further conflict, even if she burns with anger inside. she's very family oriented and longs for a husband and family of her own. after being jilted weeks before her wedding a decade before the timing of the story, she thinks she'll never have what she dreams of.

she owns a bed and breakfast in a small town in ireland where she is the perfect hostess. she's always hospitable to her guests. she's a gifted artist in both the kitchen and garden, two places she loves to be. although she's surrounded by folks who love her, she's still lonely.

and then comes grayson, the american writer who pops in for a couple of months to write a novel as inspired by the scenery and ambience of ireland. he's one who lives in the moment, ignoring his past and unwilling to plan the future because of the commitment and responsibilities such an action would create.

the characters compliment each other well. they're both generous and both suffering from childhoods where they didn't feel loved. she's comfortable with the idea of laying down roots but he's not. that's where the conflict comes to play.

and that's kinda where i've got a problem with the book. this is supposed to be a guy who doesn't want emotional ties, yet early in the book he's already willingly becoming emotionally attached to her. there simply wasn't enough resistance from him for me to believe he was really afraid of settling down. there was very little if any sexual tension here, and not enough situations to warrant sexual tension. a couple of encounters of kissing and then they were in bed. and even then, it seemed like he wasn't really fighting himself for being there. there simply wasn't enough of an inner conflict within him. it all seemed like lukewarm resistance.

and brianna was simply a saint. i would have liked to see her emote a little more. i understand that she was written to be an ice princess of sorts, but i don't think roberts did a good job of depicting her as a character who was a carefully contained boiler. at times i found it difficult to believe brianna could exhibit any kind of real passion with grayson.

there were alot of slow moments in the book that made me wishing i was already near the end. i will say that the ending was sweet. also, it was great seeing how the relationship of maggie and rogan progressed from "born in fire".

i'd recommend this book to anyone who likes reading about the vividness of a writer's imagination, as roberts did a great job with grayson in that respect. however, if you're looking for a "can't put down" romance novel, this ain't it

</review>
<review>

Well, after reading Born In Fire I didn't have much hope for Born In Ice but it was so much better then the first.  These are the first Nora Roberts books that I've ever read.  This is the 2nd book of 3 in the "Born In..." series  and  I really enjoyed it.  In the first book you were introduced to Brianna  and  this book is her story.  She is running her bed  and  breakfast in Ireland when a writer from America comes to stay at her inn.  He is there for several months while writing a book.  During his stay him  and  Brianna begin a romance that neither of them expect to continue once his book is completed.  This was a very peaceful  and  enjoyable read.  I recommend this book in the series.

</review>
<review>

BORN IN ICE is the 2nd part of the Born In Trilogy -- This trilogy is about three sisters - two who know each other and one who is unknown. The sisters are so different, at times it's hard to image them coming from the same family.

BORN IN ICE is the story of Brianna Concannon. Brianna has chosen to keep her family home and turn it into a bed and breakfast. During the harsh Irish winter, a long-term guest arrives that heats up even the coldest of nights. Grayson Thane, famous mystery writer, falls hard and fast for the quiet Brianna. And Brianna falls for Grayson, wondering if it will only last through the winter or a lifetime.

This trilogy shows Roberts' cleaver characters, witty interactions, and vast descriptions of the Irish country that she seems to love so well. You couldn't ask for 3 better books! You have Fire (temper), Ice (patience) and Shame (out-of-wedlock child) that meld together to create a marvelous Irish tale. Come meet the daughters of Thomas Concannon, and see why Nora Roberts is one of the greatest romance writers of all time!

I strongly recommend that you have all three books in your possession, because as soon as you finish one, you'll want to start the next immediately!

</review>
<review>

This was my very first book for Nora Roberts, and so far it's the best book EVER.  It is THE PERFECT book.  Brianna is a wonderful, smart inn keeper with many talents and a rare kind of maturity.  I would love to be like her!  And Gray is a successful, sweet, caring, witty author that comes to her inn in Ireland to relax and start a new book.  This is no ordinary romance.  I love that it goes deep, not only into the main characters' personalities, but there is also Brianna's sister and brother-in-law, her mother, her friend, and Gray's agent.  Not to mention the wonderful scenary of Ireland described throughout the book.  The conlcusion of the book is wonderful and utterly satisfying, leaving you with a happy glow that lasts a long time!  Other books by Nora Roberts are good, but this one takes the prize.  Of the Born trilogy this one is the best and it should NOT be missed

</review>
<review>

I really wanted this book to be good. It had the right setting: Ireland. The right pairing: a skillful, self-confident woman and a tormented man, who is a writer (very interesting to me as that's my profession.) It also seemed to have the right author: Nora Roberts. But these three things didn't gel for me. I was bored by the third chapter and ended up skimming the rest of the book. Brianna's character doesn't hold interest, Grayson is just plain annoying (I would have kicked him back out into the rain) and not romantic at all. None of the romantic spark and unique nature of Ireland comes through in this book. When Nora Roberts is on, she's really on. When she's off, you get  and quot;Born in Ice. and quot

</review>
<review>

This novel was very frustrating for me because I just could not connect with the main character, Sam.  I found him attention starved and annoying.  Although the author did an excellent job at portraying the character of Sam, I have a hard time getting engaged in a novel if I can't connect to the characters.

Also, if you are looking for a happy, complete novel I would not recommend this one.  It will leave you lost and dissatisfied

</review>
<review>

If I could've given this book 4 and 1/2 stars I would because I read it straight through in about 2 days.  I thought it was really good, and although things didnt work out in the end, as my review title states, clay and sam have more passion between them than any 2 straight characters have had in a long time.  While theres alot of talk about punk rock and not much to be seen, I can bare with it.  When I was 1st starting to like punk, Rancid and NOFX were the 2 most punk bands I could think of, minding the Ramones and maybe the Clash.  Sam's narration is likeable, you don't really get bored with this book, and it moves along at a good pace.  Plus, the backdrop of Hawaii was a really great place to set a love story so chaotic.  Good stuff

</review>
<review>

I know a lot of people have written some really rave reviews about this book, but personally think this book sucked out loud.  The only reason the book could have possibly won the  LAMBDA Literary Award for 2004 is that it must have been the only gay novel released that year.

The book is filled with poor editing, continuity and spelling errors.  I was actually onboard and ready to forgive all of this until I hit Part Three of the novel.  At this point the character of Sam becomes so infuriating that if the reader could slap him, they should.  In the beginning of the novel, his apparent obsession with Clay can be written off as teenage angst and "first love" syndrome.  When Part Three rolls around, this spirals into a level of obsessive delusion that would warrant the kid being placed on lithium and into long term therapy.  The fact that the adult characters in the book actually let this dramatic overnight flip-out slide as if nothing is wrong shows Mastbaum's inability to ground his book in any form of reality, creating a world seemingly devoid of any real consequence.  The last chapters were very strained and seemed like little more than a mad dash to end the book.

I wanted to like the book, I really did.  But I just can't recommend it to anyone as a good read.  The back cover bills it as "A gay Catcher in the Rye" which is a terrible, terrible comparison.  The works of J.D. Salinger are my particular focus in American literature and a gay Catcher this piece is NOT.  There are so many more books about similar situations that are just much better

</review>
<review>

This is one of the only books I've ever picked up and absolultely couldn't put down until I'd finished it.  A real emotional roller-coaster - at times great fun and at other times devastatingly sad.  I really, really hope there will be more books by Blair Mastbaum.

</review>
<review>

I bought this book on a lark, just to use up some Christmas gift money.  Once I got the book, I couldn't put it down!  The main character is a pissed off teenager, mad at everything, but falling in love and clueless as to what to do.  Sounds like a few teenagers I've known.  The great thing about this book is that the description of this teenager's life rings true.  The book, like the main character, is not tidy and doesn't fit into a neat little package.  The only thing I didn't like about the book is that it ended too soon

</review>
<review>

"Clay's Way" is an adventurous tale about a sixteen year old boy who falls in love with an unattainable boy one year his senior. Set in Hawaii, this book has great character development, excellent setting descriptions, and a couple of gnarly plot twists that kept me page turning long past my bedtime. Though the storyline falters a tiny bit towards the middle, I would recommend it to anyone looking for an honest depiction of those angry and often confusing teenage years. You don't need to be gay to appreciate the messages in this story:
Love is raw.
Love is obsessive.
Love is everything when you're sixteen.

</review>
<review>

An poorly written portrayal of life on Oahu involving a 17 year old gay, conflicted surfer and his neurotic, obsessive 16 year old hopeful friend (?), this book drags us into the terminally boring life of teenage Oahu.  Full of shallow character development, cliches, plus narrative and dialogue that is painful, this book deserves the bottom of the the gay adolescent book pile.  For those teenagers that resonate with this book and its characters, take a very hard look in the mirror.  If this is life, God, any God, help us all.









</review>
<review>

Its fun to hear gay guys talk and this book is no exception.  Unfortunately the behaviors reinforce all negative stereotypes for homosexuals.  A fun read if appalling

</review>
<review>

"Clay's Way" is an absolutely wonderful novel, full of imagery and vivid characters. I'm in college now, but in rendering his protagonist Sam, Mastbaum created a character that could have easily been one of my stoner/skater group of friends. I'd just like to add that the before-mentioned group of people (painting with a broad brush) are some of the most accepting people you'd ever want to meet. This is, I believe at least partly responsible for Sam's sexual orientation being a non-issue - the other reason is that people of my generation are less concerned with identity politics - it's like having brown hair or choosing Converse over Etnies, it's just not a big deal anymore. Clay is a more complicated case, rather than give him any sort of label I'd say that he is at turns massively confused and in deep denial. I wouldn't say that the Sam-Clay dynamic is entirely Sam's projection - I believe that on some level Clay really does love Sam but that it just wasn't meant to be. As a favorite teacher once told me when I was asking for boyfriend advice "high school isn't where you meet THE ONE anyways." In writing Clay's Way, Blair Mastbaum has written a novel that I believe most people of my generation can identify with and I'll predict it has enough within it's pages to be value to a future generation

</review>
<review>

The scripts are buggy and don't even work out of the box and they certainly aren't well written enough for a production website. The contact email address in them bounces, perhaps the author's gone into hiding in shame.

On the plus point they do give some ideas on what could be done to improve a site, as long as you write your own Perl

</review>
<review>

The programs are not really  and quot;ready-to-run. and quot; They are not  and quot;Ready-to-use. and quot; Programming is required, because there are bugs in html documents and scripts that must be corrected. The book is a good resource of information for people who want to study and learn and troubleshoot and learn Perl, because it is possible to get the scripts to work if the troubleshooter does not give up until they get things to work satisfactorily. I believe that it is practically impossible for a person to use these scripts without having some experience with Perl and CGI and HTML. The book has a lot of good explanations of code, which I find helpful and useful. I can't blame anyone for selling the book in the way it is sold. Salesmen sell the book. Programmers who successfully learn, don't give up when things don't work easily. This is book for beginning programmers

</review>
<review>

This book is basically a poor product that has been successfully sold. It is terrible. It is a lie! On the back of my book it says  and quot;Jazz up your site with 20 exclusive, ready-to-use professional CGI scripts and subroutines--no programming required! and quot; It is sold as if it will satisfy the needs of people who do not understand Perl, while it is almost impossible for it to satisfy anyone, as it is. Hours and hours of troubleshooting and trying to figure out what is wrong is part of what you will get from this book. If you survive through that part of it, you will probably learn that it would be easier for you to learn Perl enough to do things in your own way. Buy another book. Find another way

</review>
<review>

No you won't learn from this book because it is a cookbook and like all cookbooks it gives you the recipe.  Even the advance user doesn't remember everything and this is wonderful to lookup what you do need.  You may be able to find the scripts other places but this saves time which to me is money by having them all in one place.  I have this book sitting with the JavaScript cookbook and they both get plenty of use!  They make my life easier and I think the book states what it is from the cover.  You won't learn  and quot;how to  and quot; from this book but I don't see anywhere on the book that says you would.  A wonderful assest

</review>
<review>

I cannot say enough good things about this book.  This series is some of the best writing James Patterson has ever done!  Not only am I totally hooked, but my daughter, grandaughter, and tons of her friends are as well.  This book has made the rounds through all of us and my grandaughter's other middle school friends are begging to borrow it as well.  If you haven't read the Maximum Ride series yet, PLEASE grab Maximum Ride The Angel Experiment FIRST then move straight on to this one.  All I can say is - I can't wait for the next installment!

</review>
<review>

I purchsed this book, as well as Maximum Ride Angel Experiment. I read them both before giving them to my children to read. I found them to be "clean" of sex,language and violence. We all throughly enjoyed them and would recommend them to any child who likes fantasy and drama

</review>
<review>

As an adult, I picked this book up for my daughter and began looking over it in the car.  Before I knew it I had read the whole thing and wanted to read the first book in the series.  My daughter and I both really liked it, sci-fi, adventure, and a little romance thrown in just for fun

</review>
<review>

I have really enjoyed both books about Max that James Patterson has written. Although he has created a unique family due to their scientific beginnings, they continue to face similuar issues that many young people and diverse families face. I can't wait for Mr. Patterson's next version of life as only Max knows it

</review>
<review>

After I read the first installment, I passed it along to my 13 year old daughter. She has never been an avid reader, but she could not put that book down. I ordered this one specifically so she would continue reading over the summer. She enjoyed this one just as much. After her friends got through reading the books, I finally got it back and found this to be a very entertaining book as well. People can not believe that I would give a James Patterson book to my 13 year old. This is well suited for that age group. I highly recommend it

</review>
<review>

Best book in the series yet - Adults like it as much as the kid

</review>
<review>

Explains how chefs move from running one restaurant to a whole "brand," among other things

</review>
<review>

The class that Michael speaks about with the career change students was mine.  He strolls in I think on Day 2 of K-18 with Chef Theo Roe.  We were told about him coming and being an active participant in our class but mostly would stay out of the way and ask questions for an up coming project.  He hung with us for a couple of days and we all enjoyed sitting around the dinner table talking about ourselves and he enlightening us with his journey and interaction with Chef Pardus, who at the time we were not assigned but did eventially get him.  He stayed in touch with me mostly wanting updates of my CIA class clear through graduation.  I see him on tv now with the likes of Anthony Bourdain, Tom Keller and his own show.  This book, if you read the first one, goes to show how deep food cuts into the "Soul of a Chef."  He has written other things, pediatric surgery with his sister the surgeon, wooden boats and he always comes back to food.  He cretainly has my diagnosis of Soul of a Chef.  Thanks Michael for 1st of all putting my name in the book, but also brining to light the CIA in the time I went through. It was a wonderful time in my life and I know the others felt the same.  Good luck and buy this book if you are reading this review!  Reach of a Chef - Buy It

</review>
<review>

Mr. Ruhlman gives us another perfectly plated culinary tome with his entertaining look inside the world of the celebrity chef phenomenon in America.  With his usual quirky humor he examines all sides of the 'Pop Culture of Cooking' and what forces make or break chefs in becoming, not just household names, but brands unto themselves.

A must read for any foodie, cooking enthusiast, or Food Network junkie.  Also recommended are Ruhlman's other books:  'Making of a Chef' and 'Soul of a Chef'

</review>
<review>

As the co-writer of the bellwether of gourmet culinary tomes, "The French Laundry Cookbook", author Michael Ruhlman has written an eminently readable book that should satisfy any foodie. His focus is rife with possibilities as he explores the development of the celebrity chef. What Ruhlman gleans with carefully gathered insider knowledge is the advent of the chef as an entrepreneur rather than an artisan, a trend that has been discernible for the past decade. This has a lot to do with the success of the Food Network and related lifestyle programming, but also playing significant roles are writers such as Ruhlman and Anthony Bourdain and the simple fact that perceived exotic ingredients are now available at local supermarkets.

The author accurately tracks the rising commercial value of the celebrity chef through not only a comprehensive visit to the Culinary Institute of America (where he examined how a chef is trained in a previous book) but also studying a number of renowned chefs with whom he seems to know quite well. Unsurprisingly, he focuses on Thomas Keller, originally of The French Laundry and more recently, of Per Se of which he shows the daily operations in illuminating detail. As a point of comparison, Ruhlman looks at Keller's Time Warner Building neighbor, the most-expensive and possibly the most sublime sushi chef in the world, Masa Takayama, who owns the exclusive Masa where premium prices are charged for what seems to be the most original sushi concoctions. Operations could not be more different between the two restaurants.

Ruhlman also looks at the new breed of chefs through two contrasting personalities. The first is Keller's brilliant prot�g� Grant Achatz, a technically-oriented creator of futuristic-looking foods, who set up the deluxe Trio restaurant in the Chicago area. No less stellar is Melissa Kelly, who is presented as a back-to-basics American chef who makes art out of home-style dishes like pot roast and roast chicken. She has followed Alice Waters' example of using fresh ingredients at Primo in Rockland, Maine and recently opened restaurants in Tuscon and Orlando in conjunction with the Marriott.

Perhaps the most interesting sections look at the breakout stars at the Food Network, especially Emeril Lagasse and Rachael Ray. Both have reinvented the concept of the celebrity chef to include extensive cookware lines, a growing library of branded cookbooks and hosting duties on multitude of TV shows that are aired on a daily basis. Lagasse has gone further by opening up nearly a dozen restaurants under his name, while Ray has received sponsorship from Oprah Winfrey to host a daily lifestyle talk show in the fall. It brings up the intriguing question as to when these celebrity chefs stop teaching cooking and become multi-hyphenated conglomerates.

The fascinating evolution of the culinary industry is in good hands under Ruhlman's microscope. He obviously loves his subject, as his enjoyment comes off the pages in enthusiastic prose. He also is a proactive participant in these restaurants, a fact that provides instant credibility to his observations.  In the end, the book is not really a scathing expose of egos running amok - as is clear in several passages of Bill Buford's "Heat". Instead, he brings to light the changing role of the chef and an in-depth profile of those who have achieved success whether it is the end game for them or a means toward broader spheres of influence

</review>
<review>

My first Michael Ruhlman book was "Making of a Chef" It was simply amazing. He wrote in such an accessible way that I wrote him a gushing email (something I had never done) which he was gracious enough to answer. I have since read all of his other books, including Boy's Themselves and the French Laundry Cookbook. He has become one of my favorite authors and this latest book is one of his best. If you haven't read them, I strongly suggest you read Making, and Soul of a chef first. Altough it isn't necessary to take the journey in the order it was written, it is more enjoyable.
I have always been interested in food, cooking and especially restaurants. My mom worked in, and owned a few, as I grew up. All of the jobs of my youth were in them.  Her strongest desire was for me not to make a career in one. I followed her wishes and have had a successful non-restaurant career, but a part of me will always dream of what could have been. As clich�d as it sounds, the happiest and most exciting times of my life were spent in restaurants. I wish she could have read Mr. Ruhlman's books.
As an aside, I also love Anthony Bourdain's books. They really heighten the nostalgia for my crazy, wild restaurant youth. You can't go home again, but you can reminisce about the bad old days, and smile. I was intrigued about the reference Mr. Bourdain made, in his review, about Mr. Ruhlman's wild side. You get a reference to it in his latest book, The Nasty Bits. I would love to see some of that wild side in his next book.

</review>
<review>

It's not that obvious from the outset exactly what trip Ruhlman wants to take the reader on, nor if one wants to journey.  Beginning with story of Keller of French Laundry fame losing his shoes at his new NY/NY outing, he begins to unfold the sudden and dramatic shift of what it means to be a chef in this sudden gush of American infatuation with food and a whole new burgeoning generation of foodies.  Certainly worth the read to keep going, especially through CIA changes and exotic space age stuff done by Achatz in early chapters.

Being one of them who started back with the Galloping Gourmet and thinking real eating was Steak Diane or some flaming dessert, certainly the revolution in gastronomy has made this new chef breed into celebrity status.

For those who have experienced this excellent author's previous books on chef (Soul of, Making of; even this reviewer read and loved his work on infant heart surgery) you'll see this change in careers of old friends such as Keller, Polcyn, CIA, etc. plus become acquainted with some new names: Masa, Achatz, Kelly.

Most impressed with the likes of Kelly and Masa, who simply love to do what they do, buy/grow own ingredients, then cook themselves, choosing not to become the CEO branded entity with all the emplire glamour, pace and rewards which cause those like pictured Keller here to pause and reflect just what is a chef these days.

It's like for me with likes of Emeril and John McEnroe.  Both great at what they do: cook/play tennis.  But with respect for that, don't have to admire their personality on the TV, on the court. Encouraging that here expressed the same opinion on Emerial as I by many true chefs.

Thus this read truly is reflective on chef direction.  Evidence of all types of people who seek CEO status without passion for real craft/trade of being a cooking chef.

Favorite story of Kelly and gender identity problem with purveyor delivery and subsequent making him wait outside in rain while she took her sweet time checking it in comfy, dry quarters. Go girl!

This like previous Ruhlman reads is superb writing and storytelling.  Flows well, excites and commands reader attention.  He even admits he is still passionate about his cooking and relationship to it.  Highly recommended.

</review>
<review>

Although I bought this book, it was really for my husband who's a cook.  He's read it
and I'll get on it shortly.  He loved it as much as Michael Ruhlman's
other books and liked it a lot better than Bill Buford's Heat.  If you want to know what I think, check back in a month

</review>
<review>

First let me tell you, I was not the kind of person who read chef-lifestyle books.  I picked up Mr Ruhlman's 'The Making of a Chef' at my local library a few years ago and was enthralled by the  day to day lives of CIA students described therein.  I ended up reading all of Mr Ruhlman's books, and each one pleased me more than the last.  This author's writing reminds me of Tracy Kidder, another writer who is able through his writing to make the reader visualize people performing their activities in the environment he describes.  The Reach of a Chef is a continuation of his discussions on chefs and food, and is a pleasure to read.  Something I should stress: I am from South Asia, and Mr Ruhlman's writing makes me keen to sample many kinds of cuisine he describes in his books.  He brings the knowledge of good food not only to the people of the United States, but to the whole world.  PS: After reading Mr Ruhlman's book "The Soul of a Chef" I happened to read "Kitchen Confidential".  Food books, chef books - bring 'em on, baby!

</review>
<review>

Yet another impeccably researched and insightful exploration of the world of chefs from Ruhlman, one of the very very few non-chef writers who "get it". His look at previously written about subjects--and what's happened to them in the strange new world of "chef branding" and multi-unit expansion--and the terrible lure of Vegas is thoughtful and on target. Chefs who famously never open up to ordinary journalists are remarkably candid with Ruhlman.
While thoroughly entertaining for anyone interested in food, cooks and restaurants, this book should  also be a standard text in Culinary schools. This is the world that well known and respected chefs who "made it" on the strength of their cooking abilities  will live in the future.
My only criticism is the dismaying lack of profanity and bile. Ruhlman in person is a viciously funny bagful of venomous snakes. Had he allowed a little more of his infamous Dark Side to leak into the text I, for one, would have been happier. C'mon, Ruhlman! A chef with a SAG card?!! That should be a red flag to a bull!Kill, kill Faster Faster!!
In spite of his good natured, Cleveland-born even-handedness, another stellar performance. I plan to give out copies for Christmas

</review>
<review>

A most pertinent and illuminating study.

Oh, and by the way, reviewer "T Neumayer karmanotdogma", I hate to break this to you, but your 5 so-called "facts" are actually opinions, not facts. "The earth revolves around the sun" is a fact. "Chocolate ice cream is better than vanilla ice cream" is an opinion. See the difference?

</review>
<review>

There is so much anti-American sentiment worldwide that one is not surprised to find that these strident deniers of all worthwhile things traditionally American are often of the homegrown variety.  In WHY THE LEFT HATES AMERICA, Daniel J. Flynn takes the Left to task as he analyzes who they are, why they think the way they do, and what the Right can say to refute the Left's most egregious charges.  Flynn places current vitriolic hatred of America within an historical context.  He notes that those who shout the loudest are often the same ones who in the mid 1960s stormed the ivy citadels of Columbia University in their protest against the Vietnam War.  Those bearded radicals upset far more than the placid decorum of a few harried college administrators.  Over the next few decades they became the new generation of administrators and teachers.  They wrote books revamping history, taught a brand of history that focused only on America's acknowledged blighted past and carefully overlooked an unacknowledged glory filled record of achievement.  Flynn notes that the trend toward anti-American thought began with the early Communist converts of this country in the mid 1920s. It was not difficult for these converts to attract the leaders of a series of oppressed minorities to their cause: W. E. B.  DuBois, Paul Robeson, and Lincoln Steffens. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the race toward finishing the job begun by DuBois, Robeson, and Steffens accelerated.  I seem to recall that it was only then that I began to read about a new source of blame America first; the Frankfurt School of Max Horkheimer, Erich Fromm, Theodor Adorno, and Georg Lukacs revamped their then debunked Critical Theory to criticize American culture from top to bottom.  Flynn does a thorough job of connecting the ideological dots between the early Communists, the later neo-Communists, and the born again Critical Theorists, all of whom made it clear that in the contest between literal truth and inflexible ideology it must be the latter that had to triumph.  In fact, a central tenet of Flynn's book is that nearly all of those who shout out that the United States is to blame for all of the world's real and imagined ills share the common belief that any rumor or discredited theory that vindicates their core beliefs must be accepted as literal truth, regardless of hard evidence to the contrary.  The reverse is also true; any proven fact that contradicts their core beliefs is either conveniently ignored or-what can only be seen as a colossal gall-that such evidence is admitted to be true but still does not discredit those beliefs.

The most fascinating part of Flynn's book is his chapter on The Five Big Lies:
Myth #1: American women live under a patriarchy
Myth #2: America is the world's leading threat to the environment
Myth #3: America is a racist nation
Myth #4: The United States is an imperial power
Myth #5: The rich get richer, the poor get poorer
Flynn examines each of these in turn since the typical anti-American sentiment most often involves one or more such charges.  Flynn debunks each one not by denying America never suffered from any of them, but by noting that America now looks pretty good in comparison with the rest of the world.  Ultimately, Flynn defends America not by claiming that it is some impossibly perfect utopia, but by pointing out that there must be a reason why so many third world inhabitants suffer greatly to arrive here, rather than indulge in the reverse. For those who wonder why the extreme Left fringe of the Democratic Party truly hates America in general and George Bush in particular, Flynn's book is a good place to begin.

</review>
<review>

Myth #1: American women live under patriarchy

Myth # 2: America's the World's leading threat to the environment

Myth # 3: America is a racist nation

Myth # 4: The Untied States is an imperial power.

Myth # 5: The rich get richer, the poor get poorer

ALL FACTS.

Plus, The higher the IQ the more liberal someone is. Ben Franklin, Einstein, our founding forefathers like Thomas Jefferson...all liberals. The lower the IQ the more conservative because it is easier to not think for yourself.
I love America, but changes need to be made.
Rome fell too eventually from bad politics

</review>
<review>

The hate here is the hate that the Left seems to have not only for American, but the notion of Western Civilization in general.  In the immortal words of a bunch of Stanford Leftists: "Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho!  Western Civ has got to go!"  It is interesting that the left continually rails against Western Civilivation and Christianity, yet these are the very societies that have created the unprecedented freedoms to attack them from within.  Something the Left tries to skirt around at all costs.

Now, that is the left?  Flynn defines it very narrowly.  The left isn't all liberals, rather it is the left-wing of the liberal movement.  Flynn is not making the claim that the rank and file of the Democratic party and the liberal/progressive movement is anti-America.  Anyone who has actually read this book would pick up on that rather quickly.  He really is after the fringe that demonstrably hates the United States and what it stands for.  He very helpfully provides specific examples of the anti-America types of which he refers.

The book begins talking about specific instances of anti-American hehavior and statements following 9/11 before exposing the origins of anti-Americanism.  Flynn then talks about the five big lies that liberalism claims America and Western Civilization in general is.  For example,the notion that American women live under patriarchy.  That is flat wrong and most people can see that is wrong without too much thought.  As an American who has traveled in several countries, I have seen real patriarchal societies, and American society isn't it.  Others include the idea that America is racist (if America were so racist, why are Blacks and Asians flocking to America) and the false claim of U.S. as the imperial power.  I won't give it all away.  Get the book.  Flynn then compares Western culture to other cultures that simply can't hold a light to the freedom and tolerance present in Western cultures, including American culture.  Finally, Flynn goes into a discussion of the true meaning and legacy of America.

This is a good read.  There are more than thirty pages of notes (which would be more than thirty pages more than the liberal book I am currently making my way through.)  The work has been meticulously research.  All items in which I myself engaged in a fact check on all panned out.  To me, this work has a high level of credibility, is highly readible, and will restore the pride you truly had in America, but liberal lies had stipped away

</review>
<review>

First, the problematic word in the title: "the Left".  Among the reviews below, you will see considerable disagreement as to who the Left is and what the Left stands for.  Much of the confusion is that the word "liberal" and the word "Left" are conflated by many/most people on the left and on the right.  The sad fact is that people in general (left or right) do not know what liberalism is and hence do not know the difference between liberalism and leftism.  Some suppose it is a matter of degree.  A review is not the place to teach fundamental principles of political philosophy.  You'll have to get an authoritative book on the subject to find out (by "authoritative" I do not refer to pop political polemics, whatever their merits).  To whet your curiosity, I'll only say that liberalism and leftism, although they agree on social justice, hold totally opposite positions on two other fundamental principles.

This confusion is exploited by the Left.  They call themselves "liberals".  This leads many liberals to identify "liberalism" with whatever is being promoted by the Left.  This charade also succeeds in duping conservatives into lumping together the Left with liberals (cf. Ann Coulter).  Thus, most liberals are going along with leftist practices thinking that they are being true to liberalism.  This is the most effective tactic the Left has.

The most serious problem with this book is that it does not answer the question why.  This shows that the author does not know why.  And this leads him to fail to provide a convincing picture of Leftists and their motives, which in turn makes the book unconvincing to liberals, centrists and moderates.  A popular book that provides such an understanding is The Rape of Alma Mater.  However, there is still much data in this book that should receive serious consideration.  (Incidentally, the review by Library Journal tends to confirm Flynn's contention that librarians have bought into the Left mindset.)

It is also amusing to read the hate reviews below, especially when they shriek that they do NOT hate America!@!!!@!*!!

The most serious shortcoming of the book is the fact that the Left is doing far worse things than this book mentions.  To find out what, read the aforementioned Rape of Alma Mater, as well as Christina Hoff Sommers' well-known book, and Kors  and  Silvergate.  And incidentally, the authors of these books are true liberals, not right-wing hardliners.

</review>
<review>

Daniel Flynn does a great job exposing the knee-jerk, brain-dead, and all together perspective-free anti-Americanism that pervades contemporary intelligentsia.  He starts with a large series of anecdotes that followed 9-11.  They consist of mainly stories and quotes from college profs, students, and protesters who blame "Amerika" for the death of nearly 3,000 Americans that day.

Flynn then explores the roots, both historical and intellectual, of anti-Americanism.  He traces it back to the Industrial age of the 19th century, where changes in the economy (i.e., prosperity) brought with it a mantra that hasn't stopped since-- economic inequality.  This increase in wealth allowed for the formation of a leisure class to contemplate their guilt.  And these wealthy individuals, using their time to ponder such issues, became America's first intellectual/anti-American class.  This new anti-American class, however, was unorganized and thus resorted to using "bombs and bullets" instead of articulating a coherent refutation of American society.  The author then runs us through these violent events.

Flynn then proceeds into the 20th century, exploring the more organized groups that made up American communism and the subsequent Frankfurt School (i.e., Critical Theorists). According to Flynn, the latter development was created in light of the worldwide economic failure of Marxist ideas.  Sensing the waning popularity of traditional Marxist thought, these would-be traditional Marxists did something quite clever. Just as a species must adapt to a hostile environment to avoid extinction, so too must an ideology, or a memeplex, adapt to survive in people's minds when faced with facts that fail to support it. The clever move by the CT's was to deny that the struggle between the oppressed and the oppressors was merely a class issue between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, but rather the oppressed are several categories that are much less malleable: Race, Class, and Gender/sexual orientation.  These categories, unlike class, are much more durable over time.  There will always be women, blacks and homosexuals.  This ensures the survival of their holy doctrine. Anyone who has  taken a sociology class during the last 30 years will recognize this simplistic, crypto-religious depiction-- complete with its own Holy Trinity (Race, Class, and Gender)_-- and like religious belief, this worldview of the oppressed vs oppressors takes no small amount of faith to accept.

Flynn then moves his attack to the Multiculturalists.  His primary claim is that proponents of multiculturalism, since all cultures are not equal, will engage in "leveling" i.e., comparing the worst of the West with the best of other cultures.  He provides ample evidence to support this accusation.  So, as Fylnn says, the view of much of the left that "all cultures are equal" is a result of this process of leveling.  But what if it is discovered that a culture seems to have rather primitive practices? No worries; moral relativism is brought to the rescue.  So even if it seems counterintuitive to believe that "all cultures are equal", by invoking the doctrine of moral relativism, it really could be NO OTHER WAY! Like magic, poof!  No such thing as "primitive" practices. Isn't that nice? Thus multiculturalism and moral relativism have a survival sustaining,  mutually symbiotic  relationship.


From here, Flynn goes forward to expose what he calls the "Five Big Lies":

Myth #1: American women live under patriarchy

Myth # 2: America's the World's leading threat to the environment

Myth # 3: America is a racist nation

Myth # 4: The United States is an imperial power.

Myth # 5: The rich get richer, the poor get poorer

Flynn honestly examines each claim acknowledging truth where it exists, but putting things into an historical, global, and fact-based context.  These claims/myths, when put under scrutiny, don't hold water for those unwilling to be deceived.

The next chapter is an exercise in comparing various phenomena (e.g., cultural practices, legal institutions, legal punishment, etc.) in other cultures to those same areas in America.  Is Flynn doing what he accuses the left of doing (leveling)? No! The reason: he compares apples to apples.  That's the opposite of how multiculturalism is taught in the classroom.

The final chapter is an answer to the question, What has America done for anybody?  In answering this question Flynn uses example after example to make a positive case for why the world is a better place because of America's existence.

He also makes the supposition that the Real reason the left hates America is because America represents a "massive refutation of every pet theory the left has ever held".   This book, along with Dinesh D'souza's book "What's so Great about America" are MUST reads prior to entering the morally backwards, hermetically sealed bubble called college (natural sciences exempt).

</review>
<review>

If you're looking for a book to convince you or remind you that the left is evil/pathetic/wrong/or whatever look elsewhere.  Flynn does a poor job of fact finding or arguing his point.  He relies on, for example, what are apparently random people he interviewed at protests to create a blanket view of liberal beliefs.  Look at the footnotes in Chapter 4.  I'm sorry but this is like looking for a Leno's Jaywalking segment to find spokespeople for a movement.

Also in Chapter 4, Flynn lays out the 5 myths of the left.  Does the left actually believe them?  As a bleeding heart liberal who knows mostly other bleeding heart liberals I'll give my response:

1)	American Women Live Under a Patriarchy - his point is that women in America are better off than just about anywhere else.  True, but that doesn't mean they don't live under a patriarchy.
2)	America is the World's Leading Threat to the Environment - his point is that places like Russia and China are far worse.  No one I know disagrees with his point.
3)	America is a Racist Nation - His point is that we are not.  I don't know any liberals who think America is a Racist nation
4)	The United States is an Imperial Power - as this was published in 2002 I'll abstain from commenting other than to say that he says the left believes that the international growth of Starbucks, McDonalds and such is cultural imperialism.  I think many liberals would agree with that.  He says most of the countries embrace these companies opening stores in them.  I say that doesn't mean its not cultural imperialism.
5)	The Rich Get Richer, the Poor Get Poorer.  His argument is apparently that individuals who were in the lowest 20% of the income bracket in 1979 were mostly not in 1988.  He cites and article in the National Review where these numbers came from.  That article sites a Treasury Department survey.  So he's relying on secondary sources for his information?  Looks like shoddy research to me.

The book is riddled with problems.  For example, On pg. 31 he quotes Robert Altman as saying that we were in a way for Afghani oil interests.  Flynn then says that its not clear who Altman was referring to or why he would say that about a country without major oil reserves.  Here Flynn misses a perfect opportunity to attack a widely held liberal belief that Bush attacked Afghanistan for a potential pipeline that could be used to get oil out of Central Asian countries.  He doesn't though.  He lets it lie.  This is the nature of my problem with him.  Again and again his attacks are inept or simply untrue.

Reading his summary of why the Left hates America is just tripe.  No one I know thinks like this.  He says we believe capitalism is a failed economic system.  I don't know anyone who believes this.  Personally, I believe in universal healthcare but that's primarily because I've dealt with HMO's before.  He also says the Left condemn Christianity as intolerant.  Once again, no one I know believes this.  This book is full on nonsense.

</review>
<review>

I just read this one for the second time and enjoyed it more than I did two years ago.  Dan Flynn presents a compelling case that leftists, meaning the far left and not your average Democrat, root against our nation whenever possible.  They are repelled by everything that America stands for and only want to accentuate failures and never successes. They are angry at their nation for disproving all of their theories ranging from the functionality of socialism to the misbelief that all cultures are equal.  This book is fast moving and Flynn's style is very concise.  He wastes few words and gives us a tome of proof in 213 pages. Why the Left... is thoroughly cited and the author takes the time to doggedly show that, while we are not perfect, the United States is far superior to every alternative.  You'll be twice as grateful for your citizenship after you finish it

</review>
<review>

The book does nothing but make a lie of itself. There's no leftwinger that hates America contrary to what rightwing propagandists try to tell you. You can't keep complaining about Michael Moore and Dan Rather for being dishonest while at the same time trying to defend nazis such as Rush Limbaugh and Dan Flynn. Folks, you cannot complain about the left hating America when the undeniable reality is the rightwing engaging in unilateral economic disarmament and allowing China and other facist and communist nations to control America's economy and pretty much everything else of it

</review>
<review>

The five stars are for the concept which was to write a terrible, formulaic book. They succeeded

</review>
<review>

It's a terrible book. The characters are uninteresting, the motivations are obscure, the machinery is obvious, the sex is strange and unerotic, the writing is terrible. But in spite of everything, Naked Came The Stranger is a hoot. There's nothing you can point at and say, "This redeems", but the book is so weirdly enjoyable that it really doesn't matter. Read it in autumn, hide it from your friends, finish it in an afternoon. One of my all-time favorites

</review>
<review>

Since borrowing a dog-eared copy from friends who were passing it around a number of years ago, I have not been able to get my hands on this book which became a short-lived cult favorite -- hope Amazon.com can come through!  Under a  and quot;nom de plume, and quot; a group of writers each took a chapter to prove how ostensibly easy it is to write a successful  and quot;trash novel! and quot; All the talk shows were trying to get the non-existent author Penelope Ashe for interviews!  Sexy but outrageously funny -- ice cubes will never be the same

</review>
<review>

Knowing beforehand that each chapter was written by a different author was what led me to read it (I had to borrow it from a college prof since it's so hard to find)--and it in no way hindered my reading!  The book came together extremely well and was a thoroughly enjoyable romp through the intertwining lives of the characters.  It's become a staple on my bookshelf for when I just need a good quick read

</review>
<review>

Unless you're into spamming folks, who filter out junk mail anyway, you won't find much value in this book. Each chapter has some hypster claiming wild successes from their email (spam) campaign in order to get recognition (and thus advertise to the reader).

</review>
<review>

Regardless of some of the negative reviews I found that this book contains some of the best advice you can get about internet marketing.  Some have their opinions about his book about "how to get rich by telling other people how to get rich." Although that has some truth to it, there is so much more to it - if you think of how to apply it in your industry or niche!

What some of these reviewers fail to understand is that this book gives you the strategies on how to market your particular business effectively through using the internet, NOT just "teaching people how to get rich."  And the subtitle to this book accurately says it all, "making money online using e-mail" In my opinion that's what this book is about and is accurately communicated in the title.

I highly recommend this book to anybody who wants to start an online business.  Although you could get most of the material for free on the internet, it's much more convenient and saves you A LOT of time to have this book around.



</review>
<review>

Will you learn anything? Yes, Dont buy another book like this and waste your money! Every chapter is one ad after another

</review>
<review>

This book is not only inspiring, it is filled with great and interesting ideas, that work, if you are interested in making money online, I think this is a great investment

</review>
<review>

If something seems too good to be true, it usually is.  That's the case with this book as well.  It seems that all of these authors in this book are continualy trying to sell each others products.  No real practical advice is given.  They suggest making money by building a huge mailing list and selling products to the reciepient through emails.  First of all, how do we build this magical list, and secondly, who enjoys receiving spam of any kind these days.  Let's call a spade a spade.  The only ones getting rich off this book are the authors

</review>
<review>

A waste of money and time.Information so general that only a abolute beginner can use it.So called expert tips are common knowledge...tips for a succesful email...1 be responsive to customers tip2 be honest all times,tip3test tip4 have a good mailinglist tip4 have a good offer or quality product....
WELL WELL that's great news. This book is a recyling of the recycling of the recycling....You can easly see the book has been made in a few day

</review>
<review>

Stale, painfully obvious information from the so-called internet gurus. Full of "what-to-do" instead of the more useful "how-to-do" information. If you really must get this type of info, go to the authors' websites. It's just get rich on the internet by telling others how to get rich on the internet. For beginners in ecommerce, there's very little in the way of detailed step-by-step instructions. For people with more experience, there's nothing new here, just a compilation of articles with the author's website address at the end of each one where you can actually buy the information they're telling you about

</review>
<review>

As a website publisher I've read just about every book on the market. 99% gave me general information I could gather for free off the web. The remaining 1% were worth their weight in gold. This book falls in that category.

Written in short easy to read chapters I got a wealth of ideas to turn my online advertising into a results focused marketing action plan that will generate revenue. For example:

The six chapters (38-43) on affiliate marketing  were an eye openener for me. I learned how to use these programs to generate revenue without having to store inventory or even own a product.

I learned how I could give away e books that I create and still make more money than if I had charged for it.

I learned why growing an "opt-in" mailing list was one of THE most important things I could do as a website publisher to guarantee a future income for myself.

Every chapter made sense. Gave clear instructions on what to do and how to do it.

I feel I got a bargain for the inexpensive price I paid. I am confident that applying just one of the many ideas in this book will more than cover the cost of the book. A great return on investment!


I suggest getting the book and putting into action what you'll learn. If you don't feel it's worth the price send it back. I think after you buy it you'll agree it's worth every penny

</review>
<review>

The E-Code was an interesting read for general ideas and motivation. It's not  a step-by-step plan on getting rich online, but a rather a good general informational read for internet marketing newbie's and those just wanting to understand the various approaches to making money online. Whether you agree or disagree, the book provides a number of approaches and ideas.

While the majority of the contributors plugged their own products  and  web sites (part of the Viral Marketing approach) and there is the "salesy" rah-rah style in much of the copy, the general information was philosophical in nature and gives the reader ideas. There were a number of great ideas that can be incorporated into a variety of other niches, plans and online products. Wade through the sections that are interesting to you, use what you find helpful and work your business.

There is no "Get-rich-quick" process in the world short of robbing a bank. Many of the contributors even state that everything takes work and then give the reader ideas on how to do it faster, efficient and focused.

All in all, for $14 bucks, not a bad read to get you motivated if nothing else

</review>
<review>

Really nice book, to read and to have as a coffee table boo

</review>
<review>

I'm in the process of simplifying and optimizing my home's living quarters. I have to admit that I get depressed after looking at other  decorating books - for instance, where rooms have dreamy coordinating  wallpaper, border, paint  and amp; fabrics. This is a decorating book that  doesn't stress me out wishing I had a particular piece of furniture or a  million dollars. It's the projects themselves that remind you don't need to  have to go and buy expensive things around the world. With a little  creativity and some elbow grease, you can pick up items from the local home  or fabric warehouse and keep it simple. I'd like to make the folding screen  (p. 98) from lightweight boards, hinges and casters. I may cover them with  fabric instead of paint. But I'll probably start with the linen pillowcases  (p. 130) simply because I've got the materials for it. Notice that all the  rooms are quite simple. The living room has a couch, a couple of chairs,  some nesting tables. period. The projects are  and quot;light bulbs and quot; that  go on and make us remark:  and quot;why didn't I think of that? and quot; OR:   and quot;that's what I am aiming for. and quot

</review>
<review>

I saw this reviewed in the paper and bought it mainly because I enjoy local history.  Upon reading it I was very impressed with Bell's work.  He creates a nice balance between the events and his pursuit of the facts behind the events.  He gives informative  backgrounds on everything from the rural RI communities to TB.  The book also acts as a Folklore 101 course.  A very enjoyable read

</review>
<review>

It is a great tool to motive oneself in all types of business. i find it very helpful.

</review>
<review>

His presentation is always beautiful and he expounds so well. Very good for your home librar

</review>
<review>

In a time when new computer languages are dime a dozen, perl unquestionably retains its beauty. Keeping with the philosophy of perl - there is more than one way to do it - the book shows you ingenious ways to work with this powerful language. This is a true hacks book and meant mostly for the advanced user. Before reading this book, I didn't even realize what I didn't know and I rate myself just short of contributing to CPAN. Even if you have read all the popular books - Perl Programming, Perl Best Practices etc. you'll still find a lot of gems.

Simply put if you like perl, you'll love this book. Welcome to the next level..

</review>
<review>

If your a serious Perl programmer or a long-time Perl scripter whose looking to broaden your horizons then this is an excellent book. Surprisingly, this is really a Perl book for professional Perl developers, sys-admins, and scripters. This book avoids parlor-tricks like "Controlling your coffee maker with Perl" and focuses on how best to make writing and testing Perl code quick, easy, and sometimes even fun.

O'Reilly's "Hacks" series of books have been hit or miss. Many books in this series regurgitate the basics a veteran probably already knows or provide convoluted or contrived examples that usually try to do too much, leaving you to extrapolate to the problem at hand. "Hacks" books can often contain an overabundance of gimmicks or games which, while instructive, can only have practical considerations for very few programmers. Some of these flaws would be acceptable in a book about "gaming" or "tuning your car" for non-professionals; this book is for people who know Perl and want to do more with it.

Perl is a language that often gets called on for quick and dirty tasks so perhaps it's natural that the book has allot of excellent advice. This book manages to not reiterate the information of the core Perl book trilogy ("Learning Perl", "Programming Perl" and the "Perl Cookbook"). Instead it focuses on practical UI, database, and developer tips and tricks. It assumes you know how to put Perl through it's paces and focuses on helping you do things more effectively.

I won't repeat the table of contents except to say that object-oriented programming, modules, user-interfaces, databases, and debugging are given plenty of coverage. If you find yourself working more with modules and packages, don't debug your Perl programs with print statements anymore, or are buried under unorganized Perl spaghetti then this book is for you.

I can't recommend this to a Perl beginner. You're much better off with perldoc or "Learning Perl". It's not a "101 things you can do with regular expressions" book either. If you write one-liner Perl scripts and never wish to move beyond that then this isn't your book either.

I'm not a "professional" Amazon reviewer. I just read this book and like what I've read and examples I've used. Perl has become a daily part of my job and it's books like these that demonstrate it to be capable language for rapid long-term development. It's odd that a book in the "Hacks" series so clearly demonstrates that Perl is capable of so much more.

</review>
<review>

Perl hacks is an intriguing book which explores specific problems and their quite practical solutions.  This book is easy to dive in and out of.  It reads more like a collection of bite sized detective stories rather than a novel.

Either novice or guru Perl coders will discover great solutions to issues they don't even know that they are having.  It's continually clever, surprising, and astonishingly useful.

Part of what is most astonishing is that the cures to even monumental ailments are so short and sweet.  Perl Hacks is a great way to rediscover how awesome Perl is

</review>
<review>

This book is for experienced working Perl programmers - most likely system administrators but not necessarily - that need working solutions to real problems you'll most likely find in the workplace. There are a few diversions into such "cute" ideas as building animations in Perl, but most of these hacks are for the working programmer who is looking for ways to automate processes, build interfaces that don't get in the way of developers, and thoroughly test and simulate code. Amazon does not show the table of contents so I review this book in the context of the table of contents.
Chapter 1, Productivity Hacks
The hacks in this chapter are about relentless automation - saving time and effort. They allow you to find the information you want, automate repeated tasks, and find ways not to have to think about things that you do all the time.
Chapter 2, User Interaction
Menus, graphics, beeps, and command lines: these are all ways your programs grab user attention. This chapter is about keeping your users happy and even making your interfaces "pretty" with Perl. People may not notice when your code stays out of their way, but you know by their grimaces when it becomes an obstacle. My favorite hack in this chapter was Hack #16 "Interactive Graphical Apps". This uses sdlperl, which is a binding of the C low-level graphical library SDL for the Perl language.  The hack is a short example program animating a colored rectangle and its fading tail. It first creates the needed series of surfaces, with a fading color and transparency, then animates sprites along a periodic path. It is a good example of using a GUI in PERL.
Chapter 3, Data Munging
Perl exists to extract, reformat, and report data. This chapter is about novel ways to connect to data and databases that are not "kludgy". For example, Hack #21 is "Use Any Spreadsheet As a Data Source". In it you use the Spreadsheet::Read module to give you a single interface to the data of most spreadsheet formats available, hiding all the troublesome work that deals with the parsers and portability, yet being flexible enough to get to the guts of the spreadsheet.
In Hack #20, "Read Files Backwards" suppose you have a server process that continually writes its status to a file. You only care about its current status, not its historical data. If its status is up, everyone is happy. If its status is down, you need to panic and notify everyone, thus you need to read the log file backwards and this hack shows you how.
Chapter 4, Working with Modules
Perl 5's greatest invention is the concept of the module - a unit of reusable code.
If you're doing any serious work with Perl, you'll spend a lot of time working with modules: installing them, upgrading them, loading them, working around weird and unhelpful features, and even distributing them. It makes a lot of sense to understand how Perl and modules interact and how to work with them effectively.
Chapter 5, Object Hacks
Abstraction, encapsulation, and genericity are the keys to designing large, maintainable systems. Some people claim that Perl doesn't really do OO, but they're wrong and these hacks demonstrate that by building some powerful abstractions.
Chapter 6, Debugging
Someday you'll have to dig through a pile of Perl left by an obnoxious coworker. This chapter prepares you for the worst with a toolkit full of tips and techniques to disarm the  weirdest code you can imagine.
Chapter 7, Developer Tricks
Maintaining a program is different from maintaining an entire system. This is doubly true if you work with other people. If anything, discipline and consistency are more important than ever. This chapter is all about testing code, working with benchmarks, and even simulating hostile environments.
Chapter 8, Know Thy Code
If you really want to take advantage of the deeper mysteries of Perl, you have to be able to look deeply into the language, the libraries, and the interpreter itself--as well as your own code--and understand what's happening.
Chapter 9, Expand Your Perl Foo
This chapter explores a few of the odder ideas in the world of Perl. Then you'll be ready to discover your own. The explicit list of hacks is as follows:
Chapter 1.  Productivity Hacks
Hack 1.  Add CPAN Shortcuts to Firefox
Hack 2.  Put Perldoc to Work
Hack 3.  Browse Perl Docs Online
Hack 4.  Make the Most of Shell Aliases
Hack 5.  Autocomplete Perl Identifiers in Vim
Hack 6.  Use the Best Emacs Mode for Perl
Hack 7.  Enforce Local Style
Hack 8.  Don't Save Bad Perl
Hack 9.  Automate Checkin Code Reviews
Hack 10.  Run Tests from Within Vim
Hack 11.  Run Perl from Emacs
Chapter 2.  User Interaction
Hack 12.  Use $EDITOR As Your UI
Hack 13.  Interact Correctly on the Command Line
Hack 14.  Simplify Your Terminal Interactions
Hack 15.  Alert Your Mac
Hack 16.  Interactive Graphical Apps
Hack 17.  Collect Configuration Information
Hack 18.  Rewrite the Web
Chapter 3.  Data Munging
Hack 19.  Treat a File As an Array
Hack 20.  Read Files Backwards
Hack 21.  Use Any Spreadsheet As a Data Source
Hack 22.  Factor Out Database Code
Hack 23.  Build a SQL Library
Hack 24.  Query Databases Dynamically Without SQL
Hack 25.  Bind Database Columns
Hack 26.  Iterate and Generate Expensive Data
Hack 27.  Pull Multiple Values from an Iterator
Chapter 4.  Working with Modules
Hack 28.  Shorten Long Class Names
Hack 29.  Manage Module Paths
Hack 30.  Reload Modified Modules
Hack 31.  Create Personal Module Bundles
Hack 32.  Manage Module Installations
Hack 33.  Presolve Module Paths
Hack 34.  Create a Standard Module Toolkit
Hack 35.  Write Demos from Tutorials
Hack 36.  Replace Bad Code from the Outside
Hack 37.  Drink to the CPAN
Hack 38.  Improve Exceptional Conditions
Hack 39.  Search CPAN Modules Locally
Hack 40.  Package Standalone Perl Applications
Hack 41.  Create Your Own Lexical Warnings
Hack 42.  Find and Report Module Bugs
Chapter 5.  Object Hacks
Hack 43.  Turn Your Objects Inside Out
Hack 44.  Serialize Objects (Mostly) for Free
Hack 45.  Add Information with Attributes
Hack 46.  Make Methods Really Private
Hack 47.  Autodeclare Method Arguments
Hack 48.  Control Access to Remote Objects
Hack 49.  Make Your Objects Truly Polymorphic
Hack 50.  Autogenerate Your Accessors
Chapter 6.  Debugging
Hack 51.  Find Compilation Errors Fast
Hack 52.  Make Invisible Characters Apparent
Hack 53.  Debug with Test Cases
Hack 54.  Debug with Comments
Hack 55.  Show Source Code on Errors
Hack 56.  Deparse Anonymous Functions
Hack 57.  Name Your Anonymous Subroutines
Hack 58.  Find a Subroutine's Source
Hack 59.  Customize the Debugger
Chapter 7.  Developer Tricks
Hack 60.  Rebuild Your Distributions
Hack 61.  Test with Specifications
Hack 62.  Segregate Developer and User Tests
Hack 63.  Run Tests Automatically
Hack 64.  See Test Failure Diagnostics -- in Color!
Hack 65.  Test Live Code
Hack 66.  Cheat on Benchmarks
Hack 67.  Build Your Own Perl
Hack 68.  Run Test Suites Persistently
Hack 69.  Simulate Hostile Environments in Your Tests
Chapter 8.  Know Thy Code
Hack 70.  Understand What Happens When
Hack 71.  Inspect Your Data Structures
Hack 72.  Find Functions Safely
Hack 73.  Know What's Core and When
Hack 74.  Trace All Used Modules
Hack 75.  Find All Symbols in a Package
Hack 76.  Peek Inside Closures
Hack 77.  Find All Global Variables
Hack 78.  Introspect Your Subroutines
Hack 79.  Find Imported Functions
Hack 80.  Profile Your Program Size
Hack 81.  Reuse Perl Processes
Hack 82.  Trace Your Ops
Hack 83.  Write Your Own Warnings
Chapter 9.  Expand Your Perl Foo
Hack 84.  Double Your Data with Dualvars
Hack 85.  Replace Soft References with Real Ones
Hack 86.  Optimize Away the Annoying Stuff
Hack 87.  Lock Down Your Hashes
Hack 88.  Clean Up at the End of a Scope
Hack 89.  Invoke Functions in Odd Ways
Hack 90.  Glob Those Sequences
Hack 91.  Write Less Error-Checking Code
Hack 92.  Return Smarter Values
Hack 93.  Return Active Values
Hack 94.  Add Your Own Perl Syntax
Hack 95.  Modify Semantics with a Source Filter
Hack 96.  Use Shared Libraries Without XS
Hack 97.  Run Two Services on a Single TCP Port
Hack 98.  Improve Your Dispatch Tables
Hack 99.  Track Your Approximations
Hack 100.  Overload Your Operators
Hack 101.  Learn from Obfuscations

</review>
<review>

I've learned enough from the first two chapters along to justify the price of this book. Even if you are an intermediate Perl programmer, this book has various tidbits that will improve your code. If anything, I would call this the Perl Cookbook 2. It may not be as big as the original cookbook, but the recipes in here can save you time and make your code more correct.

This should be a definite buy for anyone who writes Perl scripts for work or pleasure, regardless of experience.

</review>
<review>

Anne Patchett always pulls you into her web, and sinks her teeth into your imagination as you become totally absorbed in her fantastical weaving.  Not as complicated a web as "Bel Canto" but equally fun to read

</review>
<review>

I picked up this book after Magician's Assistant. I was so excited to read another Patchett novel.
I felt like I had read this book before, or have seen a movie depicting the scenes, or maybe it is just the style of Patchett that is comforting. I sat down as the sun came up and read the complete book in 4 hours.
An easy read, an easy escape and a guarantee that you will fall in love with some of the characters. My heart followed Son through his walks back and froth from his home to 'hotel'. I felt for Rose in her longing and lack of feeling settled.
She had more character then she gave herself credit for... bringing me to wishing the ending was a little different (hence the .5 star).

Patchett's writing style is one that puts you in the exact moment of the scene. 4.5 stars

</review>
<review>

I didnt think the book was bad until the further I got.  I could understand why Rose decided to leave California.  I was glad that she decided to keep the baby.  Even when she married Son I thought for sure that she would finally grow to love someone, including her daughter.  The fact that she remained so flat and uncaring really bothered me.  I would have loved to see Thomas show up with no warning and finally see all the truth come out and see some resolution for all the caracters that Rose touched.  I almost felt that Patchett lost her steam, and found it easier to let Rose disappear and end the book than to deal with what was really happening.  At the very least, I would have liked an explanation from Rose at the end as to why once a again she couldnt stay and deal.  As far as being a Saint, I didnt see any redeeming quality about Rose for that kind of title.  It was frustrating and disappointing.  Its the kind of book that leaves a bad taste in your mouth

</review>
<review>

Everyone loves Rose, the first narrator of this story and the central character in the book.  Her mother loves her, her first husband, Sister Evangeline, her best friend, her second husband, and her daughter.  The only people with any real reason to love this woman are her mother and daughter, both of whome she abandons completely to work as a cook in an unwed mother's home for almost no pay for 15 years without a vacation or ever having dinner at home alone with her family.  She is completely unlovable in that the only feeling she ever expresses is toward her mother.  She says she misses her everyday.  So why does she never go back to see her before she dies?  Why does she never share with her the granddaughter that she took away from her?  Rose's idea of fun is to drive aimlessly, rent a hotel room on the coast, sit on the bed for five minutes, and drive all night to be home to the husband she doesn't love by morning.  It's idiotic.  Apparently this episode was so much fun to Rose that 15 years after it happened she relates it to her daughter as oh yes, it was so much fun.  Sounds like a blast.  She can't even carry on a conversation, much less show any tenderness or affection.  It makes the people around her who love her so much seem ridiculous.  Son can barely stand to go into the kitchen at St. Elizabeth's after she leaves because he misses her so much, even though she never considered his feelings at all when she named her child Cecelia against his wishes because it held such a painful memory for him, and when she left him to go live by herself in the small cottage.  Also Sister Evangeline confides in Cecelia that she misses Rose so much she can hardly bear it.  Why?  She was a humorless, inconsiderate (to put it mildly), cold-hearted bore.  Cecelia is the only one totally frustrated by her mother, as she should be, but even she accepts her behavior in the end.  It was a well written book that you thought might lead somewhere but went absolutely nowhere, like Rose.  When she leaves you wonder what new relationships is she striking up that she could not care less about now?  I won't read Bel Canto or the Magician's Assistant.  This book was foolish in the extreme and completely pointless

</review>
<review>

This book got great reviews and was recommended to me by someone whose taste I trust, but I've got to say, I just don't understand its appeal.  It starts out as mildly intriguing, and some of the scenes with the unwed mothers in the first section are evocative, but the lovably twinkly and clairvoyant old nun is just too saccharine to bear, and the narrator of the middle section, salt-of-the-earth gardener Son, is not only too good to be true, he's also deathly boring--a dull-witted drone.  I've read Bel Canto and The Patron Saint of Liars only confirms my belief that Ann Patchett's novels are overrated.

</review>
<review>

This is my first experience with Ann Patchett and won't be my last. I loved her writing style even though the character development didn't always make sense. Why did everyone love Rose so much when she was so cold and shut down? The explanation for leaving Thomas, and her mother whom she loved deeply, didn't make sense to me. The story however was beautifully written albeit sad. I was a bit disappointed in the ending, but I think that had to do with more with finding the Lorraine character incredibly annoying. I'm anxious to read my next Patchett novel.

</review>
<review>

Patchett takes the reader through the painfully honest, searingly personal account of how the life of Rose--an interminable escapist--impacts the lives of those around her.

The novel draws its strength in part from Patchett's ability to tell her story from multiple perspectives: a single mom, daughter and second husband. Each point-of-view feels as fresh and true-to-character as the last.

If you're looking for a tidy, happy fairy tale ending, look elsewhere. Patchett's characters will make you love them, hate them, and think deeply about your own relationships and secrets--very much a must read

</review>
<review>

Check out the 2002 John Malkovich version of Ripley's Game.  A marvelous interpretation of an "older, wiser, more talented" Mr. Ripley.  Much more than the Damon TTMR, this one made me want to read the books.  And what a great read "Game" is.  Very cinematic in the violence and suspense

</review>
<review>

The others are right: it would help to read the first two novels in order to appreciate the character of Tom Ripley. This is important for this installment because this is the novel where Ripley almost has a soul -- he actually undertakes his usual nefarious activity in order to atone for his own malignant action (first a rumor, then a murder plot). The characters don't exactly deepen Highsmith's narrative, but she overcomes the problem of writing a creative mystery by bringing more and more characters into the mix -- the mysterious Reeves Minot, who appeared in Ripley Under Ground (an underrated novel, in my estimation), becomes a rather important character. And the unlucky pawn in Ripley's game, Trevanny, lends the story the closest thing to a moral center that one could hope for. Oh -- and the action scenes are relatively plentiful, and exhilirating

</review>
<review>

"Ripley's Game" by Patricia Highsmith, opens with the following sentence: "There's no such thing as a perfect murder...That's just a parlour game, trying to dream one up."  An apt statement from Highsmith's unlikely hero Tom Ripley, but one that also sums up the novel as it begins.  The third novel in her Tom Ripley series finds Tom playing a nasty prank on an unassuming man, in which he soon finds himself involved in a grisly game of life and death.

Tom Ripley is no stranger to controversy or murder.  Ever since he first appeared in "The Talented Mr. Ripley" he has become an enigmatic character - a psychopath that the reader roots for time and again.  The disappearance and mystery surrounding the Dickie Greenleaf affair has tainted Tom's name forever.  Even though he has managed to build a comfortable life for himself and his wife in France, his name still rings with suspicion and trouble seems to find him in the most unlikely ways.  Due to his unseemly history, Tom is irked when the mortally ill Jonathan Trevanny seems to scorn him.  Tom takes it upon himself to involve Trevanny in a plot that soon sets the unsuspecting man in the path of murder and revenge.

"Ripley's Game" is unique with regards to the previous novels in the series; for much of the novel, Trevanny is narrator with Tom as observer.  Even when Tom steps in to aide Trevanny because he feels guilty (if that is possible for Tom Ripley) about involving the poor man, Trevanny remains the main character.  Highsmith's writing is superb as usual, making readers loathe and love Tom Ripley all at once, and making readers justify along with her main characters the outrageous actions they take to preserve their lives.  "Ripley's Game" is a quick-paced mystery that is a worthy addition to the series, and leaves readers desperate for more.

</review>
<review>

If you have not yet read The Talented Mr. Ripley and Ripley Under Ground (the weakest of the three first books in the series), I strongly suggest that you pursue those books before Ripley's Game.  There's a continuity of character development that you will miss otherwise.

The premise for Ripley's Game is the most interesting of the first three books in a series:  How will a dying man look at morality when he knows his days are numbered?  Ripley's Game has a second advantage over The Talented Mr. Ripley and Ripley Under Ground -- there are no plot devices where Ripley fools the same person over and over again with alternate disguises.  Another advantage over Ripley Under Ground is that Ms. Highsmith has a new character who can be totally developed in his many complex facets, much as Tom Ripley was so brilliantly in The Talented Mr. Ripley.

The title is particularly clever.  In one meaning, it describes one aspect of the plot.  Ripley has become interested in how an innocent man might be persuaded through careful psychological nudges to perform an anonymous murder.  In the other meaning, Ripley becomes the hunted, the game that killers seek out -- as in famous short story, The Most Dangerous Game.  There's a possible third meaning as well -- that Ripley is ready to tangle with a tough situation.

As the book opens, Tom Ripley's criminal friend Reeves has come up with an implausible idea -- encourage the Italian mafia to run itself out of Hamburg by starting a war between rival families.  To do this, Reeves needs an untraceable, innocent-looking killer who will quickly disappear.  Reeves spots the possible targets, but cannot think of anyone to do the killings.  Although Ripley has nothing at stake, the problem intrigues Tom.  He remembers a local owner of a framing shop, Jonathan Trevanny, who has an advanced case of incurable leukemia.  How might making the man afraid of dying sooner affect his willingness to kill?  The story proceeds from there with many twists and turns that are more realistic than in The Talented Mr. Ripley or Ripley Under Ground.

Before the book is over, you learn a lot about how people create their own situational morality.  You will find yourself surprised by the reactions of Ripley, Trevanny and Trevanny's wife.  It makes for very interesting reading.  I especially enjoyed seeing Ms. Highsmith go back to do more with developing new dimensions of Ripley's character.

The book's main problem with the book is that it usually moves at the wrong pace.  The leisurely, untroubled sections are developed at about the same pace as the dangerous action sections are.  As a result, the book feels like Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is being played at the exact same average tempo throughout.  The contrasts don't work as well with such an approach.  In addition, the leisurely parts are too fast and the action parts are too slow.

The Boy Who Followed Ripley comes next in the series.

After you finish this book, take time to honestly think about what you would do if you had been Trevanny.  It makes for a series of fascinating speculations to consider.

</review>
<review>

I have to admit, I liked the original "The Talented Mr. Ripley" more, but this was still a fascinating book at what motivates people to commit murder. We have a dying man, who slighted Tom Ripley, and is now fingered by Ripley and a friend to go kill some Mafia figures. Money that might not be tempting in ordinary circumstances becomes reason enough at the prospect of dying and leaving his family destitute. What I liked was that Jonathan didn't jump up to do the murder, nor have a sudden change of heart. He was sort of swept up in the whole thing. And what is interesting is that Tom comes as close to forgiving as a psychopath is capable--he did come to Jonathan's rescue more than once. A complex game, indeed, with an ending that will keep you guessing right to the end. It does leave me wondering, though, how does Tom keep getting away with murder

</review>
<review>

Dutch diplomat Robert van Gulik wrote the Judge Dee mysteries (in English!) to introduce the West to the Chinese version of the mystery story, which arose centuries before the English detective story.  Judge Dee is an actual historical person, a magistrate of the seventh century during the T'ang dynasty, who was renown in China for his ability to solve crimes.  In Judge Dee at Work, van Gulik presents us with eight short stories each of a single case (the novels, in the Chinese tradition, involve 3 intertwined cases) that take place throughout the judge's long career (magistrates were usually moved to a new post every three years).  A table at the back of the book, places each case and all the novels within the timeline of Judge Dee's life.

I have read about half the novels and this book of short stories, and I have enjoyed them all.  Early on, Judge Dee employs three different men to be his lieutenants, and they do much of the legwork for him.  However, Dee is also very hands-on, going to the crime scenes and sometimes even going about in disguise.  In some of the short stories here, he solves the mystery on his own.  van Gulik has created a good detective in Dee; he is very, very smart, fair, compassionate to victims and stern with criminals.  The cases are varied and interesting, and difficult to solve. I especially like the setting of ancient China.  van Gulik really seems to know the era he is writing about, and he brings it alive through the actions and dialog of the story.  There is no exposition here.  If we need to know the differences of Taoism to Buddhism, we find out through a conversation of Dee with a monk or other character.  That really makes the stories glide along.  Sometimes a choice of phrase seems a little odd or modern for the setting, and I assume that arises from the fact that van Gulik was Dutch writing about China in English.  In any event, these quirks become rather fun and don't detract at all from the stories. van Gulik also made illustrations in the traditional Chinese style of the time, and they add to the stories.  I am very glad I have found the Judge Dee mysteries, and Judge Dee at Work is an excellent way to meet the judge and his world.  You will be glad you did

</review>
<review>

Let's see. Ken Starr wastes the public money attacking Bill Clinton with false accusations while at the same time siding with KON-servative Mitch Mcconnel of KY to allow for more corrupt campaigns as if there aren't any already !!! This book is a perfect tool for neconservative NAZIS to enjoy and drool over but is otherwise useless trash for the rest of us who are already facing mass destruction by Bush/Cheney/Rove/Delay and GOP with of course a spineless opposition that barely got together to defend Clinton but easily caved into and defended Bush the liar-in-chief !

</review>
<review>

Fantastic collection, fantastic book.  Put together you can truly appreciate Gary Larson's brilliance

</review>
<review>

This was everything I hoped for and more. I've seen countless far sides in my life but there were several hours worth of cartoons I had never seen before, very satisfied.
This is a classic set I will be cherishing for a long time

</review>
<review>

Gary Larson has a unique way to view the world, and this collection is hysterical!  Every Far Side cartoon ever drawn, in chronological order, is presented in this enormous, 2-volume set.  If you enjoy Gary Larson's bizarre outlook, this set is a must for yourself or for a gift

</review>
<review>

After checking with customs in Norway, I found out that books doesn't add tax when bought abroad, and then I decided to buy this Complete set of Gary Larson's Far Side Gallery! The books are very well-looking, and has a complete set with small remarks from the author on some of the cartoons.

I can really recommend this book! I haven't read the whole set yet, since it's so collosal, and has so many many drawings! So when buying this book, you'll have days of entertainment!

Myg

</review>
<review>

If you like smiling (and sometimes laughing), wandering why you had never thought of how things are when they are seen by non humans (and I'not only speaking of animals but of vegetables and rocks and idiots and my boss, too)...  see the world with the eyes of one of the greatest geniuses of humour.
Gary Larson is Einstein in this field.

</review>
<review>

I laughed when the cartoons were new, and I am still laughing at them.  Gary Larson had a rare gift for creating humor that could border on the bizarre, but was always novel and fresh.  The cartoons are arranged by the year they were first published.  The only downside is the heft of the volumes, so they don't make easy bed time reading

</review>
<review>

This is a really cool collection!  It is a TON of fun to read, and a TON book to lift (hey, when was the last time you had a comic book that doubled as a peice of exercise equipment?).  The binding is beautiful, and tkaes itself very seriously, but not too much

</review>
<review>

This has always been my favorite comic as I was growing up.  I lost track of it after it left the papers, and I am sad to say I had nearly forgotten good old Gary when I heard about this box set.  It is amazing.  I paid full retail for it, but it was still worth every penny.  This book is amazing, and you will not be disappointed.  From both the quality of the humor and the essays that provide intersting depth to what the Far Side was all about, this is a book for completists, leaving out only a small bit of material that was in the book Prehistory of the Far Side.  Also, unlike the Calvin and Hobbes Set, this has high waulity and stays together.  The pictures are on the materials, not lame stickers that fall off after putting it away once or twice.  This set rocks, buy it

</review>
<review>

I've always been a big fan of the Far Side. I attribute all my knowledge of American culture to Gary Larson's creation, as well as MAD magazine.

Anyway, I had in the past collected a few of the individual albums, perused through my friends' collections, but then saw this beauty on Amazon and could not resist. And boy was I pleased when the delivery came... It's great value for its weight, first of all! The books weigh a ton!

The contents are great as well, all cartoons are ordered chronologically, with a foreword by Mr. Larson at the beginning of each year, giving us insight on the creation of the comics, but most entertainingly, some explanations on which parts of his life caused his mind and sense of humor to be twisted in this inimitable style. Oh and there's also some mail from readers sprinkled throughout the book, some praise, some asking what the joke is on a particular cartoon, and a lot of people greatly offended at some of the humor when it insults their own version of reality...

So in closing, if like me you enjoy the Far Side, and want to have the definitive collection, as well as a great conversation starter when you bring friends to your home (and I suppose it could double as a boat anchor for an emergency), get this, you won't regret it :

</review>
<review>

... This is a great history of social entrepreneurs, military leaders, and other great strategists who figured out how to get what they wanted.  Great short chapters on Joan of Arc, Patton, Alice Paul and the suffragists, Japan, and even Picasso and Matisse.  Turned out for me to be an excellent source of fun cocktail party chatter.  But it is a very very good and unusual kind of self-help book.  Yes, the book is NOT about military strategy, but is is about strategy in personal life.   I thought it was better than a ton of other popular history or self help books.  It helped me understand how to be more successful at figuring out how to get what I want.  On the cover General Wesley Clark calls this a "very important book" and I agree

</review>
<review>

The author of Tao Te Ching can never be found out with a hundred percent surety. But what is said is important not the one who said it. Tao Te Ching is basically a book that has great philosophical depth. Only religious books like "Bhagavad Geeta", "The Bible", "The Quran", "The Dhammapada" come close to Tao Te Ching. I personally feel The Bhagavad Geeta comes closest to this work. It is always a good idea to read these books in comparison.When you read the books in comparison, you will understand what the books are saying. What is clear in one book may not be clear in the other or vice-versa. Or you might find it easier to understand in another book. For example, there is a line in Tao Te Ching That says "Act without action." It needs great insight to explain that line. The Bhagavad Geeta speaks of acting without expecting reward. It should be understood that Lord Krishna or whoever wrote the Geeta is not talking about philanthropy. It is to act from a state where the one who is acting does not exist but the action goes through him. And since the actual "actor" does not exist he is not worried about the result or reward. I request you to read the books, "Tao Te Ching" { R.L. Wing's version is very good.} The Bhagavad Geeta { Paramahansa Yogananda's Translation is very good }  and  Be As You Are: The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi (Penguin Books). I am sure you will never regret buying these books and if you read them properly they will change the way you look at the world

</review>
<review>

This is a fantastic translation of the Dao De Jing. (I have others.)  Perhaps I'm biased because it was the first one that I ever owned.  And as a beginner in Chinese who knows, but I find the expression of concepts very sound, very simple and in complete agreement with esoteric law as I understand it.  I have used it well over the years and soon will buy my very next copy.  I'm so glad that it's still in print as I keep lending it to people who seem to want it more than me

</review>
<review>

R.L. Wing brings to life this ancient masterpiece. The Tao De Ching is the second most translated book in the world. It is a stable of any scholar's libraries. Wing has an easy to understand translation that smoothly connects the ideas of the Toa with modern physics principles and leadership strategies. The work also offers the reader a wide range of historical information about the rulers and has side by side to the text the explanations of the key Chinese calligraphy. However, what separates this work from others is the insightful commentaries of the author that reveal the underlining premise of this powerful work. Whether this is your first reading of the Tao De Ching, or you're a student of the Tao you will be impressed with this work

</review>
<review>

The Tao of Power is an awesome book dealing with leadership. R. L. Wing's translation of Tao Te Ching is truely amazing, he provides an excellent interpretation for present day visions. I would highly recommend this book  to all wishing to be better leaders as well as understand the Tao Te Ching  better

</review>
<review>

This book has a lot of very good material on enthusiasm and goal-setting and attitude. I highly recommend it for that. However, Zig gets a little preachy when he starts telling us we should spank children to discipline them, as well as his religious views. The final chapter is basically just thrown in to tell you his views. The main problem I have with the book is how Zig refers to homosexuality as a "bad habit" and how he equates "homosexual" literature with pornography. If you can overlook his homophobia, you will probably enjoy the book and get a lot out of it

</review>
<review>

When I first heard Zig Ziglar, I was not a fan. To me, he came across more like a carnival barker. I really preferred Jim Rohn, Brian Tracy, Denis Waitley, Earl Nightingale and so on.

But the more I listened to Zig Ziglar tapes and read his material, the more I liked him. The message was clear and he is very motivating.

To some people, this is just plain old common sense. Perhaps. But is it common knowledge or better yet common practice?

I heard recently that Zig Ziglar gets paid over $50,000 per appearance. That is a lot of money and after having heard Zig, he is worth every penny of it. And it helps make up for those thousands of speeches that Zig Ziglar made for FREE! And it is a small price to pay for the service he provides, empowering people to become all they can be.

Thank you Zig, we needed this!


</review>
<review>

This book is intended to improve Your Self -Steem, -Knoledge and -Confidence to its very roots.  As you realize those as keys factor to success, it will become mandatory as a reading

</review>
<review>

I read this book again  and quot;for the first time and quot; (as an old commercial goes) and could not put it down.  Zig's  no-nonsense, old-fashioned approach to success is timeless!  It is a worthwhile book to read for those who want to learn success from the soul outward.  Some may consider the style and manner of this book as trite and arcane but in this day and age of guerilla business tactics this book is a still a breath of fresh air.  This is one book you will come back to time and time again

</review>
<review>

More than twenty years ago, this book, along with a great friend from the Church played a pivotal role in helping me to turn my life around.  The book amazingly does help lift a person from the depths of despair and doubt. It's principles are easy to put into practice.  I found Zig Zigglar's style to be entertaining, great fun--he makes it easy to stay motivated and focus on the most important principles in life that seem so easily lost. SEE YOU AT THE TOP made me laugh for the first time in such a long time. Now, I am refreshing my attitude with OVER THE TOP. I got the two-tape version. That was outstanding so I got the book and I'm not disappointed. I always wanted to thank Zig somehow, and I should have found a way to do that

</review>
<review>

If you only buy one book about success this should be it! Zig Ziglar is a man of faith and positive vision. His philosophy is summarized in the idea that we are born to help others. Furthermore, by helping others we will be able to achieve our own goals. Zig writes in an anecdotal style that is delightful and easy to read. His writing will challenge you, make you laugh and shine the light of introspection upon your priorities. What is it you want to accomplish? Zig will show you the steps of procession that will guide you to the top and to your ultimate life goal. I could not more highly recommend this book

</review>
<review>

This book is very informative of Walker Evans.  It shows a wide variety of his work form portraiture to architecture, from the streets of New York to exotic places.  It not only shows the works of art but also shows short blurbs about the place he was at and what was happening in his life; like why he was there and what he wanted out of the photo shoot.

The part I like best about this book is that it references whose work he was admiring at the time.  It also references his feelings, whether it was something he hated or something that was inspiring him.  The print of the book is also very representational.  It shows in great detail the contrast and depth of the works of art.  I give the book 5 stars.  I really enjoyed reading the book.

</review>
<review>

I absolutely LOVE these books. I have all the 'Images of America' books pertaining to my hometown area, and having recently moved to DC, I bought the books about this area. They are just as interesting and informative as the others.

I learned so many things I never knew about our Nations Capitol, and loved seeing WWII pictures of places that I've been. I decided that I'm going to get one of these books each new place I live (being military, we live many different places). They're a great way to get a quick lesson about your towns history and background.

If you see one of these books about your own town...I definitely recommend picking it up. They are one of the best sources of information I've found. I'll absolutely be getting some of the others about the DC area!


</review>
<review>

I ordered this for my boss. He said it gave him some direction for a project he is working on.

</review>
<review>


After  their article "The Balanced Scorecard - Measures That Drive Performance" appeared in Harvard Business Review" (January-February, 1992), Kaplan and Norton co-authored four books in which they expand and fine-tune several of their core concepts about the Balanced Scorecard. What we have in this volume is a brilliant analysis of how to use the Balanced Scorecard to create corporate synergies. As they observe in the Preface, they have identified five key principles "for aligning an organization's management and measurement systems to strategy":

1. Mobilize change through executive leadership.
2. Translate strategy into operational terms.
3. Align the organization to the strategy.
4.  Motivate to make strategy everyone's job.
5.  Govern to make strategy a continual process.

When gathering the information needed to write this book, Kaplan and Norton rigorously examined more than 30 organizations which include Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Citizens Schools, Hilton, IBM, Lockheed Martin, Media General, and the U.S. Army. Note how different these organizations are in terms of their respective products and services, markets, and potentialities  for aligning their management processes and systems to the given strategy. I assume that the diversity of the exemplary enterprises  during Kaplan and Norton's selection process was deliberate because  they are convinced - as am I - that if the core principles of the Balanced Scorecard are applied effectively, any organization (regardless of its size or nature) can create highly beneficial synergies by getting its management and measurement in proper alignment with its strategy. In this book, Kaplan and Norton explain how to do that. Obviously, it is difficult to achieve such alignment and even more difficult to sustain it. Although a clich�, it remains true that change is the only constant. Moreover, change seems to occur much more rapidly now than ever before. What is in proper alignment today may not be tomorrow...or by the end of today

Nothing within an organization's structure can be in proper balance unless and until it is in proper alignment. Hence the importance of prioritization and, especially, of proportionality (e.g. allocation of resources). Here is a brief excerpt from Chapter 10. "The Balanced Scorecard, since its introduction in 1992, has evolved into the centerpiece of a sophisticated system to manage the execution of strategy. The effectiveness of the approach is derived from two simple capabilities: (1) the ability to clearly describe strategy (the contribution of Strategy Maps) and (2) the ability to link strategy to the management system (the contribution of Balanced Scorecards). The net result is the ability to align all units, processes, and systems of an organization to its strategy." With this brief statement, Kaplan and Norton suggest the interdependence of strategy, alignment, and executive leadership.

In my opinion, this is the most important book written thus far by Kaplan and Norton. In it, they develop in much greater detail many of the same concepts they examined in previous books but they also share what they have learned over the years about devising, implementing, and then sustaining (while fine-tuning) the "sophisticated system" to which they refer in the excerpt just provided. Their collaborative thinking, as is also true of every organization they discuss, continues to be "a work in progress."

</review>
<review>

If you are a CIO, Head of HR, or other so called "support" function looking for help on how to align with the business, this is not the book for you.

My suggestion is to skip this book, or if you must check it out of the library or buy it used.  The book you want is Kaplan and Norton's first book called "The Balanced Scorecard" which is very good and is just repeated in this book.  Next I would purchase the HBR article on Strategy Maps (September 2000). Those two works cover all of what is in this book and they have a stronger implementation flavor.

Alignment is a persistent issue facing every organization and operating unit with the organization.  This book does not provide the practical or actionable advice needed to give business leaders the tools and techniques need to make progress in this critical area.

If you want to know why please read on.

Kaplan and Norton are the undisputed masters of issues related to scorecards and their ideas in that area are used by leading organizations everywhere with great success.  Unfortunately as they have tried to expand beyond scorecards there work in this area (this book and The Strategy-Focused Organization) have not come near the mark in my opinion.

Alignment is a critical issue in today's dynamic and changing environment.  Unfortunately the authors approach alignment in a very simplistic way: create a strategy map, then create a scorecard and you will get alignment.  Sorry but just using these two tools do not cut it to handle such a tough issue and this book shows it.

Like "The Strategy Focused Organization" Kaplan and Norton seek to use case studies to help illustrate their points.  For that they are to be commended.  However, the case studies they use are very shallow, read more like corporate press releases and product testimonials.  That is a shame and a real weakness of this book as Alignment is a complex issue and simply saying 'we sat down created a Balanced Score Card and a Strategy Map and we were aligned' does not address the issues nor provide insight for the reader.

The reason for such a low score on this book is the lack of help it provides the people who most are in need of alignment CIOs, HR and to some extent finance.  Kaplan and Norton dedicate Chapter 5 to "Aligning support functions" and right away you know the mindset they are applying.

For K and N, alignment is a process of completing their deliverables and they treat IT, HR, Finance and any other support function as "staffed with expert specialists whose culture is quite different from that of managers in line operating units.  Consequently, support groups frequently become isolated from the line organization ... executives of business units accuse them of living in HQ based silos and being incapable of responding to local operating needs." (Page 120)

Their solution for IT, HR and Finance alignment puts these organizations back into the 1960's as they advise these functions to read the business strategy map and scorecard and then create your own - separate but not equal - scorecard based on the services you can provide.  That works if all you want IT and HR to do is provide basic services, but if you want to gain competitive advantage, or if you are a CIO, HR or CFO who wants to link into and align with the business this approach puts you at arms length and something apart.

Kaplan and Norton should know better and more importantly I have to believe that there are case studies that do not treat IT, HR and Finance as support functions but integral parts of the business strategy.  The fact that they could not find these cases where there is one strategy map that the whole company could align around, give the impression that they are looking at the issue of alignment with the wrong lens.


</review>
<review>

Alignment is a superb addition to the remarkable series written by Professor Robert S. Kaplan and Dr. David P. Norton.  If you have not yet read Strategy Maps, The Balanced Scorecard and The Strategy-Focused Organization, you should begin with those books before reading this one.  With each book in the series, you'll find out more about how to create and use balanced scorecards . . . and your organization will prosper because of it.

Leaders have always found it much easier to formulate strategy than to turn strategies into accomplishments.  As the authors note, many such organizations are like an uncoordinated 8-person rowing shell than a championship team.

In studies of the Balanced Scorecard Hall of Fame organizations, the authors learned that organizational alignment is a more important factor than mobilization, strategic translation, employee motivation and governance in achieving superior results during execution.

The authors identify eight essential check points for successful organizational alignment:

1.  An enterprise value proposition (to lead strategic guidelines)
2.  Board and shareholder alignment (to approve, review and monitor strategy)
3.  Coordination between the corporate offices and the corporate support units (by creating corporate policies)
4.  Coordination between the corporate office and the business units (business unit strategy matching the corporate direction)
5.  Coordination between the business units and the support units (to create appropriate functional strategies)
6.  Alignment between business units and their customers (an on-going to and fro)
7.  Alignment among business support teams and their suppliers and external partners (to share problems and solutions)
8.  Company support coordination (among the corporate support people and the business support activities)

To get a sense of the whole process, be sure to turn to figure 9-1.

The great strength of the book comes, however, in its many examples and case studies involving organizations like Aktira, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Citizen Schools, City of Brisbane, DuPont Engineering Polymers, Handleman, Hilton Hotels, IBM Leasing, Ingersoll Rand, KeyCorp, Lockheed Martin Enterprise Information Systems, Marriott Vacation Club, MDS, Metalcraft (disguised name), Media General, New Profit Inc., Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Salmon recovery in Washington State, Sport-Man, Inc. Tiger Textiles (disguised name), and the U.S. Army.

Bravo!

Don't miss this book

</review>
<review>

This book is about organizational alignment. It is the fourth in a series of thought-leading books on how to translate strategy into actions - via balanced scorecard, strategy maps, and the strategy-focused organization.

The authors start with a wonderful story:
Imagine an eight-person shell racing up the river populated by highly trained rowers, but each with different ideas of how to achieve success. But rowing at different speeds and in different directions could cause the shell to travel in circles and perhaps capsize. The winning team invariably rows in beautiful synchronism; each rower strokes powerfully but consistently with all the others, guided by a coxswain [corporate center], who has the responsibility for pacing and steering the course of action.

Unfortunately, many firms are like an uncoordinated shell. They consist of strong business units, each populated by highly trained, experienced and motivated executives. But the efforts of the individual businesses are not coordinated.

Unsurprisingly, the authors suggest that their four scorecard perspectives on financials, customers, processes, as well as growth/learning also could be used to create organizational alignment and also find synergies, e.g.
- FINANCIAL: acquiring and integrating other firms, monitoring and governance processes, skills in negotiating with external entities (capital providers, etc.)
- CUSTOMERS: leverage common customers (cross-sales), corporate brand, common customer value propositions across the world,
- PROCESSES: exploiting core competencies in product or production technologies, sourcing or distribution skills, etc.
- LEARNING AND GROWTH: Enhancing human capital thru excellent HR practices, leveraging a common technology, sharing best-practices and knowledge.

The book does not only focus on how to align the corporate-level and businesses, it also covers how to align towards support functions (finance, IT and HR), external business partners (customers, suppliers) and even the board.

Don't buy this book as your first on scorecards. It requires that you have read some of the previous published articles or books by the author team. However, if you are a balanced scorecard practitioner, then this book adds yet another dimension to our understanding of how to make scorecard systems work in an organization.

Being a corporate strategist, I can use most of this thinking in my day-to-day work - and I can highly recommend it to all other scorecard insiders.

If you're interested in Balanced Scorecard, you should obviously read the core by Kaplan and Norton - especially the "Strategy-Focused Organization". But I also recommend a very capable book by the Swedes Olve et al (2003) - "Making Scorecards Actionable: Balancing Strategy and Control" - that even includes some thinking on why balanced scorecards go wrong - and what to do about it. Paul Niven (2005) does the same in his "Balanced scorecard diagnostics".

If you're even more interested in performance measurement systems, then do also consider "Performance Prism" by Neely et al (2002) that takes performance systems to the next level. Personally, I don't believe they've designed balanced scorecard's successor, but they have many interesting perspectives on stakeholders, choice of measurements, and the relationship between cause and effect.

Peter Leerskov,
MSc in International Business (Marketing  and  Management) and Graduate Diploma in E-busines

</review>
<review>

Great Falls, Montana, is surrounded by numerous forest fires. Joe's father (Joe is the boy narrator of the story) has lost his job as a golf pro and has gone off to fight the fires. While he's away, Joe's mother falls in love with another man. This is the most Hemingway-ish of Ford's books, and the writing is crisp and clear. But there is also a certain coldness and distance from emotions displayed in the prose that's hard to understand. Ford is one of my favorite writers on the contemporary scene, so I like just about everything he's written so far; this book is good but not as good as "The Sportswriter" or "Independence Day.

</review>
<review>

At 163 pages, "Wildlife" is more of a novella than anything else and about as dry as the scorched Montana landscape.  The biggest problem is not so much the story, but the way the story is told.  In some cases, the impersonal first-person narrator works, as in "The Great Gatsby", but in others like "Wildlife" or "A Prayer for Owen Meaney", the narrator is such a nonentity that they don't add anything to the story and act only as a buffer that prevents the audience from really getting to know the other, more important characters.

The story, if you don't know, is that when narrator Joe's father loses his job as a golf instructor, he goes into the forest to help fight a wildfire.  While he's gone, Joe's mother has a fling with an older local businessman, Warren Miller, but whether this was already going on before Joe finds out is unclear.  When Joe's father returns from the fire, his mother moves out for a while.  And that's it.

In this case Joe (complete with dull name) has no friends, no ambitions, and few (if any) opinions to share.  He's no one I could ever care about, because his only function seems to be as a recording device to report the activities of his parents to us readers.  The parents, as though aware of this, speak in an unnatural way to always indicate to us what they are feeling or thinking.  It's the problem I've had with all of Ford's books, including the Pulitzer-winning "Independence Day".  Some writers are able to write convincing dialogue and others (like Ford) are not.

It's hard to say much about "Wildlife" because there's so little to it.  There's not a lot of action, drama, or passion and the story itself isn't much that we haven't already seen before.  Again, the story told through Joe the buffer keeps us from really learning anything about the characters and that prevents us from feeling sympathetic towards their plight.  It's hard to feel sorry even for poor Joe, because he's so without distinguishing features to his personality.

I've said this before about similar cases of first-person stories using a bland narrator--which always prompts other people to reach for the "Not Helpful" button--and that is that the story would have been more interesting either in first-person focusing on one of the parents or in third-person and focusing on both, so that we weren't so buffered from everything.  What makes Ford's Bascombe novels "The Sportswriter" and "Independence Day" so much better than his other novels is that we learn just about everything about Frank Bascombe and he is the center of all the action of the story, so that even if he is emotionally detached, it's easier to feel sympathetic towards him as a reader.  This can't be said for this dry little book.

If I hadn't bought this book for about as little as you can realistically pay without stealing it and if it were longer, then I would give it 1-star for wasting my time and money.  But I'll give it a bonus star for not wasting either one.  Now go reach for the Not Helpful button, I command you

</review>
<review>

Ford told me that this book, really a novella more than a novel, was his last attempt to get out of his system what he began in the Montana stories in his collection Rock Springs, although I would suggest that the Montana-based story in Women without Men which had not appeared then continues that.  What is significant to me about these stories is not the Western setting which is nice and full and accurate, or the feelings for the times, but Ford's approach to the question of the myth of parenthood.  In this book and the stories our characters are faced with the patriarchal myth of the father and the mother as people who can play such a superior role and guide the family safely through the maze of life in capitalism, always being someone to look up to by the child.  Ford brings about explosions, sometimes big explosions--in Rock Springs dad kills a guy in one story and in another story the Dad and the son come and find good old mom and an Airman in the sack--sometimes small and this myth is blown away. The child discovers that the parent is a conflicted person with all the problems and humanity that we know, open to disaster, tragedy, and just plain bad luck. Whether from the parent's point of view, or the child's what we see is this myth receding and the acceptance of real humanity by both the child and the parent.  Would that so many of this could have learned all this as wisely in life as Ford tells this in his fiction

</review>
<review>

Having read several of Ford's other novels previously, I pretty much got what I had expected and had hoped for.  No need for outrageous plot twists, chase scenes, or bawdry dialogues.  The disintegration of this family showed me that people never stop growing, learning, and succumbing to not what is expected but what feels right at a particular point in one's life

</review>
<review>

Wildlife by Richard Ford is a good to read, but it also has its twist in the begging of the story. It starts of bout a family of three that live in Great Falls, Montana. The father Jerry was a Professional golfer later leaves he's famil to volunteer as a fire fighter. While that was going on the mother, Jean, started to have an affair with a man name Warren Miller who knew her husband. The affair that Jean had with Warren Miller was convinced that she was in love with Warren Miller he didnt feel anything about her. Her, Son, Joe was involved in many situations of the affair that the mother had and he also couldn't mention anything to the father Jerry about the affair. One of Joe's intimate experienced was when him and his mother went to Warren Miller's house for dinner and she got drunk and she kissed Warren in front of Joe.  Later his father came from voluteering as a fire fighter for two days. Jean approached him with the affair she was having with Warren Miller. Jerry went hysterical and went to Warren's house and burns the front porch down with Joe. Jean moved out to an apartment without Warren Miller because he died of cancer that year. Finally, Joe and his father stayed living in the house and worked together in a golf couse

</review>
<review>

 and quot;Her Way and quot; is must read for women and men

</review>
<review>

I loved Paula Kamen's first book  and quot;Feminist Fatale, and quot; which probed the reluctance of young women to call themselves feminist, even though they supported  feminist ideas and goals.   and quot;Her Way and quot; is also extremely interesting. Kamen interviewed lots of young women and argues that they are rewriting many of the old sexist scripts -- at work, in relationships, in bed. She finds them assertive,  independent and energetic, with high expectations for equality and intimacy, sexually frank and in control of their lives to an unprecedented extent.    A well-written, optimistic portrait of a generation that doesn't usually get such good press

</review>
<review>

As always Dan Brown writes lively characters and a quick paced story showcased against a vivid, informative background. Add a few plot twists and you have a story that reads like a movie thriller. If you've read Dan Brown before and liked him, you'll see his usual storyline unfold and enjoy this book

</review>
<review>

I am yes one of those fans of Da Vinci Code who was just dying to read something else by Dan Brown. First, naturally I turned to Angels and Demons which was very impressive and encouraged me to find another one of his novels. I worried how well his stories would be without Robert Langdon in them from A and D and Da Vinci- but this novel surprised me.

It actually is quite strong like the other two, and keeps you as always guessing and searching for the answers; keeping you pretty much at the edge of your seat. I myself actually thought another character was behind the deceit done in this novel (I won't give anything away) but I was plain wrong- that is the mark of a good mystery. The ending for me was not obvious and the plot was carried out in an thrilling way. The characters as well were quite strong and memorable and I definitely found myself caring about certain people in this novel and how they would end up.

The only thing is that this is not his most exciting story he has written to me. Da Vinci's and Angels and Demons' plots were more exciting- but some may love this plot a lot more than Da Vinci- it's different for everyone. Deception Point was nonetheless interesting and, as said, always kept me guessing and thus not being able to put the book down.

All in all Deception Point is a very well- written, entertaining read. Dan Brown did it again.

4.5/

</review>
<review>

This is a Dan Brown book but has a feel of a James Patterson book.  It is a typical scandal in politics and as it unravels it is even more scandalous.  I thought it was enjoyable and had some interesting information about space and the ocean that will give you some educational value.  I enjoyed it a lot but wouldn't classify it as a best ever

</review>
<review>

I must say that this book is a very fine piece of work indeed. Dan Brown is an excellent story teller and this book was absolutely marvelous from the first page to the last. Mr. Brown must have done an extensive amount of research to write this book since there were many scientific and technological facts included. I am not what you might call a very avid reader. "Deception Point," however, had me hooked! This book has many great elements to it: thrills, suspense, sexual humor, and humor in general. I found myself laughing quite a bit while flipping through the pages of this excellent read! Kudos to Dan Brown for an excellent story!

</review>
<review>

I first read Angels and Demons, after my Mother recommended it to me; last summer.  Dan Brown's style of writing took me a bit to get use to. After that I complete enjoyed the book.  I promptly went out and bought the Da Vinci Code, Digital Fortress, and Deception Point.  I next read the Da Vinci Code, which I finished just before the movie came out (took me some time as I was working and going to college 3 nights a week).  I picked up Digital Fortress 2 weeks ago and finished it last Sunday (app. 1 week).  Once again a great read.  Then I picked up Deception Point...
I could not put this book down!  I started it Thursday afternoon, but only got two hours into it.  Then I picked it up again Friday afternoon, and finished it this afternoon (Saturday).  My whole family said it must be a really good book if I could not put it down.  Fabulous Book!  In my humble opinion - Dan Brown's best...for now

</review>
<review>

Just finished reading this book, finally! As usual, i will give a good/bad breakdown of this novel.

Good: First off, Brown gets the gold star for research. Although im not much of an expert on glaciology or the inner workings of NASA, I will say this boy did his homework. All the info was well researched, well written, and I was surprised all the way until the end. I also liked how the two story lines intertwined.

Bad: Was a bit long and seemed to drag out in some points. Some of the info was technical jargon. It did help the reader understand, but it also made it a little boring.

In all, it was an interesting story, but not as good as Digital Fortress. But it was very well written. Great job

</review>
<review>

Paco's Story is about young Paco Sullivan.  Sole survivor of his unit's ambush, he has returned to the States to look for work.  Left with painful injuries that require powerful painkillers every day, Paco encounters both curiousity and discrimination from the locals in the small town he ends up in.

Paco's story is written with graphic, lyrical language that brings his horrific war memories, and his trying to fit in as a veteran of a war that nobody really understood, to life.  Heinemann writes in an unusual, dream-like way that just draws the reader in, until they feel like they are feeling what Paco feels.  He writes of Paco's seemingly mundane experiences and transforms them into something cathartic.   A must read for anyone interested in Nam

</review>
<review>

This book gives a glimpse into the toll that war takes on those who survive.  No one but those who endure it can truly fathom the horrors of PTSD, but for the rest of us who want to understand, this book is the best I've read yet.  Paco wanders through his life finding some solace in washing dishes in a small diner in Texas, losing himself in his work and barely surviving mentally from day to day.  The style of writing drew me into Paco's suffering.  Although it is fiction, it is written by a Vietnam vet and left me wondering how many Pacos there are among us.  His story is one that may well haunt you long after the final page is read

</review>
<review>

This book worked for me. I was drawn into a life, a sad unremarkable life on the outside but a life filled with courage and dignity inside. Paco has a story so horrific, so painful that he can't share it with anyone but the dead who haunt him. He can't escape his experiences or his pain. He can't comprehend why he is still alive. He can't relate to those living ordinary lives. He cannot share his terrible story. He is going through the motions of living on the "outside" but really living to deal with his inner demons.

Paco's  story powerfully shows the alienation of soldiers from society when they come home. It shows the gulf-too wide to be bridged between the GI and the ordinary person. It shows the indifference and lack of interest the average person has in what was sacrified or what a soldier has gone through. It is also a story about the brutalization of men-forced to kill and commit unspeakable acts of violence. Paco's story is told in a simple way, yet is packed with universal truths. It is hard to look at these truths even in a book. I wept for Paco and my brother and the other maginalized veterans. I'm re reading the book and its even more powerful the second time around or I'm just understanding more.

</review>
<review>

When I first started this book, I had to put it down for a few days and read something else. The rambling "device" at first put me off as annoying. I warmed to the unusual style, however, on the second try and was amply rewarded. As a Vietnam veteran I can be easily offend with the "loser" image of a returned veteran. But this is misleading. Paco is severely wounded and simply wants to work hard (most likely a penitent) and be left alone. He finds his safe harbor in Ernest, the owner of the Texas Lunch diner, where he washes dishes (washing away his sins, yes yes I get it). Ernest's ramblings about combat on Iwo and Guadalcanal add a great coda and understanding. Heinemann really brings these characters to life, especially the talk about combat and how they feel. The most intriguing character is Jesse, another vagabond Viet vet who stops for dinner. As I am also a former paratrooper, Jesse's rantings and observations are priceless. Pay attention to what Jesse says about the "proposed" Vietnam Memorial. Understand Scruggs's idea came about in March 1979, with Heinemann publishing excerpts of this book starting in 1979 (winning the Book Award in 1987). But Cathy gives us a view of how others see us, no matter how unfair that may be. Cathy at first sees Paco as "cute" then "ugly" as she observes him night after night with his nightmares. What Paco reads in Cathy's diary is what many civilians felt about us deep down and their refusal to help in reintegration. One final unrelated note: one reviewer of this book may be unaware that Caputo served in Vietnam, whereas Clancy never served in the military. Heinemann is the real deal, with characters very real to me and my experiences

</review>
<review>

I was never drawn into the story.  The writing and editing could have been better.  The distant narrator left me feeling uninvolved, and I never felt or cared anything for the characters.  For a well-written Vietnam story that draws the reader in, read The Proud Bastards

</review>
<review>

If you've been there done that you KNOW. Paco is you and me. Read it and learn, read it and remember. No offense meant. Just the way it was/is. Peace. bebutt1@aol.com

</review>
<review>

That's how I felt the whole time I was reading this book. I loved The Sixth Sense, really liked Unbreakable, sorta liked Signs, and hated The Village. When Lady in the Water came out, I really didn't have any desire to see it. However, when I saw this book in the library, I have to admit that I was intrigued. As a writer, I'm always curious as to how others go through the writing process. What drives them? A peek into a creative mind like Shyamalan's was too much too resist.

I  wish I had.

Others have written that Shyamalan comes off as egocentric. I didn't get that sense so much. He's a visionary who couldn't get everyone to buy into his vision. Whether or not his vision was one worth pursuing . . . well, I think anyone who reads this book or sees the movie will know how to answer that.

However, the problem for me wasn't the subject. It was the author. Bamberger was simply not the right person to pen this tale. I really don't know much about the makings of a Hollywood blockbuster, and apparently, neither does Bamberger. He provides little or no insights throughout the text. I think that a good, seasoned writer could have done something with this story. Instead, we got 270-some pages of nothing special.

After reading this book, I went back and read Roger Ebert's review of Lady in the Water. He wrote something in there that was interesting. He said the movie was all tell and no show. I felt the book was much the same way. Bamberger continually tries to get away with just telling us the facts, as opposed to showing us how the story unfolded. As a result, the narrative is dry, and incredibly uninteresting, considering the subject matter.

All in all, I'd definitely pass on this book

</review>
<review>

Maybe M. Night's movie "Lady in the Water" didn't make nearly as much as it should have, but he is and will continue to be a REAL artist.  Michael Bamberger's (a REAL artist and true reporter himself) book "The Man Who Heard Voices" is a testament of M. Night's dedication to his craft.  He tells of the man who has enlightened and revitalized our imagainations with all of his movies.  Sadly people now a days all seem to be film and book critics and are so involved in intellecutalizing creativity right into its grave.  We need to remember why we go to movies, why we tell stories, why we asked our parent's to tell us that bedtime story one more time.   Bamberger's book (and Night's movie) do this very thing.  In fact, they are this very thing.

This is a book that should be read by all.  Not only because it's about M. Night Shyamalan, but because it's about a man who is trying to help us all rememeber we have imaginations.  Bamberger writes simply and truthfully about M. Night and in the end it's beautiful.

The book is written very well and is so good that you could easily read it in one sitting.  What do you have to lose?  Nothing.  Read the book and remember why we are all alive.  (Just in case you forgot, we are alive not to be skeptics, but to believe in something, even if it is just a story.)

Thus, book = awesome.  You need to read it

</review>
<review>

The writing of this book is about as readable as a poor issue of Sports Illustrated, the book tied in with the release of the movie which was a flop and now Warners wants their money back, so as both a media tie in Book, and the movie, and the film maker who made it, everyone came out looking like fools

</review>
<review>

Reading the other reviews, I see some people are so admiring of M. Night Shyamalan that anything he writes or directs is a work of creative genius. No doubt Shyamalan is talented but maybe his fame and fortune came too soon to keep his ego in check. I know some of the people mentioned in the book and was curious how their interactions with Shyamalan would be portrayed. Shyamalan is his own number one fan and he has no patience for anyone who disagrees with him or critizes his work. He has had a few successful movies and believes all studio executives should trust in him completely. I was amazed that Shyamalan approved of the book since it shows so much of his darker side. Shyamalan sets his own rules. He can feels he has the right to demand a certain salary but then feels  betrayed by an actress who asks for more than the SAG minimum he has offered her. He loves his family yet doesn't seem to accept that a film executive can break his rules by placing her family above work. The book is worth a read if you are a Shyaman fan or wonder what led up to the disaster that became LADY IN THE WATER. There is no doubt that M. Night Shyamalan is a rare talent with new ideas. It is only his ego that stands in his way of even great succes

</review>
<review>

If you've watched M. Night Shyamalan's films and never experienced a sense of deep, soulful emotion and a desire to know the man behind it, stop reading this review now, because this book is not for you.  But if, like me, you've been curious about the director with such an intriguing name, boyish good looks, and some truly amazing cinematic moments, then read on, as this book will quench your thirst for knowledge about the enigmatic M. Night Shyamalan.

The author meets Night, as he calls himself, at an elite, Main Line Philadelphia party, and after approaching Night with the idea of writing a book about him, begins to "hang out" with the director.  The time frame nicely corresponds to Night putting the finishing touches on the script for his latest movie, The Lady in the Water, and this book, while clearly about the director himself, could have also been titled "The Making of The Lady in the Water."  The reader follows the progress of the movie from the initial lukewarm reaction to the script at Disney (Night's former studio) to casting calls and hiring of the actors to storyboarding and initial rehearsals and finally, to shooting and then editing the film.  And the process, far from being tedious to read about as I had expected, is completely captivating; the reader is treated to an insider's view like no other I've ever encountered before.  Although I've already seen Lady in the Water (and liked it, although The Sixth Sense will always be my favorite), this book made me want to see it again, this time from a totally new perspective.

In addition to Night himself, several movie cast members are prominently featured in the book, particularly lead Paul Giamatti, who comes across almost exactly like he does on screen--as a warm, funny, likeable everyman.  But, of course, it is Night who is the true star of the book, and he is fascinating.  The author's portrayal shows some evidence of hero worship, and why not?  Night is talented, smart, witty, and yes, a bit arrogant.  But he is also caring, vulnerable, anxious, high-strung, and at times wreaked with self-doubt.  This amazing dichotomy is depicted in such detail as to be completely believable:  here is a man who both over-celebrates his successes and at the same time is keenly aware of his failures.  Here is a person who is real, maybe as real as anyone can be.  Here is someone who, when asked to finish the sentence "I believe _____," simply replied "I believe."

He may not be a hero, but M. Night Shyamalan is clearly a complex, interesting man, and this detailed glimpse into his life and work makes for a remarkable read.  Highly recommended for fans of the director and movie-making in general.

</review>
<review>

You should read this book if:
1. You've always been fascinated by Shyamalan.

2. You enjoy behind-the-scenes stories about how movies get made.

Neither option requires you to love Shyamalan's movies -- that's irrelevant, I think. But just about every other reviewer seems stuck on that point. That is, if you love Shyamalan's movies, you give this book 5 stars, and if you hate everything Shyamalan has ever done (including the screenplay to Stuart Little), you call this book the propaganda of an egotist and give it 1 star.

Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times has accused Bamberger of taking a "few too many sips of the M. Night Kool-Aid" and portraying Shyamalan too positively. Really? Consider that in the course of this book, Bamberger (1) notes that Shyamalan went through numerous crying fits while writing his new screenplay, (2) describes one phone conversation between Shyamalan and Paul Giamatti, where the former informed the latter that he was getting too fat, and (3) tells Shyamalan, after an early screening, that he didn't like the new movie. At times, Bamberger speaks more candidly than some of Shyamalan's own crew does.

Where this book becomes truly worth reading is in the second half, on the set of "Lady in the Water." Bamberger isn't there to report on frivolous tabloid gossip or leak script info online -- he's simply there to report what happens. You're pulled along in the narrative of that, and it's a really fun ride.

This book doesn't stand up to heftier and more important texts about the movie business. But it doesn't pretend to. Bamberger focuses on a brief span of events, and the result is an honest and entertaining read

</review>
<review>

icky.  I like MNS.  A lot.  I like the things he says in interviews, I like his movies.  I don't think they are perfect, but they speak to me.  This book, while an interesting and easy read, is not fun.  I can't imagine that he would like how he is depicted in it....he hasn't really publicly commented on it, other than to say the author had his full support.  I don't know--it just seemed a weird portrait of someone...it seemed over-dramatic and Vanity Fair article-esque.  Or like Confessions of a Shopaholic.  Ew.  I don't know what MNS is really like or if Bamberger interpreted things accurately.  I just try to remember that everyone perceives situations differently.
[...

</review>
<review>

Getting a movie produced has always been a somewhat mysterious thing to me. The steps from taking an idea to getting a studio, a cast, and of course the money seems to be an almost impossible task.

This is the story of the two years it took to put LADY IN THE WATER together. Regardless of how good (or bad) you think the movie is, or even if you never heard of it, just the process of getting it on screen is amazing. All kinds of people are involved, none of which seem to lack for a sense of ego. And you have to get them all moving together to get the project done.

Needless to say, they got the project done, and the movie opened. Is it any good, it hasn't played here yet, but IMDB gives it 6.3 stars out of a possible ten. The comments vary from 'great' to 'trash.'

The book though is really good. The insight it provides is most interesting

</review>
<review>

This book is a behind-the-scenes look at M. Night Shyamalan and the making of his movie, Lady in the Water.

Note: I loved LitW. The movie reduced me to "tears of perfection and rightness" in at least three different scenes. It is one of the most important and personally affecting films I have ever seen. Indeed, LitW is just behind Unbreakable's top position of "My Favorite Shyamalan Movie" and that's with a substantial lead generated by repeated DVD viewings of Unbreakable.

I had added it to my Amazon wishlist after I found out about it, not just because I'm an M.
Night Shyamalan fan, but because I dug the film so deeply. My in-laws got it for me for my birthday this past weekend, and I started reading the book at breakfast yesterday. I inhaled the book in one day.

It talks about how and why MNS writes, and the processes of scripting, selling, producing, directing, and editing of the film -- and all the pitfalls along the way.

It is a great bit of reportage. You see the whole picture, both the stunning and unsightly parts, every step of the way. And the focus is clearly on MNS. You see his reactions to things, his mild paranoid ideation, his obsessive work-methods and perfectionism, his demand for control, his overwhelming arrogance/confidence wrapped around a core of anxiety/desperation, and his drive for success.

I found that particularly interesting, because as I was reading about MNS' processes and ideas, I felt like I was reading about myself. I have found no one whose writing experiences from the inside out come as close to mine as M. Night Shyamalan. It cut me to the quick, and kept me incredibly interested -- but Your Mileage May Vary. (I don't think so; it's a fascinating character study, if nothing else.)

In addition to this insightful analysis of the way MNS ticks, you get a fabulous "behind-the-scenes" story of how Lady in the Water was made. If you are at all interested in film-making, do yourself a favor and pick up this book. You get to see bits of independent film processes, studio processes, auteur issues, casting confusions, and the nuts and bolts positions on a film production (and the people that fill them).

One interesting aspect is that the timing of the release of the book could not take into account how the film would fare box office: poorly. There are a lot of pointers in the text that makes the reader believe that the author (and many of his subjects therein) believed that LitW would do much, much better than it has to date, because -- frankly, it's a wonderful film. But the viewing audience is fickle -- recall that The Wizard of Oz barely made it's costs back in release. (Personally, I suspect that LitW will turn out to be a sleeper classic: it's too good not to be.)

Mr. Bamberger does a helluva job showing everything he can about MNS, the film, and Hollywood. It is very much "warts and all." We get a solid feeling for how impressed he is with MNS's abilities and ideas, his exasperation with his MNS' compulsions and self-doubts, and his interest in the Hollywood machinations that go into making a feature film. He is always respectful of all the subjects he addresses, and brings us that much closer together, showing that many people we view as "celebrities" are more-or-less like you and me.

If you like MNS movies or are interested in film-making, check out this book!.

Also, Mr. Shyamalan, if you're reading:

Regarding Lady in the Water: I get it. I get it in spades

</review>
<review>

Love of Knowledge is a very interesting piece of experimental literature.  Not all the experiments succeed (the short poems and drawings are definitely a product of the time and are for now at least retro-cool), but all are useful to the reader.  Every gesture Tarthang Tulku makes in this book accumulates and contributes to a particular effect:

Reading this is not unlike tracing the threads in several antique quilts of different design at once, and one of those quilts is sewn together from the reader's response to the text, the other "quilts".  Done reading and trying the mind-experiments Tarthang Tulku offers you?  The signs, smells, sounds, and other sensory experiences arise, too, in the same pattern the book pointed out to you.  This is doubly uncanny because in the world "nothing has changed, it's still the same." Love of Knowledge doesn't introduce the reader to a virtual reality, but a new take on the same ol' tune.

Michel Foucault argues in The Order of Things that our understanding of the world is not what we assume it to be, and that our normal, comfortable, hypothetically sane conventional truths are not self-evident, not the only or best way to approach the Thing-as-such, or anything at all.  Tarthang Tulku lets you experience that insight for yourself in Love of Knowledge.

Aesthetically, Love of Knowledge is my favorite of the Time, Space, Knowledge books (but the others are also really, really good)

</review>
<review>

Bought it for school.  Enjoyed the other books I bought, but this one put me to sleep.  Written more for a professional academic or corporate board member (I enjoy much more pragmatic books)

</review>
<review>

I really enjoyed the book for the most part.  There are some great topics discussed.  I especially enjoyed the chapter on nonprofit/corporation alliances.  The downside: I thought the two chapters regarding Boards were lacking.  Overall, it's definately worth checking out

</review>
<review>

This is a great book has everything I need to learn and to know about 3D Animation. I'm so happy for this book :

</review>
<review>

Personaly I find them more interesting and there seems to be more demand for that type of animation in movies and ads.

</review>
<review>

I can't possibly say enough good things about this book and its author! The first thing which struck (and stuck with) me is that Osipa is an animator first and foremost; Osipa spoke my language from the first page! Basically, he simplifies the many elements which go into facial animation and has come up with a virtually fool-proof yet expandable system based on combining several blend shapes at a time into an extremely flexible series of facial expressions! Previous books either left me marooned with a gazillion blend shape sliders, or otherwise barely explained the process at all in any clear terms. Osipa's book concentrates on facial animation as it applies to lip sync and facial acting!

Using his own head as a model, Osipa also takes the reader through a quick yet very complete facial modelling course, which concentrates on modelling the head with animation in mind and avoiding many of the pitfalls we might otherwise overlook. Particular attention is given to the eye area, the mouth area, and less obvious but equally important areas such as the teeth and eyebrows (all of which figure in to quality facial animation). Subsequent sections deal with the blend shape process and modelling the various expressions themselves. His advice here is priceless, and he constantly reminds us of basic facial proportions and relationships and how they change as the facial expression changes. He also applies these "rules" to more cartoony heads. ALL of this is well-represented by examples on the accompanying support CD. There is very little room for error!

Perhaps the most important feature of this book, however, are the chapters concerning the rigging and weighing of the head, and setting up the facial controls (things many animators tend to shy away from). Had it not been for Osipa's book, I probably would have shied away from the expression editor entirely...no one had ever explained how it works in any of the other books I've purchased...but Osipa eases the reader into the magical realm of creating expressions. To make it even easier, the support CDs contain the control sliders and expressions. All I had to do was copy and paste them, and Lo! it worked! By seeing expressions in action, I tried a few of my own and they worked as well! Osipa should be covered in gold for this chapter alone!

Finally, Osipa presents his own take on how to approach lip sync. It may  or may not be to everyone's liking, but it does work and it is well-founded on what real dialogue looks like on film. Rather than the traditional phonemes (where the facial expressions are based on the sounds one usually hears), Osipa uses "visimes", a more visual breakdown of a dialogue. Instead of vowel/consonant sounds, he explains visimes in terms of "open",  "closed", "narrow", "wide",  and c. His control system, however, can be used for both his "visime" method as well as the more traditional phoneme method.

I've said a lot already but there are a few more things I wish to share with potential readers of this book. ALL books have a few warts, and this one is no exception, but the warts are few and very far between! The most significant "wart" is that some of the support files were written for older versions of Maya and may not work on newer versions, but Osipa maintains a website with updates, and perhaps newer editions of the book have already addressed this. Another relatively minor inconvienience is the flow of the book. One must jump ahead a few chapters and then back a few in order to build the head, which can make things a bit confusing the first time through. There is a method to this madness, however, and with patience and repeated readings (you WILL want to read this until you've memorized it!), it isn't a problem. There are one or two places in the book where Osipa's wonderful sense of humor might temporarily confuse the reader, but studying the support files cleared up most of my own confusion.

Perhaps the BEST thing of all is Osipa himself. When all else failed and I still couldn't figure something out, he actually answered my e-mail questions! He is an author who supports his product, and will endeavor to help all who ask. I've practically worn out my first copy of this book but not in vain! Once mastered, the contents of this book will bring a new confidence to any MAYA animator and open up a whole new world hitherto available only to a knowledgable few! If I could give this book six and a half or even ten stars, I would! Bravo Zulu, Jason Osipa! WELL DONE INDEED!!!

</review>
<review>

I recently finished a big project that required sync and realistic facial expressions, and reading this book was like being bathed in a pure, heavenly light. Osipa guides you through the creation of numerous plausible blend shapes and helps you avoid the most common errors. Before I bought this, I was doing everything wrong. The range of emotion that this system is capable of expressing is near total, and certainly enough for any project I can think of short of a major motion picture.

Don't make the same mistakes I did the first time around. Unless you have years of instruction on human anatomy in motion under your belt, buy this book before you attempt any kind of lip sync or serious facial animation. It will save you from the pain of building inaccurate shapes and watching your character painfully contort into each of them to strain out an expression. The information Osipa provides on lip sync in the age of computer animation is very, very valuable to someone like myself who has tried to sync in the past and failed. The facial rig that the book provides in the attached CD and the automatic scripts that apply it are, alone, worth twice the modest price of the book.

I have a lot of marginally useful books on 3d that contain just enough information to cash in, but this resource is clearly heartfelt. Osipa wants to teach you how it is done and his easygoing style makes it a pleasure to read

</review>
<review>

This is a great book to get started with.  It's a little old, so I'm sure there have been a lot of technical advances since it came out, but the principles are still the same.  Everyone should read this to gain a better understanding of good animation principles.  They will also gain a good basis for understanding facial animation setups.  You can't lose

</review>
<review>

It is a wonderful way to get very expressive facial animation.

Jason Osipa's technique involves makeing multiple blend shaps then useing his controller which is a spline box split into for parts.  What is really nice is you can either controll both sides of the mouth or eye's or brow, or move them individually. This makes it very easy to get great original non semitrical expressions.

For those who haven't done alot of modeling it goes through how to model your character's faces so they can be animated useing his techniques.  For me this was the one part of the book I skimmed over.  If you have ever done the joan of arc tutorial or modeled useing edged extrustion then you know what he is talking about, and how to do it.

The rest of the book is a easy read with good solid steps that you can easily follow to acomplish all of the blend shaps, facial rig and controllers. It walks you over the basic in lip syncing, and animation as well.

My only complaint with the whole book is that the controller that you make is in the view window your working in. But that is extremely small issue.  And is one that can be solved be breaking off a view port and placing it somewhere else on your screen.

On the whole Jason Osipa's completely unique approach to facial animation is refreshing and very usefull. I don't care what level animator you are. This book is a great resource, for making a process that usually has one scrolling great lengths of blend shapes and wasting alot of time playing around finding the right combonation to get that one perfect look.


</review>
<review>

I knew before purchasing that this book was centered around Maya, and understandably so, as it is the industry standard.  However, as a trueSpace user I found this book to be very useful.  We can't exactly set up rigs and controls the way Jason does in Maya, but the theories and other ideas presented in the book hold true no matter what application you are using.

If you are serious about lipsync / facial animation, I highly recommend this book.

And also check out Keith Lango's tutorial:
http://www.keithlango.com/tutorials/old/lipSync.ht

</review>
<review>

Brilliant concepts and discussion of details, but somewhat slow in painting the big picture. He never really comes out and says it, so I will. The end result is a control rig for 40 blend shapes, each painstakingly hand drawn and tuned. The state of the art doesn't allow shortcuts; I don't think it ever can or will. If you can accept that all 40 shapes are needed to model the range of human facial expression, this book is for you. Osipa makes a compelling argument that each is necessary; guides you through the modeling to make it possible; and wraps up with an elegant rig to control and manage them all. The result is a talking head, simply amazing in its range and control of nuance. Still, 40 heads per character is a huge investment. Is it worth "Doing Right?" Or can you continue to fake it? Buy the book; play with the rig; and find out for yourself.

</review>
<review>

This book does a great job of tackling the difficult topic of facial modeling, rigging, and animation.  Jason's writing style is easy to follow and a joy to read.  His ideas are unique and innovative and presented in a professional, easy to follow way.

Everything is clearly explained - the author not only tells you how, but also why.  From a professional standpoint this book will open your eyes to new methodologies and help you add-on to your existing techniques, or help you develop new ones.

An outstanding book from cover to cover - a must have for anyone interested in animation!

Joe Harkins
Senior Character TD
Sony Imagework

</review>
<review>

I was very impressed with the style and format of this book.  It was very helpful and packed with tons of information.  I did however have some trouble modeling my head in maya, so I switched and modeled it in Lightwave acording to the format Jason wrote of in his book.  I was able to save the model as an .OBJ file and opened it in maya.  I still haven't textured the head yet, but I will and it looks soo good.  I can't wait to start animating my head.  Thank you Jason for your insight into the 3D world and for writing this book.  Very well written and wonderful diagrams.  Perfect for any 3D modeler

</review>
<review>

A good framework for Servant Leadership style. Authors drive the point home by hammering three concepts into reader's mind: mindfulness, hope, and compassion. However the book fall short on emphasizing the power of "serving others," which I believe is a vital ingredient for resonant leaders. Many useful real life examples

</review>
<review>

I very much enjoyed Drs. Boyatzis and McKee initial offering with Daniel Goleman, "Primal Leadership", so I looked forward to learning more about resonnant leadership. I certainly wasn't disappointed. I very much appreciated the author's attention to citations and footnotes, indications of valid and solid research -- something that is becoming increasingly rare in these days of making-it-up-as-you-go writings.

Furthermore, I applaud the authors for having the courage to tackle the very important subject of burnout -- there are more leaders suffering from burnout than one would think. I have simply been amazed at how many burned out executives I have met in my time, and how few of them seemed to realize that they were burned out. Plus, the simple and effective perspectives of attending to Mindfulness, Hope and Compassion are very important indicators for workplace success.

While "Resonant Leadership" is an important book for leaders, the one criticism that I have of it is that it is a little light on practical application. For a book that holds a bit more practical applications for leaders, I would highly recommend "Leading People the Black Belt Way" from expert Tim Warneka -- a book that covers similiar territory in a similar "applied academics" fashion, but has the added benefit of offering a few more specific, hands on approaches for developing Mindfulness, Hope  and  Compassion.

Overall, I would highly recommend "Resonant Leadership".


</review>
<review>

Intesting book - mindfullness, benevolence, compassion, optimism and hope are behaviors that allow leaders to display the very best of their game. If you are one individuals who aspire to be a SUPERB leader who helps, inspires and drives results, this book will certainly be a roadmoap to get there..

</review>
<review>

Wow! It's all "new" to the conventional biz press and its legions of fans. Arthur Lynch Williams has said for decades that any meaningful victory can only be accomplished through 'character'. Excitement and passion are only required if you want your reports to be passionate and excited. Great to see the academics now finally on the bandwagon of recognizing truths already gleaned from sport coaching, military leadership, and countless other disciplines and organizational behavior. Read All You Can Do Is All You Can Do But All You Can Do is Enough and Pushing Up People by Art Williams for the real pioneering work in this field. Art is a helluvan easier read too, although this work is important for its contribution to the audience it is intended

</review>
<review>

The resonant leader is inspirational, creates a positive emotional tone characterized by hope, experiences and demonstrates compassion, and is authentic-in tune with self, others, and the environment. Such leaders exude emotions that are contagious and affect all around them; top leaders can impact an entire organization. These leaders are consciously attuned to people, focus them on a common cause, build a sense of community, and create a climate that unleashes peoples' passion, energy, and unified spirit. The authors have studied such leaders and provide examples of how they sustain resonance through difficult times through a process of intentional change and self-renewal. The book is not only about resonant leaders but how they infuse their organizations with spirit and energy and change them. It provides insights, guidance and exercises that inspire reflection. Research underlying the book's concepts, ideas and practices is cited and explained. The authors have written an inspirational and insightful book with cases that bring the concept of resonant leadership to life. This is an important contribution with enduring value. Highly recommended.

</review>
<review>

Organizational Behavior and Human Resources professor Richard Boyatzis and Co-chair of Teleos Leadership Institute Annie McKee present Resonant Leadership, a guide to the three key elements - mindfulness, hope, and compassion - that are critical to enabling renewal and stability in great leaders. Emphasizing the importance of balance so as to avoid burnout and the precipitation of failure due to exhaustion and excessive stress, Resonant Leadership is an optimistic yet serious-minded discourse about what it takes to be a leader in an increasingly pressurized world. A highly accessible guide filled with examples and plain common sense.

</review>
<review>

Boyatzis and McKee have made it very easy for all of us who believe that leaders can create highly effective and productive organizations in a reflective, humane way.  They've put their vast research base to excellent use in creating this easy to follow guide that helps leaders, OD and HR personnel and coaches create workplaces with open communication, compassion for others, and a low-stress environment, resilient in the face of today's complex business environment.  This is a quick read, full of tools easily adaptible for practitioners and case examples.  At last! A business case for doing business in an enlightened way

</review>
<review>

False Memory by Dean Koontz is a study of terror...it delves into the deepest part of an individual's sub-conscious and the complexities inherent.

It is a study of mind-control and the sheer breadth of one man's dementia and almost demonic character. The villain is Dr. Mark Ahriman, an outwardly kind, compassionate, and utterly "dedicated" member of his profession, who is a therapist. Fooling the outside world with his fa�ade of respectability, Ahriman has been ruthlessly brainwashing his patients into performing unspeakable acts of brutality for him. He leaves a grisly path of carnage behind him as many of his patients destroy themselves and their loved ones, these acts having been programmed into them.

His dastardly plan begins to unravel however, when after he programs his newest patient Susan Jagger into committing suicide, her best friend Martina Rhodes ( nicknamed "Martie") and her husband Dusty begin to investigate this bizaare case. Having been close since children, Martie simply cannot accept the verdict of `suicide' for her best friend and suspects foul play. At the same time, however, both her and her husband are experiencing frightening occurrences as in Martie's case, a desperate fear of harming her family, and for Dusty, unusual lapses in time. Will they put an end to this horror? Will they ultimately triumph or fail? Find out in Dean Koontz's tightly written masterpiece "False Memory"!


</review>
<review>

A fan of Koontz since I read Dragon Tears back in 1993, I would often allow my mom to check out audio versions of his other books for me to read from the library. I have not, as yet, encountered a Koontz book that I didn't like. Even the Taking, which I can admit wasn't necessarily one of Koontz's best works, is one that, when finances permit, I will probably add to my listening library. However, I have to say that one of his best works was probably False Memory.
The nightmare begins one morning when Martie Rhodes, a young computer game designer awakens to a glass of unusually sour grape juice. She thinks nothing further of it until she takes Valet, her Golden Retriever, out for a walk. On her way home she is suddenly seized by a premonition of a disaster looming somewhere on the horizon. Upon returning home, she looks into the mirror and is suddenly terrified by her reflection.
Elsewhere in the morning, Martie's young housepainter husband Dusty has his own problems. His younger brother, Skeet, is in the very act of attempting to throw himself off the roof of the house he's been contracted to paint. Dusty acts to save his brother's life and ultimately succeeds.
Things only get worse when Martie goes to visit her childhood friend Susan Jagger, who has recently developed a terrible, crippling fear of open spaces. Though she attends therapy sessions every week with a little nudge from Martie, Martie notices that her symptoms only seem to be growing worse.
Things take an even more disturbing turn when Susan calls Martie up later in the evening to confess that she has lately been visited by a mysterious nighttime rapest who leaves her with no recollection of his visits. Martie, however, has her own problems as she is assailed by panic attacks that grow more and more intense as they come, driving her to eliminate from the house any object that could potentially be used as a weapon to mutilate or even kill her loved ones.
Susan, meanwhile, makes a daring attempt to catch her rapest in the act. Remembering a video camera that once belonged to her X husband, Susan loads it and conceals it among the leaves of a plant in her bedroom. The truth she uncovers thanks to this clever trap is a shocking one that places her life and those of the Rhodes' in diar peril, for the identity of her visitor is one that she never expected.
Martie and Dusty, meanwhile, with the aid of a few close friends, set out on a quest to discover the source behind the inexplicable events that have befallen them. Their quest leads them to New Mexico, where they uncover some dark secrets that may have a more personal meaning than imagined...
All in all I was extremely impressed with the book. It was certainly one of Koontz's best

</review>
<review>

How many pages should a writer fill to explain that a character is afraid of forks, knives and mirrors?  Two?  Well Koontz takes over a hundred, and repeats, repeats, repeats.  500 pages should have been cut from this book.  Repetition weakens writing

</review>
<review>

This novel started out pretty good in that I didn't know where Koontz was going with Martie's panic attacks and fear of herself.  It seemed to take FOREVER for anything to actually happen. The antagonist was a caricature.  So over-the-top, it was a job getting through each page. If this had been my first Koontz novel, I probably wouldn't bother with a second.

</review>
<review>

False Memory was the first Dean Koontz book that I read, and I was enthralled from page one. Koontz's descriptions pull you into the story and his suspense is chilling. He has a way of revealing information bit by bit, stringing the readers along until we're snared in his web, desperate for the resolution he does so well.

This book is a fabulous example of Koontz's talent; buy it

</review>
<review>

Dean Koontz writes a tale of deeply penetrating detailed intrigue ... mind-blowing experiences and events occur to various characters in the book which are tied together so intricately that the book is spell-binding from start to finish.

Martie Rhodes has accompanied her good friend, Susan Jagger to the psychiatrist's office for over a year. Susan has had recurring nightmares about her ex-husband entering her apartment at night and doing inexplicable things. Her psychiatrist, Dr. Mark Ahriman is a famous author of top selling 'self-help' books along being published in peer-reviewed journals for research in his field of expertise. His kind considerate manner balanced well with his superb credentials and unsurpassed reputation. Lately, Martie has begun experiencing unsual mental stress symptoms herself. She couldn't look herself in the mirror without thinking of harming herself and began experiencing intense fear when she handled sharp objects ... part of her knew this behavior was abnormal yet she couldn't stop the thoughts from arising at times. She was considering visiting Dr. Arhiman herself to help control this new onset of chaotic thinking ...

Her husband, Dusty, a painting contractor had just saved Skeet, his brother, from jumping off a roof and killing himself. Skeet had a background of psychological problems from his youth. He had been a "babe magnet", a handsome young man but his negligent eating habits made him look like a gaunt shadow of himself... Dusty had him admitted to a local psych facility ... where it turned out Dr. Mark Ahriman was a silent partner. In the facility, Dusty was exploring his brother's problems and was looking through his belongings. He came upon a phrase in a book which he read outloud and discovered ... put his brother in a trance. Essentially his brother followed his commands and answered questions in a distant voice with no recall of the event after he fell asleep ...

Susan Jagger sets a trap to prove once and for all whether Eric her exhusband is paying her visits at night while she is asleep ... She shares none of the details of these nightmarish events with Martie ... As Martie and Dusty settle down for the night they discuss the days events, with many of its peculiar aspects. Susan tries calling Martie who does not pick up the phone. When Martie does not hear from Susan for over 24 hours, she becomes suspicious and goes to her apartment. Susan is discovered dead - an apparent suicide. But was it? Dr. Mark Ahriman reassured Martie that Susan was doing splendidly and improving ... He felt she was near a breakthrough and could likely be cured? What happened to Susan to make her kill her self?

The answers to these questions are explained in a twisted tale of intrigue and mystery. Dean Koontz uses normal events and unusual ideas and concepts based on scientific research which is exaggerated in his imagination to build a suspenseful murder mystery with complex underpinnings of winding labyrinthine paths. Reading this book is a thrilling roller coaster ride ... There are many ups, downs and hair-pin turns at the most unexpected moments. This is another exciting book by a master author who is tops in his field ... Read and enjoy. Erika Borsos (pepper flower)


</review>
<review>

having read many of koontz's works, i have found this to be one of his best. i am biased, though, in that i appreciate koontz's use of psychology in his works. while many if not most of his writings could be classified as psychological thrillers, this work goes beyond in my opinion. koontz has done his research and depicts, in a very real way, the fear and debilitation that a psychological disorder can cause. that being said, this book is not recommended for those with a tendency toward anxiety or excessive fear. koontz's writing is very powerful and very real

</review>
<review>

HELLO, PSEUDO-INTELLECTUAL HORROR NOVELIST !  You are about to get the shock of your life when you learn that I, the "preposterously over-educated" (thank you very much, Dean, I appreciated that one) Mark Ahriman is NOT DEAD, NEVER DIED, AND WOULDN'T THINK OF DYING  before running my evil nemesis and his first-and-last-born sons into the grave for writing horrible reviews OF MY WELL-RECEIVED AND 78-WEEKS-ON-THE-BESTSELLER-LIST "How To Love Yourself." Though seemingly wasted by the gun-toting billionaire twit and Keanu-phobe, I, like Skeet, Dusty's half-brother (who I thought I'd finished off on the beach), was wearing a Kevlar vest.  As if the Great Ahriman could be erased as easily as that.  Neither by White-Out nor the nib of a No. 2 pencil, with which, I am certain, you, Herr Koontz are admirably supplied.  No, no, no, dear novelist-to-the- middle-brow.  I have also decided to stick around to help you overcome being second-place to that New England bumpkin (you-know-who) whose stupid, working-class creations have always sold more copies than the yearly mass consumption of toilet paper, and whose formulaic, soporiphic stories seem always to be being made into films and TV mini-series.  I know you pretend to call  him "friend," dear writer, but we both know you've been seething for years over the inequity: that a low-life potato-eater from Maine is the  No. 1 horror writer in America, and not  you - the word-smith  we all know  you to be.  Here's a  "test" haiku for the Amazon site of his latest book.  I'll program him to fail.  "I'll never be as good as Koontz/I'm crushed under the weight of his indomitable prose. God help me!"  or something like that.  Let me know what you think.  As I dawdle here under the awning of La Junquette Riche, my favorite French boite, downing a chocolate croissante and a YooHoo, I can't help wondering why  these imbecilic reviewers didn't notice that "False Memory" is  screamingly funny?  "It 's hard to be a sadist in a world of self-mutilators" - well, that one sure cracked me up, and as you know, I'm usually the one DOING the crack-up.  Anyway, as I always say: DOWN WITH THE TOFU POLICE, UP WITH HOMICIDAL SNOBBERY, and ONWARD FOREVER WITH GREAT WRITING...starting with "How To Love Yourself," of course.  Don't count me out - we need a sequel!


</review>
<review>

I could not put this down. Just as riviting as Koontz's Intensity.  If you like psychological thrillers, this one is for you. It's unbelievable how this professional psychiatrist uses the mind control skills he's perfected on patients he treats. Characters are extremely well developed. Loved this one. Be afraid, very afraid, next time you see your shrink

</review>
<review>

Although Freud's ideas and psychoanalytic theory haven't fared that well in recent decades (Jung's views and reputation have actually done much better), there is no doubt that Freud's ideas were a major contribution to the understanding of human behavior and the mind and remain at least historically important today. Although perhaps superceded by the cognitive and neurobiological approaches that have developed in the last few decades, Freud was still a brilliant thinker who changed our undestanding of the mind for the better.

For example, although his idea of the ego, super-ego, and id are now being supplanted by more physiological explanations (the limbic system of the brain being a very good analog to the id), nevertheless, basically what Freud was saying was that a shaping process goes on during early childhood that results in the formation of relatively enduring personality characteristics. There is no doubt that this developmental idea still has validity to this very day.

However, while I certainly respect and admire many of the early psychologists, and they were great pioneers in many ways, and some of their ideas are still important, nevertheless, a lot of what they said has to be taken now with a considerable grain of salt, and the area of dream interpretation is one them. It doesn't mean that dreams are completely valueless, but they're of much less significance than has been claimed in the past. The most serious critique of the psycholanalytic (and others) view of dreams comes from recent research into the brain and neurobiology. The problem is that dreams are really not what people think at all most of the time--which is some sort of cyptic but profound message from the unconscious mind.

For example, consider the question of why most dreams seem to consist of collections or sequences of difficult to interpret images, thoughts, and memories that seem to be combined or strung together in a not very logical and difficult to interpret fashion. The reason why, contrary to the popular belief that this reflects some profound and not easily discernible meaning, is that the order really is almost random, or is governed by very weak associational processes. The reason why this is, and why most dreams seem so puzzling and difficult to understand is that when you go to sleep, the memory areas of the brain located in the temporal cortex become more active through a process known as corticocipedal disinhibition, allowing memories, images, and thoughts to flood into consciousness willy-nilly. This is prevented or inhibited during normal waking, otherwise the flood of thoughts and images would interfere with normal memory retrieval and thinking processes.

This is a little off the subject, but one area of pseudo or quasi-scientific theory and speculation that has been getting a lot of attention lately (and shows how much more sophisticated the more fantastically oriented or perhaps "mystically" oriented types in psychology are getting) is the idea that the brain is a "quantum computer" and uses quantum mechanical and even multi-dimensional spatial capabilities to do its work. At least one world-famous physicist and mathematician, Roger Penrose, has suggested it himself. (I critique Penrose's proposal on this in my Amazon review of his book, The Large, The Small, and the Human Brain).

However, although a fascinating idea, there is still no real evidence that this is in fact the case. Neurobiologists have drawn analogies between devices like SQIDs (super-conducting quantum interference devices) and nerve cells, but this is reaching a bit.

One main problem for me would be the noise factor. There is already a huge amount of random noise in the firings of nerves in the human brain and quantum mechanisms are far below the level of this noise. The brain seems to ignore the high noise level just fine and to operate pretty well despite it and so I don't see how quantum effects which would be far more subtle would have much of an effect.

The other main problem is that the brain typically shows a huge amount of integration and convergence in its mechanisms, and phenomena at the level of quantum effects would probably just get lost in the overall convergence process or even the resting level of noise. Another way to think about it is how likely quantum effects are to manifest themselves at the molecular level, let alone the cellular level or the level of a neural circuit or the entire brain.

So until there's some real evidence, I remain sceptical, and this is probably another "mystical" idea that will probably go the way of all the others.

But anyway, getting back to the present book, that little digression was really by way of pointing out that unscientific speculation has been rife in psychology from its birth in the mid-19th century with thinkers such as Rudolph Lotze, Paul Brentano, Wilhelm Wundt, Johann Fechner, Hartmann and the Scottish faculty psychologists, Janet, Freud and the other psychoanalytic theorists, and many others. It's just getting harder for the layman to recognize this sort of thing when he sees it since their ideas are more and more taking on the language of physics and engineering and neurobiology. But that doesn't mean it's not the same old unfounded speculation and mystical nonsense

</review>
<review>

This book is a watershed in human intellectual history. In it Freud undermines the picture of mankind as primarily a being of reason, and presents the idea that we are all creatures of our wishes, our inner unconscious lives. Dreams are not nothing, and they are not in Freud's eyes rare religious gifts, but rather to the key to our own mental life. Freud in this book presents a vast world of examples and interpretations .
I am not a psychologist and do not consider myself competent to really judge how much of what Freud presents here is valid or even capable of scientific testing. I do know that this work is one which like a great literary masterpiece has inspired countless interpretations and reinterpretations.
Understanding human Intellectual History is now impossible without knowing this work.

</review>
<review>

Freud's  and quot;The Interpretation of Dreams and quot; is a unique book. His treatise on human dreams is truly a product of a brilliant mind. But neither the process of creation itself nor not the results and findings it brought out are the true wonders of this book. The great achievement of Freud's theory is its immunity to criticism. In other words, it is virtually impossible to criticize the results and propositions inserted in this book. His main tenet - a dream is a fulfillment of a desire - cannot be attacked in any intelligible way. If one says for instance that an unpleasant dream or a bloody nightmare is clearly not the fulfillment of a desire, Freud would promptly mention masochism or self punishment. Or, if one finally brings forth a dream that is surely not a desire fulfilled, he might nonetheless say there is at least a desire accomplished, viz: the desire to destroy Freud's dream theory

</review>
<review>

Sigmund Freud has done an amazing research in the field of Dreams and their meanings, you will be amazed how every single detail in the dream has a meaning (According to Sigmund Freud - not that I agree with him). And it is very impressive. Personally I enjoyed this book very much

</review>
<review>

As a student starting law school I thought that this book would give me an advantage in my legal research and writing class, boy was  wrong... The book is full of useful information but none that realy pertains to law student. It is however, very basic in its approach and gives you a good start, so it is not a total waste.., The subtitle says that the book is for "non-lawyers", as if somewhere out there is a person who is not a lawyer and finds legal research fun. my recomendation is, that if you want a brief explanation of legal research and how to do it so that you are not totaly lost when you start law school this is a good book, but if you need it for some legal purpose and you are not a law student call a lawyer, trust me it is well worth the fees. Among the books flaws is that it tells you where to go to get the information but neglects to tell you that the resources they list, in the case of Lexis-Nexis and West Law require very expensive memberships and that most Law Schools restrict the use of their Law Library to students in their Law School and do not even allow students from the affiliated university to use the Law Library, as the Law Students in attendence at the law school require all of the resources of the Library and Legal Librarian ad nauseum and outsiders are most unwelcome.

</review>
<review>

Jean Donaldson is one of the world's foremost experts on how dogs learn and how to teach them. Her methods are humane, based on the well-studied science of behaviorism, not stressful or harmful to dogs, and very, very effective.

The gems in this book are practical solutions to the everyday problems dog owners face, with just enough information thrown in so that dog owners can understand why their old methods didn't work, why these methods do work, and how to apply the principles to other situations.

Ms. Donaldson's most famous book, Culture Clash, goes into much more detail about the learning theory, how dogs think, and why we so often use the worst possible methods to train them. It is less a "how to" book than a "why" book. For people whose dogs are giving them fits, Dogs are from Neptune is the book to start with. Then, follow up with Culture Clash for a deeper understanding.

As a dog trainer specializing in behavior problems,  I often recommend Neptune to my clients and they love it

</review>
<review>

Easy to read, clear and sensible advice given in response to 'real life' scarios and dog problems

</review>
<review>

If you liked Ms Jean Donaldson's first book "Culture Clash" - you will like "Dogs are From Neptune" ... In fact, I would suggest that this book is a necessary follow-up.

"Dogs are From Neptune" is written in Ms Donaldson's distinct and forthright style ... The author is clear in her views and sure of her methods ... The reader can either agree or disagree but there is little grey where the author is concerned ...

That said - Ms Donaldson writes in an incisive way, expressing her thoughts in a manner that makes for easy reading ...

"Dogs are From Neptune" is a collection of case studies ... dealing with "difficult" and "problem" dogs - dogs with whom the more traditional training methods may not work so well ...

Together with Patricia B. McConnell's books, "Dogs are From Neptune" make essential reading for any owner/trainer interested in or needing to learning how to use positive training methods to "re-condition" a dog with difficult temperament or bad habits, ranging from counter surfing, food  and  object possession to the more serious issue of dogs that bully, dogs who are difficult to handle and dogs exhibiting nervous or defensive aggression ... The Editorial Review above provides a good summary of the areas covered in the book.

I found the use of case studies particularly the details provided - most useful ... by providing background to the "difficulty" faced by the respective dog and its owner/trainer ... the book allowed me to appreciate  and  understand with greater clarity the intention  and  purpose behind the methods used and suggested by Ms Jean Donaldson ...

Essentially, the book format adopted by the author, brings meat to the bones of training ...

And it doesn't take long for the reader to realise, that while the case studies are by their very nature specific to each case ... Ms Donaldson's methodology, rational and style of training  and  teaching a dog - can easily be adapted/modified to meet the range of difficulties and issues an individual owner/trainer may face with his/her own dogs.

The book emphasises and teaches why it is so important for every owner/trainer to first understand basic dog behaviour, instinct  and  psychology and how using such knowledge  and  understanding in the teaching/training of our dogs reduces frustration, stress  and  trauma to both owner/trainer  and  dog, and increases our chances of success.

Most important, the author teaches us how to maintain through all difficult times, the essential bond of trust between our dogs  and  us.

All in all ... the book is detailed and very sufficient ... A very good read and a worthwhile buy ...

</review>
<review>

Excellent resource book that should be a part of every dog owner's reference library.  Handles all phases of dog training from aggression to submissive urination.  Question and answer format works well.  Arlene Millman, author of BOOMERANG - A MIRACLE TRILOGY (The tale of a remarkable Boston Terrier)

</review>
<review>

I love Dogs are from Neptune and Culture Clash, both by Jean Donaldson.  This expert trainer is also a thoughtful and engaging writer. By really moving into and explaining the mind of the dog, Donaldson goes beyond a training how-to.  Instead, she gives me, as the trainer of my own dogs, the tools I need to figure out how to solve my own training problems.  It has caused me to think about my dogs and how I train in a whole new way.  If I wasn't training my dogs, I'd still read these books because they make me laugh (a lot)

</review>
<review>

I love the real life questions that are answered in such wonderful detail.  The amount of information that is in this book makes it a must have for any dog trainer or person with a dog

</review>
<review>

This book is a collection of Q  and amp; A's where Donaldson responds to people who ask her advice about their particular dog problems. Although some generalizations can be made from the problems included, it's hard to know how to generalize--i.e. whether and how a suggestion given to one owner makes sense in your own case. This means that this book is at best marginally useful for people who want and need detailed advice on how to reform their dog's behaviour. If you have a serious problem, don't look for reliable solutions in this book of anecdotes

</review>
<review>

The best thing you can do for your dog is to read this book: and read Culture Clash: also by Jean Donaldson. I know dogs, and I know training; and I love dogs, and I love training.  Yet I've never come across a more  fantatsic; dog-knoweledgeble trainer!  And talk about laymen's terms!   These ARE the dog books for ALL levels of dog lovers

</review>
<review>

Plot: interesting.
Suspence: present.
Entertainment: page-turner.
Hidden messages: not that much.
Book ranking for series: 8th
Mysteries: Quagmires

</review>
<review>

Once again the Baudelaire Orphans find themselves off to another place to live with another sinister guardian.  Mr. Poe drops the orphans off at a boarding school where all of the buildings resemble gravestones.  The rules at the school are horrible and the evil Vice Principal forces the students to live in an even more horrible shack with crabs that live on the floor and bite the orphans' toes.  However the orphans finally make some friends at the school and for a time it seems as though this school will be better than the other places they have lived.  However, Count Olaf, in disguise, gets hired as the school's new gym teacher.  Once again, Olaf finds a way to sneak past the people in charge and trap the Baudelaire's in another trap.

Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events continues to entertain with a writing style that educates along the way.  This series is extremely unique in it's language and makes it stand apart from other serial stories for children.  It's dark tone makes for a fun but creepy set of books that children of all ages will enjoy

</review>
<review>

Series of Unfortunate Events Book #5 The Austere Academy


The book "Series of Unfortunate Events Book #5 The Austere Academy" by Lemony Snicket was about 3 orphans Violet, Klaus, and Sunny. The orphans had just come from another vague ancestor and another encounter with the evil count Olaf trying to steal the enormous fortune their parents had left behind when they perished in a horrible fire. Mr. Poe the banker that manages the orphan's money until violet comes of age (18 years old); decided to send the orphans to a boarding school away from count Olaf. The orphans cannot stay in the dorm rooms at the boarding school because they need parent permission, so they live in an old rundown shack with crabs all over the floor. That afternoon at lunch they met another pair of orphans who were us like them and became friends. Later one night before dinner they received a note from count Olaf telling them to meet him on the front lawn. The gym teacher obviously disguised as count Olaf told them to run laps he made them run 9 straight nights until they were flunking their classes. They were going to be expelled if they didn't pass the test. That night the kids came up with a plan. The quagmires would run while the orphans studied for their tests. They got quizzed the next morning as Mr. Poe came to check up on them; they convinced Mr. Poe that the gym teacher was count Olaf he ran away taking the quagmires with him.
The book was very exiting to read, there was always action going on between Count Olaf and the orphans. That made the book very interesting and kept me reading. The book was very descriptive and made me feel like I was right in the middle of all the action. The conflict of the story is great. Not only is their one main conflict like escaping from count Olaf but there are also a lot of side conflicts. The characters were very well described it felt like I could almost picture them so perfectly I could touch them. The books' ending was a very good one but it was a bit sad when the quagmires got taken away. Overall I thought it was very descriptive and I liked it a lot!
The author's voice is different from most authors. When he says a big word he always gives an example to help you understand, he also writes a little bit scary but with lots of action. The author's vocabulary is very different than those of others. He uses descriptive and understandable vocabulary, and like I said he always defines the big words. Some unique characteristics of his writing are, he never ever uses any boring words or says any word too many times. He also uses a lot of dialogue and it does help the story a lot with the conversations between characters. His tone is always vivid; you can almost never tell his feelings as he writes but the characters feelings are well described.
I would rate this book very high especially about his descriptiveness, the story is very good and the mood is one you will enjoy. It can be read by kids or adults of any age and I am sure you will like it. I think this book is a book for any type of reader that enjoys a good book.
I really liked it! Of course I've said that a million times but I mean what I say and you will really enjoy this book. It has everything in it from humor to sadness from sports to music. This is the right book for you to read!

</review>
<review>

Dear Reader,

When we last left the poor Baudelaire triplets, they had once again escaped from the clutches of evil Count Olaf, though they had witnessed a gruesome accidental death at the Lucky Smells Lumber Mill.  Unable to find a relative to look after the children, Mr. Poe finds a boarding school that will take all three of the orphans in:  Prufrock Preparatory School.  The Baudelaire's are at first hopeful.  After all, they've never been to a boarding school before.  But their optimism soon disappears.

The school is run by Vice Principal Nero and he forces the children to sit through dreadful violin recitals.  The children are forced to live in a tiny shack filled with crabs and dripping fungus.  And to make things worse their new P.E. teacher is none other, than Count Olaf himself.  Oh dear!

Yet, there is some less-sad news, at the austere academy the Baudelaire's meet and befriend the two Quagmire triplets.  The two sets of children discover they have a lot in common (did you know that both their homes were destroyed by a fire and both sets of parents were killed in the fire that destroyed their homes). But what happens to the Quagmire triplets, oh it's too dreadful to reveal here.  If you want to find out more you'll have to read it yourself.

I think I'll go for a midnight jog.

Sincerely,
Uncle TV

</review>
<review>

Jesus Gomez
Ms. Salinas
Period 4
08-12-06


The Austere Academy



The main characters of this story are Violet, Klaus, Sunny, and Count Olaf. This book part of a series named "A Series of Unfortunate Events". The series is about three rich kids that are left orphans when their parents die in a fire. They are then put to the care of Count Olaf, but quickly left because Cout Olaf was only trying to get the Baudelaire fortune. They are put to the care of several other guardians, but Count Olaf shows up everywhere they go. Fortunately for the orphans they are very persistent and never give up on uncovering Count Olaf's plan. In this book of the series the three children are put in an academy instead pf getting a guardian. At the beginning of the story the children are left in the academy to stay in a very nasty room. The floors are covered with crabs. Then Count Olaf shows up disguised as a P.E. teacher. The children knew that the P.E. teacher was really Count Olaf, but no one believed them. Count Olaf's plan was to get the children as tired as he could so he could kidnap them easily. As a P.E. teacher he made the Baudelaire children run at night and didn't let them stop until the sunrise. Fortunately they had two friends that helped them out they were the Quagmires. The Quagmires disgused themelves as the three Baudelaires and ran at night while the three orphans got to rest.at the end of the book Count Olaf takes the Quagmires instead of the Baudelaires. This book changed the way I Think because it showed me to never give up and preserver even though things don't look very good. It also showed me the value of friendship because the Quagmires risked their lives to help out their friends. I liked this book because it kept me entertained and I didn't get bored when I read it.

</review>
<review>

You think that the children will be better off now that they are in an orphanage. But beware... it only gets worse for the childen that you have learned to care about... thanks to Snicket's great story telling abilities.

</review>
<review>

i love this one because they haev to go to school and count o. is the gym teacher adn makes them run for a VERY  lond time and is a great boo

</review>
<review>


In "A Series of Unfortunate Events #5: The Austere Academy," the Baudelaires are sent to live with Vice Principle Nero at the Prufrock Preparatory School while Mr. Poe tries to find them a new guardian. Unfortunately, they get treated miserably by the female bully known only as...Carmelita Spats! The children, at least, make some new friends in their new temporary home. Their friends - Duncan Quaqmire and Isadora Quaqmire - are triplets who also lost their parents AND their third sibling (Quiqley Quaqmire) in a fire. Too bad the fate the Baudelaires and the Quaqmires must suffer at the end of the book when they meet the religious Coach Genghis, as well as their two awful and weird teachers - Mr. Remora and Mrs. Bass. The best in the series so far, and the one you really need to buy! But beware: you'll probably hate Vice Principle Nero as much (if not more) than Count Olaf..

</review>
<review>

From ABC's 20/20
The book surprised me and was hard to put down.  He talks about his beginnings. As being considered heroic.  And now after his book a scourge and a threat.  John gives us what he has really uncovered.  Better than the show.  But John, why did you except the insurance money for your beach home?

</review>
<review>

Now where's the old John Stossel who stood up for consumers against sleazy scams perpatrated by corrupt businesses? Guess he thought it's better to steal all the taxpayer money than to fight for taxpayer justice. For all his ramblings in this book, he might as well blabber on the Emmy Awards and get lost ! Let's see how this clown fares when the public lion wakes up and tears his ligaments to shreds

</review>
<review>

For all the talk Stossel makes about how he exposed all that he claims to hate, he grants himself a nice big fat deal of a job at ABC. The only reason Stossel switched from liberal to libertarian was his opportunistic behavior. For all that he claimed to expose, it was the ordinary folks doing it for him while he stole the credit. Stossel would be better off exposing fundamentalists in the Arab world if he cared to prove himself worth anything other than a pile of dirt talking dirt

</review>
<review>

I love John Stossel's 20/20 shows, and thought this would be a good book. Boy was I wrong -- this was an AWESOME book! I think the reason why is that Stossel gets to say exactly what he wants, without being edited or censored, and without time limits.

What is so good about the book? Stossel's uncompromising passion for the true and the good -- it comes through every page -- and its application to a broad range of crucially important issues of our time. I knew he was unusually honest from watching him on TV, but I have to say that I am inspired by his honesty and intelligence (he is far too modest about it), and stunned that this great man has made so far in the mainstream media. America is indebted to both Stossel and those who recognized his value (thanks ABC!).

I have one very minor critique: he could improve the quality of his more philosophical arguments. However, this is a very minor critique of what is a great book as there are already plenty of philosophical defenses of Capitalism (George Reisman's CAPITALISM being the most complete), what's needed and missing are books that can make a direct difference to the mainstream culture. And that's what Stossel delivers with this book

</review>
<review>

Of course Stossel can talk big about busting them "liberals" but his book makes no sense about it because he admits that he never intended to bust them but instead join them. Ever wonder why ABC hires such kooks while rejecting talented youths? Ever wonder why Stossel says that the best way to punish them elites is to give them more tax breaks? This and his other book make even horse manure smell not as bad

</review>
<review>

Reading this, you understand how John Stossel had the scales fall from his eyes and he began to question, rather than just accept. This seems to be a rare characteristic in a journalist today. Well written, you will also find yourself wanting to look a little closer to the facts of a story

</review>
<review>

First he says he cracked down on all those "liberals" but yet he admits to loving their evil ways. If this is as wishy washy as he can get, no wonder he and Sam Donaldson get along ! You can't expect to be credible if on the one hand you attack them but on the other hand enjoy a nice and cushiony rich job offer from these same "liberal media". If he were working as a farmer in Idaho for instance, he'd have more credibility but I'm not so sure Stossel says what he means

</review>
<review>

It's been interesting to watch the transition in John Stossel's politics over the years.  His ideas mirror many of my own.  I started out as a left liberal and have been increasingly moving towards a more "libertarian" position.  I've also received a lot of flak for that, especially in the women's movement where I was active for decades.

Stossel describes the failure of a number of well-intentioned government programs in great detail and in an easy-to-read style.  He shows the absurdity of bureaucracy and how difficult, if not impossible, it is to accomplish anything with governments' long list of restrictions and regulations.

Although he batters the reader with the benefits of the free-market system, it did make me pause and wonder how a bloated government was ever going to serve us.

Stossel not only displays creative thinking and critical, investigative skills but he has one hell of a lot of courage to continue to voice his opinion when others vociferously disagree.  The country is so polarized right now between red states and blue states and Democrats and Republicans that many people have trouble thinking outside of the box.  When they hear him, they immediately feel the need to label Stossel as a conservative yet in many ways he defies categorization.

My only complaint would be that Stossel did not expound on HOW we are to reduce the enormous government bureaucracy.  How many layoffs would be involved?  How many people would lose all of their financial and social stability?  Where would they go?  Free markets aren't known for their benevolence, despite the fact that business tycoons get big tax cuts.

Pure laissez-faire capitalism left millions of people homeless and miserable before the New Deal.  Admittedly, Stossel does not advocate a pure free-market system; however, he does have a lot more faith in the market than I do.  BUT I certainly share his dismay re government.

Great read.  Certainly would recommend it.

Sigrid Macdonald


</review>
<review>

I love this book. As a geek, I've watched the events that Friedman writes about occur. He has captured the events accurately, but this is not a dull history book. Friedman is a masterful story-teller.

</review>
<review>

This is a great book for anyone who wants to learn more about globalization and how the world economy is moving to a new age of information sharing.  Most of the old regimes will change as borders open up and people are able to use the internet to spur economic progress.  Thomas Friedman has a very entertaining style of writing so I recommend this book quite highly

</review>
<review>

I just finished reading Friedman's book and feel it is a must read for anyone interested in understanding the rapid changes effecting our world

</review>
<review>

it is juust a copy of the frist book. if you read the frist the world is flat, then don't waste your time.
jo

</review>
<review>

Not only you must read this book, but you need to give conference about this topic and give copy of the book to everyone you know. If you wan't to understand what's happening in the world right now, read this book

</review>
<review>

This book shows you many things that sometimes you are not aware of.  It was a nice reading

</review>
<review>

This book is an essential for anyone interested in economics.  I highly recommend it, also if you like this book "Freakenomics" is another interesting read

</review>
<review>

I enjoyed reading this book. the author has a firm understanding of the effects of globalization in the world today. I strongly recommend this book

</review>
<review>

Granted, "World" is a great bunch of stories about how our global community has become flattened; but unfortunately for Friedman, the book is already outdated.  That's why the recent 100-page update was necessary, but a book on the history of such a changing landscape is quite like a detailed drawing of the Mona Lisa on an Etch-a-scetch, which someone keeps shaking up.  I'm not saying it's impossible to give a detailed description of what's going on in the world today in a book format, but maybe some of the things that the author described in his book (open source ssoftware and new web applications like blogs and user-drivn web content) are the only way to really get the updated version of our history.  There's nothing like a printed book, but perhaps that media cannot fulfill the needs of a modern history

</review>
<review>

This book is a must read to anyone wanting to understand the times we are living in. Friedman does a great job explaining how the world is opening up to capitalism and how the 300 million of us in the west are being joined by 3 billion from the east in our markets. With the Berlin wall coming down on 11/9/1989 and the Internet going up on 8/9/1995 the world has changed. We live in world that is "flattening" due to technology. People around the world are empowered by cell phones, personal computers, and web sites. The Chinese have opened up to capitalism and are now producing things cheaper than Mexico. Indian students are graduating and doing tech work for America in India, then emailing it to the US. The countries of the old Soviet Union are eager to participate in capitalism with the West.America must upgrade or jobs as they are lost to other countries, but we must realize that there will be many future jobs created with the these countries developing their own consumers and middle class. What will American Corporations profits look like with an extra 3 billion customers over the next 30 years? This book teaches us to embrace collaboration and competition through out the world. We will all be better off in the long run with lower prices and higher standards of living, if we adapt to the changing world. Why is Wal*Mart the cheapest retailer in the world? Chinese labor and logistics. While the Arab world, Africa, and most of Latin America are being left behind, China, India, and the old Soviet countries are gearing up to join the west, while currently only 2% of India and China are developing into their own middle class, the potential is incredible. This review can not do justice to the book, read it for a preview of the 21st century. Prepare for change

</review>
<review>

Love's Labors Lost is one of my absolute favorite Shakespeare plays. It's completely hilarious, but still has Shakespeare's amazing way with words. In Love's Labors Lost, the Bard has created a highly amusing tale of men and their problems keeping oaths--especially when women get on the scene.

Four men, the King Navarre, Berowne, Dumaine, and Longaville, take an oath to study in solitude for three years--which means that any of them caught associating with a woman will be guilty of treason. But there's a slight problem with this oath--the Princess of France and her three ladies, Rosaline, Katherine, and Maria, are coming to Navarre's kingdom. Instead of letting them come into the palace, Navarre hosts the Princess in tents outside his walls. When the four men reconvene, they find that they are all in love with one of the four ladies, and, breaking the oath, set out to win the women's hearts.

A great story with a surprising end--not your typical love story. Quite funny, with a few strange twists and turns in the plot, and leaving you to your own devices with the abrupt ending--what does happen next? Completely great all around

</review>
<review>

This merry play is a delight for its language.  It has more a situation than a plot.  The King has sworn himself and three attendants to three years of fasting, abstinence from women, study, and little sleep.  Immediately a princess arrives with her attendants that cause the men to regret their oaths.  Letters are written, delivered incorrectly, and a huge final scene with disguises, masks, and a wonderfully strange presentation of some of the nine worthies.  All of this provides a structure for a rich play of language that is full of wit and bawdy.

This edition has a lengthy introductory essay that helps understand the issues of the text, the historical context, and performance practice issues.  The notes are wonderfully helpful in understanding the text and what choices the editors had to make in presenting it.  After the play is an essay just on the text of the play, appendix 2 has additional lines that this edition leaves out of the play, appendix 3 discusses Moth's name.

The issue around Moth is that in Elizabethan times Moth would likely have been pronounced more like Mott than our soft th.  And the word mote and moth were roughly interchangeable.  The name of the insect and the word for a small particle meant roughly the same thing.  It is a nice issue to be aware of and the essay is helpful.

Appendix 4 lists words that are rhymed in this play - often a revelation to the way words were pronounced 400 years ago.  Appendix 5 lists the compound words, many of them minted in this play.

All in all, this edition is a happy experience of a very fun play.

</review>
<review>

First, I should note that The Wealth Of Networks is terribly edited. Given that Benkler thanked his editor for his Herculean work at the beginning of the book, I can only imagine the state it started in; as it is, it ended with glaring grammatical errors, including using "effect" when he meant "affect" and "wave" when he meant "waive". (I'll provide specific examples sometime tomorrow.) Editing, apparently, is a craft that is only noticed in its absence. I didn't realize this until I read The Wealth of Networks. By the time I was done with the book, I was copyediting every page.

None of this mentions the stylistic errors, which are rife. Benkler uses the first-person singular pronoun once, or possibly twice, in the whole book; its use is jarring. The rest is passively voiced and all the words are sesquipedalian. Nothing's wrong with inconsistency in style, when deployed artfully, but it feels more like an oversight here than a deliberate plan.

Those of you who've read the book will perhaps object to all this cavilling over style. Again, it's only noticeable because it's so bad; normally I would almost ignore the style and get to the meat of the argument. It was hard to do so here.

Benkler's argument is quite systematic and nearly has the force of pure logic. His claim -- propounded over a decade's worth of papers and synthesized in this book -- is that the new economics of the Internet fundamentally change deep parts of our culture. Cheap communication allows projects like Linux and the Wikipedia to emerge and more to the point work very well. Each of us can invest trivial amounts of our time and money, yet the end result is something much greater than any of us could have expected. Person A links to person B on his website, and lots of person A's follow along with their own person B's. Pretty soon there's enough information -- from our trivial little links alone -- that Google can come through and aggregate that information into a profoundly useful information-retrieval tool. Millions of people click on star ratings on Amazon, and pretty soon we can all get highly accurate suggestions about books we might like. I copyedit the Wikipedia, and so do hundreds of thousands of others; before long, the Wikipedia competes with Britannica.

Benkler's task is to take his understanding of what makes all this stuff tick, and think through the consequences. What does it mean for democracy when people can communicate cheaply? We're starting to get a taste of the answer with blogs. The media available for political discourse before the Net came around -- like television -- were passive. Someone else produced a lot of content at great cost, and pushed it out to a lot of stupid devices that couldn't really do anything interesting; televisions are "dumb terminals" for video. Now we can all be publishers for no cost, and the devices are smart enough that we can talk back and start conversations. Yes, we're still getting much of our news from old-media stalwarts like the New York Times, but the medium allows us to blog about it, post comments to others' blogs, and search around and see what others have said about it. All of this is possible because the publishing tools are getting easier, because communication is cheap, and because computers are increasingly available to everyone. We now have media that permit and encourage conversation; the old broadcast media never did.

In a world where communication is no longer passive, and where you don't need a multimillion-dollar television studio to get your ideas out to the world, democracy changes radically. For one thing, the fringes suddenly have a voice that they didn't have before. It's obvious, just from thinking for a moment about how mass media work, that they serve inoffensive pabulum to the least common denominator. If you can choose to broadcast a show that might offend people or upset them (say, displaying images from Abu Ghraib), or else broadcast the latest news about Brad and Jen, you will choose the latter in a heartbeat. The point in mass media is not to publish the widest array of views, but to maximize revenue. Maximizing revenue means appealing to the broadest mass of people, which in turn means being as inoffensive as possible.

It's not difficult to see that mass-market media incentives are quite different than the incentives that a democracy should strive for. Commercial interests are not our interests, orthodox capitalist training to the contrary. So what happens when media become non-commercial, like blogs? Suddenly you have millions of people who can get their ideas out to the world, and lots of things happen. For instance, it becomes clear to people that there's more than just the Republican Party and the Democratic Party -- or even Republicans, Democrats, Greens and Libertarians. The whole tone of the culture changes. Biting commentary gets airtime. We become active. We argue, like people in a democracy are supposed to.

All of this is not pie-in-the-sky idealism. As Benkler makes very clear, it's kind of inevitable. The axiom is basically this: people will do more of what's easy for them, and less of what's difficult. With the cost of communications technology now negligible, lots of things become easy.

The objection that not everyone is a blogger is irrelevant. It may in fact be true that the majority of Americans are passive dullards. Even if it is, the fact remains that there is a new set of technologies that let many of us do things that we couldn't have done before, and it would take willful blindness to believe that this leaves democracy unchanged.

Benkler builds out the argument in considerably more detail and considerably more verbosity. He wants you to understand what is likely to come out of all of this, what the challenges are, and where the promise may lead us. It's a tremendous synthesis.

Alas, it will take people like Larry Lessig to make Americans understand this promise; Benkler has confined himself to academia. As I may have mentioned, I've heard a lot of trashing on Lessig recently -- that he's a shallow thinker who wasn't even a good enough lawyer to win Eldred. I've heard Benkler's book described as a landmark that people will be discussing in 20 years. Allow me to disagree. I think Code is a much more important work, both for the ground it cleared and for its rhetorical power. I think Lessig's later book Free Culture could actually get people storming the gates of Disney, whereas Benkler will never.

More to the point, Benkler's work seems like much more of a look back than a plan for forward motion. If you already use Linux and have internalized its lessons, you hardly need the theory that Benkler gives you. If you have really thought about the Wikipedia, then you can skip over that chunk of his book. A copy of Code and a thorough understanding of the GPL will probably give you 90% of what The Wealth of Networks does.

In twenty years, The Wealth of Networks will stand as a very nice description of the world as it stood in 2006. Code will mark the beginning of a movement. As someone who is ensconced in that movement, I believe that everyone should have a copy of The Wealth of Networks on his shelf and a copy of Code in his pocket

</review>
<review>



Lawrence Lessig could not say enough good things about this book when he spoke at Wikimania 2006 in Boston last week, so I ordered it while listening to him.  It arrived today and I dropped everything to go through it.

This book could well be the manifesto for 21st Century of Informed Prosperous Democracy.  It is a meticulous erudite discussion of why information should not be treated as property, and why the "last mile" should be built by the neighborhood as a commons, "I'll carry your bits if you carry mine."

The bottom line of this book, and I will cite some other books briefly, is that democracy and prosperity are both enhanced by shared rather than restricted information.  The open commons model is the only one that allows us to harness the distributed intelligence of the Whole Earth, where each individual can made incremental improvements that cascade without restraint to the benefit of all others.

As I write this, both the publishing and software industries are in the midst of a "last ditch" defense of copyright and proprietary software.  I believe they are destined to fail, and IBM stands out as an innovative company that sees the writing on the wall--see especially IBM's leadership in developing "Services Science."

The author has written the authoritative analytic account of the new social and political and financial realities of a networked world with information embedded goods.  There have been earlier accounts--for example, the cover story of Business Week on "The Power of Us" with its many accounts of how Lego, for example, received 1,600 free engineering development hours from its engaged customers of all ages.  Thomas Stewart's "The Wealth of Knowledge," Barry Carter's "Infinite Wealth," Alvin and Heidi Toffler's most recent "Revolutionary Wealth," all come to the same conclusion: you cannot manage 21st Century information-rich networks with 20th Century industrial control models.

Lawrence Lessig says it best when he speaks of the old world as "Read Only" and the new world as "Read-Write" or interactive.  His fulsome praise for this author and this book suggest that the era of sharing and voluntary work has come of age.

On that note, I wish to observe that those who label the volunteers who craft Wikis including the Wikipedia as "suckers" are completely off-base.  The volunteers are the smartest of the smart, the vanguard for a new economy in which bartering and sharing displace centralized financial and industrial control.  Indeed, with the localization of energy, water, and agriculture, this book by this author could not be more important or timelier.

One final supportive anecdote, this one from the brilliant Michael Eisen, champion of open publishing.  He captured the new paradigm perfectly at Wikimania when he likened the current publishing environment as one in which scientists give birth to babies, the publishers play a mid-wifery role, and then claim that as midwives, they have a perpetual right to the babies and will only lease them back to the parents.  What a gloriously illuminating analogy this is.

I will end by tying this book and this author to C.K. Prahalad's "The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid."  That other book focuses on the fact that the five billion poor are actually worth four trillion in disposable income, versus the one billion rich worth one trillion.  C.K. Prahalad posits a world in which capitalism stops focusing on making disposable high-end high cost goods, and turns instead to making sustainable low-cost goods.  I see the day coming when--the avowed goal of the Wiki Foundation--there is universal free access to all information in all languages all the time.

If Marx and his Communist Manifesto were the tipping point for communism, this book is the tipping point for communal moral capitalism.  Yochai Benkler is--along with Stewart Brand, Howard Rheingold, Bruce Sterling, Kevin Kelly, Lawrence Lessig, Jimbo Wales, Ward Cunningham, Brewster Kahle, and Cass Sunstein, one of the bright shining lights in our constellation of change makers.

He ends his book on an optimistic note.  Despite the craven collaboration of the U.S. Congress in extending copyright forever into the distant future, he posits a reversal of all these bad laws (it used to be legal to discriminate against women and people of color) by the combination of cultural, social, economic, and technical forces that have their own imperative.  Would that it were so, sooner

</review>
<review>

I have worked with some of the new web 2.0 products and felt unease at explaining how they fiteed into the 'selfish' model that we associate with economics. Benkler explains this without sounding hippyish or Marxist. A good read.

</review>
<review>

Professor Benkler discusses the idea of social production, goods being produced by communities rather than corporations, as a third way to think about development. He also discusses the affects that social production will have on the status quo, and in particular, Intellectual Property laws. His is a methodical and extremely well researched argument that will leave you thinking about what the 21st century may bring.

Don't be put off by the length of the book. Professor Benkler's prose is quite clear and his arguments easy to follow. I liked the book enough to have him as a guest on my show and I believe it is one of the major books of 2005

</review>
<review>

This book is very funny, weirdly prophetic and difficult to read if you've got 8lbs of baby pressing down on your bladder

</review>
<review>

I have always been a fan of Dave Barry.
When my baby's mama got pregnant I spent the better part of three months in a drunken haze. "WHAT WILL I DO?!" I constantly asked my friends. None of them knew. I had just barely turned twenty one and none of my friends were  or ever had been in the same boat.
Truth of the matter is, nobody can tell you what to do in this circumstance. The object is to go with the flow, from the time that chick of yours gets pregnant to ... forever.
I was THRILLED when I found this book, and it did not dissapoint. Without it I may  have lost my mind and killed that chick with a hatchet.
Very funny, and it will make you forget that you are in HELL! Must have for suprised "expectants.

</review>
<review>

Just not funny, I returned the book and got my money back

</review>
<review>

I read this book when it first came out and lost it when a friend didn't return it. This a fascinating book and since it was first published SARS and Bird Flu has entered our world.  If you are prone to panic attacks or nightmares don't read this book because the author did a fantastic job at research and has revealed our future and the diseases that will alter it

</review>
<review>

This book is superb for a number of reasons but the meticulous research behind it really stands out. There is not an idea or suggested proposition that is not referenced to one - and sometimes - mulitple sources. The tentive conclusions that are laid out are suggested only after exhaustive research and tightly  logical arguments.

It is not just the research and the logic, however, that makes this book so good. The book is well written and conveys the difficult subject matter of emerging, infectious diseases in a highly readable but detailed and informative matter.

The book is also laid out in a very logical fashion. In different chapters it covers everything from the etiology of new diseases to methods of transmission to social and cultural factors involved in their spread to the drama of in-field investigation of new and fiercely lethal pathogens.

The book also explores the most recent research on the evolution of new diseases, with discoveries that may portend revolutions in the understanding the natural world.

In short, this is an indespensible work for anyone wishing to understand the emergence of new diseases and cutting edge science in the modern world

</review>
<review>

This book is a very long read, but the details and the descriptions make it unbelievably entertaining and educational.

I would recommend this to anyone interested in the field of microbiology or just someone who is plain curious about learning about disease outbreaks, the people who fight them and what the future holds in store for us in regards to different diseases.


A very in-depth book, one of the best I've read in a long time, the author put this together very well and it is a book that anyone could get into, just plain outstanding!

</review>
<review>

This large but highly readable work covers the history and context of emerging or re-emerging communicable diseases affecting the world today.  As a physician with a Masters in Public Health I could appreciate the challenge this author faced in presenting this complex and important topic. She has made remarkably few minor technical errors while presenting fields as diverse as virology, immunology and disease ecology in a clear and compelling manner.  She places the emerging diseases in the social, economic and political context that helps to explain why diseases occur where and when they do and why and how they impact individuals and societies.  Although the jacket copy seems to imply a sensationalized account, the story the author tells is a balanced and highly professional one.  In a world grown ever smaller and more tightly connected the issue of communicable disease and public health will impact all our lives and deserves the attention of every citizen.

</review>
<review>

Scares me more than any terrorist, earthquake, comet or meteor from space ever could!

As a med student and son and nephew of military doctors this book frightens me much more than my uncle's stories of Viet Nam casualties, or my father's dealings with injury victims in a big city hospital.

The Coming Plague deals with our inability to truly comprehend a global disater out there just waiting to strike. With recent occurences such as Marburg's grip in Africa as well as SARS, AIDS continued spread, and Bird Flu in Asia, ordinary citizens and especially governments around the world had better wake up ...

Seems that isn't happening. Even the CDC and WHO according to some of the early pioneers in the fight against infectious disease, are today filled with pencil pushers, bureaucrats and  people that have no field experience. They have lost touch with the real world of microbes. Compare them to generals that have never been in any real combat abroad, but are commanding troops.

This sobering book reveals that with all of our scientific knowledge and skill, we are not ready for a pandemic in the 21st century. That no we cannot totally fend off every serious microbe that comes our way, but that we'd better be prepared!

Suspenseful, heroic, mysterious, unsettling and painfully sad at times, this book is very difficult to put down. The Bible of infectious diease. Full of astounding information. It is a must read for anyone curious about this monumentally important subject.




</review>
<review>

You want to be truly frightened about your health?  Read The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases In A World Out Of Balance by Laurie Garrett.  A friend loaned me his copy of this book after I had read a book about the flu epidemic in the early 1900's.  This book, written in 1994, covers a number of diseases from all over the world, as well as the stories of the individuals who constantly risk their lives to combat the deadly viruses.

Although the book is over 700 pages and the information is over a decade old, it's still a compelling read.  The stories of the CDC doctors who fought bureaucracy and ignorance are inspiring.  To go into countries and cultures where the per capita health care expense is $2 and try to conduct research is mind-boggling.  In many of the stories, every common health care practice we take for granted is nonexistent.  Syringes are reused without sterilization 100's of times each day as it's the only needle they have.  Highly contagious cases are placed in the same room as common injuries, and soon everyone is infected and dying.  And logistically, there's no way to prevent any of this.  Garrett tells of whole countries where the majority of the inhabitants are infected with diseases like AIDS, and the numbers go nowhere but up.  She does an excellent job of telling the stories of how diseases like Ebola, Marberg, and the hanta virus outbreak started, were researched, and how they are currently fought.  Even more frightening is learning how quickly these viruses develop resistance to the common drugs used to treat them, sometimes in as little as one generation of the outbreak.  And as the treatment choices become fewer and more expensive, the outlook becomes more grim for both third-world countries and our own system.

The passage of time hasn't made the picture any brighter, and many of the views put forth in the book are still well on their way to fulfillment.  After reading this book, it's easy to understand how such diseases like SARS and avian bird influenza strike fear into the medical establishment.  It's a wonder we're not all dead already

</review>
<review>

I read this a few years ago and re-read it last month.  It gives a very compelling view of microbes and their evolution and how humans have responded to these threats.

The section on AIDS is especially good as it shows the challenges facing scienctists when politics, religion and bigotry get into the mix and complicate how to best address serious health issues.

This book is sobering as we often find ourselves buried amidst our technological hubris, we fail to recognize that the natural world is out there evolving and changing, not at our commands, but often times in reaction to our actions.  We complex creatures are still made up of billions of cells and are vulnerable to single cell organisms and viruses.

I highly recommend this book.

</review>
<review>

Laurie Garrett is an excellent writer, she could easily had made this book a novel, as a matter of fact she almost did. With her great detailed narrative she makes you fell inside the history of the modern microbe hunters, I've read several other book in this subject and none of them treats the subject in the professional and "journalistic" way Garrett does. You can easily detect she knows her business, the concepts and the way she makes them all make sense is laudable.

The only drawback I can see in this book is that sometimes it felt a bit long. I must say again she is a great writer, but gives a whole lot of information, sometimes returning to something she already had said before, only that this time adding new information and commentaries. The book is great and the information is top quality, besides she gives great insights that keep you in the right track. I totally recommend this book to anyone interested in emerging diseases or epidemics in the twentieth century (up to 1995, of course)

</review>
<review>

Beautiful narrative style. Shows the history and the politics behind some of the most deadly "bugs" out there. Want to know about the diseases up to 1995,then this is it. Huge notes section with indepth index. All this packed into 750 pages.

</review>
<review>

I just started reading John Grisham books and find them to be exciting and hard to put down

</review>
<review>

Wow!  I have read a few Grisham books, and I have to say that this is the best one I have read thus far.  He drags you in very quickly with Mitch, the main protagonist in the story.  He tells about this background and the sudden riches he has.  He seems to have it all:  a great job, a beautiful wife, a nice home, a great car, and living in a wonderful city.  Only one problem.  He finds out later how unsavory his employer is.

Caught between the law and his employer, he has to find a way out.  While the ending is rather implausible, it does show some creativity.  It had me hanging on until the end.  In fact, I stayed up after the rest of the family had gone to bed because there was no way I could leave this novel sitting for the night with the last 25 pages unread.  If you like Grisham's other novels, this one will be an absolute delight

</review>
<review>

This was the first John Grisham book I ever read and it was the best.  NON-stop action, suspense and thrills.  You cannot put it down.  A FOR SURE recommendation

</review>
<review>

This is a dramatic and tense story of a young law school graduate who gets a job offer that is too good to be true.  Of course, it turns out that he doesn't get the full story until after he accepts the job.  The rest of the story entails the exciting efforts to get him and his wife out of their desperate situation.  Like most Grisham novels, this is a fun and fast read that many readers would classify as light fiction.

Many people are familiar with the story through the movie.  The book is significantly different from the movie; if you have seen the movie you will probably still enjoy the book and be consistently surprised throughout the second half of the story.

</review>
<review>

I agree with one the comments posted below. The main problem with this book is Mitch is a totally one-dimensional character and it's impossible to find any depth in him. Over the course of the book he doesn't change, he's unsympathetic, and by the time we've reached page 500, we don't know anything more about him than we did on page 10. I found myself dying to get to the end of this book, just so I could start another book with some substance and some well-drawn characters.

Another major problem is that most of the characters in this book use the same wise-cracking speaking style so there is no sense of the characters being different from each other in any way.

Overall, I thought this was mediocre and a bit of a waste of time

</review>
<review>

The Firm is a very interesting book that will grab you from the very beginning and keeps you going until the very end. Mitch McDeere is fresh out of college with his law degree from Harvard accompanied by his loving wife, Abby. Mitch is recieving tons of job offers because he was ranked third in his class at Harvard. After careful consideration mitch decides to take a job in Memphis that pays a lot of money. What both Mitch and Abby thought was a god law firm turned out to be the place that could ruin their lives. They haved to perservere and try to secretly get out of this law firm without being killed. They are very upset with their decision to work at this law firm but will do anything to get out of this very mysterious firm.

I thought that this was perhaps one of the best books that I've ever read. This book had me reading from cover to cover as soon as I started reading. I just wanted to keep on reading more because it was so suppenseful and I wanted to find out what happened next. I thought that this was a good writing technique because he keeps you reading from front to back. All in all I thought this was a great book and would suggest it to anyone who likes reading suspenseful, on the edge of your seat books.

</review>
<review>

In  and quot;The Service Profit Chain, and quot; the author uses extensive case studies and empirical data to demonstrate how successful companies can achieve customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, and at the same time,  profit and customer growth.  Too many companies are focused on the next  quarterly earnings release that they don't ever see the lifetime value of  their customers.  Finally, managers at service industries won't have to  keep trading off employee satisfaction in order to achieve customer  sastisfaction, and customer satisfaction won't be viewed as a cost factor  and a drag on profit growth.  Service companies that just don't understand  these concepts won't be around for long!  As we embark into the e-commerce  age, service and technology companies that can quickly apply these concepts  within their business models (where there is no direct, face-to-face,  contact with the customers) will build a truely competitive advantage.   Let's review the successful ecommerce companies in 5 years, and see how  many have adopted the principles in  and quot;The Service Profit Chain. and quot

</review>
<review>

I think the authors provide a powerful and empirical approach to designing and analyzing a service organization for success. The recommendations are not always intuitive nor easy to implement, but, based on my experience in  several industries, I think they are nearly always correct. With a partner,  I am starting a own company and have read this book twice very carefully,  with lots of notes in the margins, to make sure we do the important things  well

</review>
<review>

This is the type of book that can change an entire corporate vision. The authors are meticulous in presenting their philosophy, and back every word with carefully researched examples from best practice companies. Unlike  many of the  and quot;quick read and quot; publications that present a superficial  view of service (particularly from a marketing perspective), this book is  clearly the result of several years work in the field. Every corporate  manager who is serious about customer value management needs to take some  time out to study the Service Profit Chain

</review>
<review>

When I began to read Viktor E. Frankl's book it felt like being in a dream. This is one of the few books which I read all at once. I just couldn't stop reading it, started with the first word and finished it with the last one.

His book is not one of the "classical" holocaust books. Viktor Frankl was a psychologist and tries to analyse the inhuman circumstances that affected the life of the people in a concentration camp. He tries to be objective, as far as this is possible, but admits that if you are involved it can never be really objective. On the other hand you have to be involved - as an outsider you will never be in a position to get the same insight like a person who was involved.

Viktor Frankl describes exactly the role allocation and gives explanations on how it is possible that human beings cause each other such an immense pain. Furthermore, he describes the psychological side of the "naked survival" (they had nothing except their bodies). It is really interesting to get to know what kinds of things the prisoners thought about. The main thoughts were such primitive things about the time when the next meal is due, if they should eat it all at once or ration it for later use. Other thoughts were for instance "Where do I get some loop for my shoes from?"

I don't want to reveal the whole content and not analyse it too much. Hence, I'm going to ask some questions that you will find an answer for in this book:

01.	How can one live on if he doesn't know if he is ever being able to get out of this nightmare?
02.	How important is it to withdraw yourself into your own inner world of thoughts?
03.	How is it possible that a weak person could have had better chances to survive than a stronger one?
04.	What role does love play in a prison if you don't know if you'll ever see your family again or if they are still alive?
05.	Why have there been nearly no sexual incidents between the prisoners?
06.	Did the prisoners have fun in the camp?
07.	Have there been jokes and did entertainment exist?
08.	Is it possible that a prisoner sees a meaning in his being?
09.	What feeling is it like to be without an identity - to be just a number?


Altogether a very inspiring work, which may lead you to discover your true self and shows what unnecessary things sometimes steal our time when we should focus more on our life. Viktor reveals to you that a live with a meaning is a life worth living.

He shows that every human being has the option to choose his own life and its meaning, no matter what the circumstances are. We decide in what we want to believe and in what not. This is a very important factor - one that could have meant death in a concentration camp.

I not just recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of WWII but also to people that are interested in the psychological side of human nature - why do we do the things we do?

He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how." -- Nietzsche

</review>
<review>

The dramatic story Frankl relates is hard to believe but is true. How he managed to learn something so positive from his horrible experience is truly inspirational. I give this book to anyone who is suffering in life because it so clearly teaches how to overcome ANY obstacle

</review>
<review>

Viktor Frankl was a distinguished neurologist and psychiatrist and the founder of logotherapy. He was also the 32 books which were published in 32 languages-

After three horrific years at Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps , Dr Frankl gained his freedom only to learn that his entire family had been murdered. But during , the terrible suffering and degradation of those grim years , he developed his theory of logotherapy.
The first half of the book delves into his experiences in the concentration camps.

The author analyses the character of the Capo-prisoners chosen to be trustees and guards  of the other inmates- usually because of their brutality and meanness.
Frankl observes that 'the best of us did not return'from the concentration camps.
He examines three phases of the inmates mental reaction to concentration camp life-the period following his admission ; the period when he is well entrenched in camp routine; and the period following his release and liberation".

Ultimately in recounting the horrors and dehuminization of concentration camp existance , of being continually stalked by death , , Frankl explains how he survived , and kept his humanity at the same time. The author explains how every moment in the camps offered the opportunity to make decisions about whether or not to submit to the powers which "threatened to rob you of your inner self , your inner freedom."
The point made was that ultimately the type of person the prisoner would become , was the result of an inner decision , and not of camp influences alone.

Frankl refers to the martyrs whose behaviour in the camp , whose suffering and death , demonstrated the fact that their last inner freedom could not be lost.
"It can be said that they where worthy of their suffering ; the way they bore their suffering was a genuine inner achievment. It is this spiritual freedom which cannot be taken away- that makes life meaningful and purposeful."

Frabkl speaks of the dream which kept him alive in the camp , of lecturing and practising psychiatry- that is essentially G-D's commission to Frankl. The prisoner who lost faith in his future was doomed.

The prisoners said to each other that no earthly happyness could alleviate the suffering they had experienced in the camps , but Frankl writes  that "The crowning experience of all , for the homecoming man is the wonderful feeling that , afetr all he has suffered , there is nothing he need fear anymore-except for G-D".

The second part of the book explains Frankl's theory of psychology known as logotherapy.
"According to logotherapy , the striving to find a meaning in one's life is the primary motivational force in man".

Frankl deals with the universality of values. He notes that in the Nazi concentration camps those who knew that their was a task waiting for them to be fulfilled where more likely to survive".
On the meaning of life one cannot live for some general goal alone. That goal must be meaningfully present in every moment to make the moment alive in terms of it's destination and future.

The meaning  of life is that G-d asks every person to answer for his or her life i.e "What will you make of your life , my child".
Only personal choices are authentic choices . Life in it's ultimate meaning confronts us with other people whose lives we influence by the way we are towards them.

"A human being is not one thing among others , things determine each other , but man is ultimately self-determining"

</review>
<review>

This was a really great book.
It takes a different approach to the Holocaust, and succeeds in vividly describing his experience.
It is also inspirational; Frankl's message is valuable, well thought out and having read his book has impacted my life significantly.

A book that I have read multiple times, a definite buy

</review>
<review>

I was assigned to read this book for a class called Psychology: Intro to Counseling, Theory and Practice. The book talks about Frankl and his meaning for his life, how and what he found meaning in while in the concentration camps. It is an existentialist writing about his experiences. He grew, he learned, he made choices, and lived life for himself, even under the guise of imprisonment. The fact that any one man can find meaning in all of this is amazing. I really wish I had the chance to meet Krankl and speak with him. It is a powerful story and a great theory. Logotherapy is worth of even the most devoted Freud Fan.

</review>
<review>

This is an easy to read book, which managed to make profound points about life, pain, and fate.  I enjoyed reading the first part of the book and learning about what it was like to be in such a hellish place (a concentration camp), and yet still being able to be positive about life.  What more can I say than its an excellent book

</review>
<review>

MAN'S SEARCH FOR MEANING
by Dr Viktor Frankl

I was introduced to an earlier edition of this book after I had watched Joel Barker's video, 'The Power of Vision' during the early nineties.

The book captured the author's chilling  and  yet inspirational story of his personal struggle  and  eventual triumph against unspeakable horror at the Auschwitz concentration camps. His entire family (His father, mother, brother  and  his wife) perished in the camps, except for his sister.

[Frankly, I did not realise the magnitude of the author's horrendous sufferings -  and  the Holocaust as a whole - until I personally visited the Auschwitz concentration camps, in the town of Oswiecim, situated about 60 kms from Krakow in southern Poland, with my late wife during the mid-nineties. Auschwitz was actually the German name for the town. I was told by my guide that about 6 million people died in the Auschwitz camps, more than 90% of whom were Jews.]

Because he was a psychiatrist, he was able to observe behaviours at the camps. He noticed that the healthiest, youngest, smartest,  and  best looking were not automatically the ones who survived.

At this juncture, I would like to quote exactly what he wrote:

"Even though conditions such as lack of sleep, insufficient food  and  various mental stresses may suggest that the inmates were bound to react in certain ways, in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision,  and  not the result of camp influences alone. Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him - mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp. I became acquainted with those martyrs whose behavior in camp, whose suffering  and  death, bore witness to the fact that the last inner freedom cannot be lost...

...Everything can be taken from a man but one thing; the last of the human freedoms-to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way...

...Most men in a concentration camp believed that the real opportunities of life had passed. Yet, in reality, there was an opportunity  and  a challenge. One could make a victory of those experiences, turning life into an inner triumph, or one could ignore the challenge  and  simply vegetate, as did a majority of the prisoners...

...What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life. We had to learn ourselves  and  furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us..."

According to him, in the final analysis, the most significant indicator of survival was that all of those who made it through had something significant yet to do with their lives. In other words, if one has something significant or purposeful or meaningful yet to do with one's life, the chances of survival against hardships, obstacles, setbacks  and  even death threats, will be much higher. That is to say, man's primary motivational force is his seach for ultimate meaning. Joel Barker calls it the power of vision. According to Barker, a positive vision of the future is what gives meaning to life  and  a meaningful vision empowers us to solve problems  and  accomplish goals.

Another productive learning experience for me, from reading the book, is this: one often cannot change the circumstances of one's encounter with any situation, person or event, but one certainly has the power to choose how to interprete it  and  how to respond to it.

Put it in another way, one's attitude or outlook on life certainly has ramifications on how one can survive -  and  thrive - in the longer term.

I think I can now appreciate better about what Anthony Robbins once said: "It's in your moment of decision that your destiny is shaped." He added further:

There are three decisions that control our destiny:

- our decisions about what to focus on;
- our decisions about what things mean to us;
- our decisions about what to do to create the results we desire;

Viktor Frankl had also made another profound observation in his book:

"Don't aim at success - the more you aim at it  and  make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue,  and  it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself."

This resonates very well with what F Buckminster Fuller, recognised as Planet Earth's friendly genius (he created the Geodesic dome), called 'precession' or 'precessional effects' is his book, 'Critical Path'.

On the whole, I have enjoyed very much reading Viktor Frankl's 'Man's Search for Meaning'. Thanks to Joel Barker for the timely introduction!

</review>
<review>

this is simply a must read for those interested in the human experience.  Some of the positions concluded in this book may not be the only way to think on the issues involved, but still, this book is a great psychological workout with deep insights

</review>
<review>

Frankl, who survived the concentration camps, writes that suffering is inevitable and that avoiding suffering is futile. Rather, one should be worthy of one's suffering and make meaning of it instead of surrendering to nihilism, bitterness and despair. He uses poetic, moving anecdotes from the concentration camps to illustrate those souls who find a deeper humanity from their suffering or who become animals relegated to nothing more than teeth-clenched self-preservation. Though not specifically religious, this masterpiece has a religious purpose--to help us find meaning. This book succeeds immeasurably.

</review>
<review>

Amazing book, gives the reader many things to comtemplate. The reader will be a better person for reading this book. Written by one of the most important people of his era. Viktor Frankl is someone everyone should meet through this works

</review>
<review>

This is a book I now keep in mind for my soon-to-be new mom friends just in case, that along with the numbers of womens' clinics at various hospitals and health centers that treat post-partum depression.

Baby blues are often a serious consequence of becoming pregnant and having a child given the hormonal fluctuations rampant in one's body.

The new mothers I've known have varying degrees of personal stories on this subject. Some never had it, others had a mild case for a few days, and others were plagued by it. Nonetheless, it was very courageous of Shields to share her account of the aftermath of post-partum. When treatment requires drugs it is a very personal and serious decision for any woman. While some cases can be healed with minimal or in a drug-free manner there are those times when it is legitimate and necessary to alleviate the impact of sometimes radical hormonal fluctuations with prescription to return  to a more peaceful state of emotional health. Social support and adjunct assistance is also beneficial during such trying times. Nonetheless, in the wake of criticism one must look at what line of defense is best for the person. It appears that Shields was working to get better and though drugs may not be a permanent solution, in an ethical context with proper medical supervision, can help ease the troubled emotional waters while a woman re-established her psychological equilibrium. A must for the fathers and other family and friends as well as the new mother

</review>
<review>

This book actually helped me put into words what I was experiencing with postpartum depression.
I had read all the pregnancy books and all the baby books. I thought I was ready for motherhood.
The candor and tone of the book made me feel that she is a real woman. She did not pretty it up or speak down to the reader.
I will be giving this to my pregnant friends in the future

</review>
<review>

I had mixed feelings about this book. I admire Brooke Shields for writing it. Yes, she has a lot of advantages most women who suffer PPD don't. But the feelings she describes are valid. She doesn't flinch from discussing thoughts of suicide or her visions of seeing her baby injured. These are shameful feelings for anyone and when you are in the public eye admitting you have had them is inviting an attack. I think it was a brave thing to do.

That said, this book is more of a personal story and doesn't really provide solutions that are realistic for the average woman. It probably would help a great deal for women with PPD to have in-home help, but it's not an option for most. A lot of women don't have the option to choose to bring their baby to work, or even to choose if they want to return to work. Brooke was lucky to have these choices and to have a supportive husband and family. However, no one should beat themselves up for being depressed even if other people think they "have it all."

I did find the language in this book somewhat simplistic. It was not the best-written book I've ever read. The tone was conversational, which is an asset, but there were times were the book felt "dumbed-down" or as if it needed an editor to fine tune some of the word choices and information. There are some touching moments Brooke describes with her daughter and I'm sure she and her daughter will be glad those memories have been recorded in years to come. It made me wish I'd kept more of a journal when my son was a baby.

I found it to be a very quick read, (I finished it in a couple days) which I also consider an asset. I know after my son was born my attention span was quite short and I found I couldn't focus on the more literary type of books I normally liked to read. So something with this simple writing style would have been quite welcome.

Certainly this is a valuable book and while not perfect it contributes something positive to the struggle against PPD. I would recommend it to women suffering from PPD, husbands/partners of these women, and women who are expecting and want to be prepared in case they discover they do suffer from PPD after their babies are born.

</review>
<review>

So, poor Brooke Shields felt unhappy? So what? Is she unaware of the billions of people on this planet who live desparate lives of real poverty, who watch their children die of preventable diseases or starvation? Is she unaware of all the babies who die from malnutrition and malaria every year? And all she can do is sit in her mansion and feel sorry for herself. Of all the times in one's life, the time you are needed most is when you are a mother who has just had a baby, yet still she couldn't feel her own baby's love for her. How pathetic.
I think she'd have soon changed her tune had she been marooned on a desert island after a plane crash, and she realised she could die any moment. People get 'depressed' because they spend too much time thinking, and thinking about THEMSELVES. Don't these pathetic people have anything better to do with their lives? Think of all the suffering she could prevent if she used her fame and money to do so.
She should read "Stop thinking and start living"

</review>
<review>

Yes, much of the book was spent explaining how difficult it was for Brooke to become pregnant.  Perhaps it was explained to demonstrate how badly she and her husband wanted a child, only to have Brooke feel the complete opposite once her daughter was born.  I read this book while suffering from PPD.  Brooke's words were my words, she was speaking FOR me, when I could not articulate my thoughts, and was afraid of myself.  I finally had faith that I would not be "the excepton" and that even I could overcome PPD.  Also good reading is "Conquering Postpartum Depression" by Dr. Ron Rosenberg.  He's a dedicated doctor

</review>
<review>

brooke shields has done an excellent job painting a picture of one of the negative possibilities of the postpartum experience. though it took her a while to get pregnant, her pregnancy was wonderful; so it can be very surprising to read how difficult her experience was after the birth of her daughter rowan.

this is an important work in many ways. first, we know that postpartum depression occurs in 10 to 20% of new moms. this makes depression the number one complication in childbirth! also, the baby blues occur in 75 to 80% of new moms. there are several other postpartum psychological disorders to be aware of as well. for instance, postpartum psychosis occurs in 1 to 2 moms per 1,000 births. though rare, this disorder can have tragic consequences (reference andrea yates).

in working with patients, I recommend this and other books by celebrity figures specifically because it's amazing how healing it can be for new moms to see that women they think of as having perfect lives can still have problems after having a child. shields has done an excellent job here and writes in a very honest and descriptive fashion. she also includes resources for more information

</review>
<review>

I've heard good things about this book so I was honestly expecting to like it.  However I really was disappointed and surprised because after the third chapter the book gets boring and very repetitive.  And because it was written by Brooke Shields, the book sold.  But really, if an unknown wrote this book it would not have gone anywhere.

I also got the feeling that because Brooke Shields suffered PPD, she thought it is was so almighty important that she needed to write a book about it.  I'm sorry but I don't think that a person who goes through depression for only a few months has suffered all that much.  There are unfortunately millions of people who are poor, without health insurance, and worse without support of family and friends, that keep their depression going on for years and years and their entire lives are destroyed by this illness.  No one cares about them.  That is the saddest fact about depression in this country.

However Brooke Shields had millions of dollars to pay for help, a famous name that allowed her to write a book all about it, a career that people would die for (her lack of talent doesn't seem to have affected her career much), and most importantly a husband and friends to help her out.  She also had a doctor calling her every day which I've never heard of before!  Try being without all those things when you're suffering depression.  Trying to beat depression without love and resources is like trying to drive a nail into a board with a feather.  I was a bit annoyed that Brooke Shields was oblivious to all this in her book.

And Tom Cruise only brought more attention to the book with his rant about medications.  I admire Tom Cruise - he is certainly far more talented than Brooke and I believe his comments about her career angered her more than anything.  However he is not a doctor and he does not know what he is talking about!!!!

The book's writing is very mediocre and the people who buy the book live under very different circumstances than the author, so it's hard to get much out of it.  This book only sold because it was about Brooke Shields

</review>
<review>

Brooke Sheilds takes the reader into her own private-eye view of the world through the eyes of a mother suffering from Post-Partum Depression.  She is amazingly truthful with all that she has gone through.  Who wants to tell someone, much less the world, about thoughts of harming one's own child?  How do you get help for that?...without someone thinking you need to be institutionalized?  That fear alone, keeps a mulititude of women from seeking help for this debilitating disease.  Brooke allows herself to be put up before judge and jury, and for that, I truly admire her and her book of confessions.  She is a strong woman who has dealt with and beat, PPD.  I highly recommend the book, especially if you are in need of a sense of comradery.  Brooke lets you know that you are not alone in your suffering and gives you hope with a sense of comfort and understanding, that only one who has suffered from the disease itself could possibly offer

</review>
<review>

I'm a Ph.D. and gay, coupled for 18 years.  We have twins via surrogacy (our daughters are now 10--yes, they are simply lovely).  I completely applaud Brooke's frankness and honesty of her horrid struggle through what I, as a man, have not undergone.  As a 16 year old, I left work early (as a pharmacy typist) to see "Blue Lagoon"--a fan, I suppose!  Hearing Brooke on CD is quite shattering to one's soul as well.  Thanks so much, Brooke.  Your honesty and integrity are highly appreciated

</review>
<review>

For anyone who has ever suffered from Postpartum Depression, this book is a must read. As a mom of an almost 2 year old, I too suffered from PPD. While reading all of the pregancy books, I skipped all the chapter about PPD and laughed out loud. Who would be depressed after wanting a child for so long and finally getting their wish. Was I in for a rude awakening! Brooke Shields book hit home. In it, she is both funny and honest about everything that happened to her, from her bouts with infertility through her pregnancy and PPD and afterwards when her sun came out. There is not enough emphasis on this subject. She tells of her struggles with infertility, miscarriages and her wonderful pregnancy. She didn't come off as a celebrity who has someone else caring after her child. She is a hands on mom who happened to have suffered from PPD. You can feel a connection and I am so happy for having read this book. Kudos, Brooke Shields

</review>
<review>

I was going to assign this book to my students in my Abnormal Psychology class... The first chapter is powerful and true. However, this author irresponsibly attacks the parents of the mentally ill as responsible for their children's illnesses!!!! He also attacks NAMI, the National Association of the Mentally Ill, an organization that has helped more mentally ill patients recover, find support and their way to a successful and meaningful life, and has truly educated more people about mental illness than Breggin has ever done himself, I am sure. The good points the book makes about inadequate and even harmful psychiatric care in mental institutions are, in my opinion, obfuscated by his unwarranted attacks on parents -- attacks, I believe, that may be a result of his old-fashioned psychoanalytical training

</review>
<review>

Some people think they are so smart that they know everything about these drugs and chemistry, no matter how smart you are and lets say youre #1 top psychiatrists in the world. If you havent taken the SSRI yourself and experienced the damaging affect of these drugs, you cant say anything PERIOD. Not even if you invented the drug !!!!! Why do we have so many people complaining about these drugs? duh maybe because there is a problem and causing problems!!!, people who havent tried or experience the damaging affects afterwards dont see why people are complaining. We dont see books about warning people not to take for example flu shots do we? No. I used to be one of those people who believed and that popping a pill can solve my life problems but Now because of SSRI my life is ruined and have permanant problems that wont go away. And for people who are currently on SSRI, pills will never ever cure depression unless you stay on them forever,Im sure you are happy with those fake smiles, see what happens when you taper off of them. And people who are FOR these drugs should immediately go to doctors and try them and see how safe they are. I recommend you try prozac first. If that dont work out dont worry there are plenty others that doctors will want you to try. HAHAHA so sad that there are still people out there in this country that really believe these pills can help them

</review>
<review>

Having suffered 2 major depressive episodes in the last 6 years, I can assure those who swallow Breggin's nonsense hook, line and sinker that nobody could have "talked" me back to anything resembling "health."  The mental anguish I suffered during those episodes was unbearable and waiting for a quack like Breggin to use psychoanalysis or some other form of talk therapy to provide any relief would have taken far too long.  Financial and insurance considerations aside, talk therapies alone are simply too slow to achieve positive results.

No doubt pharmaceutical companies often drive treatment trends in a highly questionable manner both via perks to MD-psychiatrists and (the increasingly obnoxious) practice of direct advertising of prescription drugs to the public.  Nevertheless, anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, anti-anxiety meds and sleep aids HELP relieve the suffering quickly, which is what medicine should be all about, not ideology.

Only one of Breggin's points is valid, and that is the disturbing trend for nearly all MD-psychiatrists to focus on psycho-pharmacology to the exclusion of psychotherapy.  The current treatment model has the patient seeing a psychiatrist for meds management typically quarterly while also seeing a psychologist for psychotherapy anywhere from weekly to monthly.  It would seem that "one stop shopping" would not only make things more convenient for patients, but competence in multiple therapies would also make for a more effective and insightful professional.  Use meds to stablize the patient and minimize the suffering, then pursue cognitive and other talk therapies to provide coping skills and attack the environmental and experiential contributors to the disease.

</review>
<review>

I couldn't resist writing this.  The ad hominem abusive, straw man, slippery slope and other fallacies running rampant in some of the other reviews are just ridiculous!

First off, comparing insulin to brain chemistry is not a logical argument!  Just because it has been proven that certain levels of insulin are necessary for proper metabolism, it does not mean that brain chemistry works the same way!!  The two processes are completely different.  One is very well understood and proven, while the other is not understood well at all and is definately not proven.  Using this logic, I could say that diabetics take insulin, therefore I must take lead to fix my "electrostatic disorder."  I cannot invent a disorder in this way, except in a work of fiction!  Beware of "convincing" analogies, especially ones that seem like common sense, they are all too often wrong, wrong, wrong, and more wrong.

Breggin also has been in private practice since 1968.  If he spent a few years being an expert witness in lawsuits, then that only shows his dedication to his cause, not that he has been "gallivanting around" as one reviewer seems to think!  If you want to know a little about Breggin, try http://Breggin.org.

Also, Breggin does not oversimplify the problem and say that "all drugs cause brain damage."  He quotes case studies and peer-reviewed journal writings concerning specific drugs and specific disorders.  He does not draw his conclusions out of thin air and make only blanket statements!  There are no rabbits being pulled out of any hats anywhere but in the review I'm commenting on.

And another thing, just because someone is depressed, it does not mean they will commit suicide!  Stop convincing people that they will kill themselves if they don't recieve drugs!  It cripples people and makes them unwilling to help themselves!  It's not logical and is NOT shown through any studies that a majority of depressed people will kill themselves if not medicated.  In fact, studies have shown that the biggest factor of whether a patient improves or not is whether they believe that they will get better or not, it is not whether they recieve psychotropic drugs or not.

Breggin also does not come anywhere close to making it seem that patients are defined by their illness!  It's laughable to suggest the notion having read the book!  He demands the utmost respect for even the most troubled persons and I believe he shows how there is more to the person that their disorder by his disgust for how psychiatrists don't look for the reasons for a person's disorder but instead only try to match a person to the "diagnostic criteria" of the DSM IV.  If anything, the practice of matching patients to illnesses defines a person by their "illness," NOT Breggin's perspective of the patient.

Also, to say that Breggin "throws the baby out with the bathwater," while admitting the book has several good points, only to give it one star is a bit ironic and hypocritical, don't you think?

And in closing for this review..  Just because Tom Cruise and the wacky Scientologists are anti-psychiatry, it does not mean that there is nothing wrong with psychiatry.  That is an obvious ad hominem circumstancial fallacy if I have ever heard one.  (For those who have no idea what that means, it means that just because someone is part of a group, it does not mean that a statement they have said is wrong.  A group may be known for their likely incorrect viewpoints, but it does not make untrue all of the beliefs of every group member.  An example would be how Hitler created the idea for the Volkswagon Beatle.  The Nazi's were wrong for mass murdering Jews, but that doesn't mean that they were also wrong in thinking that smaller, more efficient cars could actually be a good thing for society.

</review>
<review>

The 1 December 2005 reviewer misunderstood everything.  The reviewer implies the book is new but Breggin wrote it fifteen years ago.

More importantly, the reviewer dogmatically supposes mental disorders are biological.  They are not, as can be seen in Breggin's and many other books that debunk biopsychiatry.  See especially MAD IN AMERICA by Robert Whitaker, published in 2001, PSEUDOSCIENCE IN BIOLOGICAL PSYCHIATRY by Colin Ross and Alvin Pam, and my own web page www.antipsiquiatria.org

</review>
<review>

Do any of you positive reviewer even know that "Dr." Breggin doesn't even see patients anymore? That in nearly 2 years all he has done has traveled the country to testify in courts against psychiatrists? That is, in states which haven't yet discredited him for being biased and unscientific. I find it amazing that a man who hasn't treated a psychiatrist patient in years can write a book so skewed and wrong that it can endanged the public and still be published. What bothers me more is that people think he's correct. Modern medicine does not know the reason that the pancreas produces less insulin than normal, they only know that it does, so maybe diabetics should stop taking insulin and try to figure out if they were raised improperly by their mothers. Sound crazy? Of course, but this is the message that he's advocating. He should be ashamed of himself. He is not a real doctor and should return his diploma. Edit: 12/21/05---take about misunderstanding...Karellen's comments above are typical of those attacking something they know little about, making me wonder if Karellen believes in aliens like Tom Cruise. I said nothing about when the book was written and that is irrelevant to the point of the review which is that Breggin's opinions are so biased that he has been discredited by state courts in this country. I was trying to avoid posting websites, but since you posted one I'll post one too: http://www.quackwatch.org/11Ind/breggin.htm

</review>
<review>

Biological psychiatry is a perfect pseudoscience and TOXIC PSYCHIATRY is one of the best books that debunk it.  I strongly recommend this book, Peter Breggin's manifesto, to anyone interested in mental health.  The negative reviewers simply do not address honestly Breggin's arguments.

Breggin valiantly opposed lobotomy and electroshock in the 1970s.  He also opposed the psychiatric drugging of children in the 1980s, 90s and in this century.  In fact, he used to be one of my personal heroes.  But I am perplexed about his policy as founder and editor of the journal ETHICAL HUMAN PSYCHIATRY AND PSYCHOLOGY (EHPP).

Breggin's journal didn't publish a tribute to Theodore Lidz, one of the foremost specialists of the trauma model of "schizophrenia" in the United States in the 1940s, 50's, 60's and 70's who died at ninety in 2001.  In those now bygone decades Lidz and his colleagues blamed parents for the psychoses of their offspring: the greatest heresy in psychiatry and in today's American culture!  The second chapter of TOXIC PSYCHIATRY valiantly endorses Lidz and his colleagues' view about psychologically abusive parents that destroy their children's mind.

Alas, because of cowardice before the massive anti-blaming culture of today Breggin betrayed what he wrote fifteen years ago.

The following excerpts of a 2005 letter that I sent to Breggin may throw some light on this perplexing subject:


Dear Dr. Breggin:

I am a Mexican writer who writes about child abuse and psychiatry in Spanish.

I would really like to thank you for your work.  When I was a teenager (I'm 47 now) my mother ruined my young life by putting neuroleptics in my orange juice without my knowing it.  But thanks to your work I know now that the hellish "akathisia" I experienced for so many months was the direct result of the terrible drug!

I am sincerely thankful for your enlightening me on this matter.

I wrote you two or three letters in 2003 and 2004.  None of them was answered but I hope this one will be directly answered by you.

The fact is that your EHPP editor Laurence Simon contradicts what you say in Chapter 2 of TOXIC PSYCHIATRY.

For instance, regarding an article submission for EHPP Simon suggested me to put aside any "theories that blame poor mother" for psychological damage in the child.  He was very emphatic on this.

Two years ago I sent Simon my revised version.  I eliminated all mention to Lidz, Laing and Arieti's work.  But Simon demanded as a requisite for publication that I had to eliminate ALL reference of the "model of trauma" of mental disorders, about which he is completely skeptical.  Curiously, my article does not deal with trauma: it is an attack on biological psychiatry (you can read it in www.antipsiquiatria.org) though I did mention the trauma model.

Let me quote from your schizophrenia chapter in TOXIC PSYCHIATRY:  "More than one patient of mine has begun with just such anguished fragments of memory before discovering the agony of his or her abusive childhood and its relationships to current entrapments" (page 24).  "Mad persons are victims of a corrupt upbringing: Behavior that gets labeled schizophrenic is a special strategy that a person invented in order to live in an unlivable situation. What's wrong is not `in the patient', but in his family and society" (page 31).

You made many other similar pronouncements in your chapter about schizophrenia under the headings "The Family" (pages 34ff), "Envy and Shaming in the Family" (pages 36ff), "Blaming" (pages 39f) and "Should Parents Feel Guilty?" (page 40).  Indeed, your view on what is labeled schizophrenia is identical to mine.  This is why I am totally flabbergasted that your journal editor holds the opposite view: that the basic etiology of psychoses is still a total mystery.  [...] [...].

Even though I write in Spanish, I am about to finish a book that includes harsh criticism of Laurence Simon and EHPP.  The reason for this is that your editor's stand ("poor mother") is an absolute insult for people who have had terribly abusive mothers -and fathers too!

I want to spare you from that sort of criticism.  Those passages of yours quoted above show me that you are (or at least you were when writing TOXIC PSYCHIATRY) a very compassionate and understanding person toward survivors, and that you believed there is some truth in the claim that some parents can drive their offspring mad.

So please answer this letter.  Why an editor you chose holds exactly the opposite view of what you say in your manifesto?  If the subject of parental abuse is paramount to understand mental stress and disorders, as you wrote, why haven't you fired Laurence Simon?

Respectfully,

Csar Tort.


Peter Breggin did not respond to any of my various letters and reminders, which I sent him through the span of two years.  His silence, which greatly offended me, as well as the total lack of empathy toward mental victims shown by his editor, are no mystery.

The first commandment of our rather Neanderthal culture is "Thou Shalt Spare Parents".  Once this unwritten law is recognized and understood it is easy to understand Breggin's intellectual cowardice, his emotionally blind editor, the dishonest negative reviewers of TOXIC PSYCHIATRY, and a culture that destroys minds since childhood.  Just take a look at Alice Miller's revolutionary approach to psychology.  All of her work focus on abusive parents: precisely what Simon et al don't want to see.  Miller's book BREAKING DOWN THE WALL OF SILENCE is a good introduction of a cultural revolution.  I quote from the dust jacket: "Dr. Miller convincingly demonstrates how psychoanalysts from Freud onward, as well as teachers, clergy, politicians, and members of the media, have shrunk from recognizing the enormous extent and devastating effects of child abuse".

I am afraid to say that, like his shrink colleagues, since Breggin wrote the second chapter of TOXIC PSYCHIATRY he has miserably shrunk from recognizing the psychotic effects of child abuse.

</review>
<review>

As a behavioural neuroscientist I was appalled by the extreme and unscientific rhetoric expressed by this individual. The fear-mongering nature of this read provides an extremely biased point-of-view by throwing psychiatric techniques at the reader that are either out-of-date or have been changed to better the patient(s) involved. A mental state is a DIRECT result of a particular brain state, and therefore, a disturbed continual mental state creating dysfunction in the individual must be a result of altered neurochemicals and must be corrected through proper medications. If the author knew anything of neuroscience and psychiatry he would understand that medications AND psychotherapy are the best combination, and not one alone

</review>
<review>

I'm glad there is a book out there that states the dangers
of taking anti-dressant and anti-anxiety drugs.
I have never met one person that has said that Paxil or any
other SSSI drug has helped them.
I used to have servere panic attacks back in 1999. I had the
"fear" of fear that I might have another panic attack. My doctor prescribed me with Zoloft, Paxil, Buspar, and a few others. None of them worked to make me feel like a "normal"
person. I was literally like a person in a mental ward, not wanting to move, almost drooling, never wanting to get out of bed, etc. Paxil helped me to break the chain of having every day panic attacks, but because I was "zombified" I felt life wasn't worth living so I stopped talking it.
I'll tell you what I think brought me to this point. The first thing that ever induced a panic attack in me was the use of caffiene. Caffiene often makes me feel "out of control" like I'm going to explode. Then I had some extreme religious beliefs at the time that made me feel that "god was after me". I was afraid that I was going to die and go to hell. So, the combination of caffiene and a vengeful god were a good recipe for panic attacks. Also, I have found I am sensitive to "worthless" carbs, like white breads, pasta, etc. Managing my diet and "losing my religion" were what helped me so that I now have a job again and am able to go out without "freaking out". I'll admit that I am not 100%, but I'm not the zombie I was with the drugs. I think I am most upset that I received no
council to change my diet or other "natural" things that would help with my condition. Obviously my brain isn't completely defective or else I'd still have anxiety attacks every day. I think my problem has more to do with my pancreous(as my uncle and grandfather have had serious problems with theirs) then my brain. But for the most part I just have had pills thrown at me. I know from logic that this is so wrong. In my case it was definately "Toxic" psychiatry. It's too bad that doctors are not held accountable for being "witchdoctors".

</review>
<review>

A well researched and documented book by a smart guy with a real passion for his subject and compassion for the people impacted. His book YOUR DRUG MAY BE YOUR PROBLEM might be a good running start to get up to dealing with this sizable thing. It is an outstanding gift to patients as they are never told this stuff nor are their lved ones

</review>
<review>

This book is more than just a hiking narrative, although it is that.  Listening to Bryson read his account of his Appalation Trail hike, you become immersed in his life.  You can almost see the forests, feel the breezes, enjoy the mountaintop views, and hear the wildlife.  You also become well acquainted with Bryson, his hiking partner Stephen, and many fellow hikers on the trail, and it is often very funny.  He also brings in a lot of the history, geology, and ecology of the regions he travels through.  I believe that the listener will find himself or herself very enriched by this well written work

</review>
<review>

The book moves, is enlightening, funny, and educational.  If you have ever walked in the woods, it might not look the same again

</review>
<review>

A charming piece that makes it all but impossible to read quietly... Mr. Bryson shares his experiences, lessons and insights about this challenging Appalachian Trail Hike he undertook with such drole humor.. We found ourselves giggleing on almost every page and stopping to share wonderful humor at least a few times a chapter. My sister did this with mom and my husband and I did it to each other despite the plan to read it ourselves. Went straight to Amazon.com to find his other works..

</review>
<review>

Any book that challenges and engages a high school student is well worth the price

</review>
<review>

First let it be said that this book leads you to believe that he hikes the whole trail... He does not. He hikes less than a third. You dont find this out until 2/3 through the book, which is right about when the book goes from passibly bad, to an ill effort to fulfill a contract.

My conclusion on this book is that he was contracted to hike the trail by his publisher, could not, and stuffed the remainder of the book with verbatum history lessions and whole cloth inserts of useless statistics.

As others have said in this review forum. This book can be snide, highschoolish and down right mean. I fail to see the "wit" in his endless negitivity and bashing.

This book has a few funny parts, but I cant help but feel that it is a huge exageration of real events, and is mostly contrived fictional accounts which he uses to air is nasty comments. It is so unbelievible in places, that you know you are on an imagined tangent.

Dont waste your money or time. I am so happy I bought it for 25 cents at a yard sale!

</review>
<review>

I rarely read a book twice - there are just too many to read to have the time to read any twice. However, I was reading an article the other day about the Appalachian Trail and I remembered this book that I had read years ago and was now on my book shelves with all the others. I remembered it as an extremely funny, yet poignant book.

I pulled it off the shelves and my memoory was corret. Bill Bryson is someone that every out of shape, middle age, wannabe hiker can identify with. His descriptions of the process of getting ready to go, setting out on the trail, the first few days being the hardest are scenes we can all imagine ourselves in.

I especially love his descriptions of the imagined hillbillys that he fails to encounter, the southern rednecks that fail to be real, the bears, snakes, salamanders that never materialize. Who among us have not had the same imagined thoughts in that situation.

I finally had to stop reading this book on my lunch breaks at work - my laughter was scaring poeple away from my table. It was a book that I wanted to not put down, but was afraid would end to soon. I rationed my reading like Bill and Katz rationed their food after Katz threw most of it away on the first day.

I have been so inspired by this book, that I am planning on walking the Appachian Trail myself - well, maybe someday.

This is a great book that everyone who evers has the thought of doing a grand event like this should read first - just for the laughs if nothing else.

</review>
<review>

R. Stockwell was right on in his review. Bryson comes off as a spoiled hypocrite in this book, constantly sprinkling on virtually every other page his disdain for anyone not as educated as himself. His favorite targets are Southern whites. A typical description is " ...loony hillbillies destabilized by gross quantities of impure corn liquor and generations of profoundly unbiblical sex." !!! How would a reviewer (of the NYT, for example) respond to a travelogue of our inner cities by some ruralista who describes inner-city youths as "... crazed blacks destabilized by gross quantities of crack and generations profoundly obsessed with having sex with a white woman."  --- Neither of these passages are acceptable but Bryson belongs to that ilk who's motto is: "Bigotry for me but not for thee." BYTW, his earlier book, "Lost Continent" is even more egregious with his kind of self-righteousness.  It's a shame he tarnishes himself and his writing with this kind of stuff.


</review>
<review>

Returning to the US after living in England for twenty years, Bill Bryson becomes intrigued with the idea of the hiking the Appalachian Trail, a portion of which is in his New Hampshire backyard.  The 2100-mile trail from Georgia to Mt. Katahdin in Maine winds through virgin forest and scenes of incredible natural beauty and provide an unparalleled opportunity to be alone and reflective.

Bryson's sense of adventure and his enthusiasm hold him in good stead as he sets off in Georgia, though he has little idea of how difficult it will be to hike 15 or more miles a day, up and down mountains with forty pounds of gear, including a tent, on his back.  He is accompanied by Stephen Katz, an acquaintance from Iowa with whom he once traveled in Europe, who is even more out of shape than he is.  The contrast between the attitudes of the two men--Bryson, enthusiastic, and Katz, grimly concerned (and complaining) about the difficulties--reflect, between them, the attitudes of virtually any reader of this amusing and thoughtful travelogue.  Additional kooky characters appear throughout this account to add humor and complexity to the hike.

Bryson is a fine observer of nature, and as he and Katz travel for six weeks from Georgia through the Carolinas into the Shenandoah National Park, he includes much background about the trail and its history, and about the record of the National Forest Service and the National Parks Service, both of which he finds shocking.  The National Forest Service is the largest builder of highways in the country, providing access for logging operations in the forests.  The National Parks Service has a hands-off policy regarding the protection of endangered species of trees, which are dying due to global warming, diseases, and pollution.

At the end of six weeks, Bryson and Katz end the first phase of the hike and return to their homes.  The book loses some of its narrative momentum and its humor when Bryson returns months later to continue part of the trail alone--the reader misses Katz and his complaints--and Bryson becomes more philosophical and more critical of governmental policy in the latter part of the book.   Overall, however, this is a fascinating account of a trail that traverses a major part of the eastern landscape, and Bryson beautifully conveys his awe for its magnificent scenery.  To the extent that its species are vanishing and its forests are dying, it is also a wake-up call to all concerned Americans.  n  Mary Whipple

</review>
<review>

THIS MAY BE MY SECOND FAVORITE BILL BRYSON BOOK BEHIND SUNBURNED COUNTRY. AS I SAID IN HIS FORUM, IT'S BEYOND BELIEF THAT HE AND HIS OVERWEIGHT FRIEND GOOD OLD KATZ WALKED AS FAR AS THEY DID IN THE WILDERNESS AND SURVIVED. IT IS A WONDERFUL, RELAXING, EDIFYING, LAUGH-RIOT OF A BOOK AS ONLY BILL CAN PROVIDE. I LOVE HIS WORK AND TRUST ME, BUY THIS, YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO PUT IT DOWN. EVEN READING ABOUT THE DANGERS YOU'LL FEEL LIKE IMMEDIATELY GOING FOR A HIKE SOMEWHERE. ONE WARNING, TAKE A LOT OF BILL'S HISTORY WITH A GRAIN OF SALT. HE TENDS TO BEND THE FACTS A BIT FOR A LAUGH AND HIS "HISTORY" OF THOMAS J. JACKSON (STONEWALL) IS JUST NONSENSE, BUT VERY FUNNY. IN FACT, JACKSON WAS PROBABLY THE MOST BRILLIANT MAJOR OFFICER THE UNITED STATES EVER PRODUCED AND HE, NOT ROBERT E. LEE WAS THE STATEGIST IN THE SOUTH'S GREATEST VICTORIES. BUT I DIGRESS, BILL BRYSON IS MY HERO AND FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE I'M A REPUBLICAN AND HE DETESTS REPUBLICAN'S SO YOU KNOW I FIND THIS MAN FUNNY. GO BILL

</review>
<review>

Jaques offers a number of fast dishes that taste like they've been cooking all day.  The recipes are easy to follow and brought a fresh new taste to my kitchen.  I frequently turn to this book both on a busy weeknight after work and a lazy Sunday afternoon.  The book is a companion to the TV show that currently airs on public television.  It is by no means all inclusive but certainly worth having in your kitchen - Pick it up

</review>
<review>

This book won't turn me off to JP, who I admire very much for his style of cooking and pleasant personality; but the book was a bit boring.  Once I gleaned the book, my usual "How can I decide what to cook first?" didn't hit me.  I picked up the book again with the same results -- just not enough inspiring stuff there.  I haven't looked at the book since; so I can't even say this or that recipe was lackluster.  I only remember my response to the book.  It wan't the 'fast food' concept either because everyone needs quick recipes in the cooking repertoire.  I cook a lot.  I'm not a cookbook collector; my cookbooks are stained and tattered.  I'm afraid "Fast Food My Way" will remain in pristine condition until I can give it to someone who will assign it more value than I can.  Each book I have on the shelf has to carry its weight or it's off to the pantry -- my culinary Siberia for cookbooks -- where this cookbook now resides.  For some reason I found JP cooking from this book on TV much more pleasurable than entertaining the idea of cooking from this cookbook.

</review>
<review>

This is a great cookbook to have especially if you're following the TV series on PBS. It has simple and complex recipes,  good pictures, and delicious recipes. Jacques Pepin is a GREAT chef. This would be a GREAT gift

</review>
<review>

This book is phenominal! I made the "Zesty Pork Chops" the other night...quick, easy and made it for friends who all said "wow! I want this recipe!"

This book was given to me as a gift, and I regret that I just "filed it away" for almost 2 years! until I thought...I'm going to make 1 recipe out of every cookbook I own"...well, that could take a full year of cooking....I started with this book and I haven't put it down since! Great appetizers, desserts, mains, etc! YOU'VE GOT TO GET THIS BOOK

</review>
<review>

I've long admired Pepin and have several of his earlier books.  This newest book (and PBS series) brings us his approach to "fast food" which I think is meant with a wink and a smile.  It's only fast in the time sense!  I'm a serious foodie and this is real cooking; equally useful for family meals or entertaining.

</review>
<review>

This is the best cookbook, in my opinion, for those of us who have busy lifestyles but still prefer delicious home cooked meals. I have given numerous copies of this as gifts and the recipients have all been appreciative. I have tried 75% of the recipes, which is amazing in itself, and only one dish was disappointing. I own many of Jacque's cookbooks and this is the one I turn to time and time again. Happy cooking

</review>
<review>

I absolutelly love this book.  I love to cook and love good food unfortunatelly like many I don't have the time, expecially with a new baby that requires my attention constantly.  This book has been great.  I use it practically every day.  The recipes are easy to follow and they are delicious.  I love his show also and record it every saturday.  If you like good meals but don't have the time to spend the whole day in the kitchen get this book, it is definetely worht every penny.

</review>
<review>

Gorgeous, four-color book stuffed with easy, delicious recipes. Every time I cook one of these deceptively simple dishes, I can't believe that I made anything so delicious! Or that it came out so perfectly! Thank you, Jacques

</review>
<review>

First off, you just can't top Jacques Pepin- he just makes you comfortable about cooking no matter your skill level. I bought this book after watching his PBS "Fast Food My Way" series. All of the recipes are easy and quick. Many of them can be done with things you already buy most of the time and he often tells you items that can be supplemented. For example, the "Instant Vegetable Soup" (which is awesome) lists one defined recipe but the accompanying description tells you how it can be made into a variety of other, quick soups with things nearly always on-hand, like potatoes, onions, and cheese. The "Tomato Tartare" has become a weekly staple in my home- everyone loves it. "Cilantro-Walnut Cod", "Egg  and  Tomato Gratin",  and  "Quick Tenderloin Stew" were easy and turned out fabulously. The "Warm Chocolate Cakes" are the easiest I've ever made. This book isn't a mega-source of recipes but the ones that are in it are quality. I'm just an average home chef and have had a great experience with every recipe I've tried- all were easy and tasty. I only wish I could mince an onion like he does

</review>
<review>

I saw the program and after years of making the same traditional laborious recipes (e.g. chicken pot pie), was surprised with fantastic techniques of making marvelous-looking and delicious-tasting dishes in much less time.

On the show you can see him seeming to make a dish according to some measurements while the reality seems to be that some ingredient charms him out of the corner of his eye, and like a magician he creates a dish that is original, beautiful, and once you make it, very tasty.  I saw him preparing the salmon on the serving platter in a 200 degree oven, and whipping up a salsa using commercial salsa touched up with a few ingredients which all seemed quite spontaneous.  When I happened to make it, I was missing his ingredients but chopped up what I had, which was avocado,mango, and commercial hot sweet Thai chile sauce -- and somehow it seemed to be just what the recipe intended.

Somehow the cooking style of the book makes you want to be as invigorated by the stuff that's just sitting around your kitchen as he is -- the antithesis of The Best Recipe/Cook's Illustrated method where focus seems to be on exacting technique, brand of ingredients, brand of equipment, and consistently perfect results.

Another recipe which my husband loves is a soup which goes against all my sauteing instincts.  Make it in 5 minutes. Use a box grater to grate a couple of cups of vegetables (including a whole onion, which probably gives most of the flavor).  Then throw this all into boiling water, maybe add some grits, throw in some chopped salad greens.  Possibly grate some gruyere over the top when serving.  Now this is a way of making soup which seems wrong to me at every turn, and yet it is wholesome and flavorful. and never requires a trip to the grocery store.

In his beginning section, "More ideas for quick dishes", he has all kinds of interesting quick dishes. He has quite a few desserts which are also incredibly simple, and not fussy, which I would consider everyday desserts, suitable for children.  One is a graham cracker with a scoop of ricotta plus chopped dried fruit...

Another dish which impresses guests is the salmon tartare on a bed of dressed cauliflower.  This is not a quick dish, but you can whip it up without investing in a bunch of unusual ingredients.

This cookbook also inspired me to pot a bunch of herbs into one large pot -- recipes do suggest a lot of these herbs (chives, thyme, tarragon).  Their success over this past year is much higher than past attempts - though in the style of the book I haven't fussed over them at all.

Minimal cleanup is also a focus of cooking methods.  Some of the main dishes can be prepared all in the same pot (and no sauteing, minimal chopping minimal measuring for some).  Seems also to bring cooking back to the purpose of sharing a meal with family and friends

</review>
<review>

This book is not for everyone. If you do not like to read classics with everything that goes along with that (such as long-winded language that seems outdated to us today), then you should stay away.

For lovers of classical and relatively easy to read literature, this is a good book. A lot of things are amazing, considering how long ago they were written and what overall level of scientific knowledge was at the time. Some of it just boggles my mind.

At the same time, the book is long winded and in the end, not quite as much happens as one would expect. Dan Brown's DaVinci code has more things happening in the first 20 pages than Verne has in his entire book. But that is OK in a way, because when I read a classic, I do not expect to compare it to modern standards. The entertainment is due to different factors. In fact, the way the book is written is part of the entertainment and not just the story.

I do not give this book 5 stars however, because I was disappointed in the end, since not enough of the story really comes to a conclusion. I do not want to spoil the book for you, but there are a lot of unanswered questions, and getting those answers really was what kept me reading. There is quite a bit of build-up, and then in some ways, the book just ends. (I noticed that style in many books of that time, where the narrator just says "here is what I know... but I do not know the whole story...").

Also, to some extent, I agree with some of my fellow reviewers that gave a lower score, in that it is too much of a narration rather than a real story. I do not complain about some of it being like a log book, but I would have wished to get a bit more information about the daily life on board. I just do not buy that the 3 travelers just stayed in their room. They must have found out a bit more about other parts of the boat. Or at least attempted it, and that would have been interesting to read about, without breaking with the overall style of the book

</review>
<review>

Note to all first time readers. This book was created for serialization and so comes across in a somewhat repetitive chapter formula. I read this in grade school and have yet to find anyone who truly disliked it. Journey To The Center Of The Earth is also a Classic, but I prefer this. Well written, with a unique story and good visuals throughout. The reader can clearly identify with the characters and their view of being on the Nautilus. Captain Nemo is an enigmatic person with many layers. In this one will see Man vs. man, and man vs. nature. For some the descriptions of various Marine life may seem over done. For me they gave context within a slide show of what truly made Captain Nemo tick. Mr. Verne's book deserves the appelation, "far ahead of its time."

</review>
<review>

Having chewed and digested "Around the World in Eighty Days", "Five Weeks in a Balloon" and "Journey to the Centre of the Earth", I set out to devour another chef d'oeuvre of Verne [the often overlooked "true" father of science fiction] with much relish. Sure, "20,000 Leagues" seemed bigger than the others I'd read, but I thought it would be the classic excitement and drama of Verne all the way. Well, I was nearly right.

Professor Arronax leaves a "normal" life in France for the US, taking his assistant with him, to investigate the matter that has taken all the attention of the "modern" or "known" world. Joined by the egotistic harpooner, Ned Land, they seek adventure, and they find it.

Again, I see Verne's classic touch of the dramatic as the threesome find the monster - the Nautilus - or rather, as the Nautilus finds them. They awaken to an interminable adventure under the sea. The Professor is fascinated, or perhaps, intoxicated with the endless wealth of life in the sea and spends hours, days and months observing and recording. The tireless taxonomist takes in all the eye can see and with the help of his assistant, classifies it all. This is where the tedium began for me as the reader. Pages upon pages of pure taxonomy.

The accounts of the undersea explorations in specially designed suits offers some relief. The enigmatic Captain Nemo is in charge; incidents and never accidents. Everything about him is shrouded in mystery - pondering on the life of Captain Nemo offers some useful distraction and provides the fuel to consume more and more pages.

However, you can never miss Verne's climactic scenes, where he brings drama and suspense to their peak. The almighty Nautilus is trapped inside a huge mass of ice at the South Pole, and for the first time, Captain Nemo shows signs of worry, however subtle. Yet, he goes on with a steely determination. Things are looking very desperate, but as usual, the day is saved. However, I found myself following every detail, sharing all their fears, their toil, their despair. Their ecstasy was mine when the Nautilus broke free. I was totally drawn in...

...The irritable Ned Land sparks the fire of escape. He's sick and tired of submarine life as Nemo shows no signs of releasing his charges. The adventure ends with the escape of the threesome back to terra firma, or does it? I guess it continued with Captain Nemo and his longsuffering crew until his death, burying years of useful knowledge and resources under the sea. Or did he live forever?

A highly challenging but rewarding read for the discerning reader or Verne fanatic

</review>
<review>

20,000 Leagues Under The Sea was a very complex book. The authors word choice was what made it so complex, the author used words like "Vexed" "Zoophytes" and "Connoisseur." The majority of these words were Old English, which added to the complexity of the book. The sentence structure was similar to the word choice, it was also very complex sentences, the sentences were usually not to long but not to short, at times they could be quite long though, and they were old an English style. The book itself is about Three Human beings chasing after a giant "Narwhal" as the author calls it. These three characters are known as Professor M. Arronax, a genius Professor from France whose passion is to study, Conseil, a teenage boy who devotes his life to serving the professor, and Ned Land, a Canadian Harpooner. Conseil and the Professor accept an invitation to the boat the Abram Lincoln, the goal of the voyage is to track down a giant Cetacean, or a sea creature. This creature has apparently been reeking havoc across the world causing all sorts of deeds, and so the 3 meet up at the boat. They pursue the creature for over a month, when they finally catch up with the lightning fast Cetacean they pursue it, however when the creature strikes back Ned Land, Conseil, and Professor Arronax are thrown into the ocean, and separated from their boat, they awake to find they are in the supposed cetacean, to find out that it is not at all a sea monster, but an amazing Submarine named the Nautilus led by Captain Nemo. They then learn of Captain Nemo's plans, and embark on a Submarine Hunt on the bottom of the Ocean, they Discover Atlantis, they venture to the south pole, and even fight among Poulps or Cuttlefish of enormous size, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea is full of adventure.
In 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea The Brilliant minds of Captain Nemo and Professor Arronax save them in times of danger, Captain Nemo's knowledge of the sea allows him to guide his submarine across the world, confronting the sea's greatest beauties and threats. Jules Verne does a very good job of telling the story and making out every last inch of the amazing journeys taken place on board the Nautilus. In my opinion this was a very good book, there are times in the book were discussions between the captain and the professor take place that are extremely difficult to comprehend, but in the end I would say this book is definitely worth the money. However as I've said before almost every page has Old English in it and is hard to understand, the sentences are very difficult and there are some words which I'd never heard before in my life, so because of the books complexity I would have to say that only someone 13+ can read this, this would be great for adults even, but I don't think anyone below the 7th grade could fully understand it, a 6th grader could but not get the full detail of the book

</review>
<review>

If you're going to read one of the great classics of literature-and you should-don't pick up this edition.  It is a reprint of a version that dates back to the 1870s and was exposed more than 40 years ago for cutting nearly one-quarter of Verne's story and mistranslating much of the remainder.  Its reappearance in this edition is all the more amazing considering Tor's status as a leading science fiction publisher, and the company's willingness to perpetrate this fraud on is many readers is truly stunning.  If you want to truly get to know Verne's novel, pick up the elegant Naval Institute Press edition, in a modern, complete, updated translation, with commentary by the leading American Verne expert today, Walter James Miller.  That book also comes with many of the artistic engravings that illustrated the original French first edition (no illustrations are to be found in the B and N Mercier reprint).  Less attractive but more academic is the Oxford Classics version of Twenty Thousand Leagues.  This review is posted on behalf of the North American Jules Verne Society by Jean-Michel Margot, president NAJVS

</review>
<review>

Of course... it's still not the same as reading the book.....
But as far as Audio Books go, it was wonderful!
I love this story!!!!

</review>
<review>

I'm only able to listen to audiobooks because not many are produced in braille, and those that are are so ridiculously high in price range.  So when I saw the Talisman on audio on Amazon, I knew I had to read it.  Frank Muller narrating the book was also another reason why I snapped it up.
These two authors work extremely well together, and Muller delivers an absolutely stunning performance.  Yes, its a bit lengthy, but I for one enjoy reading epics such as this.  The main characters are easy to identify with, and due to Muller's methods of portraying each one through outstanding vocal performances, it was very difficult to see one of these characters die midway through the novel.  Yes, I had to stop the tape and just cry for a few minutes.  I mean, the guy's that good at making you become attached to the characters.  I'd give you a synopsis, or try to analyse this thing, but its been done before.  If Amazon still carries the unabridged recording of this book on either cassette or cd, and if you have the cash, why not experience this novel in audio format?  And if you've never listened to anything performed by Muller, here's one of his best.

</review>
<review>

This is a plot to flip for (read the book!)!  Who else but the two masters of the dark side could team up to create such an incredibly scary, tearjerking, suspense filled dream of a book but King and Straub!  One of my ALL TIME favorite reads!

This book combines childhood dreams, fantasy, mystery, a smidgen of horror and a lot of magic and suspense.  You won't be able to put it down so don't start till you have plenty of free time to spend with Jack Sawyer and his band of buddies (and foes).

You'll end the book wanting more, I guarantee it.  Great read, great story, great storytelling.

</review>
<review>

I liked this book.  I like all of Kings books, some better than others and some I will read over and over and over.  This one is the Prequel to black house...I like this one better but they are both good and I would read them together if you haven't read either of them..

</review>
<review>

I'm not giving anything away here.  Just wanted to say that this book was still enchanting the second time around.  I read it the first time when I was a teenager, and now in my 30s I have re-read it and have fallen in love again.  Well written, endearing, truly a classic

</review>
<review>

The book was everything I expected. The story was great and the characters developed the whole way to the end. Action, suspence and a happy ending. Not all King books have a happy ending but I'm glad this one did.

</review>
<review>

About a year ago I read "Black House" and thoroughly enjoyed it. I immediately knew I wanted to read "The Talisman", a book about the young Jack Sawyer and his early adventures in the Territories. However, there are always books I want to read and it took me until now to get to it. I must say that I did not find this book to be all that compelling in the beginning, but around the time Wolf made his appearance in the narrative I started getting hooked.

"The Talisman" is the story of a quest. 12 year old Jack Sawyer must find and claim the Talisman to save not only the life of his mother, but the life of her "Twinner", who is the queen of an alternate world called the Territories. But more than the lives of these two women is at stake. Jack must defeat the evil forces that are corrupting both worlds, and possibly even worlds beyond these worlds. King and Straub have done an excellent job of creating a believable alternate world and filling the book with memorable characters, both good and evil.

Above all "The Talisman" is a book about love, friendship, loyalty and bravery with characters you will never forget

</review>
<review>

The Talisman chronicles the adventure of a twelve year old boy named Jack Sawyer. The young hero sets out from the East Coast of the USA in a bid to save his mother, who is dying from cancer. Jack needs to find the mystical artifact known only as the 'The Talisman'.
Werewolves, both good and bad, inhabit the far western parts of a world parallel to America known as The Territories - which incidentally are part of the Dark Tower World.  A sixteen-year-old Wolf, simply named Wolf, is accidentally drawn pulled into America by Jack Sawyer, and the two form a strong friendship as they seek ways to travel between their worlds and find the talisman.
The book is split between The Territories and our world's America. King and Straub are able to constantly throw Jack from the frying pan to the fire, as he escapes from one life-threatening situation to another. Jack must retrieve the Talisman before it falls into enemy hands and will be lost to him forever.
A different type of book for King, as it involves the creation of worlds other than our own...A concept he uses almost exclusively in his Dark Tower stories and the Eyes of the Dragon.  However, this is a successful stand alone novel, in its own right and I would suggest picking up a copy of this for a rainy day so you too can visit another world...

Relic113

</review>
<review>

I've read The Talisman by Stephen King  and  Peter Straub no less than ten times, and I'm sure I'll read it at least that many more times, if not more.  One of my favorite novels of all time, The Talisman is the modern version of Tom Sawyer and the newer version of The Lord Of The Rings.  Bold statements, I know, but I can't say enough about this book.  King  and  Straub just clicked on this project and the results are brilliant.

12 year-old Jack Sawyer is on a quest to save his dying mother.  He has to cross the country to find The Talisman and in order to do so he has to cross over into the territories (a parrallel world) to find his way through terrors unimagined.

I've loved this book since the first time I read it way back when it came out.  The first book, unfortunately,  makes its sequel, Black House, look like a booger in comparrison.  Bummer.  Enjoy the first.  Truly amazing.

Dig it

</review>
<review>

not my favorite but still interesting.  Lots of description that can get your head pounding after a while though; it's def. not a 2-3 day read

</review>
<review>

I liked this book a lot because it was a real adventure and it was very exciting. I kept reading because I kept asking myself what would happen next. It deffinately kept me interested until the end...except when it got to the end I was quite disapointed. The ending just left me hanging. Is there a sequel to this book? I wish

</review>
<review>

I happened to read Seize The night first. I was still pulled in to this first book in the series. The charcaters are very likable and the book left me wanting to know even more about them. Dean Koontz is one of the best writers of our time

</review>
<review>

I love reading amazon reviews and it's astonishing how especially in Koontz' case reviews seem to vary between 5 and 1 star reviews all the time.

I have enjoyed about 8 different books by him and this one so far is my favourite. Let me say though that I am listening to an audio version. It's about 12 hours long but unabridged.

The most criticized aspect about Koontz seems to be, that he can get totally carried away by his own literary ambitions, partly rambling on and on - again, I catch myself from time to time not listening, just to wake up to the story again..."what was that?".

While this is a complete turn-off for many, for me this is just something that bothers me sometimes, but all in all I still find them enjoyable.

For a downloadable version to listen to on your ipod go to audible.com

Why is the book good? For once, he has created a likeable character, even better than Odd Thomas. I don't have to draw this out, other reviews have done that already. Also the dog is great of course.

But especially I like the very real creepiness of some parts of the book, they are almost memorable like in "they should be famous", like the part where jack nickolson breaks through the door with an ax in "the shining" (the movie) is kind of famous in an inofficial way.

For example, there is a great part with a monkey, narrated so brilliantly that one gets wet hands. There is a fabulous part about a cat and a dog grinning at each other, the most surreal writing I have ever encountered. I almost freaked when listening to this, it was that good (and I am not new to the horror-genre). Obviously it's not about the grinning, but the entire feeling of whatelse is going on. Truly hallucinogenic writing. You want to look out for those pages, all this happens on a boat, more than half-way through the book. WORLD-CLASS! You've never read anything quite like it,  very admirable writing and thinking. Maybe also taking drugs or drinking a lot while writing it. lol. And then, there is a very creepy part with a cop, the main character and the dog in a car. wow, very scary, as the cop pours out his innermost phantasies, especially since noone knows if he's really a cop... Can't say no more, I am engrossed by the story and have to return to the last three hours of the audio-book now.

All in all some parts are so very very good, that they compensate for the typical Koontz-shortcomings.

I would also like to point out a review here by M.Dorsey just a few clicks away. While my rating of the book is different, look up his or her review, for there is still a lot of truth in it and I just laughed myself silly. Thanks M. Dorsey

</review>
<review>

linked to koontz's work *midnight,* this is another interesting look at possibilities. he artfully portrays the character of christopher snow and his rare disorder with a compassionate heart for that which is challenging. koontz always uses an element or two of psychology in his works, and this one is no different. koontz has done his research yet again so that he can accurately portray the physical and psychological effects of snow's disorder. also one of koontz's more humorous novels, this was one of my favorites.

</review>
<review>

Good read over all that keeps you interested from start to finish. If you can handle all the monkey business that seems a little goofy at times, it will be an enjoyable read

</review>
<review>

As a huge fan of the book Watchers, the parallel in the two books was clear and overall this was a good book.

The characters are somewhat interesting and the genius/killer monkeys were an interesting touch. Koontz has really used the genetic engineering aspect to the breaking point; If he continues to write with this idea then his novels will surely suffer. He also has overused the rogue Government agency idea, he needs a new angle. The book had some good aspects and was fairly enjoyable but not one of his best works.

By the way, avoid Seize the Night, it was just a lame attempt at a sequel

</review>
<review>

This book is sooo extremely informative. It explores issues relating to Muslim women from many different Islamic perspectives (non-Muslims seem to be shocked that there is actually more than one Islamic perspective!!!). Roald, a convert to Islam, critically examines specific issues from the eyes of the most important and relevant players in contemporary Islamic discourse, from Eastern and Western Muslim feminists, to the typical mainstream Muslim writers (in the West and in the Arab world), to the Wahhabi/Salafi literalists. She is honest and insightful, and she includes personal experiences and anecdotes gathered from interviewees. She also gives well cited hadeeth evidence and Quranic verse to explain where many of her subjects' views originate. She ties modern Islamic rhetoric on women's issues to the convergence of Western cultural encounters with Islam/Muslims due to colonialism and globalization, together with basic Islamic sources of knowledge (Quran and hadeeth), and with culturalized Islam in the Arab context. This book is a MUST READ for people who want to take a critical and well-informed look at the "Women in Islam" issue

</review>
<review>

This is a book that talks about advertising/branding creativity. It's not about product design or R and D creativity.

Advertising creativity has a particularily difficult sales job because while people say they want creativity in their ads they tend to look at a group of ads or ad campaigns and select the traditional. After all, if you get too creative you get outside of what people are accustomed to seeing. And since 'everybody' is an expert on advertising the managers with the budgets select the ads.

A case in point was trying to sell the Skoda (automobile) brand name in England. The proposed campaign made a joke about how bad the Skoda brand name was in England. The boss from the factory says 'You want to run ads telling people the Skoda is crap? I won't approve it.' The British managers went around him, bought the program, it yielded great success.

This book is mostly a book of stories of ad campaigns that were successful. The other kind don't get written up. The lessons to be learned are in the research they did into the brand images, etc. of their clients

</review>
<review>

Have you ever wondered why some ad campaigns soar and others thud?  It's definitely not the amount of money thrown at them.  In Juicing the Orange: How to Turn Creativity into a Powerful Business Advantage by Pat Fallon and Fred Senn, they argue that it comes down to creatively solving that one key business issue the client has.

Contents: Redefining Creativity in Today's Marketing Environment; Outpacing the Commoditization of Your Brand; Fighting for Your Brand's Voice; Establishing and Leveraging a Category Advantage; Overcoming a Serious Branding Problem; Reviving a Mature Consumer Brand; Reenergizing a Mature Business Brand; Choosing the Best Media for the Message; Marketing a Network of Businesses Under One Brand; Rethinking Customer Engagement; Lessons Learned; Notes; Index; About the Authors

Fallon and Senn are co-founders of Fallon Worldwide, a global advertising company.  They use a number of real-life client examples to show what it takes to run a successful advertising campaign.  Much of it starts by listening to the company and also to the people who buy (or don't buy) the products.  These insights, coupled with an examination of the industry and competition, often points to the business problem to be solved.  It may be an attempt to "uncommoditize" your offering or an effort to re-educate the buying public as to what they should or shouldn't be doing.  For instance, Purina Dog Chow was a respected brand, but sales were slumping.  After listening to pet owners, vets, breeders, and trainers, it became apparent that the brand wasn't the issue.  The buying public had mistakenly assumed that variety was good for a dog's diet, where the professionals knew that consistency is more important.  Instead of trying to push the brand, they started educating the consumer on dietary best practices.  Once informed, the consumer reverted back to a single brand of dog food, and Purina was able to once again capitalize on their strong branding.

I think the thing I appreciated most about this book was the honesty.  Not all their efforts were stunning successes, and they didn't try to gloss those over or deflect the blame.  There's risk involved in many memorable campaigns, like Skoda's ads making fun of their horrible reputation after they had reversed their engineering failures.  Even the winners were not always a sure thing or nearly got axed before they were executed (like the EDS cat herder commercial).  But after reading these stories and the underlying principles, you'll come away with a much greater appreciation for what goes into a successful marketing effort.

A fun read, and one that I really wish had been longer...  I was enjoying it

</review>
<review>

Excellent real world examples of creative advertising/marketing and the thought process involved. A great read for newcomers to the advertising world

</review>
<review>

I loved this book. Fun  and  entertaining while providing meaningful, salient and actionable suggestions in (re)focusing one's activities and priorities in business development and management. I'm a recovering business executive just starting my own entrepreneurial business and this work has been enormously helpful. I can't recommend this enough. Get this book.


Author of
The Truth aboutt
Cafffeine


</review>
<review>

There are a few interesting nuggest in the first few pages and then story, after story, after story.  There's no doubt that their agency is successful but please present some principles and not story, after story, after story..

</review>
<review>

I loved this book.  I found this fun and entertaining while providing specific, salient, concise and actionable ideas on managing a business while being driven by creativity.  I'm a recovering business executive just starting my own entrepreneurial enterprise and I found this work enormously helpful in helping me define and launch my business.  I can't recommend this book enough.  GET THIS BOOK

</review>
<review>

True or false: is advertising obsolete? Fallon and Senn say true---unless it changes. And they go about showing how it must change in recounting their best campaigns(with some intellectual honesty in mentioning their losers). The Big Ideas: don't steal a competitor's emotion, find your own; ads must bear an A to B connection in more revenue generation; take risks to survive because incremental change will kill you. The chapter on Lee Jeans is one of the best: trust the focus groups when they have passion(here, teenagers want to feel indestructible in their jeans); don't ape the competition(the strong desire to be sexy like levi's);  don't be afraid to go to your roots(here, bring back a doll icon from the compnay's past); and know, above all else, that emotions drive decisions---the reason is tacked on later. They also talk about how they run their shop---fire  prima dona employees or unreasonable clients; understand what is worth fighting over; undertstand that creativity is team driven; believe in a few core idea and push them over and again

</review>
<review>

I found this book as enlightening and delightful as sitting and having a drink with a great leader in advertising. Personally, it has reinvigorated my own perspective as an agency Account Manager and I'm excited and motivated all over again about the accomplishments and contributions we can all make in marketing

</review>
<review>

With fiction there is usually some distance between the reader and the action described.  After all, the reader is seated in a comfortable chair, one assumes, in pleasant surroundings.  But such is not the case with this novel.  The distance between this reader and the story disappeared almost from the beginning, and like the Wedding Guest in Coleridge's poem, I was dragged from Ohio to Mississippi in the heat of summer and forced to witness things I didn't want to see but could not avoid.

The book starts with an intense rape, described in detail.  A ten-year-old black girl is savaged by two cretins and left for dead by the side of the road.  When the girl's father kills the rapists, he is arrested for murder.  The book then focuses on his white defense attorney and the trial of a black man for murdering two whites--in Mississippi--although I suspect the tension would be little different elsewhere in America.

The plot is engrossing and the outcome is satisfying.  It certainly kept me reading late at night, long after I was tired.  The characters are extremely well drawn--diverse, individual, self-contradictory.  The atmosphere of a small county seat in the South is perfect.  After reading the book, I think I could find my way through the court house, the little restaurants and the defense attorney's offices.  The dialogue is just as excellent.

It is difficult sometimes to define exactly what the moral position of the author might be.  He seems even handed, understanding of all the parties and their positions.  That can be annoying at times, but it adds to the truthfulness of the book.  All sorts of people get into the action and not always for or against the defendant but rather for themselves.  There is the NAACP--the local ministers--the ambitious prosecutor--the defense attorney who dreams of fame from this trial--and lastly the ad hoc local KKK.

My only reservation would be in recommending this novel to the faint of heart.  The rape is not the only intense scene in the book.  The reader should be prepared for gasping a few times as the story unfolds.  Still, the trip will be worth it.  Brilliant--that's the only word to describe this.

</review>
<review>

I really am enjoying the audio recording of this book, but the one thing that really bothers me is the repeated use of the n word, to the point that it seems a bit gratuitous. I understand that sometimes authors feel language that is offensive is warranted for a period or regional piece, but I think there is a fine line between creating a sense of believability and just plain overdoing it.

</review>
<review>

I had to read this book for school. I thought I would love it, but it turns out I was WRONG. This book was mind numbing. It is drawn out and boring. I almost threw the book away and rented the movie. I should have. This books sucks. Don't waste your time reading it

</review>
<review>

"A Time to Kill" is definitely Grisham's best novel.  It's interesting that it was Grusham's first novel, but it was rejected for publication until after some of his other novels were published.  The story deals with a number of issues that all intertwine seamlessly.  Racism, murder, justice, revenge, law and order, etc.  The story will hold you from start to finish.  Most of Grisham's newer novels are simple, predictable stories that bash attorneys.  That is not the case with "A Time to Kill".  It will grip you, tear you and entertain you all at the same time

</review>
<review>

A Time to Kill and The Broker are my two favs from Grisham.  Suspense is the name of the game.   I like books that make me read them straight through because they're so suspense filled. Another great novel is Deadly Behavior by Dee Sullivan.

</review>
<review>

I have been interested in reading something by Grisham for quite a while, but I was recently "pushed" to actually read one of his books when I saw the movie version of "A Time to Kill". The obvious book to start with was "A Time to Kill". I had heard that Grisham is good, and I really enjoyed the movie, so I was expecting a lot. I was not disappointed. This book brings out some very interesting ideas about murder and the justification for it. It also gave a very large amount of information about the legal system in general and trials in particular. This legal iformation was probably my favorite part.
Throughout the book, I found myself thinking through how I would try to convince the jury to free Carl Lee. The book was obviously "prejudiced" in that it was written from the aspect of Carl Lee having adequate reason to murder the two rapists, but even so, there is a lot of material having to do with proving that.

Overall, this book isn't perfect, but its problems are relatively minor and do not detract from the book. The entire book flows rather smoothly and it really keeps you intrigued. I highly recommend this book, as well as others by Grisham. I will be reading more of his books soon. Also, I would recommend the book "The Sacrifice" by Robert Whitlow. It is a very intriguing legal thriller that is somewhat similar in style to Grisham's writing. I just finished reading it earlier today and it is great. Read and enjoy

</review>
<review>

I've read many of Grisham's novels, and this remains my favourite.  It addresses complex issues and does not attempt to gloss them over.  I recommend this novel to those more familiar with Grisham's more recent work: this is what he is capable of, and it is outstanding.
Whether or not the end is 'right', it is satisfying

</review>
<review>

This is my all-time favorite book.  In one word - POWERFUL.  Grisham does an excellent job at bringing the characters alive and making you care about them.  There is a lot of description to help you understand the south at a time when blacks were begining to be people, not things.  Wonderful

</review>
<review>

John Grisham has quite a reputation as being a very prolific author.  Being the best selling author the 90's means you've got quite a reputation.  So I wanted to see what all the fuss was about and I picked up "A Time to Kill."  Needless to say it was a good book, but there are a few moments where it glares.  As it is Grisham's first book (and believe me, in some areas it shows), I'd expect a lack of substance.  Surprisingly, there's substance.  But there are times when the book really rambles on for a very long time.

When a ten year old black girl gets raped by two drunken high racists white men, the father is outraged and decides to take justice into his own hands.  So he gets a hold of an assault rifle and guns the two rapists down.  Now Carl Lee Haily is on trial for vigilant justice, and the whole world is watching.  The lawyer to defend Carl Lee is a young man named Jake Brigance.

A reoccuring theme in the book seems to be the question, "What if it were your daughter?"  It posses a pretty thought provoking question, and whatever you decide on isn't wrong.  It's your interpretation.  The book touches on a lot of touchy areas.  Not just rape, vigilante justice, and the court systems, but it also touches on racism as well.  If you're easily offended by racism, this book is not for you.  It IS uncensored, but a lot of people tend to forget it's fiction, and doesn't express the authors true beliefs (any time an author touches race they're immediately labeled racist, you can usually find these accusations in one star reviews).  There are moments where it is offensive.  Even more so, the KKK plays a huge portion in the book.  There are a lot of common stereotypes, but it's nothing to get worked up about.  Again, it's fiction.

Second, the book really does ramble from time to time.  Grisham himself even admitted it in his notes.  The book is fantastic, the story even better.  The problem is... there's too much mumbo jumbo and not enough story.  Also, as it nears the end, a lot of stuff happens that either doesn't make much sense, or is totally unbelievable.

Grisham has a good story, but his characters are also a little flawed.  Very stereotypical in their roles.  Jake Brigance is the dashing hero, Carl Lee Haily the man in distress.  There's even one character he sort of forgets about.  In fact, he forgot about the character so much he never made it into any one page of the last two-hundred.  And there was no end to his story.

So yes, it's a good book.  However, it does ramble.  It's a great story, perhaps one of the best works of fiction I've read in a long time.  Some characters are cliched, and if race-relations aren't your thing... this book isn't for you.  I'm not offended by the book (I am an African-American), but I seem to notice others are.

Great story.  Rambles a bit from time to time, but overall, a good story.  One where you can get to end, disagree (or agree) and still say to yourself it wasn't bad.  It's definitely worth the time, despite the fact that it could be a little shorter.

</review>
<review>

A Tme to Kill, the debut novel from Acclaimed writer John Grishman deals with the thinly threaded storylines dealing with a rape and attempted murder of a [young] black girl.  Soon after race issues boil over as protesters on both sides of the fences barrier over the woodwork. Grishman expertly narrarates this complex issue by focusing on the more simplistic, organic notions of the case, and the bodies that are affected by each decision that is made.  True, the ending seems rather rushed and he certainly could of filled another 50-100 pages without question, but in the long run everyone believes that this magnificent story of Racial disharmony in present day and age end up asking, not answering, questions that need to be asked. Grishman was quoted in the reprinted foreword in saying he wouldn't change a word.  With a story like that, you can see that he doesn't need to, compelling storytelling will always be compelling storytelling. In the End Grisham nails it out of the park, and leaves his readers yearning for more

</review>
<review>

This book does a great job of covering several areas of debt that all consumers will find helpful.  It is written in an easy to understand language, yet rich with detail and a variety areas covered.  The chapter on debt collections touched on the topic of statute of limitations, which is very important to many consumers, including me.  I found that two other books that I read on consumer debt did not deal at all with this important topic.  I thank Garrett Sutton (and contributor Gerri Detweiler) for a very valuable book

</review>
<review>

I read this book to get a little more famaliar with budgets, and was very impressed with how many things this book touched on.

Very well written

</review>
<review>

The ABC's of Getting Out of Debt:Trade Your Bad Debt for Good Debt and Your Bad Credit for Good Credit really stands out among the many credit and debt related books available to consumers for many reasons. For starters, the book covers the topic of credit and debt in a very thorough and objective manner. Such critical, but often overlooked, topics as the health effects of debt are addressed. In addition, the book provides very simple and practical steps to help consumers that are struggling with credit and/or debt problems.

While the book is geared toward consumers that have credit or debt problems, all consumers can benefit greatly from the legal expertise of the author and from the expertise of Gerri Detweiler, who contributed to the book. For this reason, I strongly recommend that every consumer reads this book.

- Curtis Arnold, Founder of CardRatings.co

</review>
<review>

I actually have the audio version of the book and found it to be both broad and in-depth. The author dispels many of the credit myths, and examines exactly how credit is established, rated, and how it can be used in both good and bad ways. He spends a lot of time reviewing the subject of "credit repair" explaining how scammers (especially on the internet)operate. He focuses on what you can do legally to improve your credit. I've read most books on credit and debt management and found this to be a welcome addition to my bookshelf.

</review>
<review>

I am new to conformation.  This book was easy to read and had alot of great tips/suggestions/ideas for conformation

</review>
<review>

The revised edition of Pat Hastings and Erin Ann Rouse's Tricks Of The Trade: From Best Intentions To Best In Show expands information for any active in purebred dogs, discussing judging, effective breeding, rearing a show dog, training, nutrition, grooming and presentation. There are many insider tricks and tips included, all gained from the author's experiences, and practical reviews which are absolutely essential to successful showing. Tricks Of The Trade is a must for any serious dog show competitor; especially newcomers.

</review>
<review>

Pat has done it again!  The tremendous wealth of information that was in the first edition, only bigger and better!  The skeletal images are a fantastic addition and all of the extra material contributes enough to make it well worth it.  I loved the first edition and this one is even better.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is serious about purebred dogs - and even for someone who is just interested in canine sports like agility or flyball.  There is so much structural wisdom in these pages that it is a benefit to all who read it.

A++ in my grade book

</review>
<review>

How awful was this book. I had more questions than answers. Talk about speculations, and what ending. I wrote the author because I was hoping he could help me clear up some questions I had. He did respond - "I don't discuss my books". Therefore, I will no longer buy and/or read his books. That is my own RAGE

</review>
<review>

This is an excellent book.  I am a huge Jonathan Kellerman fan

</review>
<review>

Randolph (Rand) Duchay and Troy Turner, both age thirteen, kidnap and kill a two-year-old girl after trying to get her to puff on a cigarette and drink some beer. Big surprise--she gagged, cried and fussed. Psychologist Alex Delaware was asked by the judge to evaluate each kid and submit his opinion to the judge as to whether they should be tried as juveniles or adults. They're tried and sent off to separate youth detention centers. Troy is dead six weeks later. Rand gets out at age 20 and is dead three days later. However, hours before his death, he called Delaware, asking to meet with him. Alex and his police friend, homicide detective Milo Sturgis, begin investigating Rand's murder. The investigation leads them to all sorts of crazy people, relationships and situations.

I've enjoyed Mr. K's past books; but lately he seems to be avoiding the suspense factor in his stories. This book leaves a few loose ends and Alex's love life up in the air.

</review>
<review>

This was my first reading of a Kellerman novel, though I'd obviously heard about him for years. I can't imagine a read much more painful than this novel. He is the king of what writers call Talking Heads, just pages and pages of dialogue that go nowhere. He also loves convenience, an absolute deal killer in mystery and suspense. The characters Delaware interviews protest for a few sentences then suddenly realize they better help him. And then there are the pages and pages and pages where he and Milo have to have impossibly mundane dialogue so the author can tell you how the mystery is unfolding...because nothing in the material leads to any mystery of merit. It's also amazing that Kellerman is a psychologist and his character is one as well, and yet so often it is other characters pointing out what even amateur phsychologists or observers of human beings would know. If this is, as the jacket says, "one of the world's most popular authors", I need to go in search of the worst sellers.

</review>
<review>

I like John Rubenstein's readings of Kellerman's many crime novels, which have continuity with old and new characters.

I listen to the audio versions on c.d.  and  cassette, and don't need the printed versions.

It's a pleasure to let Rubinstein do the heavy eye-lid lifting.

These novels tell everything I wanna know about Los Angeles-- more than is necessary but I luv Kellerman's trivia as much as anybody can.

Hey, I'm now an expert on Detroit too, thanks to Loren Estleman's crime novels.

The gifted writer cleverly weaves in clues and plot developments via conversations in
coffee shops, utilizing personalities of waitresses, defenses/offenses/justifications of psychological theories, the conceits of academia, human-being cops, advantages/defects of state-city-county governmental administrations  and  bureaucracies, harsh realisms of ordinary real life, morgues, urban sub-cultures, human-being shrinks, delicious mundane steak-houses, Delaware's 1970ish Seville, street driving in L.A., and, heckfire,  it's  overall entertaining fodder.

I couldn't do it as well; while fortunately the novels are usually not beyond comprehension.

Because, RAGE keeps my attention, as twisted and complicated as it gets, while nevertheless compulsive fun.

So RAGE is my latest rage, and
others should enjoy it.





</review>
<review>

On his release from prison, child murderer Rand Duchay contacted the only person who had ever showed him any compassion on the outside, psychologist Alex Delaware. The two never met again, as Duchay was killed before they can meet. The murderer's murder reopened a number of related cases, which on re-examination are not as straightforward as the initially seemed.

Doctor Delaware and detective Milo Sturgis unravel a web of murders, each leading to another killing and another motive. They also peel back the layers of bureaucracy from a faulty child welfare system, which was indirectly responsible for some of the deaths.

Author Jonathan Kellerman has a background in child psychology, which ensures main character Alex Delaware has a genuine and believable edge to him. Like a real investigation, the evidence is presented only one small piece at a time, with dead ends, false trails and unexpected twists. Even when all the evidence is in place, the book's conclusion is still a surprise.

While child murders are a shocking, and somewhat distasteful, subject for a thriller, Kellerman deals with the subject without glorifying it, and even shows the deep emotional scars such crimes cause. This is the thirteenth Alex Delaware novel, so the character is very well developed, but even a reader new to this series can relate to him

</review>
<review>

I just saw this exhibit at our MoMA, and the work is outstanding. Some of the images are color, some black and white. There are a number of styles and artists, ranging from the very famous to those unknown outside of their small communities. The point is that these are images of musicians--it's that simple.

Sometimes, Liebovitz's work is witty, sometimes it is unflinching in its honest portrayal. There is vulnerability in the subjects of her black and whites because they are so close, often just the face of the subject. To term them "ugly" is simply wrong. It is rare to see behind the artifice of celebrity images and see performers without makeup and with their skin texture and pores visible. Some of the photos are taken in people's homes, or backstage rather than on a set. This lends considerably to the intimacy and honesty that she is trying to convey.

If you want shots of your favorite singer looking oh so pretty, go to their PR person. This is a serious body of work from a renowned photographer. It blends both her celebrity work with her own private interests in portrait photography for non-commercial audiences.

</review>
<review>

The catalog is gorgeous, the photographs are indeed spectacular.  While the written entries were wonderful, they were too few and left me wanting more.  I guess that's a good thing

</review>
<review>

In response to another review on this site, clearly if you think the book has "poor aesthetic quality"  You know nothing of photography or art for that matter.
The people in this book are beautifully portrayed in silver and in color.  Clearly the photographs were taken over a number of years, which shows the scope of the project.
The only thing that I find wrong with this project is that it may be unfinished.  The book is called American Music.  Cleary that is why there are mainly blues, rock and roll and hip, country/folk and hip hop artists.  Obviosly everyone would like to see their favorite artists in the book and have the ones they dislike removed.  I however feel that this is the artists choice, and we have to live with it.  If Leibovits decides to put out a 'Part II' it would do all of us a favor.
The only reason why I don't give this a 5 out of 5 stars is that most of the photographs don't grab you by the face and demand your attention.  The ones that grab me the most are the artists I folllow, so perhaps there is something in that.  Some measure of knowlegde that must accompany the photographs.  Buy the book anyways...and listen to more blues albums.  I didn't check this review for spelling, HA

</review>
<review>

Gee.  I've never heard that poor aesthetic quality is an essential element of art.  I'm not even sure what  and quot;poor aesthetic quality and quot; means.  But if it describes the heartbreaking, iconic portrait of Johnny Cash and June Carter, then I surely want more of it.  These are beautiful, sometimes funny and often emotionally moving pictures in which the subjects collaborate with the artist to present a certain face to the world. Maybe not all the faces are completely honest ones, but they're interesting and beautifully photographed

</review>
<review>

Once you've read the first page of this book you won't be able to put it down

</review>
<review>

and I'm glad that I did.  I read the Killing Floor many years ago and was not impressed.  It wasn't bad, but Child did not belong in the same league with many of the other author's in the genre that I enjoyed. 3 stars would be a generous rating for that first novel. First being the operative word. Boy, has Child's writing improved.  Full of terrific twists, One Shot is a great page turner with a very well thought out plot.  I plan to read the whole series.  Highly recommended

</review>
<review>

A man's book.  Love all of Lee Child's stories

</review>
<review>

This is my second adventure with Jack Reacher and it has been the best so far. So good that I succumbed and have ordered all of them.

The apparent villian in this book, a former army sniper by the name of James Barr has been arrested and charged with murdering five innocent people as they left work on a Friday afternoon. The arrest comes quickly after the killing. The evidence is overwhelming. They have the rifle, the clothing, the ammunition, the shoes, the vehicle and they can match everything to the crime scene. Even to the point of finding a quarter in the parking meter where the shooter parked with Barr's fingerprint on it. How much more does anyone need?

None as far as the police and the DA go. Barr is not talking when he is grabbed by the police except to say "You've got the wrong guy" and "Get me Jack Reacher."

Reacher is already on the way to Indiana where the shooting took place after hearing about it and Barr's name. However, he is not coming to help Barr. He is coming to see that he is put behind bars forever.

How he gets from that mind set to investigating the many facets of the crime and all the other aspects of what is going on is one great read. It is totally absorbing and very well done.


</review>
<review>

There is nothing essentially wrong with the plot and its suspense: sniper gets caught for multiple murder; the case seems watertight, then isn't, then gets solved by the hero from outside, the solution involving some inside dirt.
So far so good.
I have some problems with the hero, which is not really a criticism of the book, only of the hero: he has dirty habits, i.e. he changes clothes only every 4 days to reduce luggage, and he buys a toothbrush and a shaver only when he expects to meet a former girlfriend. Well, that may be a matter of taste.
There is one more thing wrong with the hero, and this time it is a criticism: he has this Sherlock Holmes-ian habit of coming up with great new deductions out of nowhere. As a reader, I feel a little annoyed: the man Reacher keeps doing unexplained things which then provide the basis for moving forward with the solution. I don't like that narrative technique.
One small thing about the plot, and I think it is a true error of the writer, but without impact on the whole: in the early sections there is a tape that the first defense lawyer takes when he meets the accused for the first time. Why is the tape running before the lawyer enters the room? That is never explained.
I have some issues with the writing too. The style is tense, short sentences, sometimes staccato rhythms. But not all sentences are precise. On page 1, we find: He was alone behind the wheel. Think about that.
There are quite a few sentences which would have deserved to be re-written.
All in all: quite ok, but I still will not elevate Jack Reacher into the list of my favorite sleuths

</review>
<review>

I was looking for the new Spenser book in my local bullseye-themed maxi-mart, since I was there anyway and had to kill time while my spouse tried on and retried swimsuits.  Shockingly, they didn't have it, but they did have this little jewel by Lee Child.

I had heard of Child, vaguely, but never read him (in fact, I thought he was a woman).  But I had read a review or a blurb or a sentence somewhere indicating that the Jack Reacher books were violent bloodbaths and that appealed to me, so I decided to solace myself with "One Shot".

It was good, people.  Jack Reacher is just the right combination of sly, smart and impossibly tough.  He is Spenser without the smarminess of Susan.  He is Phillip Marlowe, only meaner than the streets he walks.  He is The Punisher without the stupid costume.  He is a can of whoopass.

The plot centers vaguely on a completely unbelievable scenario, a lone sniper killing that unfolds into something more.  Once you find out the "more" you may end up shaking your head and saying to yourself "No, that just won't do".  But if you wanted crisp, seamless plots you wouldn't be reading men's thrillers, would you?  So toss that objection aside and just immerse yourself in the coolness that is Jack Reacher and the writing machine that is Lee Child

</review>
<review>

I enjoyed this book as I have all the other Jack Reacher stories.  I hope Lee Child doesn't run out of steam too quickly.

</review>
<review>

This is a real page turner...you will read this and get adicted to Jack Reacher!  Highly recommend for a great summer read

</review>
<review>

Lee Child's Jack Reacher series continues to grow, remaining vibrant and surprising into Book #8, "One Shot."  Reacher continues to walk the earth, seeking the solace of not-having-a-plan that only frustrated career military man can know.  This time, Reacher is in Miami, enjoying the sights and the female company, when he hears a name of his past on the evening news, James Barr.  Seems James Barr shot five innocents in Indiana for no apparent reason.  Five head shots, six bullets.  So Reacher high-tails it to Indiana, intent on keeping a promise to make James Barr suffer for this sin and a prior one.  And this will be a painful reunion for Barr.

But Reacher will be astounded that Barr's only statement after being caught as red-handed as red-handed could be is, "You've got the wrong guy.  Get me Jack Reacher."

Reacher finds himself caught up in a diabolical plot involving murder, civic corruption, blackmail, extortion, and the Russian mob.  Once again, Child gives Reacher ample opportunities to use his big brain and his bigger fists to blow up a fiendish conspiracy, and thanks to Child's skill, it's not always clear whether its more fun to watch Reacher solve a problem with intellect, a rifle, or raw brawn.

Despite some of the rave reviews, I didn't warm up to "One Shot" as much as I enjoyed some of the other Reacher books.  More so than other stories, Reacher stands just outside this one -- Reacher has no affection for Mr. Barr, and his motivation in "One Shot" is more of a "you've made me angry, and you won't like me when I'm angry" rather than an emotional connection with the innocent victims - a motivation that Child has used to great effect in other books.

That's a minor quibble, I suppose.  All the usual high marks of a Lee Child novel are present, including his villain, "the Zec."  An 80-year old Soviet gulag survivor, the Zec passed insanity a long time ago, but he still has an eye out for profit the old fashioned way, civic corruption.  The Zec is such a scary individual that when one of his henchmen screws up one time too often, the henchman willingly digs his own grave and blows his own head off (with a gun handed to him by the Zec) rather than try to escape.  Heroes are generally measured by their villains, and Child always gives the reader a doozy.

A must-read for fans of Jack Reacher, but if you are new to the series, don't read "One Shot" until you've read the first seven novels, starting with "Killing Floor.

</review>
<review>

From his early days at Columbia, starting out with the Liveright Publishers in the 1920's, and buying into the Modern Library Classics, this is without doubt the best look at publishing I've ever read! The amusing story of how a special copy of Ulysses came across the Atlantic, and into the hands of US Customs is worth the price of the book! Add to that, hilarious yarns, like meeting with Gerturde Stein  and  her Sidekick Alice, featuring the hilarious promotion of their book so it could "compete" with the hot new book FOREVER AMBOR ,and its even hotter author K. Windor makes for some real fun. Mr. Cerf even wrote a short comment in some of Ms. Stein's books admitting he could not always figure out what they were about. A trip to London to meet Bernard Shaw is also good for some laughs. His comments on many other "Literati", including Saroyan, Faulkner, O' Hara, Ayn Rand,Wittaker Chambers, etc. plus general comments on the state of the world are all top. In short, a must read for anyone of all ages, even if you don't care too much about writing and publishing!

</review>
<review>

The beauty of this book is that you get to know Bennett Cerf as the scholarly, brillant, and excellent businessman who met the most amazing and well known writers of the 20th century. The gentle questioner on What's My Line was the powerhouse of Random House.

This is the book you keep if you want insights into the personalities of such greats as Sinclair Lewis, F Scott Fitzgerald, William Saroyan, James Joyce, William Faulkner, Dorothy Parker, and a hundred other writers.

This is the book you keep when you want to remember a time when, in business deals, your word was all that was needed and great writing meant having something intelligent to say

</review>
<review>

When all of us who are now officially Older Than Dirt were growing up back in the 1960's, we usually aspired to be one of three particular men of achievement. For those of us with an athletic bent, Mickey Mantle was the man of choice. For those adventurers and dreamers among us, John Glenn appeared to offer the perfect life. Finally, for us bookish sorts, Bennett Cerf, publisher of Random House, panelist on "What's My Line," author of some of the worst puns ever written, and all around man about town, was who we aspired to be. This book is in essence his memoirs, told in oral history format just a short time before his unexpected death in 1971. He describes in detail why he was able to grow Random House at such a rapid rate: in his day, the book business was a stuffy one, and no publisher worth his salt would dream of lowering himself to seek out new authors. Bennett, being young, foolish, and very intelligent, would travel to wherever these authors lived and impress them with his obvious wit and sincerity. The sheer number and weight of authors whose service he was able to acquire through these means was absolutely staggering: Eugene O'Neill, James Joyce, Robinson Jeffers, Gertrude Stein, and Bill Styron, to name a very few. Through his liberal editing policies, he was even able to publish authors whose ideas he completely disagreed with, such as Ayn Rand. Some, like playwright Moss Hart, became lifelong friends. Although New Yorkers have long thought of their city as the center of the universe, Bennett's long and storied career made many believe it was true. The reader will enjoy his chatty, breezy style time and again, as a reminder that at one time, in the world of books and publishing, one man truly made a difference

</review>
<review>

We do seem to love the story of a child whose life is so miserable that it begs for a magical rescue and an exciting, dangerous and hair raising adventure.  In James and the Giant Peach we meet one James Henry Trotter, one of these very same children who like his predecessors and successors   (Harry Potter, Cinderella, Those Lemony Snickett Children, Hansel  and  Gretel, ect...) is leading a desperate and miserable life with is two wicked aunts...his parents were eaten by a wild, rampaging rhinoceros (naturally).  On one particularly bad day, Henry hides behind some bushes and meets a strange old man who gives him some magic crystals (green glowing pellet things), which he is supposed to drink (mixed with water and ten of his own hairs), but of course he promptly trips and spills them on the ground under an ancient and withered peach tree.

James is crushed when the crystals wiggle into the ground and are lost forever (or so he thinks)...but as with all magic, that's not the end of the story....it is merely the beginning.  Shortly thereafter, the tree grows the most enormous peach ever and the aunts are in the green, selling admission to the general public...but that money and fame doesn't make them any nicer and James winds up locked outside, where he discovers a hidden tunnel to the center of the peach!  Luckily for him the crystals have made quite the team for him to embark on an adventure with...the cantankerous Worm, the pest of a centipede, the wonderful Ms. Spider, the loveable lady bug, a glow worm, a silk worm, and an old grasshopper!  In short order, the free the giant peach from its branch, roll over the aunts and are on the way to a whole big adventure!

Dahl is always a treat, and his books stand up to the test of time...kids always seem to love a good evil guardian gets what they deserve while the miserable child gets to shine for the good hearted, hero he is and have a grand adventure too!  You'll have to read the book if you want to find out what happens to James and his gang once the peach gets rolling...you know you want to!  James and the Giant Peach is still a strange and twisted tale that is fun for children of all ages!  We highly recommend it!

</review>
<review>

James Henry Trotter lives a miserable life with his unpleasant relatives Aunt Spiker and Aunt Sponge.  When a mysterious old man gives James cooked crocodile tongues, strange things begin to happen.  A peach the size of a house grows on a withered tree in the aunt's garden.  James crawls inside this peach and finds it full of friendly oversized bugs,each with an amusing personality. James and his new bug friends journey from the aunt's garden and eventually end up in New York City after many exciting adventures. The goregous imagery,endearing songs and unique characters found in this tale have delighted a wide range of readers. This book is a joy to read and shall work it's magic on who all read it.


</review>
<review>

This is the best book ever written. Period. Seriously this book changed my life on many levels. James is the perfect little boy ever I wish he were my son-no scratch that I wish he was my husband. No but really this book made peaches my favorite food ever. Everyone should read it. It should be mandatory reading for citizenship into America, to obtain a highschool diploma, and to go to the bathroom.  Okay go read....then eat a peach. James and the Giant Peach is the besst book ever, it gave me morals. It solidified my views on the intersection of race, slavery, freedom, and talking centipedes. This book taught me right from wrong. This guy in the computer lab with me does not like this book I question his intelligence. He threw a frisbee paper plate at me, if he had read James and the Giant Peach he would know violence is not the anwser. that is all. go rea

</review>
<review>

(My first grade students have created a review to share with other readers.  This what they wrote.)
There was a little boy, James, who lived with his two mean ugly aunts.  Sadly, his mom and dad were eaten by a rhino.  The aunts made him work, he couldn't have friends, and he couldn't go to the beach.  One day a little green old man gave him magical crystals but James dropped them!  Later, in the spot where he dropped them, James found a huge peach.  He went inside and found a strange surprising sight and his life was changed!
We thought this story was totally awesome because there were a lot of surprising things that happened.  Every day, we couldn't wait to read the next chapter!  James and his new friends went on a great peachy adventure!

</review>
<review>

James and the giant peach is a great book!I love the pictures.James is a young boy with nagging dumb parents.James had a peach tree in his garden and in a few days the peach was huge.James found a hole in the peach and went inside it.James just saw yellow flesh.Then he cut a piece of and clibed inside the peach.When the creatures inside saw him they were in a panic.James was greeted by the silk worm and the glow worm.The other creatures made a drink because James was thirsty.James started to get used to them.I recomend this book for children who like Rhoal Dahl

</review>
<review>

I think that whenever I re-read James And The Giant Peach by Roald Dahl, I am transfixed by the fact that it was merely a child's story written by the author who brought us Charlie And The Chocolate Factory and Matilda and so many other wonderful classics.  Why do I love it?  I am an adult with children of my own.  Shouldn't they be reading it instead of dear old dad?  Well...yes  and  no.  Roald Dahl wrote many things in his lifetime and though he is remembered best for his children's fiction, he wrote a number of macabre tales and other adult-oriented stuff.  He never talked down in his books to kids and that is probably why I love James so much.  It was first read to me by a teacher in the fifth grade.  I can recall, each day at reading time, being entralled by the book, taking delight in every outlandish twist and turn.  As an adult, I gotta say, I still get a pretty big kick out of it.  So come along, join me and James Henry Trotter.  Watch out for Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker.  Is that a grasshopper, and a spider, and a centipede, and an earthworm....

Dig it

</review>
<review>

Go through the alphabet with Edward Gorey -- one death at a time! This is a great gift for anyone you might know with a dark sense of humor. Or as a gift to a young child whose parents you don't particularly like... This short story is, like all of Gorey, a wonderfully illustrated and twisted look at the world from a very different perspective. If you already like, or have an interest in Edward Gorey, I would recommend you skip this and just purchase Amphigorey which contains this story as well as many others

</review>
<review>

I was very pleased with the product that I ordered as well as the time it took to receive it - hardly any time at all

</review>
<review>

One of the most imaginative books I've ever read - I put it out when friends come over so we can laugh and talk about the images.  I'll definitely be getting Gorey's other books

</review>
<review>

What can you say about the quintessential Edward Gorey book that hasn't already been said?

I sent this to my friends' one-year-old for Christmas last year as her first ABC book.  In it I wrote that she ought to forget all the rainbows and unicorns and pixies like in all the other childrens' ABC books - that this is what life is REALLY like. My friend, who has a dark sense of humor, loved it as the book has been a favorite of hers from years ago.  Her husband, who had never encountered Gorey before, now wonders about the state of our mental health.  He also said that "it explains a lot...

</review>
<review>

I wish I could give this Zero stars.  It is a very dark book and I can't imagine why anyone would write, publish, gift it, or read it.  There is so much good literature written why do we lower ourselves to this junk?  Garbage in garbage out!

</review>
<review>

Yes, it's sick.  Yes, it's twisted.  But it DEFINES gallows humor.  No, you're not an evil person for laughing at these rhymes and accompanying pictures; frankly, you're probably better adjusted than the people who freak out over them (it's just a book, you lunatics!).

Nope, this probably isn't the best book for your very young early-alphabet learning children, but if you have a relatively healthy-minded 7 or 8 year old, chances are they'll find this book as hilarious as you do

</review>
<review>

Edward Gorey's stories of the 1960s, pen-and-ink illustrations with seemingly innocuous one-liners full of droll humour under the surface, set in some vague Victorian or Edwardian times, have long been among my most entertaining reading. With THE GRASHLYCRUMB TINIES, however, Gorey turned to a very macabre sort of humour with a send-up of children's alphabet books.

The book is a tale of the terrible fates of 26 children whose names range from A ("...for Amy who fell down the stairs") to Z ("...for Zillah who drank too much gin"). To describe the scenes in the drawings would be to risk spoiling the reader's enjoyment, but I must admit I like the scenes where the child's doom is clearly imminent, as in "T is for Titus who flew into bits" as a boy looks at a package that just arrived in the post, or the awful yet hilarious scene of "H is for Hector done in by a thug." While some may protest at a work of entertainment based on the death of children, Gorey's drawings don't normally threaten any sensibilities, with the sole exception of "K is for Kate who was struck with an axe."

I enjoyed THE GASHLYCRUMB TINIES, but I would be hesitant to say it ranks among Gorey's best work. His more typical works of the 1960s, such as THE IRON TONIC or the magisterial THE OTHER STATUE, seem more satisfying. Still, if you are a fan of Gorey's work, you should read this somewhere along the way

</review>
<review>

This isn't exactly babys first A-B-C book, but it makes a great gift for the goth in your family.

</review>
<review>

Yes, it's warped! I feel like such an utter sociopathic evil human being for thinking this sick creation is completely hysterical. Oh, gosh, I mean, what's wrong with me that I break out laughing over what sounds in description the most demented thing ever drawn?

For those who may not know, The Gashlycrumb Tinies, by the legendary Edward Gorey, is a series of pen and ink illustrations that concern the ghastly, serial deaths of twenty-six small children (yes I feel awful just typing that knowing it's being read) all of whom have a name beginning with one consecutive letter of the alphabet, A,B, C, etc. and all of whom are depicted meeting singularly gruesome fates, each of the incidents set merrily to rhyme.  The children are Victorian or Edwardian, as are nearly all characters Gorey drew, and they meet their demises in astonishingly horrid ways. One is devoured by mice, another is eaten by bears. Another is sucked dry by a leech, yet another unfortunate meets her fate under a rug. One child even manages to perish from ennui!

Oh, dear Lord, this is insanity, and yet as penned by Gorey, this is so sick it's funny.

I'm stopping here.

Before anyone tracks me down to stone me at a crossroads under a full moon while chanting from the Book of Common Prayer, try reading this disgustingly hilarious little collection and see if you don't agree it reaches in and finds some twisted avenue in your soul and tickles till your inner sadist erupts with laughter.

I like children. I swear I do.

"M is for Maud who was swept out to sea..."

Help! I'm not a bad person for laughing, honestly! Sick! Sick! SICK

</review>
<review>

An awesome history lesson, especially for those who have forgotten what it takes to defeat evil in the world. I hesitantly started reading this book expecting some blowhard general to gloat about his limited accomplishments in the big war. I had a very pleasant surprise and was drawn into another perspective of what we did as a nation to defeat Hitler and his cronies. The title is taken from a line in the Cadet's Prayer from West Point. It is a prayer we all could use to recite occasionally. I very highly recommend this book

</review>
<review>

I really enjoyed this first hand account of General Bennett's experiences.   I have read this type of book extensively, and I put this very close to the top of my list.

I especially enjoyed his comments about how people behaved and thought during this climatic time in our history.  His feelings about missing his wife, and how he felt when his first troopers died, and what that must have meant to the families added a real human touch.   I enjoyed his description of train rides, gas rationing, and many other small points that really gave me a feel for what it was like for not just soldiers, but also civilians, both American and Foreign.

I agree, it would have been really nice to have some pictures of what his vehicles looked like and some maps.  But, I would also have enjoyed a picture of his wife whom he obviously loved deeply.  A picture of Fort Knox, or Fort Sill during training.

Those would really have added value to this book, but it certainly stands out without them too.  My thanks to General Bennett for sharing his story, and not just the combat.

Well done!

</review>
<review>

The first hand telling of WWII by a retired 4 star general. Detailed battle discriptions and analysis, and amazing individual encounters. Possibly THE BEST BOOK I HAVE EVER READ!!!!

</review>
<review>

I have read many books on WWII from many perspectives and have been to visit the D-Day beaches four times. I cannot visit the American graves in Normandy without being moved. Twice I have had the experience of hearing taps played near Omaha Beach. I have the utmost respect for all those who fought and died. I had high expectations for the book. My problem is that the book never finds its voice. At times it is the four star general writing with his perspective of high and at other times it is the young colonel leading his men. I wanted to hear more from this man. Just as he starts to share, the general leaps in and throws off the narrative. Let the colonel talk about his artillery missions and show me more of how his experience was different. (A few photos and maps would be nice). If the general needs to talk, give him a separate chapter at the end of the book. We hear from the privates and generals but not the majors and colonels. Their voices could add to the history. I wish the colonel would have spoken for them

</review>
<review>

Simple concept, easy read, expensive book and worth 10 times the cost.  This isn't just someone's personal philosophy but a concept backed by irrefutable scientific studies. The most profound statement in the book is the proven fact that almost every interaction with others rarely has a nuetral effect. It almost always leaves the other person feeling more positve or negative.  That awareness has me looking for opportunities to apply this at home, at work or with the clerk I buy groceries from.  My life is twice as enjoyable as before because I am continually touching lives and spreading the joy.

</review>
<review>

I was thinking negative thoughts waiting for the book to advise me on positive thoughts.

</review>
<review>

I have long been a proponent of encouragement as a means to build healthy, strong relationships and promote growth. This book offers a concrete plan for making that happen. I have observed people moved to tears by a little appreciation. People are starving for love and appreciation. Don't let the people in your life suffer any longer

</review>
<review>

I ordered this book on Friday August 25th at 4:53 p.m.
I received the book on Monday August 28th at noon.
The book is in New condition
Thank you for the prompt servic

</review>
<review>

Written in the first person, this book is a quick read that is both logical and simple. The bucke-dipper concept is easy-to-apply every day and sure to improve your management style as well as your personal life. Relevant research supports the asserted power of positive psychology. My favorite Gallup author hits a homerun!

</review>
<review>

Life is a simple game isn't it?  From the beginning of time it has been a battle of good vs. evil.  We get to choose the side we play on by being a positive person or a negitive person.  This book will lift your spirits and "fill your bucket"!  If you want to get fired up today read this book, and if you want to get a friend fired up and "fill their bucket" suggest they buy it too, or better yet buy a copy and give it to them.  Thanks for an inspiring read. David Otis Author of "Walk Fast, Talk Loud and Smile".

</review>
<review>

This is a great book to help any manager understand the importance of recognition both to their peers and to the people they manage.  The philosophy of adding to or taking away from one's bucket and hence their esteem adds a whole new importance to thinking about how you act in situations.  With so many people leaving jobs because of how they are treated, the book brings an honest reality to exactly how this happens, and gives great insight into why we need to be sure our actions are constantly giving value to other people.  I gave it out to a group of leaders as part of a recognition training, and two of them said not only did they rethink their actions in their departments, they also began to rethink their actions at home, and it made a difference in personal relationships.  Plus, there's an online way to give drops, which makes it even easier to let someone know you saw or noticed they did something great, and they have a tangible piece of recognition to have and display.  A terrific book all the way around

</review>
<review>


In the current highly competitive operating environment, companies are often required to cut costs whilst maintaining an acceptable level of service and quality. This calls for smart ways to cut costs. This book provides some guidance to achieve this.

With the various economic shocks that the world is subjected to, one typical target for cost cutting is reducing the workforce. This short-sighted approach to cost cutting not only causes a lot of human suffering but seldom achieves the intended objective of reducing costs in the long-run. David Young proposes a creative approach that focuses on uncovering hidden costs and reducing or eliminating them. The techniques to overcome the 21 common cost-reduction prohibitors appear to be workable and can be overcome.  David Young gives some practical examples that enhance understanding of the cost cutting concepts that the author is proposing.

I found the book to be terrific and it helped me in my on-going cost-cutting efforts making them more creative and innovative. It enabled me uncover areas that costs were hidden, helping me to realise substantial cost savings.

The book is required reading for all managers tasked with the responsibility to cut costs and build profits in any department.

</review>
<review>

Anyone who is well-versed in running a business will know what his or her costs are and where those costs can be reduced if need be. This is a wonderful book that lists 181 ways to reduce operating costs. People who are planning to start a business might not know where wasteful costs can be cut, and they will greatly benefit from reading this book.

I have a feeling this book was written for owners and managers of existing businesses with costs already in place that need to be cut. I read this book as an entrepreneur about ready to start a business and what I learned from it was ways to strategize operations so spending is NEVER wasteful.

Great book, and a must read for any entrepreneur who wants to build a great company

</review>
<review>

Young obviously was teasing us with the YGBK acronym -- daring us to read on and figure it out.  Later in the book, in one of his YGBK descriptions, he ends it with the statement  and quot;you gotta be kidding. and quot

</review>
<review>

The book is eduactional in the sense that the ideas mentioned are all valid points and easily comprehensible.  The one fault this book has starts in the first chapter when it states  and quot;Make sure you avoid these YGBK's and quot;.  My question to you is what is that.  I have thoroughly looked for the meaning of this acronym and have come up empty.  If anyone could provide some light please do

</review>
<review>

I did not even finish this!!... I have No idea what this book was trying to get across... I give Bono credit for the hard work he is doing for Aids but I do not understand where or what this conversation???  was all about...Sorry Bono, I am a big fan of your music, but this book was so confusing and not at all enlightening

</review>
<review>

you will probably love this book if you are interested in God, love, and/or rock and roll.  Bono displays a profound understanding of scripture, love for God and his wife, and a wicked sense of humour.  HIGHLY recommended

</review>
<review>

Really a great book, with very little "glitz" added to his image. The conversations ring very true, and very funny.

</review>
<review>

Loved it enough at the movies to buy it.  What a great fun film.  Also prompted me to buy "Firefly" the series which I am having great fun with, too

</review>
<review>

To anyone who has wondered why Bono is the way he is, this book pretty much answers any questions you may have had.  He comes across as a very bright and caring person who has a sarcastic wit about him, but who can change gears and get into some fairly deep topics.  You also get to hear why charity is so important to him-the talks on charity were my favorite chapters.  All in all recommended for U2 and Bono fans

</review>
<review>

Whatever you think of the man, Bono is something else. Here we get some genuine insight into what makes this extraordinary individual tick. The series of dialogues between the Irish singer and old friend French writer Michka Assayas covers just about everything you can think of with intelligence and humour. At one point they discuss that these conversations themselves may be some kind of therapy for Bono since the relatively recent death of his father.

From his troubled adolescence and the death of his mother, to his recent first-hand experiences of international economics and politics, to his relationship with God and Christianity, Bono reveals all. Meetings with the Pope, George W. Bush, President Gorbacev calls round for Sunday lunch, there are some fascinating bits and pieces! Just as he appears on the point of pomposity or pretentiousness, out comes a quote from Monty Python, or a self-deprecating U2 story.

For a millionaire rock star, Bono comes across as remarkably in touch with reality and with his feet firmly on the ground. In fact it is astonishing that he appears to be so in touch with so many different realities, and still have a healthy sense of perspective. One senses a clear-headed ambition to achieve an ongoing balance between idealism and realism.

</review>
<review>

I have to admit that I'm a huge U2 fan, and a huge Bono fan.  So my thoughts on this book may be a bit biased.  But on that note, I figure that I-like so many other U2 fans who've read this book-have a greater ability to give criticism.  I've read numerous U2 books on varying subjects, so I guess I was expecting nothing more than a carbon copy, for the most part, of those books.  This was not a carbon copy!  I echo other reviewers who said they loved the conversational style of the book.  It makes me wish more people would do something like this rather than just beefed-up, ghost written memoirs that hardly reveal anything.  But Assayas does a great job at keeping Bono (one who has a tendency to deviate and ramble) on subject.  Bono himself explains how he's a very forward-looking person and doesn't like to revisit the past.  Assayas spends a good portion of the book having Bono look back.
Bono himself is a great man.  Yes, he's a rock-star, which is probably why he's so appealing.  He can keep his dignity (and sometimes throw it away) in a world where that's the last thing on most people's minds.  He really cares about the Africa stuff he's always talking about.  It becomes quite obvious after reading this book that his concern for the third world is not just shtick.  It's real.
This book got me craving something that I expect will never come to pass: books like this from the other members of U2.  The other three are a bit more closed and reserved than Bono, the incessant front man.
I suggest this read to anyone, U2 fan or not.

</review>
<review>

One of the best U2 books I've ever read, mostly because it allows for a first person perspective from Bono. Michka generally divides each conversation into a single chapter (although this is not true for the first 4 chapters), so the chapters go by easily, and the titles are quite funny overall. Bono meanders his way through subjects like death, spirituality, Africa, what it means to be a rock star, and love. I already loved Bono immensely before reading this book, and now I think I have arrived at a new level of admiration and respect for the man. So many sections of this book are quotable; Bono has great opinions on all sorts of things, yet he's funny, self-deprecating, and extremely intelligent. Michka, to be honest, annoyed me after awhile. Some of his questions were either too broad, or just too simple.  For somebody who's considered Bono as a friend since 1980, I felt like I knew more about Bono's life in some areas than Michka did, and I've only been a U2 fan for about four years. Still, the book is excellent, especially when Bono wanders off into reflections on his personal relationship with God, for example. Definitely a must-read for any U2 fan.

</review>
<review>

As the singer has said many times before. He sings into the ear of his fans. But its nice to know a little bit more of his life, and more clearly in a conversation.
Great book. Great person. Great Thougts.
thn

</review>
<review>

Excellent job done by Mr. Utterback.

I had this book for a class in master's degree.  I was very impressed and found that it had a huge impact on me.  I am not a reader, but found myself really engrossed in this book.  One of the few "textbooks" that I still recommend to friends and family.  It helped me understand investing too. I have an understanding now of when industries are mature and when they are still growing.  Just wish I could see it before it happens.  Then I would be a millionaire and thanking Mr Utterback, not writing this review :-)

</review>
<review>

This book covers much of the same ground that Clayton Christensen explored in his three revolutionary books: The Innovator's Dilemma, The Innovator's Solution, and Seeing What's Next. Truthfully, those books do a far superior job of explaining the dynamics of innovation in comparison to the performance of this book. Utterback does have very insightful comments on the standardization of product design, but outside of that section, the book is not particularly exemplary. For those interested in mastering the art of innovation, the game begins and ends with Clayton Christensen

</review>
<review>

This book is written in a concise manner that is straightforward and easy to understand. Utterback explains how innovation has evolved over the years, using great examples from a variety of assembled and non-assembled industries. One side note, I found that this book was worth the cover price for the history of industries he mentions alone. Some of the products and industries mentioned in this book include: Incandescent light bulbs, Typewriters, Glass, photography, and Ice. This book is loaded with invaluable nuggets of insight, it is impossible to due it justice in a book review. I highly recommend reading it

</review>
<review>

Utterback explains "how companies can seize opportunities in the face of technological change." There are dozens (hundreds?) of other books on the same subject, notably those written by Geoffrey A. Moore. I rate this book so highly because it is exceptionally well-organized and well-written, because it examines several offbeat subjects (eg the development of the typewriter and the evolution of the typewriter industry, the development of the incandescent electric light), and because Utterback focuses so intensely -- and so effectively -- on real-world situations in which the "dynamics of innovation" are manifest. This book is very informative but also great fun to read. (Those who enjoy it as much as I did are urged to read both The History of Invention and The Lever of Riches.) Chapter 4 revisits the the dynamics of the innovation model (Figure 1-1) and then in Chapter 5, Utterback shifts his attention to developments within the plate glass manufacturing industry. In Chapter 6, he examines the innovation differences between assembled and nonassembled products. Subsequent chapters sustain the discussion of "the power of innovation in the creation of an industry" and then, in Chapter 9, Utterback "draws together some of the lessons of earlier chapters and academic research to consider the relationship between the behaviors and strategies of firms with respect to technological innovation and long-term survival." He concludes his book (in Chapter 10) by addressing "the perennial management issue of how corporations can renew their technology, products, and processes as a basis for continued competitive vitality." It is obvious to all of us that even the strongest product and business strategy will eventually be overturned by technological change. Ours is an age in which change is the only constant. Therefore, as Utterbach explains so carefully and so eloquently, the challenge is to accept the inevitability of change which results from technological innovation ("discontinuities") and to sustain a commitment to cope effectively with such change. Only such a commitment "will win the day.

</review>
<review>

The existing reviews really get to the heart of the matter. I can only add that this book continues to provide a powerful framework for analyzing technical innovation - the process and maturation of that innovation within  a market. As I survey the rapid growth of trading hubs/net market makers in  the industrial procurement space, I am struck by the similarity to the  examples in the book.  The hyper growth in this space sets the stage for  the inevitable shakeout and establishment of the dominant model - yet to be  determined. It is exciting to watch the market mature, with the knowledge  that the changes are part of a cycle which can be comprehended and has  repeated itself in multiple industries. Utterback provides a powerful  framework with which technological innovation can be understood. Thank you

</review>
<review>

This is a fascinating and chilling account of technological innovation. It belongs on the recommended list of technology managers and staff alike.  Utterback marshals compelling case histories that provide the objective  foundations for more popular accounts of technology formation such as  Geoffrey Moore's CROSSING THE CHASM (1). We gain insight into why it's so  crowded at the bottom.  Reasons exist in abundance why firms that epresent  established technology are the least likely to perceive the threat  represented by radical innovation.  It is a slight exaggeration to say  Utterback makes current management sound like the last Czar of Russia  praising the happiness of the serfs. Yes, perhaps the serfs were happy; but  the Bolsheviks weren't. In short, the technological discontinuity is not  going to come from established competitors. All the electric typewriter  manufacturer's were  and quot;taken down and quot; by the Word Processor. But how  then to recognize the radical innovation?      The key to Utterback's  argument is the idea of a  and quot;dominant design and quot; of a technology  It  forms the center of a network of system features, user habits, collateral  assets such as brand image, market channel and customer switching costs. By  definition, the dominant design wins the market.  It is the pattern to  which both competitors and incremental innovators must adhere to if they  aim at significant following in the current market.  It is what radical  innovation over-throws.   Many case histories are provided.     Each of the  chapters illuminates an aspect of the dynamics of innovation by drilling  down into a specific example.  Thomas Edison came late to the race to  produce a commercial electric lamp.  He succeeded through ingenuity and  systematic thinking.  From the start, he planned for scalability, aiming to  deliver  electricity through the very illuminating gas conduits that formed  his major competitors' delivery system.  He also laid down a network of  patents as he worked; and legally pursued those who tried to steal his  mechanisms. Utterback's other examples include the Qwerty typewriter key  board (an example as powerful as it is elegant and simple), the  BM-compatible PC, the Cray computer, the INTEL-based massively parallel  computer, the ball-point pen, the float process of making plate glass,  celluloid (Kodak) film, the incandescent light bulb, the INTEL x86 chip,  and a dozen other engaging from the history of economics.  A fascinating  account of cutting  natural ice from the Lakes of New England in the mid  1800s should  have a sobering - I almost wrote chilling -- effect on the  complacent technology manager. Here radical innovation means one thing:  refrigeration.  Paradoxically, the ice industry, which efficiently  transported harvested ice as far away as India, was unable to envision  refrigeration.  Industry outsiders were the ones.  Why?  According to  Utterback, industry insiders have a heavy investment, both technological  and  emotional, in the existing system of infrastructure, distribution, and  production.   and quot;...From a practical point of view, their managerial  attention is encumbered by the system they have - just maintaining and   marginally improving their existing systems is a full-time  occupation. and quot;   They are ripe for the process which the economist  Schumpeter described (2) as  and quot;creative destruction. and quot; (Utterback's  book exemplifies how Schumpeter is reborn as the intellectual god-father  among the Silicon Valley - ideas-as-economic-drivers -- mind set.)  Thus,  innovation shows up as a game of chutes and ladders. A new technology  represents a ladder to get off the slope of incremental progress and jump  to another level.  The chute is the path by which managers dedicated to the  customers of the about-to-be obsolete technology follow it into oblivion  and obscurity.  This is a grim prospect, and, according to Utterback's  cases, one that occurs about 70% of the time. In the case of David and  Goliath, history is on the side of the sling shot.  How do the lucky few  reinvent themselves?   This possibility is appreciated by Utterback, who  provides the examples of HP and Motorola. But the  examples of what doesn't  work are legion.  Discounted cash flow will rarely (never) fund risky,  radically innovative projects.  Compromises like DEC's simultaneous pursuit  of VAX and MIPS chips, with one foot on each side of the chasm, helps to  explain how DEC ended up its bottom.  Assigning the new technology  initiative to the establishment department is like asking the Philistine  Goliath to be little David's mentor.  If a state-of-the-art lab is  established, then you may end up with XEROX PARC, which invented modern  computing without benefiting XEROX.  Of course, you may end up with  Edison's Menlo Park work shop or Bell Labs. So this approach - though risky  - is a gamble with pay-off prospects.  A diversified portfolio of R and amp;D  projects is part of the equation.  But equally important are top  management's commitment, patience, and persistence.  The enterprise-wide  nurturing of core competencies in marketing and distribution, as well as  product design and implementation, are on the critical path to firm-wide  renewal.  Finally, reading Utterback's text itself would be useful step for  technology managers in understanding how to cross, instead of ending up at  the bottom of, the chasm of technological discontinuity and innovation.       (1)  Moore, Geoffrey. CROSSING THE CHASM.  New York:  Harper/Collins,  1995.       (2)  Schumpeter, Joseph.  BUSINESS CYCLES.  New York: McGraw  Hill, 1939.  --excerpt from my review in COMPUTING REVIEWS, November 199

</review>
<review>

More than a million copies of this reference classic's prior editions have been sold, so if this updated 20th edition THE COMPLETE DOG HANDBOOK holds a familiar ring, that's why. But the 20th edition offers even more: not only is it endorsed by the powers and professionalism of the American Kennel Club, but it packs in all 153 breeds recognized by the Club, along with standards, breed histories, and photos - including the twelve most recently recognized breeds. Lest you think this is just for pros, look at the sections advising on how to choose and train a dog, responsible breeding, canine first-aid and more. Add sections on AKC sports and a glossary of terms and you have a real winner.

Diane C. Donovan, Editor
California Bookwatch

</review>
<review>

Book was a textbook for a niece going to dog grooming school.  Was in good condition and just what she needed. She was pleased

</review>
<review>

I am a dog lover. This book is truly complete in many important ways. My library has this book available both in circulation and in the reference department. This unusual situation speaks well for this book.

This book details over 150 breeds with up to 5 pages of detail on each breed. Every dog owner should have this book handy especially if their dog interacts with any other breeds. My dog and I go to a nearby dog park where we interact with many other breeds.

If a prospective dog owner is studying to determine which breed of dog is best for them and their family this book should prove to be very valuable. Information in the book includes sections on history, training and health care. There are over 100 illustrations in full color

</review>
<review>

I recommend this book to every novice who wants to learn about types of dogs able to compete in conformation shows as it gives the AKC official standard of each breed. However, this book needs to be updated very soon.  There are at least 9 new breeds that have been added to the Amercian Kennel Club since this publication.

In general this is a great source of reference for the avid dog lover. But if you want to know about every dog breed in the universe, you should purchase and Encyclopedia of Dogs for this.



</review>
<review>

This book is a good reference for breeders and enthusiasts.  It has the breed standards for all the AKC recognized breeds as of the publication date.  It also goes into basic dog care.  I would definitely recommend it to families still struggling with what breed to pick out.  Check out the book, talk with your veterinarian then go to a dog show and talk with breeders and trainers

</review>
<review>

Excellent book. You can find most of this information on their web site, but it's great to take to a dog show when you have questions about other breeds. Wonderful book. I always reference it

</review>
<review>

My husband is a dog show judge and has been looking for this book. As always, Amazon has what I need.  This book is 2 yrs out of date, but this isn't Amazons' fault.  Overall, the dog standards have not changed, except AKC has added some new breeds that aren't listed.  Will be valuable with our breed (miniature Dachshunds)

</review>
<review>

The author should be sued for deception.  The biggest blunder I've ever made was buying this book

</review>
<review>

One thing you should realize about this book is that it is not a detailed investment book.  If you are looking for such a book you should pick up something by Bill Bernstein or Jack Bogle.  The vast majority of this book deals with behavioral finance (and the stupid mistakes people can make as a result) and colorful stories of huge investment blunders that modern professionals have made.  I think it is critical to understand the mistakes that people can make because of their mood, fears, unbridled optimism, etc.  This book tries to adddress much of that.  The chapters dealing with huge plunders that professionals have made are entertaining and informative.

Only one chapter in this book deals with specific investment strategy.  Of course, it deals with the subject in a summary fashion.  That being said, however, it actually is not a bad chapter, especially if this is not the first investment book you have read.  One thing I must point out is that I think that the author's suggested asset allocation chart is wrong.  His chart on page 261 indicates that if you want a 10% return over a period of time you should invest 50% of your money in bonds, 12% in cash and 38% in equities.  I think if you followed his suggestion you would get a return significantly lower than 10%.  I think the chart inflates the returns you should expect for any given allocation and should be ignored.  With this one caveat, I highly recommend this book

</review>
<review>

John Feinstein broke out in the sports-book business with the million-seller 1987 book "Season On the Brink" and he hasn't looked back since. Like clockwork, Feinstein writes one book a year on some facet or another of sports, although clearly his love goes to college basketball and golf.

Now comes "Last Dance" (369 pages, and released in February, 2006 to cash in on the upcoming March Madness), Feinstein's look behind college basketball biggest weekend, the Final Four, in this case the 2005 Final Four in St. Louis. But the Final Four is just an excuse almost to spin many funny stories and tales of college basketball. And they are many. Such as: Lefty Driesell, getting ready for a radio interview, being dumped for more prominent Lute Olson at the last minute. Or in Mike Krzyzewski in his early years after another tough loss, when his coaching staff says "Here's to forgetting tonight", he replies "Here's to never forgetting tonight". Or Feinstein's insights on Hank Nichols, the NCAA supervisor on college referees. Or how Krzyzewski, coaching his Duke team against the David Robinson-lead Navy team for a spot in the Elite Eight, says that he so much respects Navy (himself having coached Army years before) but that if they did not "kill" Navy, he would never speak to them again, haha! (Duke won of course.) And on and on...

Feinstein is not breaking any new ground here. And in fact if you follow college basketball closely, much of it will sound familiar, if not repetitive, but the gem in the book is the little untold tales of years past that makes this a fun book. I found myself turning the pages and enjoying this more than I expected

</review>
<review>

Make no mistake: this is not John Feinstein's best work.  Other reviewers have correctly pointed out it is repetitive, a bit too long, and he has a tendency to name drop to the point of kissing arse.

That said, it is a quick read that gives the college basketball fan some interesting stories about this wonderful sport.  He gives a good history of the Kansas-Duke-Carolina connections that inform much of the sport.  He has some interesting observations on Bobby Knight.  And he has some interesting ancedotes (e.g. George Raveling has the original 'I Have A Dream' speech notes because he served as a bodyguard for Dr. King during the speech).

This is a book you can read in a few sittings.  If you like college basketball - and need a fix for it during the offseason - it is worth picking up.

</review>
<review>


So, the Final Four is coming up the first weekend in April---and you say your brackets are in shambles.

Well, you can find great solace and enjoyment in John Feinstein's paean to March Madness, "Last Dance, Behind the Scenes at the Final Four."

Since he has been going to the Final Four since 1978 (before it went to 64 teams), he has plenty of wonderful tales to tell.

The focal point is 2005's North Carolina, Illinois, Michigan State and Louisville tournament.

However, he strays and presents a lot of magnificent history in the form of back-stories. Therefore, it not a play-by-play type of book---rather it reads like a novel.

He presents insights into the teams, the selection committee, players past and present, coaches, the officials, the fans and the legends.

It is all told in a relaxed, lyrical anecdotal fashion that is so easy to read that you never realize how much you learning.

Totally absorbing, and perfect for this time of year---or any time of yea

</review>
<review>

...because I have! In his book on ACC basketball. In some cases, he  didn't change a word....just repeated the same anecdotes. I am really glad that I didn't pay for this book because I would have been really angry about re-reading old material.

If you like reading about ACC basketball, and you haven't read Feinstein's verrrry similar book, you will probably like it.

If you like reading about Big East basketball when you're not reading about ACC basketball...you might like it.

If you think that the basketball universe is bigger than the ACC, the Big East, and Feinstein's apparent obsession with Bob Knight, save your money for another book.

It's too bad, really. Feinstein is a good writer. I guess the big buckets of cash he gets from each book he writes has finally caused him to lower his standards

</review>
<review>

There is that silly cult movie about wrestling called "Vision Quest" where Elmo (J.C. Quinn) talks to Louden (Mathew Modine) who is not going to wrestle the meanest (you know what) wrestler in the valley, and J. C. Quinn talks about Pele, scoring an impossible goal, on his back, turned the other way, and he tells Louden that for one moment that effort raised the human spirit. Allright. Granted, kind of silly. And Louden eventually beats Shute which is a turnabout as if George Custer won. But don't forget the picture had a very hot Linda Fiorentino which made up for a few gaps in the believability quotient.

Well, anyhow, that's why we watch sports. It's not the Michael Jordon or the Emmit Smith or even (I'm trying to think of a baseball player but the sport is in shambles) . . . , it's Jimmy Valvano at the Wolfback never expecting to win. It's the autistic high school boy who plays in the last game of his senior year and scores more than 20 points in 8 minutes. It's the beauty of the sport, the tension, the pressure, the sadness. Hate to say it, but it really is the joy of victory and the agony of defeat.

I think Feinstein delivers. 5 stars. Larry Scantlebury

</review>
<review>

As a big March Madness fan, I couldnt help but check this book out from my local library. I love college basketball and especially the "Big Dance". This book is a great look behind the scenes at the Final Four and is full of valuable insight and interesting side stories.
Feinstein does a great job of really capturing the essence of the Final Four and the magnitude of the event from a coaches and players perspective.
My favorite chapter is the chapter on the unsung players, the walk-ons the players that won't ever step foot on a NBA court and for them this is the pinnacle of their athletic career.
I also enjoyed reading about the coaches, officials, and players that make the Final Four the greatest weekend in sports. A must read for the college basketball fan and a highly recommended one for anyone that loves sports

</review>
<review>

I've only read the first 70 pages or so, but agree with others that this is repetitious.  You better love the ACC, because it's mostly about those teams.  And UCLA.

And the errors.  Clearly the author was trying to churn out two books at once (the other being on the NFL Ravens), and it shows.

1) Coach Krybaby is "his" introduction says Scott May broke his leg at Indiana, and that cost them the national championship in 1975.  And K was an assistant to Bobby Knight.  Well, actually May broke his arm against Purdue in February 1975.  Arm, leg, what's the difference, right????

2) Author says Michigan State beat Penn by 32 in the 1979 semis.  Actually it was 34 points (101-67). And Penn had beaten UNC earlier.  And UNC had beaten MSU by 1 early in the regular season when Magic Johnson (as Dean Smith points out in the book) had eight turnovers.  That's all well and good, but the latter game also was infamous for when one of the Tar Heel radio guys said, "Magic Johnson is no Phil Ford."  And MSU fans couldn't agree more.  Ain't THAT the truth!!!

All in all, this book is highly disappointing.  A slap-dash effort at best.

</review>
<review>

A great read!  While its main theme is the 2005 Final Four, Coach Roy Williams and the Tar Heels of North Carolina, it provides a wealth of historical information on how March Madness developed over several decades.  It also provides the reader with an insight into the politics of the NCAA tournament as well as how the TV revenues influence many of the decisions made by the selection committee.

</review>
<review>

The Last Dance joins other excellent books by John Feinstein.  He especially has a feel for college basketball.  Anyone who loves the chase for the national championship will love this book

</review>
<review>

Hernando De Soto's "The Other Path" is a much drier read than its follow up "The Mystery of Capital." I'm glad I read TMC first - it gave a global economic perspective that I could relate to and which interested me in reading more of the author's work. The Other Path is very detailed in its portrayal of Peruvian politics, the intricacies of laws governing property rights and transactions, and the evolution of businesses from extralegal to legal operations. While this very book was the tool used by the Peruvian government to successfully solve its terrorism problem in the 1980s, by legalizing the economic operations of the majority of its marginalized citizens, and while its message and methods are even more relevant in the current climate of global terrorism, the step-by-step detail makes it a tedious read and I couldn't get all the way through. I will, at some point, try again, but I'm glad I read The Mystery of Capital first.

</review>
<review>

I love the little jibe provided within the title of Hernando de Soto's "The Other Path."  It's a poke at "The Shining Path" (Sendero Luminoso), the Maoist Peruvian terrorist organization that wreaked havoc on de Soto's homeland beginning in 1980.  de Soto's attempt in this book is to show that the more effective struggle is to make capitalism more efficient.  To those who know de Soto's work, the solutions are well known: build a system of laws that allow one's residents to buy, sell and value property rights; and reduce the complexities and banalities of starting a business.

If you've read de Soto's master work "The Mystery of Capitalism," then there is no new news here.  In fact, "The Other Path" will look out-of-date with its yellowing statistics.  So why the five stars?  As a testament to de Soto's bravery.  Think about the guts it took for him to research and publish this book in Peru during the tumultuous and frightening period there.  What a statement.

</review>
<review>

I enjoyed this book but was spoiled because I first read "The Mystery of Capital" and then this.  This book's stats are somewhat outdated because so much has happened in the last 15-20 years, which takes away from the crispness of the argument, but the argument is still apparent and sound.  Although I agree that eliminating government red tape to let more people become a part of the economic system and therefore become plugged into the benefits of the system (eg, a legal work address for customers to reach you at, legal recognition so to advertise, etc.) and thereby allow government to collect more taxes so to (hopefully) put more money toward fighting social problems; I hope de Soto agrees that the economic answer to terroism is not the only answer.  Stregthening the economic infrastructure is a strong part of the answer, but much more is also needed for some people to not desire to kill other people, and that may be something which can never be had.  Although I would say "The Mystery of Capital" is a must read, this is nonetheless a great supplement to "The Mystery of Capital"

</review>
<review>

De Soto does a great job of outlining some of the consequences of excessive regulation and lack of a strong rule of law.  In three distict industries (transportation, housing and commerce) De Soto shows how productivity and wealth generation are hampered by poor laws and law enforcement.  This book is essential for anyone interested in the microeconomics of development

</review>
<review>

DeSoto is a genuinely original thinker.  This was his first book that argued that regulation in  and quot;developing and quot; countries impedes economic development.  His most memorable example is one of a small entrepreneur who wants to open a hot dog stand in Peru - with six months of working with government entities - they could get a permit.  No wonder why some people choose to work in the grey economy.   DeSoto looks at a number of areas where regulation slows down the natural tendency of individuals to be entrepreneurial.   The Mystery of Capital - which is his second book - has new data and amplification of his original premise.  But this one, which has been translated into many languages and should be used as a guide

</review>
<review>

Personally, the book's main contribution was that it shed many lights on the 'consequences' of delaying (or not granting) formal documents, papers, etc. to property... this is a critical issue esp. to goverment officers in developing countries who do not realise (unintentionally or otherwise) that simply delaying the processing of e.g. business licenses, land applications, etc.  will affect the development of their own populace and country. De Soto's work is definately worth reading and preaching to officials and land administrators everywhere..

</review>
<review>

De Soto's work was viewed by economists, historians, and politicians alike as breakthrough.  He gives us an in-depth look at the Lima's informal sector and postulates, much to the satisfaction of his Washington, D.C.  bankroll, that Peruvians are bursting to embrace democracy and market  capitalism.  Unfortunately, he has twisted Peru's real scenario to reflect  what Washington wants to hear.  In reality, Lima's informal sector is  merely a way for a depraved population to survive, not a radical shift  toward capitalism.  De Soto's Institue for Liberty and Democracy was funded  almost in full by Washington, and the man himself has spent more time in  the U.S. than in Peru.  This book leans more toward American propaganda  than objective analysis.  An interesting read, but only with abundant  grains of salt

</review>
<review>

I will concede Mr. Wolters critics that this book does emphasize firm discipline.  However I do not see this as a bad thing.  After all anyone who owns a dog, irregardless if they hunt, take it in public, or just keep it around the house wants a disciplined dog that they can control.  It does not teach excessive cruel punishment, just enough to let the dog know they were in the wrong.  It actually emphasizes lack of attention and apathy more for initial and minor corrections.  This book does counter the stern discipline by emphasizing the need to give affection after the rebuke.  When it is said that the book uses old ways and techniques, remember that this book was originally written in 1961.  But by no means is it outdated.  As far as training it provides a solid foundation of techniques and important commands.  What this book does not specify is timeframes on when to teach what.  This is because every dog is different.  It approaches the timeframe issue by applying the idea that when one thing is learned, move on to the next, but continue to reinforce all the previous trainings.  The important thing to consider when looking at this as well as any other book is that time is the critical factor.  Continuous daily training from an early age provides a system with which to grow.  This book establishes that framework.  With this system, you can train your dog to do anything.

</review>
<review>

I used this method 11 years ago to train my Golden to hunt. He has performed wonderfully and has hunted with me and loved going afield all these years. Arthritis has limited his ability, but he still loves to go. I am picking up a Llewellin pup in a few weeks and plan on using Wolter's methods once again. I highly recommend this to any novice hunting dog owner

</review>
<review>

This was a waste of money, I bought Wolters Gun Dog afterwards and it made this video look even worse.

If you are interested in this video let me know and I will send it to you for free

</review>
<review>

i think i am quite literate about the topic dog training - and i really loved this book and the video - there is nothing in it that will harm your dog - as some reviews tell you - to punishing ,... nothing - i used his wolters methods to teach my german shepard - now i teacj my enlish pointer - he is 5 months old and i took him to his first hunting - he was well prepared - it even was more an education for me to trust him more...

it is my first hunting dog - and people ask me where i bought the dog and how i train him because he behaves so well (with 5 months he is similar when not even better compared to most the old dogs in our area)

all i can say is that i love this book - easy to read and easy to handle - buy the video too and you have a clear view what and when to train (age of dog) and how to train - and it tkes really just 15 minutes per day - great stuf

</review>
<review>

This is a wonderful book.  Wolters has helped me to train one of the best dogs I have ever hunted with.  Which surprised me since this is the first dog I have ever trained.  People compliment me whenever they see my dog in action; whether it be at the lake, park or in the feild.  Highly recomended

</review>
<review>

Fukuyama outlines how the "intermediate social organizations" of society, under the Protestant ethic, permitted the development of modern capitalist structures; whereas in low-trust societies (where you cannot depend on the corresponding person to trust you, or you to trust him), only family oriented businesses could grow, and inevitably collapsed after the second or third generation.  He links the development of these intermediate organizations--guilds, PTAs, unions, volunteer activities--to the social fabric that engendered trust.  He comments that a country can "spend" this hard-to-develop social capital and eventually become a rigid, non-trusting, and economically backward state.  Furthermore, Fukuyama points out that the United States probably is doing just that, in nearly all intermediate social organizations, which are now surrounded by litigious critics--the educational system, Boy Scouts, union-management conflicts, the Catholic Church (which has never trusted its parishioners to have other than the standard orthodoxy, and now has suffered enormous scandal), and so forth.  The lack of trust in our country is seen as pointing to our economic future, whether for good or bad.

Fukuyama is a genuinely interesting and informative writer.  In his sense of fairness, he also points to examples where trust is generated, and cites them as necessary for a country to make both social and economic progress.  I really enjoyed the multiple perspectives that the author brings to his task of explaining how some countries are prosperous, and some are not.  He is truly an innovative thinker

</review>
<review>

This book was written ( I bet)by unpaid graduate assistants. I borrowed it from the library to read before mr Fukuyama's arrival to speak at a university.
The book was "written to order" to appeal to American conservatives. If Mr Fukuyama had really wanted to write about the construction/maintenance/increasing/decreasing of TRUST he could not have pointedly ignored the European Union. Nations and peoples with a thousand or more years of organised warfare are now at peace and trying to work together now that's an exercise in TRUST BUILDING.
I asked Mr Fukuyama why, as the book doesn't have America in the title, did he only mention distrust in medieval Italy and not the phenominal TRUST required to bring Germans, Brits and the French together. His reply "Oh .. people always want me to talk about their country. Next question." well!....
I feel that this book is a dis service to Americans because as with so many political/cultural and economic books from the USA what is left out of the book adds to the hurly burly spiral of disinformation accepted as the truth about the world by many Americans and esp. uncrital conservatives. I am, of course by my own reckoning, a conservative - a mixed economy democratic christian from the U.K.(OK OK New Labour) So I am not hostile to the US, but this type of book and the supportive reviews sadden me. Good luck America and PLEASE read wider and TRAVEL

</review>
<review>

Fukuyama trots out stereotypes that he must have picked up at his Japanese-Protestant father's knee, under a thick veneer of impenetrable sociological jargon that can fool the occasional reader into believing that this is an impartial scientist at work. Like all stereotypes, Fukuyama's are a blend of breathtaking overgeneralizations, and huge blind spots. And, like all stereotypes, they are utter nonsense.

The book attempts to update Max Weber's "Protestant ethic" story to include some non-Christian societies. The basic argument of the book is that Catholics are unable to trust people outside their immediate family, and so unable to form associations that are not based on family ties. The same is true of the Chinese, claims Fukuyama. These are the Catholics of the Orient.

The Japanese and Protestants are able to transcend family ties and therefore form a vast range of associations that do not have a genetic basis, especially large professionally managed corporations.

The feckless Catholics and Chinese however are doomed to form business enterprises that can never be more than over-grown Mom and Pop operations. Fukuyama therefore has a gloomy prognosis for the economic miracles of China or Taiwan or Singapore--however brilliant a businessman Pop may be, sooner or later descendants like Paris Hilton will be running the show.

There is an interesting chapter on Korea, where Fukuyama is at pains to show that however like wannabe Japanese/Protestants Korean business organizations may seem, they are really Chinese/Catholic at heart.

The book's thesis is obvious nonsense. Dramatic counter-examples exist, such as the Chinese Communist Party or the Jesuits. Also, the broad idea that Catholicism or Chinese-ness contributes to poverty lacks a statistical basis.

I saw a recent article about thousands of Japanese orphans in China who were taken in and looked after by Chinese families after Japan's World War II defeat. Rather surprising behavior in this "low-trust" society! Perhaps these Chinese had been somewhat civilized by the high-trust ways of the occupying Japanese

</review>
<review>

I live in Europe close to the fault line between (in Fukuyama-speak) low-trust-land and high-trust-land and I have rarely read such an interesting book. In some ways the book is the successor to Max Weber's magnum opus, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (published in 1905) about the impact of protestant religion and culture on economical success in Germany.

Rather than compare Protestantism with Catholicism and their economical impact on German citizens, Fukuyama divides the world into high and low trust societies. Within Europe low trust societies largely coincide with Catholic countries and high trust societies coincide largely with Protestant countries, hence some of Fukuyama's work will sound familiar at times to a reader of Max Weber. Still, Fukuyama's categorisation is not based per se on religious affiliation. Fukuyama is at pains to attribute the low trust of Italians or French to historical events or situations. At times it seems he goes out of his way to avoid attributing any causal role to religion. But the advantage of his approach is that his methodology in theory works in any culture outside the European Christian context. Fukuyama also applies his trust criterion on societies such as the US, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and China. The Middle East and Africa are conspicuous in their absence, possibly because there are few if any examples of so-called high-trust cultures in these parts of the world.

There are a few shortcomings to the book :

Fukuyama only draws economical consequences from the presence or absence of trust, for instance, he claims high trust cultures such as Japan and Germany find it easier to form very large companies, whilst low trust cultures such as Taiwan or Italy feel more at home in family companies. It is a pity he does not extend the field of study of consequences into areas such as corruption (low trust countries generally score higher on corruption), the law (for instance perjury is not regarded as a big deal in low trust countries), demographics (intermarriage, such as consanguineous marriages, is much more common in low trust cultures such as in the Middle East), etc...

The division of the world by Fukuyama into low and high trust cultures is very binary. Some studies by others into trust have first segmented the environment of individuals in concentric layers, starting with the immediate family, then friends, then the extended family, then the local community, then the country and then his or her civilisation. In such a scenario trust typically decreases with each layer which is further removed from the individual (although there are exceptions, such as in failed Islamic states where more trust is put by individuals in the Umma - all Muslims - than in the nation.), but the slope of the curve differs between low and high trust cultures. Still, as a simplification, the division into two extremes of trust is an interesting start.

Like all human phenomena, economic organisation can never be explained by one variable. But even if trust turns out to be only one of the variables which have a high correlation with economic structure, it remains a valid subject for a book like this.

Finally, some reviewers have accused Fukuyama of explicitly arguing that economic development is hampered by low trust, whilst I think he actually argues economic structures are merely different in both categories. Nobody will argue Belgium, a typical low-trust culture, is poorer in GDP per capita terms than - say - the neighboring Netherlands, a typical high trust culture that even shares its language with the majority of Belgians. But it is true that Belgian multinational companies are even rarer than famous Belgians.

Despite the simplifications this is still a very interesting book for those interested in the compatibilities or incompatibilities of cultures in the workplace. One of Fukuyama's underrated books

</review>
<review>

What makes Francis Fukuyama such a special author is his ability to 1) take large, complicated subjects such as the dynamics of industrial economies or the breakdown of the American family and substitute them with  larger and more substantive themes.  He brings social science back to its  grand roots, broadening the circle of human understanding.  2) Fukuyama has  a unique gift to push the public dialogue into new and unchartered  territory.  He challenges people to think differently.  He accomplishes  this again in  and quot;Trust. and quot;  It is an impressive book which  re-connects the issues of culture and economics.  His thesis that public  values, especially trust, shapes the direction of national economies is  well-proved by the author.  I will add, though, that the book got a bit  long-winded at times.  It seemed to lack focus periodically, especially in  the heart of the book.  I would have also preferred that Mr. Fukuyama spend  more time examining the United States.  I do not see why it should receive  the same attention as the other countries, ranging from Japan to Italy.  I  would also have been interested to hear more about his feelings about how  communism will impact Russia's culture and economic future.  But these mild  criticisms do not greatly impact was is an important and interesting work

</review>
<review>

By the age of 24, Russian aristocrat Dmitri Andreich Olenin has "squandered half his fortune," failed to complete his university courses, and hasn't selected a career. "Lacking nothing and bound by nothing," he volunteers as a cadet for service in the Caucasus. Here he hopes to find adventure, and by strict economy, perhaps even pay his debts. On his last night in Moscow, the aristocratic Olenin muses about love and the meaning of life. While his friends secretly question Olenin's judgment in volunteering for military service, Olenin sees his posting to the Caucasus as an escape, and even possibly a second chance at life.

Once in the Caucasus, Olenin rents a rough hut in a Cossack village. While he wants so much to belong and be viewed as a warrior, he remains an awkward outsider. In the Cossack village, he is treated--at best--as some sort of curiosity, and at worst--with hostility. Olenin befriends an old Cossack warrior who quickly discovers that the Russian is a good source of free drinks, and over time, Olenin falls in love with an elusive Cossack maiden named Maryanka.

While "The Cossacks" is not first-tier Tolstoy, nonetheless, it is an enjoyable tale that allows a solid glimpse into Cossack social life. Olenin is both an observer and an admirer of Cossack culture, and yet in many ways, he is vastly unsuited for the life he longs to be part of. The bucolic social life of the Cossacks is presented through the idealistic eyes of Olenin, and he observes the Cossack men carousing drunkenly every night, and maintaining a camaraderie that ultimately excludes him. When Olenin comes to the conclusion that life is a precious thing to be savoured, he also confronts the horrors of meaningless death. The Cossacks hunt Chechens for sport, and after a young Chechen is killed, they strip his thin body for the spoils represented by the rags he wears. But "it's a serious thing to destroy a human being," and the killing of the Chechen ultimately has tragic ramifications--displacedhuman

</review>
<review>

In the middle of _The Cossacks_, Dmitri Olenin, a young Russian cadet reflects joyfully, "Happiness is to live for others. How clear it is!," while being mercilessly bitten by mosquitos during a deer hunt.  Despite the fact that his "whole body [is] consumed by a consuming itch," Olenin revels in the beauties of bountiful nature.  It is almost as if he gives himself up to the mosquitos, whom he imagines are yelling out to each other, "Over here, boys! Here's someone we can devour!"  Tolstoy develops the scene with such skill.  We see Olenin's joy quickly turn into confusion and mortal terror.

Leo Tolstoy's _The Cossacks_ (begun in 1852 and published in 1862) is about a young aristocrat's quest for happiness and his uncertainty about what will make him happy--whether a life given up to the senses or a life devoted to others.  The novel begins with a late night discussion in a Moscow alehouse about Olenin's relationship with a wealthy Moscow woman whom he is about to abandon.  One of his friends responds, "You have not yet loved, and you don't know what love is!"  Dmitri bids his friends adieu and sets out by carriage for a military assignment in the faraway Caucasus to start life anew and to find out what love means (ironically, while serving as a military cadet in a war).

The novel contrasts Dmitri Olenin with Lukashka the Snatcher, a young fearless Cossack soldier admired by everyone in his village.  While Dmitri's life lacks purpose and direction, Lukashka is driven to become an ideal Cossack warrior.  Lukashka is a carouser who is a brave fighter.  Dmitri envies Lukashka's life and, in particular, the defined Cossack traditions to which Lukashka devotes himself.

In an incredible early scene, Tolstoy introduces Lukashka on duty at a military look-out point that protects the Cossack village from Chechen "marauders."  The tension of the scene and the philosophical undertones also reminded me immediately of Hemingway--as another reviewer commented.  In a brilliant transition, Tolstoy revisits this scene later in the novel as seen through Olenin's eyes.

The novel, while mythic in its discussions of love and youthful idealism, takes place in a background of ethnic conflict and suspicion.  The Russian troops are quartered in a Cossack village, and the Russians, Cossacks, and Chechens are all in conflict, either in outright war or deep distrust.  One of the most endearing characters of the novel, Uncle Eroksha, a rogish seventy year old villager and hunter, suggests the pointlessness of all this division.  Uncle Eroksha, who is "a blood brother to all," maintains that "Everyone has his own rules.  But if you ask me, it's all the same."

For the contemporary reader, the book also offers some historical context to the current conflict in Chechnia, between the Chechens and the Russians.  Cynthia Ozick's introduction provides useful historical background information and challenges Tolstoy's romanticized depiction of Cossack society.  Ozick discusses a history of ethnic cleansing in the region that goes back many centuries.  The fierce pride in culture and clan often has dangerous effects, a subject that Tolstoy does not really address.

The novel is steeped in sensuous passages, of nature, war, and physical attraction, which are unforgettable.  Over the course of the novel, Dmitri becomes obsessed with a Cossack peasant woman named Maryanka.  The passages describing his infatuation are intense.  The narrator describes Dmitri's first long look at Maryanka as follows:  "With the quick and hungry curiosity of youth, he noticed despite himself the strong virginal lines that stood out beneath the thin calico smock, and her beautiful eyes were fixed on him with childish terror and wild curiousity."  This gives a taste of the vividness of Tolstoy's writing and the wonderful skill of the translator, Peter Constantine.

This is a truly excellent novel.  I agree with the reviewer who says that it is a great novel to introduce Tolstoy to new readers since it is short and accessible.  I would recommend this edition in particular because the translation is great and Ozick's introduction is astute.  Many of the major themes in Tolstoy's work are evident here, particularly the conflict between sensual and spiritual impulses.

</review>
<review>

Here's a book that not many people know about which should be read by all. It was really just what I needed to read, having just dropped out of university myself. Also, does anyone else think that this book must have greatly influenced Hemingway? It sounds just like him, and he says in A Moveable Feast that he was reading lots of Russian stuff at the start of his career. I realize it might just be that the translator liked Hemingway, but even so it's amazing how much it ends up reading like one of his novels and is so unlike the rest of Tolstoy

</review>
<review>

Truly the best novella that I have ever read. The story of a young Russian aristocrat disillusionned with the life of a city gentleman who looks to the simpler life of a soldier in the  Caucasus for his completion.  An  outstanding  read

</review>
<review>

My grandshildren love this book!  One was concerned that some of the letters folded, and did not look like themselves, but he's gaining perspective on this

</review>
<review>

I read this to my preschoolers almost everyday.  They call it the Coconut Book.  They're learning the alphabet, identifying letters, and  building their vocabulary.

</review>
<review>

I first read this to my son when he was one and a half months old.  He smiled and (almost) laughed, he liked it so much.  Amazing that a book can do that to a child at that age.  He still loves it, and you'll be amazed how quickly you learn to recite it by memory.  It comes in handy all the time -- waiting in the doctor's office, riding in the car, anytime he starts to fuss.  And it doesn't matter if I don't even have the book around -- I just say it and the words capture his attention.  Excellent

</review>
<review>

THank you for the book.  It arrived very fast and I can't wait to use it in my class

</review>
<review>

I taught preschool for years and now have a 6 month old.  I have read Chicka Chicka so many times that I can quote it verbatim from the first "A" to the last "Boom".  The thing about this book is how easy it is to make it exciting and fun for the listener. Anyone who teaches knows that reading to kids is almost as much about the acting as it is about the words and the pictures.  This book lends itself so easily to sign language, volume changes (BOOM BOOM!), tempo changes, humor, and body movements...if you're not willing to twist yourself "ally-oop" like "O", you may not grasp its greatness.  If you are, your listeners will be hooked on Chicka

</review>
<review>

A creative twist on learning the alphabet. My children all really enjoy this book. It has bright, vivid colors. We used this book a lot during our teacher education classes as well. It is seen as a classic and enjoyed by children.

</review>
<review>

I remember thoroughly enjoying this book when I was in kindergarten. That was 16 years ago. It's a great book

</review>
<review>

I started reading this to my now 19 month old twin daughters when they were 9 months old. At first they just loved looking at the colorful letters, then it moved on to giggling at the "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom!" verse. Now, they actually flip through the pages and try to read the story themselves. They will actually babble the rhythm, with a word sprinkled here and there.

I have now started to point to the letters as I read them out with their various parts ("And I and J and tag along K, all on their way up the coconut tree) and we will then sing the alphabet song with the letters that are listed on the front and back pages, again pointing to them.

Each time the book is finished, they ask me to read it again. I have read it up to five times in a row, before I myself get tired of it. I suggest you see if you can get the cd with Ray Charles as he reads it. There are also children reading it, and a couple of songs. I purchased it through Scholastic Books. I highly recommend this book

</review>
<review>

Our 2 year old daughter got the new Blues Clues tape for the ABC and they read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom on it.  She just loved it so we bought both the Chicka Chicak Boom Boom and the 123 numbers books.  She loves these books!  They sell a set with magnetic numbers and I regret not buying that one, but we have other letters to use for additional book interaction.  Plus Blues Clues doesn't do the entire story, so it was fun to be able to read the rest of the book after the letters fall out of the tree.  I highly recommend this book for any child learning their ABC....it's fun for learning

</review>
<review>

Kofi Annan is a sick man and a dangerous one at that.  Kofi Annan: The Peacekeeper is ironic in that Annan has been indirectly and directly responsible for the deaths of many people due his being asleep at the wheel at the UN, support for Arafar, etc.

Jeff Jacoby recently wrote that he is basically a symptom of UN's sickness.  Jacoby noted that just last week, Annan  woke up to a Wall Street Journal column by Glenn Harlan Reynolds, publisher of the influential InstaPundit website, urging that he be replaced by Vaclav Havel, the much-admired former president of the Czech Republic.

In The New York Times, op-ed eminence William Safire reviewed the revelations that link the massive oil-for-food scandal to Annan's own family: Until this year, his son Kojo was getting monthly payments from a firm that had a major oil-for-food contract with the UN -- even though he'd left the company in 1998. The corruption enveloping the UN will not begin to dissipate, Safire wrote, until Annan resigns, "having, through initial ineptitude and final obstructionism, brought dishonor on the Secretariat of the United Nations."

Meanwhile, the latest National Review was out, with its cover photo of Annan and the headline, in large red letters: "You're Fired!" An editorial inside insisted that "Annan should either resign, if he is honorable, or be removed, if he is not," while an essay by Nile Gardiner, a former aide to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, explained why "Kofi's hour is up." With his record, Gardiner observed, "if Annan were the CEO of a Fortune 500 company . . . he would have been forced to resign months ago."

On Wednesday came another call for Annan's ouster, this one from the chairman of the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which has amassed evidence that Saddam Hussein used stolen oil-for-food dollars to underwrite terrorism and suborn at least one senior UN official. It is "abundantly clear" that Kofi Annan should resign, Senator Norm Coleman said. "As long as Mr. Annan remains in charge, the world will never be able to learn the full extent of the bribes, kickbacks, and under-the-table payments that took place under the UN's collective nose."

But odds are the world won't much care about getting to the bottom of the latest UN scandal. UN scandals rarely provoke lasting outrage. There was no global uproar when the brutal regime in Libya was chosen to chair the UN's Human Rights Commission. Nothing happened to the UN after its troops allowed Serbs to slaughter 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the "safe haven" of Srebrenica. Sex scandals seem to erupt wherever the UN goes -- the latest involves charges of rape, child abuse, and prostitution by UN personnel in the Congo -- but they never cause heads to roll in Turtle Bay. Annan himself became secretary general despite his failure, when he headed the UN's peacekeeping operations, to pay attention to warnings of genocide in Rwanda.

Why should anything be different this time? Oil-for-food may be the greatest international rip-off of modern times, it may have strengthened one of the world's bloodiest dictators, but if history is any guide, the scandal headlines will fade from view long before the secretary general does. By week's end, in fact, dozens of governments, including all the permanent members of the Security Council save the United States, had publicly rallied to Annan's support. Scandal or no scandal, he will almost certainly serve out the remaining two years of his term.

Which is just as well. Annan is merely a symptom of the UN's sickness, not the cause of it. His resignation would do nothing to reform the UN into the engine of peace and liberty its founders envisioned. Better that Annan remain in place as a symbol of UN fecklessness and failure, and a spur to those who can envision something better.

The UN is a corrupt institution, one that long ago squandered whatever moral legitimacy it had. The UN's founding documents venerate justice and human rights, but for the past 40 years, the organization has been dominated by a bloc of states -- essentially the Afro-Asian Third World -- most of whose governments routinely pervert justice and violate human rights.

Inside the United Nations, there is no difference between a dictatorship or a democracy: Each gets exactly one vote in the General Assembly. The reason the UN indulges vicious regimes like those in North Korea, Syria, and Cuba is that they are members in good standing, and most other governments lack the courage to cross them. The UN cannot be fixed unless that changes -- and that isn't going to change.

Kofi is a bad man

</review>
<review>

Kurt Vonnegut wrote a number of extremely good novels.  Two of them are truly great.  Cat's Cradle is one. (Slaughterhouse Five is the other)

Cat's Cradle treads on some of the same ground as Orwell's 1984, but where Orwell delivers his message with a heavy hand, Vonnegut delivers his message with sardonic wit and sharp insight.  In Cat's Cradle, Vonnegut directs his considerable wit and insight at the institutions of religion, politics, and science.

Cat's Cradle is arguably Vonnegut's funniest and most imaginative novel, and also one of his most profound.  It manages to be both absurd and frightening. If you haven't read anything by Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle is a great place to start.  This is an important book; one of the best novels ever written.

</review>
<review>

Kurt Vonnegut knows how to draw your attention, and it's often only after you've finished the book that you realize the level of seriousness that he was trying to portray.
Having read Slaughterhouse-Five, Breakfast Of Champions, and A Man Without a Country, I was excited when heard about this one from my friend Eric.
It's about a guy writing about the day the bombs were dropped on Heroshima and Nagasaki.  He's also telling his story of how he converted to Bokononism.
In real life, Vonnegut is a notable humanist, and the cyncism of man-made religion is evident in these pages.  Bokonon is a religious leader who follows a few basic steps to creating a good religion.  He lives life as an outlaw voluntarily, and he admits from the beginning of the Books Of Bokonon that his religion is all lies.
The plots seems to shallow out a bit in the middle (only slightly) but by the end you are flying through pages to find the ultimate fate of the wonderful and crazy characters.
Dark humor on par with Catch 22, it is difficult to decipher what is meant as farce and what is absurd, but overall a highly entertaining read, and a very good take on organized religion

</review>
<review>

Cat's Cradle is basically a unique and creative look at the end of the world.  To me, Vonnegut is arguing that the dizzying progress of science and technology in the last century has made the total destruction of life on earth a frightening possibility, and it's not just the "bad guys" that threaten humanity with annihilation:  an equal threat comes from the well-intentioned but short-sighted, from the lonely or downtrodden, from the greatest superpower to the tiniest and poorest island nation.

In other words, truly destructive technologies, once they exist, become a danger to the entire world regardless of the "good" or "bad" reasons for which they were created, and regardless of whether they fall into the hands of the "good guys" or the "bad guys."  Vonnegut seems to be saying that scientific advancements cannot exist in a moral vacuum, that scientists should take responsibility for what it is they are creating.  The need for extreme care in creating such destructive technologies is made all the more pressing because, according to Vonnegut, we as human beings are addicted to classifying ourselves into nations and religions and political parties, and then killing and dying for these classifications.

Perhaps this is the importance of Vonnegut's invention of Bokononism, the religion of the island nation of San Lorenzo:  if Bokonoism offers one real truth to its followers, it's that the entire religion is made up, a "shameless lie."  The result is that, instead of striving to live Bokononism as the only possible truth, Bokononists are easy going; they realize from the start that Bokononism itself is just another example of the uniquely Bokononist notion of "foma," i.e., "harmless untruths that make you brave and happy and kind."  If that's the case, there's no reason to kill others who disagree with you; instead you can focus on what really matters, which for Vonnegut seems to mean creating satisfying connections with other people.

Cat's Cradle, then, is not only Vonnegut's plea for responsibility in the development of technology, but, perhaps even more fundamentally, it's the story of how we ought to simply learn to get along with each other better.  Luckily, it also happens to be a wildly funny, perfectly crafted piece of creative fiction.  Great book

</review>
<review>

Didn't know what to expect.  Thought it might be difficult reading for some reason.  Turns out it was pretty easy.  I guess it just gives you a lot to think about instead of looking up words and things like that.  I think it could have been a 4.5-5 star book if the story would have been expanded upon to at least 500pp, or at least long enough to develop the characters

</review>
<review>

Kurt Vonnegut's "Cat's Cradle" is the story of a man, Jonah, who is writing about the "end of the world," or the day when the atom bomb was dropped.  His work on the book encourages him to go on many journeys which ultimately leave him in a somewhat ironic yet very comedic position.  The story features an imaginative religion, a scientific potion, and a far off society as part of Vonnegut's many bizarre episodes.  Jonah, researches the "father of the atom bomb" and his children in order to determine what they were doing on the day the atom bomb was dropped.  Seemingly against his will, Jonah gets pulled into a plethora of discoveries about the children and their father which he never could have imagined to be true.  His journeys ultimately land him, along with the children, on a secluded island with a radically different society from their own.

I did in fact enjoy reading this book because of the absurdity and the unbelievable voyages which the main character undergoes.  However, it is in fact Vonnegut's style that makes the book so enjoyable.  He is able to bring the reader into this world where virtually anything can happen which then leaves the reader totally unaware and clueless as to what comes next.  The world allows him to describe such things as the discovery of the island of San Lorenzo in a two page account where six different countries claim and forget about the nation before escaping African slaves finally claims the land for good.  It is through Vonnegut's voice and style that the reader may not stop to consider such oddities as this one.

Originally, I chose to read this book after finishing Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five," and was absolutely taken away by the combination of absurdity and hilariousness through which he expresses himself in this book.  Though I did not expect this book to be as far out as the alien adventure in "Slaughterhouse Five," it did seem like a pleasant offbeat satire about modern man.  In the end I enjoyed this book more than "Slaughterhouse Five" because of the comedic voice that I found more visible in "Cat's Cradle."  Though the first was rather ridiculous and interesting, for me it did nothing more than provoke thoughts about where such an idea would come from, rather than make me laugh.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is seeking an imaginative and far off satirical story that is sure to create a smile.  While many may think the story to be boring and pointless, it is partly this hollowness that makes it so enjoyable.  The reader is baffled and unable to understand why things happen the way they do creating a randomness that I have found to be attractive.  For those readers that were bored by part of the book and decided to put it down forever, I would encourage you to fight through the beginning.  After all, I did in fact at first believe that this would be a serious account of the day the atom bomb was dropped, until the Bokonon religion was further explained and glorified

</review>
<review>

Okay, I would like to give it 5-stars!  What was I thinking, I can't change it now?!?!  A truly entertaining, and somewhat frightening book.  I don't like to write long reviews, so I'll get right to it.  If you enjoyed Slaughterhouse-Five, you'll most certainly enjoy this novel.  Cat's Cradle is more accessible, and not as outrageous as Slaughterhouse (which I enjoyed a little more).  What can be said about Vonnegut that hasn't already been said.  He was ahead of his time in thumbing his nose at the "powers-that-be".  Do yourself a favor and read this book........NOW

</review>
<review>

I frankly hold this one book as the perfect example of fiction writing at its best. Intelligent, creative, wry, funny, brilliant. Read it! If you don't have at least a slightly twisted sense of humor, don't bother reading it.

</review>
<review>

I've read many of Vonnegut's books over the past few years and I have to say that this is easily his greatest work.  It contains a gripping tale about a protagonist that is stuck in a world that is almost certainly doomed to fail.  Along the way there are many interesting thoughts expressed and funny moments

</review>
<review>

I don't know whether to categorize the book as political, adventurous, anti-religious, satirical or philosophical (perhaps all). This being my first Vonnegut novel, I can say with personal conviction, that I am a staunch Bokononist. The journey of Cat's Cradle is one of absurdities, cliches, wisdom, luck and chance. What I find intriguing is how Vonnegut manages to balance the seriousness of the atomic bombing of Japan, and the foolish life of a scientist, who helped create it. I do like the characters and feel they all have their moment of catharsis. Somehow they all feel relevant to the story, yet John(the main character) never seems dull

</review>
<review>

This is truly an amazing book, if your interested in reading anything by Kurt Vonnegut I would recomend this being your first, I swear it, if you read Cats Cradle you will be hooked on Vonegut

</review>
<review>

I really enjoyed this book by Nora Roberts.  It is set in the Carribbean which makes it a good book to read in summer, IMHO.  It has romance, treasure hunting, and a little magic....really great!  I liked it alot

</review>
<review>

This has got to be my all time favorite book...I could not put it down....I read it several years ago...

The Scenery, mystery, romance all intertwined makes for a great novel.


</review>
<review>

This is one of my favorite books by Nora Roberts. Setting is her specialty. She really knows how to take the reader with her on every adventure. You really come to care about these characters, and it's great to escape with them to the sunny ocean setting and go deep-sea diving for the very first time in your life! This one earned its 5 stars!

</review>
<review>

I took this book to Hawaii with me and found out very quickly it was a perfect choice.  I loved the relationship between the two main characters.  I felt like the ending may have been a little rushed, maybe because I did not want it to end! Also, I felt a bit of a personality change in the leading male character towards the end of the story. Matthew Lassiter seemed to became a bit passive towards the end of the book.  Other than that I loved the book and still felt it was worth five stars

</review>
<review>

With the chilly season setting in here in Washington State, the thoughts of a tropical vacation keep me going all winter long.  I must admit that what attracted me first to this book was the palm tree, the blue-green water, the sand and the longing of wanting to be there.  This is the first of Nora Roberts I have read, however I am an avid JD Robb reader.
This book was so well written that you could just envision yourself in the sea diving for treasure or aboard the boat in the warm sun.  How exciting!  The plot was wonderful, the characters were likable, the villians were nasty.  This is one book that I am going to buy for myself as a guilty treat, and I will read it again when the cold starts setting in, so that it can take me away again for a warm exciting adventure.

</review>
<review>

I am fairly new to Nora Roberts.  But this book is not only my favorite by her, it's one my favorite books altogether.  It was so well written it made me feel like I were diving and hunting treasures myself!  And it has such a sweet, romantic storyline.  I was really sorry to see it end.  I hope there will be a sequel.  I recommend any woman to read this book, whether you like romance novels or not

</review>
<review>

First, let me say that while I have read many of Nora Roberts books, more often than not I am somewhat disappointed.  While she is always a reliable read, her stories tend to be very formulaic, and too often forgettable.  I picked up The Reef almost by accident at a friend's, for lack of anything else to read.  Having read a few of Nora's books before, my expectations weren't that high; I was pleasantly surprised.  Unlike the predictability of her other books, this one went against convention in many ways, while still developing a satisfying romance and mystery.  Generally Nora sacrifices an intriguing plot for the central relationship, but she balances the two beauifully here.  Not only did she create an intriguing villain, but the love story was touching.  As other readers have said, I liked how she spread it out over the years, which made it slightly more realistic, and somehow much sweeter at the end.  The development of secondary characters was also a welcome change from typical Nora.  In short, if you're not typically a Nora Roberts fan, give this one a try!  Not the best romantic suspsense I've ever encountered, but definetly worth the read

</review>
<review>

I can't say enough good things about THE REEF! It shows a strong female character in a field that used to be dominated by men, and a strong sensitive male that isn't afraid to dream.

This is a fantasy come true and involves marine archeologist Tate Beaumont and Matthew Lassiter and their families. The families run into each other while treasure-hunting for Angelique's Curse - a treasure that has eluded everyone, and many think it is only a myth. But this artifact is worth everything to some, even worth killing another.

As this joint expedition continues, it holds all of the elements needed for a great story: mystery, romance, secrets that can't be shared, deceptions and threats. There are so many angles that could have been pursued the reader isn't sure which avenue Nora Roberts will take until she delivers them to it. This always keeps you on the edge of your seat, and gives you a first hand "view" of the undersea world of beauty and intrigue.

I highly recommend THE REEF and only wish it would have continued - or at least had a sequel in the works! Great characters and fantastic plot will hook the reader from the beginning. One of Nora Roberts better works!

</review>
<review>

Plain Truth, set in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, would be better entitled, Fancy Lies. An eighteen-year-old Plain woman wakes up with labor pains, gives birth in a calving pen, cuts the umbilical cord and prays, "Lord, please make this go away." When she awakens and the baby is no longer with her, she whispers, "Denke," and goes on with her day. Later, after the deceased body of an infant is found and the police are called to investigate, she tells them "I didn't have a baby," as blood trickles down her leg. Without providing spoilers, two (of many) implausible situations follow. First, two women, one old, one young, both separately become pregnant through one act of intercourse, defying the odds of fertility. Second, a criminal defense attorney who made a name for herself getting an acquittal for an elementary school principal who molested six students is actually very maternal and willingly leaves big city life with a boyfriend of eight years to live on an electricity-free farm out of the kindness of her heart. In summary, a two-page italicized section mid-book along with the first and last chapters provide enough details of the basic plot to save the reader from 400 implausible pages. Those interested in reading just one book by Jodi Picoult should choose My Sister's Keeper. Chris Bohjalian's Midwives is better.

</review>
<review>

I will not be passing it on to a friend.  The ending left me irritated; why should I close a book with questions in my head?  I will not buy another Picoult book.  I felt "snookered" by Keeping Faith and now I have been fooled twice.

I have to say I did enjoy the book up until the ending, but the Hannah ghost plot was unfulfilled and I was surprised to find out in the middle of the book that Ellie had short hair.  Why didn't I know that before?  Obviously, the characters would have benefited from better descriptions.

</review>
<review>

The writing is pedestrian and the plot makes no sense.  I thought something might change, that it might become an interesting ghost story, or there might be moral issues, or maybe even a character would grow or change.  The heavy-handed ending is, perhaps, intended to demonstrate how the intense oppression and suppression of women in Amish culture forces them to violence against their loved ones...but that's a pretty heavy message for a book that seems full of meaninglessness.  Are we supposed to take everything that Ellie says about the Amish in court (peaceful, gentle, incapable of murder, loving, child-centric, willing to accept an out-of-wedlock child into the community) as lies?  The ending belongs to a much darker book.  My biggest complaint though is the bad writing and editing, I kept stumbling over inconsistencies and that always inhibits my enjoyment of a story.

</review>
<review>

I have read several of Ms. Picoult's books and I think this was the best yet.  The writing was so great, I was taken right into the Amish countryside.

This is the story of Katie Fisher, an 18-year-old Amish girl who is pregnant and unmarried.  She gives birth in the barn, falls asleep and when she wakes up, the baby is gone.  It is discovered later, hidden elsewhere in the barn and dead.  Katie is charged with the baby's murder.  Ellie Hathaway, a high powered attorney from Philadelphia, defends Katie.

The characters are wonderfully drawn and developed to the point you feel you know them.  The writing is lyrical and I was just absolutely unable to put this book down.  Plus, I never saw the surprise ending coming.  The developing friendship between Ellie and Katie was so well written and believable.  Ms. Picoult very clearly did a great deal of research into the Amish way of life.  I look forward to reading this author's other books.

</review>
<review>

Like all of the Jodi Picoult novels I've read to date, this one slides down as easily as ice cream. She is a masterful storyteller, with the ability to pull you into a time and place, and an extraordinary family situation. Plain Truth tells the story of an Amish girl by the name of Katie Fisher and the lawyer, Ellie Hathaway, who defends her in a murder trial. Katie is accused of neonaticide, killing a baby she refuses to admit she delivered even though it is a medically indisputable fact that she has just given birth.

The plot unfolds around the psychological treatment of Katie and Ellie's immersion into the Fisher family and the Amish (or Plain) way of life. It held my interest from the start, until what at first appears to be a tidy (and disappointing) ending. But to my delight, it offers an unexpected twist. I read the last page with complete satisfaction.

Certainly a must for Picoult fans, but for readers unfamiliar with her work, if you like well-written stories, with emphasis on both character AND plot, this one's for you. Additionally, if you have any interest in the Amish culture, this book is interesting and enlightening. Picoult has certainly done her research.

From the author of "I'm Living Your Dream Life," and "The Things I Wish I'd Said," McKenna Publishing Group

</review>
<review>

This book was the best I have read of Picoult, though I don't think she knows how to write a bad one! It explores the Amish community and the story takes place in that setting.

A young Amish girl, Katie had a baby and denied she was pregnant, as in the Amish community, which is very strict, girls bring a lot of shame to their families with sins such as these. And Katie denied it the whole time she was pregnant, managing to conceal this from her family the whole time. Until of course, when she goes into labor, and walk out to the barn to have the child, whome she lies in the hay after having it, and goes back into the house. Of course the child was discovered the next morning dead, the police are called in, and Katie is one of the girls questioned. She denies it ever happening, even when the police noted her gowns covered in blood. She gets hauled off to the hospital, and there it was verified that Katie did indeed have a child, but she says there is no way. No one is going to believe her, of course, and she gets arrested for highly suspected murder in the first degree, especially when it was found that the baby had a shirt around him, seemingly to cover him up, or smother him? The answer is revealed later.

Anyhow, Ellie a hotshot defense attorney who knows how to get her clients off the hook, is appointed to Katie, and under her strict custody as the only way to keep her from going straight to prison. So Ellie packs up her bags, and has to adapt to a whole new world for some time until Katie's trial begins. And, this way, she will also get to know Katie and try to dig up the real story about what happened. But everytime they talk, Katie changes her story, ending up in tears. So to build her case a bit more strongly, Ellie consults her former lover Coop, of who is a shrink to let him question/examine Katie. It is then that Katie begins slowly, to tell what happened, finally admitting to the pregnancy. Once she does, she must confess to the Amish church, and after confession, she goes under the 'ban' they call it where she is shunned by her entire family; parents and everybody.

Katie had an older brother, Jacob, who broke all the Amish rules, and was of course disowned by his own family. Katie had a once a month time where she herself broke away from the tight, strict Amish circle, and would visit Jacob, and be like any other teenager. It was there that she met Adam, and the two enjoyed romance together. This is where the pregnancy happened.

As the story moves on, the trial is coming around. A jury will decide whether or not Katie is innocent or guilty of killing her child. The book is really not predictable here, and leaves you in suspense all the way as to its conclusion

</review>
<review>

This was my first time reading a Jodi Picoult book and I really don't think I will attempt another one.  The Plain Truth was painfully long, boring and repetitive.  Every character was annoying and unbelievable - especially Ellie and Katie ( the main two). I kept waiting for a great twist with the ghost of Hannah but it never came.  Just some added supernatural of no revelance thrown in.  The beginning is the only part of the book I found interesting....It went downhill ( extremely slowly) after that.

</review>
<review>

Plain Truth tells the story of an Amish girl, Katie Fisher, charged with the murder of her infant child immediately after she gave birth to it out of wedlock. Ellie Hathaway, a hot-shot defense atorney gets suckered into taking the case though circumstance and extended family. Ellie herself has a biological clock like a timebomb about to explode and can't reconcile her feelings about having her own child with how Katie apparently killed her own child.

This book really shines because of the inside view of Amish life it provides the reader. Even without the Amish thing the book is a good read though.

One thing that I didn't like was that sometimes the author writes in a way that assumes the audience has given a good amount of thought to what it would be like to be pregnant and bear a child, and being male myself, these parts made me feel out of touch with the characters, especially Ellie, in the book. But the book is still very good to read, and I definetly recommend it

</review>
<review>

After reading five of her novels, I have become a fan of Jodi Picoult. I will admit (and this probably proves that I am a sucker for marketing rather than letting the literature speak for itself) that I've deliberately read all of her best sellers before reading the books that didn't make it on the list.

Initially I liked the book and it kept me reading, though maybe just out of habit. I enjoyed reading about the Amish way of life and the Amish traditions - though it did make me think of that Harrison Ford movie, Witness (circa 1989 or something). I like that she used one first person voice as well as the third person narrative in a well crafted and varied way.
I like that her main character has a powerful job that challenges gender stereotypes by being the morally questionable lawyer. That being said, she doesn't explore this as well as she could. We sort of forget that Ellie has blatantly suppressed evidence and watched as little girls saw their rapist acquitted. Rape, she can defend, but infanticide creates some problems for the notorious defense attorney.

Something about the book bothered me. Maybe I am reading too many of her books too fast but I am seeing a formula here.
- Many of her plots include a court room drama.
- All of her plots feature romance or end with the obvious potential for one.
- Mothers and their powerful (all encompassing, self-sacrificing) love for their children are a theme in all of her books I've read.
- There is usually a "twist" at the end. She's becoming Koontz like in her formulaic predictability and I stopped reading his novels as a teenager.

Most of her books left me content, like I'd eaten a good, hearty meal. However, this book left me hungry and searching for critical reviews to see if others shared my dissatisfaction.

So:
- I was unimpressed with the "twist" at the end of this one - I knew "whodunit" about 1/2 of the way through. I was getting bored with that part of the story. The red herrings are too obvious and her suggestions that Katie didn't do it were there from the beginning. She should've stopped the heavy handed attempt to make us question that and just made it known through the 3 person narrative exactly who did the killing or hiding. Then she could have explored that character in depth instead of hiding her and others she wanted you to be suspicious about. Just because we, the readers knew, didn't mean that Ellie had to know - or anyone else for that matter.

- The characters in this novel were a tad generic. I am sorry, I like her, but they were boring.

For instance, I was bored with Ellie's dilemma over Coop - to the point where I often skipped the interaction they had when they discussed their potential future together. Duh, I knew they were going to get together after a little drama from Ellie through which Coop - being the quintessential "sensitive ponytail guy" - would wait, albeit in pain. It was just too predictable.

Hannah's ghost; she has a ghost hunter in a later novel and I was a disappointed to see another one. But other than that, Hannah's ghost seems a bizarre and meaningless addition. Is it to suggest that she, Katie, might be crazy and a murderer? Is it to explain why she was so drawn to Adam? Katie being the good Amish girl could only fall for someone who could share her secret ability to see her sister... In a book that is so Amishly pragmatic and logical in every other way makes it so the supernatural element clashes with the rest of the novel. Maybe Hannah's ghost killed Katie's baby or hid it.

I liked the details. The Amish and their daily lives, those who assimilate and those who don't, and how the religion and way of life affect one's thinking offers a neat, un-scholarly insight into a different culture. I liked the culture clashes and I wondered how they would be resolved. But what I did like, doesn't measure against my dissatisfaction.

My most recent book purchase included three works of fiction; two by Picoult and one by Atwood. I think I'll shelve the unread Picoult for a while. I'll have some time to forget her modus operandi. I'll read the Atwood and then I'll buy a book by a different author

</review>
<review>

For Love is a subdued, mature chronicle of a woman coming to terms with adult relationships. This book tells the story of Lottie, a woman haunted by her and her new husband's pasts. The tone is detached with the author perhaps purposefully distancing the readers from intense emotion. Themes in the book include love (of course) both romantic and familial, identity, loyalty, maturation, and conscious living. It is not a tale packed with action-- though it decidedly lures us with a "what will ever happen?" plot thread. Sue Miller nimbly and impressively weaves the plot back and forth through time and through the emotional state of the protaganist (Lottie). It is a first person account told in third person (hence the distancing). This device may be used to emulate the lack of connection and knowledge Lottie has with and of herself. This book presents the simple unfolding of a story completed with brilliant technique and subtlety. Would I recommend this book? Yes. It contains simple life truths which provoke soul searching and contemplation. To whom would I recommend it? Patient readers. Those willing to take the time to meander with the author and the protangonist through the often stream of consciousness narration. Was this book life changing for me? Yes. It helped me wrap my mind around two ideas that while very intuitive seemed very fresh and enrichming for me: 1) When we love people, that love will either stretch to include all different versions of them as they grow and change, or it won't... lasting love takes work in that regard. How is this work done? This leads me to idea # 2) Sometimes we have to pretend to love the changed version of a person we once loved (or pretend to embrace the true nature person who we idealized as something else) until that love can adapt and become a reality. Will this book change the way I live? It will change my perspective. If the book's philosophy is correct and thought follow actions... then yes... it will have changed my life. I enjoyed this book for it's unlikely marriage of depth and simplicity

</review>
<review>

The relationships between the various characters weren't convincing and I failed to connect to the main character, Lottie, at all.  The book seemed to ramble on, and didn't catch my interest.  There were a few parts where the action picks up, but they were like tiny islands surrounded by a vast ocean of blandness

</review>
<review>

All the characters in this book were shallow, selfish and boring. The writing was good but I could not relate to nor sympathize with any of the characters

</review>
<review>

I enjoyed this book,but then again I always enjoy  Sue Miller's novels.She has this way of making me feel close to her main characters.  So anyway Sue,Is Lottie Ok? Has she found contentment in life? Please write me at  Babz@aol.com.  I am about to read  and quot;The Distinguished Guest and quot;--I  heard it was really great!  I'll let you know. Bar

</review>
<review>

This is an excellant book for people seeking answers to living life to its fullest. Siddhartha learned the lessons the hard way and through his journey we then learn those same lessons and find out just how simple they really are. I recommend reading this book again as most of us have probably read it years ago.

</review>
<review>

People that say this book changed your life and that if you get it it is the best book and the only book you need, clearly didn't get the book. That is the antithesis of one of the main points of the book.The point is that "teaching" is wrong, striving to "learn" is wrong. You have to find the answers within yourself, you have to truly see and hear yourself without your ego clouding the truth. This is the way to happiness and "enlightenment" The point of this book is that you cannot learn what it shows/tells you. You must find it within yourself, you must experience it yourself. The point is that a book on enlightenment on spirituallity can never truly show you these things can never bring enlightenment to you, that is something that must be discovered within yourself. You must strive for it, go through hardships for it, it cannot be handed to you or it loses all value.

</review>
<review>

Seriously, if you're gonna read Siddhartha, this is certainly the edition to get -- the slightly oversized Penguin Classics one.

It features a useful (35-page!) introduction by Ralph Freedman, which includes suggestions for further reading.

The translation by Joachim Neugroschel -- a new one -- also reads swiftly and naturally.

There are no footnotes for the text itself, however

</review>
<review>

this book is simply amazing! and when i say simply, i also mean that it is an interestingly simple book... very short and concise... and yet filled with so much knowledge and meaning... it really is a treatise on life itself.

this book truly is a two way conversation. you just cant help wondering, asking new question you've never asked before... some books are strictly written for the excitement, making them a one way conversation, the author just telling you things and there is nothing you can say that will  make what he (or she) said better... but this book, as i said, truly is the opposite of that.

read the book and you will know where I am coming from... it is a great book and worthyto be read by everyone..

</review>
<review>

I bought this item together with other photography books and I am very pleased with it. The author, Michael Langford, (yes the same guy who wrote the highly acclaimed Basic Photography) distilled the lessons into 101 easy tips that is a great help for beginners who wanted to get their feet wet immediately.

I would highly recommend this book to any newcomer to photography who is both excited about his camera and cannot be bothered to spend time with more voluminous photography books. This book goes immediately to the heart of the matter: camera background and how to tackle photography subjects.

If I had this book when I was still using my point and shoot, I would have produced more good pictures simply by the fact that I would be able to avoid the common pitfalls and mistakes of beginners (unknown to me then), which this little book teaches.

Altough this is concerned with film photography, I still recommend this even if you have a digital camera because the proven ways of effectively composing a picture are still the same whether you use film or digital. Photography is still about the unique way of seeing things in a whole new light and composing them in the canvas that is your camera's viewfinder so that you would be able to show your audience exactly what you want

</review>
<review>

My 15 year old son, who of course is an expert on everything, reluctantly read this compact book and admitted that he learned quite a bit from it. He certainly takes good pictures so we certainly got our moneys worth

</review>
<review>

This little book is GREAT!  It was one of many books that I bought when I took my first my first round with an SLR.  I really got more out of it than several of the more impressive ( and amp; expensive) books that I bought!  I carried it around in my camera bag forever and referred to it many times.  Then when my daughter showed an interest in photography it is the one I picked to get her started.  If you are just starting out.. don't sweat the 5 bucks

</review>
<review>

I recently bought a Canon Rebel 2000 and need a small simple book with guidelines on taking better pictures in a variety of different situations.  This book is WONDERFUL!!! Gives many "real life" examples and shows sample pictures of everything the author talks about. A must for anyone wanting to take better pictures

</review>
<review>

This book is small enough to fit in your pocket or camera bag. Yet, it's full of useful tips accompanied by demonstrative full color photographs. Personally, I find it to be a great reference. On vacations, I always bring it along as plane reading material so that my skills are refreshed for travel photography. It's a must have for any amateur photographer

</review>
<review>

This is my 3rd Nora Roberts book.  I've read the first 2 in the 3 Sisters trilogy, and decided to read Chesapeake Blue while I (very eagerly) await Face the Fire in the mail.  Perhaps I was spoiled by the characters, the conflicts, and the love stories in 3 Sisters, but this book pales in comparison.

The Quinns are meant to be a family whose perfect and deep love for one another is tempered by a course and affectionate manly banter.  Sort of like 7th Heaven meets a beer commercial.  Anyways, Seth is supremely talented, handsome, kind, and sizzling in the sack; in other words, a stock Nora Roberts male character.  Alas, he is also entirely thick-headed, vain, and has the mental processes of a mule when faced with his "problem", which he only exacerbates over the course of the book.  So he has a floozy of a mother who blackmails him into huge sums of money on pain of, what, her leaking a story to the press which, once she removes all the parts that reflect poorly on her, would be about 2 sentences long?  And, he can't tell his troubles to his family that he loves "so" much?  I mean, I wouldn't tell Cam anything myself, because he seems to deal with every moment of emotion by pitching someone off the end of a pier in a fit of manly love.  But Anna and the rest seem like good candidates for a chat.

Finally, Drusilla.  First, the name makes her sound like a villian in a Disney movie.  Second, she is flat as a pancake, and I would pay for problems like hers.  At the very end, she exhibits a spark of life, and sort of morphs into another stock Nora Roberts stock character: the sassy, smart, no-nonsense, gal who steps up to defend her man.  Which, I like that character.

In my limited experience, Nora Roberts writes female friendships and falling in love brilliantly, but her male friendships need a few less put-downs and jaws clenched to supress brotherly emotion.  And, I agree with the other reviewers who wanted Seth to end up with Aubrey.


</review>
<review>

I really enjoyed reading about Seth and his life. This book added so much humor to make the situations a bit more fun, especially since Seth is still young. Reading about him as a man was far better than hearing about him when he was a boy. However, a wonderful ending to a series....


Also recommended: SEASWEPT/RISING TIDES/INNER HARBOR/VILLA/BIRTHRIGHT---- WERE ALL A GOOD READ

</review>
<review>

Why is it ever time you want something bad enough it usually turns out bad? After the wonderful Quinn trilogy fans (including me) begged and begged for Nora Roberts to write Seth's story. After all we journeyed with Seth through we wanted to see him fall in love. Nora Roberts repeatedly said she would not write one. But us fans kept on begging for it and were excited when she finally gave in and wrote it. And we got Chesapeake Blue. Reading it you know you should be grateful because you wanted Seth's story but....this wasn't what I (and my fellow NR fans friends) wanted. First of all I wanted the heroine to be Aubrey. After their beautiful friendship in the Quinn trilogy I expected her to be Seth's love interest. But I tried to keep an open mind after all I loved Anna, Grace, and Sybill, but Dru Whitcomb Banks was a completely let down. All she did was whine and complain about her life which were minor compared to what Cam, Ethan, Philip, and Seth experienced as children. Seth becoming an artist was a surprise too I expected him to join the family business and design boats. The Gloria blackmailing him was a very thin and bad plotline. There's no reason Gloria would want to contact him considering all the warrents for her and that Seth wouldn't tell his family considering the Quinn Brothers (and wives)worked their so hard to keep him away from her. I closed this book vowing never to request, beg or petition an author to write a book when they say they don't want to. Because this is what you get

</review>
<review>

I'm embarassed that I read this all the way through. The language/expletives passing for literature and dialogue were an early turnoff. I don't live with people who talk like that, and I don't understand the purpose: "sophistication"? To my mind, the characters were not enhanced nor the plot forwarded by the way the book was loaded with @%# and *s.


</review>
<review>

It was great to return to the great characters in this family that Nora Roberts has created. To see what time has visited them with, and what happens to the lost little boy in the original stories. Score another hit

</review>
<review>

I wanted to be there with the Quinn brothers.  I loved the description of the Chesapeake Bay.  It's very hard to explain how I felt.  I was a part of this book from beginning to end.

I just can't say enough about the book

</review>
<review>

The book was in good shape on first glance.  As I finished reading the book, the last 4 pages were torn making the top 1/3 of the page impossible to read.  It was frustrating but I was able to read the rest of the book and get the idea how the book ended

</review>
<review>

Perfect ending to the prior three Nora Roberts novels chronicaling the lives of four brothers

</review>
<review>

More information than I never knew existed about National Lampoon.  The extraordinary detail that Josh Karp uncovered to put this book together is absolutely amazing

</review>
<review>

I more or less forced myself to read the entire book because there were some great anecdotes and also several nodes of connectivity where someone famous first got their start working with some of the other persons mentioned in its pages.

But the factual detail and the amount of time spent on uninteresting background and financial dealings made for slow reading.  I really wasn't all that interested in the various ownership deals between the principals of the story.  Too much blah, blah, blah and not enough sizzle.

By the second half of the book I was skimming the pages trying to find something/anything interesting to keep me engaged.  I'm donating this along with a bunch of other books that I've read, to a local shelter.

</review>
<review>

The title "A Futile and Stupid Gesture" is, of course a quote from "National Lampoon's Animal House", one of the most beloved, successful, and influential films of the past 30 years.  Doug Kenney helped write that movie and played the role of "Stork", as well as writing the almost-as-adored "Caddyshack", along with being one of the first and most powerful editors of the legendary magazine "National Lampoon".  Josh Karp's book is both a biography of Kenney and a history of the whole "Lampoon" scene, which because of the sway of the quasi-spinoff "Saturday Night Live", becomes a social history of American comedy during the 1970's.  And that decade was to comedy like the 1960's was to rock--a time which transformed show business and culture not just in the U.S. but in the whole Western world.  The irony is that, as a woman who worked with the almost all-male writers of that scene said of them, "they were the most miserable bunch of guys I've ever known."

Karp's book is astoundingly thorough.  He has interviewed pretty much everyone involved with the epic story and read encyclopedic amounts of social history so he can present the whole Lampoon cultural revolution in its widest context.  Kenney was like the Forrest Gump of comedy in that he met almost everyone during that time, so you get sharply etched portraits of the SNL gang, Michael O' Donoghue, Harold Ramis, P.J. O'Rourke, Tony Hendra, Anne Beatts, and a whole constellation of stars that came into contact with the Hollywood-Lampoon axis.  Karp is a smooth, novelistic storyteller so the book is as fun to read as the old magazine itself.  And there are large chunks of the Lampoon excerpted, so you get a rich taste of what the publication was like at its best.

Karp is also a competent historian, so you also get a suprisingly objective and rationally considered picture, especially about the above-mentioned personal misery of Kenney and his crew.  Karp is unsparing in writing about the drug abuse which may have eventually wrecked Kenney's life, and about the misogyny and darkness of much of the comedy produced at the time.  At this late date it's still hard to know whether Kenney's death was an accident or suicide, but his demise was a signature event of the era, not unlike the more famous passing of John Belushi 18 months later.  It was a signal to "come inside and join the adults at the table", as O'Rourke would put it.  Anyone who wants to have a fuller understanding of American cultural history in the twilight of the 20th century should consult Karp's excellent book.

</review>
<review>

Ever since Esquire published their cover story on Doug Kenney, "Life and Death of a Comic Genius," many years ago, I've been hoping for a book like this to appear. Mention the name Doug Kenney to your co-workers and see what sort of reaction you get until you start talking about National Lampoon and Animal House.

As a comic novelist who was deeply inspired by the take-no-prisoners attitude of the Lampoon, I feel indebted to Kenney (as many other writers and comedians should) and hope this book brings wider attention to his comic genius and important contributions to the history of modern comedy.

Josh Karp does a wonderful job of weaving the interesting life of a magazine, with the interesting and tragic life of Kenney. This could have easily been an on-the-fly trash bio, but Karp approaches his subjects with intelligence and obviously did a lot of homework, interviewing key people related to Kenney and the Lampoon.

I have some misgiving about the cover. I understand the choice, given that Rick Meyerowitz was a key artist in the development of National Lampoon, but it makes the book seem just a bit slighter than what it is, which is a really thoughtful, intelligent biography. That said, I hope I'm wrong and the book get all the attention it deserves.

</review>
<review>

About a year ago, I checked out this book from the school's library (I was very suprised they had a book on vegetarianism). It has alot of information on becoming a vegetarian, has Q  and  A sections and tells you about different kinds of non-meat diets, such as "fruititarian", when you only eat fruit. I think all children and teen vegetarians should read this book

</review>
<review>

This book is written in a very fun, age-appropriate style.  It highlights many of the concerns and interests of the young vegetarian.  It includes jokes, recipes, information, comebacks, and even famous vegetarians.  A great read for the young vegetarian, especially one you may be afraid of losing to peer pressure.  NOTE:  Although veganism is mentioned, the book focuses on vegetarianism, not veganism

</review>
<review>

This volume contains 10 of Heinlein's Future History stories written during the 1940's.

The first, 'Delilah and the Space Rigger' (1949) concerns the arrival of women's liberation on a construction site in space.
'Space Jockey' (1947) describes the problems of long distance relationships.
'The Long Watch' (1948) sometimes being a hero means being in the wrong place at the right time
'Gentlemen, Be Seated' (1948) a journalist discovers what it takes to survive on the moon up close and personal
'The Black Pits of Luna' (1947) some children should be neither seen nor heard
'It's Great to be Back' (1946) a young couple learns that home is where the heart is
'-We Also Walk Dogs' (1941) a very enterprising group of business people tackle some very surprising problems
'Ordeal in Space' (1947) a grounded spaceman faces his demons aided by a most surprising ally
'The Green Hills of Earth' (1947) the life and times of the poet laureate of space
'Logic of Empire' (1941) two wealthy young businessmen investigate the colonial problem

These stories laid a very solid foundation to the Future History stories.  Many of the characters and/or incidents described return in later stories in this series making this a good place for a newcomer to RAH's work to begin or provid background for anyone who has read the later stories.

</review>
<review>

This collection of Future History stories was first published in 1951, and it consists of 9 short stories and one novella which were originally published between March of 1941 and December of 1949.  The collection itself was recognized by fans in the Astounding/Analog All-Time Polls in 1952 and 1956 where it ranked 8th and 17th respectively.  The stories in this collection are chronological with respect to Heinlein's Future History.  These are some of the classic stories from Heinlein's early writings.  This is definitely a must read for anyone who likes Science Fiction.

"Delilah and the Space-Rigger" was originally published in "Bluebook" in December of 1949.  It is the story of what happens when a woman, Gloria Brooks McNye,  is hired as a replacement radio technician for what had been an all-male crew building a space station.

"Space Jockey" was first published in "The Saturday Evening Post" on April 26, 1947.  It is the story of Jake Pemberton whose job (space pilot) is causing stress on his marriage.

"The Long Watch" was first published in "American Legion Magazine" in December of 1949.  This is the story of Johnny Dahlquist, who tries to prevent Colonel Towers from staging a coup and taking control of the Moon and Earth.  This is one of two stories from this collection that have been recognized by fans in the long term.  It was recognized in 1971 on the Astounding/Analog All-Time Poll of Short Fiction where it tied for 30th.  Then in 1999, it tied for 33rd on the Locus All-Time Poll for Short Stories.

"Gentlemen, Be Seated!" was first published in "Argosy" in May of 1948.  This is the story of a journalist, Jack Arnold, who during a visit to Lunar City he goes to check out a mining operation when he is looking for a story.  He is trapped in a tunnel when an accident isolates him and two others from the rest of the base.

"The Black Pits of Luna" was first published in "The Saturday Evening Post" on January 10, 1948.  The story is about the Logan family who is visiting the Moon.  The youngest son disappears when they are touring the surface of the Moon.  It is written from the point of view of the elder of the two sons.

"It's Great To Be Back!" was first published in "The Saturday Evening Post" on July 26, 1947.  It is the story of Allan and Josephine MacRae who are eager to return to Earth after spending a few years on the Moon.  Once they get to Earth, they find things are not as good as they remembered.

"-We Also Walk Dogs" was first published in "Astounding" in July of 1941 under the pseudonym Anson MacDonald.  In this story, General Services is offered a large contract to create a meeting environment on Earth for an important government meeting.  The catch is how can they counter the effects of gravity for those attendees from lower density environments?

"Ordeal In Space" was first published in "Town  and  Country" in May of 1948.  It is the story of a space hero who is suffering from acrophobia after an incident in space.  He tries to create a simple life for himself on Earth, when a stray cat forces him to confront his fear.

"The Green Hills Of Earth" was first published in "The Saturday Evening Post" on February 8, 1947.  It is the story of Rhysling, the Blind Singer of the Spaceways, who lost his sight saving a ship and then spends years bumming rides and singing his songs.  He decides eventually to return to Earth, and then another incident results in his greatest work.  This is one of the classic stories of Science Fiction.  In 1971, it was tied for 2nd on the Astounding/Analog All-Time Poll for Short Fiction, and in 1999 it rated 10th on the 1999 Locus All-Time Poll for Short Stories.

"Logic of Empire" is the novella that was first published in "Astounding" in March of 1941.  In this story, two wealthy friends argue about whether or not the working conditions on Venus could be considered slavery.  When they wake up, they discover that after getting drunk, they have signed on for a work assignment on Venus to settle the bet

</review>
<review>

As with any collection of short stories, there's some variance in quality here.  Several are three-star, a few are four-star, and two are five-star.  "The Long Watch" is a great character study, with emphasis on loyalty, duty, conscience, and ethics.  The title story, "The Green Hills of Earth" is a wonderful but tragic tale of heroism and bravery, reminiscent of what we saw in the NYFD on 9/11/01. These last two make the whole collection worth buying

</review>
<review>

I have an older copy of this book that my Grandpa gave me. I read and loved it. I re-read often

</review>
<review>

DeSoto presents an elegant model for the creation of capital in a society.  His examples focus on the infrastructure needed for capital formation, and they are clearly presented and explained in a historical context when applicable.  In a field (economics) that is riddled with disconnected academics, DeSoto pleases the reader by presenting a model based on primary research.  The reader also will enjoy DeSoto's clever phrasings and sentence structure.  Thorough citations will aid a learner in the advanced study of the argument, while clarity and elegance in support work will please a reader considering for the first time why capitalism seems to thrive only in the West

</review>
<review>

Author is easy to read and understand. He supports his main points very well with examples and data. Already bought two friends a copy as gifts

</review>
<review>

Every now and then, a book comes along that opens our minds to an idea that can change the world, and in so doing changes us and reminds us why we read and search for that next great book with that next big idea.  I have a very short list of contemporary books like this, and "Mystery of Capital" is one of them

</review>
<review>

Since the Keynesian revolution the economics profession has been busy writing up mathematical models of incentives that show how IMF and World Bank loans, free trade deals, "fiscal policy" or "game theory" can be used by governments to generate economic growth. Hernando de Soto's Mystery of Capital is a slap in the face for every economist that has ever had a high-paid position in the countless agencies built to promote growth. It turns out that the classical economists (and their Austrian school heirs) have been right all along, that the source of economic growth is individual businessmen. And what can these individuals do when it takes a year of full-time work and years of savings paid out in bribes to get a legitimate business license? Nothing. The only people that can do business in these countries are the already-wealthy and well-connected.

For all the talk about international free trade, contemporary economists have never really paid attention to internal free trade, free trade between individuals. There is no mystery of capital. The men who built the West knew it well. The real mystery is how a class of government-protected elite academics could have forgotten the basic lessons of economics. It took a non-academic, De Soto, to remind them. It remains to be seen if they will admit their failures

</review>
<review>

I enjoyed this book, particularly the legal history of property rights in the United States.

DeSoto doesn't really explore the nature of capitalism, nor the terms one can use to gauge its success.  His claims that a reorganization of 'property rights' statutes can free up cash for investments has some obvious truths, but the equally obvious dangers are never considered.  For example, China and Taiwan seem to be excellent example of DeSoto's recipe producing the desired prosperity.  Unfortunately, neither get much attention.  Several critics have suggested the Chinese real estate boom is based on forcing impoverished farmers off their land and reorganizing ownership to better suit investor needs.  The reality of poor losing their land in the process of bringing land into the 'general market' contradicts DeSoto's claim about the book helping 'the poor'.   In the context of US politics, consider recent controversies regarding civic use of 'eminent domain' powers to take land from small property owners and deliver it to 'investors'. At a minimum, DeSoto needs to address such issues.

</review>
<review>

In The Mystery of Capital, Hernando De Soto, President of Peruvian think tank "Institute for Liberty and Democracy," seeks to explain (as stated in his ambitious subtitle) "why capitalism triumphs in the West and fails everywhere else."  His answer is that Western countries have developed flexible legal systems that recognize emerging property interests, especially in land.

De Soto notes that the United States from the start faced the issue of illegal squatters.  George Washington experienced squatting on his land in Virginia.  He called squatters "banditti."  The United States was dragged into recognizing squatting and "homesteading" rights, not as a matter of liberal enlightenment, but rather as the result of social upheaval often mixed with bloodshed.  The expansion of the Western frontier, and particularly the California Gold Rush, exposed tensions over uses of federally owned land that still continue.  What was so propitious to capitalist development in the United States, De Soto asserts, is that the traditional view of property rights caved in and masses of people became independent property owners.

In contrast, De Soto points to many Third World countries, including Peru, where the masses have developed much potential property, both in the countryside and in squatters' cities, but no solid legal foundation to back up their claims.  Without uniformly recognized property rights, they cannot borrow against (mortgage) their property to make other investments.  Their capital is not fungible or tradable.  It doesn't enter into the spiral of accelerating benefits that De Soto attributes to a fully integrated capitalist system.  De Soto and his researchers have labored admirably to detail the hundreds of steps it typically takes in such pre-capitalist legal systems to develop a clear title to land.

De Soto's thesis: those countries that develop a flexible system to recognize property rights develop capitalistically; those that fail to develop such a system don't.   However, De Soto fails to explain adequately why it is that some countries are able to cross this legal threshold and others haven't.   He makes many generalizations about the West "and Japan."  What allowed Japan to become an exceptionally developed society?   Are countries such as Singapore and Taiwan on the same (sustainable) path?

De Soto's book is potentially valuable to emerging markets investors.  We are now seeing many Latin American countries, after an era of reform, reverting to anti-capitalist sentiment and statist policies.  Consider Venezuela and Bolivia, for example.   The implication of De Soto's these is that the State can make many good reforms, but if it fails to recognize property rights in the disenfranchised masses, economic development will fall short, and the political constituency to support it may also fail.  De Soto's thus book provides an echo in economic theory of English Prime Minister's Margaret Thatcher's famous doctrine of an "ownership society."  The implication for investors is to go where the masses are developing clear property rights.

Andrew Szabo
(Greenwich Financial Management)

</review>
<review>

This book dispels may ill-conceived notions people in developed world have about people in the rest of the world. Explains how the inability to put a value on assets in various parts of the world is a major cause for stymied growth. And the reason for this inability to quantify assets stems from the extralegal ways in which the assets are obtained.

Emphasizes the importance of institution building (over long periods of time) for the capitalism to really work. Explains why institution building is not always easy. Explains how, to set things right, extemely unpopular measures have to be taken (which upsets the some people who are afrid to lose their influence) which in many cases leads to unrest resulting in rollback of reforms.

Explains how to bring extralegal sections of the society into the fold in order to ensure long term success. Mentions the transformation of US over centuries into what it is today (largely governed by the rule of law)

</review>
<review>

Let me see if I have got this right? The only way to organize the economy is the capitalist way? That way we all gain? OK the bosses of Nike, McDonalds, and Wal-Mart will gain a bit more than us ordinary folk, but our little boats will rise with the flowing tide?

Sounds good: who would want to be the party pooper?!

Well someone's got to be, and for the simple reason that we don't live on a planet the size of Jupiter.

The oil's finite: we know that but can't be bothered to act on it. Even the supply of water is turning out to be finite: the south east of England is on a collision course between an expanding population and a diminishing supply of water. OK, they could ship it in from the rest of the UK where there's no problem, but for reasons that don't quite add up that's not possible. It's not the corporate solution, if you will forgive the pun.

Has it occurred to anyone, I wonder, if it's capitalist-driven growth which is at the heart of the upcoming problems? Yes, I know Marx and Stalin don't offer any fixes, but at some point along the way the problem is going to have to be faced: growth is going to wind-down whether we like it or not.


</review>
<review>

De Soto fundamentally argues that the reason poor countries are poor is because they have bad property rights: it's incredibly difficult for poor people (specifically, recent urban migrants) to get legal title to their land. As a result, the poor make "extralegal" arrangements, squatting on and using land that neighbors (but not the government) recognize as theirs. But because they don't own the land, they can't get a mortgage on their house to start a business, electricity and water companies are less likely to reliably provide services, the government has difficulty taxing them because they don't have a legal address, and so on. And so on.

It's a very important point but de Soto oversells, arguing with exaggerated (and oft-repeated) ideological claims but weak empirical evidence that solving this problem will actually enrich the poor.

He occasionally shares insights from his interesting field work. For example, he has helped businesses in Peru to navigate the overwhelming bureaucracy and become legal, and he has found that most businesses would rather be legal and pay taxes than be illegal and pay bribes: a useful bit of empirical information, but those gems appear all too occasionally.

Before reading this entire book, I recommend going to the website of de Soto's foundation (the Institute for Liberty and Democracy at www.ild.org.pe) and reading the main point there (in one tenth the words)

</review>
<review>

An economist's book written so regular folks can finally understand how and why capitalism is a distinctly American animal. The Mystery of Capital provides a plain-language explanation of the foundation and founding of capitalism in the US and why its export to third-world and former communist nations have, thus far, been unsuccessful. Then it outlines logical methods necessary for making capitalism accessible in any country. Excellently researched, exceptionally well-written

</review>
<review>

This is probably one of the best books I have read in this century. We, elderly readers, have usually fair memories and can stack one writer against the other. By every comparison, Ms. Smith winns hands down. Her language is original and refreshing. Her characters very much alive. If they suffer from common falacies she can treat all of it in very humane and understanding way. The story she tells is fascinating,well conceived and even better executed. The resolution is unusual in any case.Of all the young writers publishing in English currently (and I've read a few) she is my favorite.
P.S. Re next question - I'm 85 years old

</review>
<review>

At first, I thought that Smith was mining the same ground as Andrea Levy's SMALL ISLAND: examining the lives of immigrants in postwar London and tracing the routes that had brought them there. But while Smith does not quite have Levy's intensity, she spreads her net wider, dealing with several different cultures (Bengali, Jamaican, Jewish intellectual, and British working-class) over a span of three generations, only the first of which coincides with Levy's. Eventually it becomes clear that her main focus is on the youngest generation (presumably her own), and she chronicles the troubled nineties with sharp observation, vivid and often colloquially profane language, and considerable humor. I felt that the narrative lost coherence and the plotting became less plausible as the number of characters increased, though it may just be that I had less time to read. But Smith's central theme --- the difficulty of maintaining cultural identity in a strange land --- is extremely well addressed and chillingly relevant

</review>
<review>

Extremely insightful, witty, relevant, and pleasurable to read with the one major caveat that all the white women in the novel are one dimensional walking stereotypes who basically show up to seduce Muslim men and then crawl away with no real exploration of their motives or thought processes by the author, unlike the ones afforded to all the novel's other characters. Keeping this criticism in mind, read the book and enjoy it. Just try and find a white female character in the novel whose behavior doesn't follow this trajectory

</review>
<review>

I don't know where to start! This novel is a pager turner of an incredible story with an abyss of emotional depth that will leave the reader spent, shaken out of his or her wooden workaday existence. The descriptions of the dust-bowl and the Depression (the period following the stock market crash of 1929) made me weep more than once. The cast of characters calls to mind Dickens, and the presence of artificial limbs is outright Melvillian. Features also the excellent use of a fey man as the embodiment of a wooden, post-columbian textual figure. A must for teachers, students and parents who care about the rainforest.

I just bought three of these to give out as birthday presents this year. And plan to buy more for Christmas. This is definitely a heartbreaking work of incredible genius.



</review>
<review>

This is one of my favorite books.  It is a story about culture, the insecurity racked years of adolescence, lives of immigrant families and their kids in London.  Zadie is a great story teller who brings all her characters to life with her descriptive writing and a wicked sense of humor.  I don't like to give away much during my reviews so you'll just have to read it to find out.  Worth all the accolades it has received

</review>
<review>

It was in the last year of the Second World War, while serving together as part of a tank crew, that Archie Jones met Samad Iqbal. What resulted is a powerful but wacky bond between the hapless but easy going Englishman and the better educated, but always underemployed and bitter, Bengali Muslim. This close friendship also brought together their wives: Alsana, who was promised by her family at birth to marry Samad, and Clara, an extremely beautiful Jamaican girl from a Jehovah's Witness family, whose one flaw is that she has no upper front teeth. 18 years old Clara married the much older Archie soon after meeting the middle-aged man at a hippie New Year's Eve party she was attending. Archie crashed the party after deciding not to go through with a suicide over his failed marriage to his Italian warbride.

Naturally affected by the conflictive and dysfunctional marriages of these two couples are their children. Irie, the only child of Archie and Clara, is an intelligent and pretty girl, unfortunately insecure not only about her weight but also for the kinky hair she's inherited from her black mother. Irie has long been infatuated with one of Samad's twin sons, Millat, who has always been attracted to white women with long straight hair. Millat and his twin, Magid, are handsome like their father. Samad, however, was hypocritically displeased over the way the boys were growing up in 1970s Britain. Whereas Samad has always been joined at the hip of his English best friend (with whom he indulges in drink and an occasional dish of pork), and, at the time, was having an affair with his sons' red-headed English music teacher, he wanted his sons to be brought up as good Muslims, praying five times a day, eating halal food and all the rest. His solution was to send them to be raised in his native Bangladesh. Arranging this behind his wife's back, he found that he could afford to send only one of the boys. He chose the more intellectually gifted, and older by two minutes, Magid. Ironically it is this son who will grow into an atheist, loving all things English, while Millat, who remained behind in the UK, will eventually become involved with a radical Islamist group. Adding more into this already bizarre interracial and multicultural mix, Irie and Millat bring their fellow student, Joshua Chalfen, and his pretentiously intellectual, secular Jewish family --a brood that is overbearing and more dysfunctional than either the Joneses or the Iqbals could ever be-- into everyone's lives.

All parties will eventually clash over the genetic engineering experiments of Josh Chalfen's father. Clara's Jehovah's Witness mother and ex-boyfriend, Millat's radical Muslim organization, all agree on one thing only: that Professor Chalfen is evil incarnate. Even his son Josh, who has become involved with a fanatical animal rights group, repudiates both him and his work. Only Magid, returning to his beloved England, is enamored with Professor Chalfen and his research.

Zadie Smith was only 24 when she wrote WHITE TEETH. Herself the child of a black mother and white father, Smith had based much of the novel's storyline and characters from her own life's experiences (Interestlingly, the characters of Magid and Millat are based on real-life brothers Zia and Jimmi Rahman, Zia being the ex-boyfriend of writer Claire Berlinski [LOOSE LIPS, MENACE IN EUROPE]). Along with a knack for fueling the narrative, Smith also possesses that rare talent for putting the conversational --with all of its strange vernaculars and colloquialisms-- to print. The characters who populate her story, despite their wildest eccentricities and convoluted personalites, are realistic and attractive, easily provoking sympathy. WHITE TEETH is one of the few books that a reader hates to put down and can't wait to pick up again with any bit of free time he or she gets.

There are, however, two things that I didn't like about WHITE TEETH: One is the way that Smith downplayed the racial tensions and often violent confrontations between the Indian and black immigrants and the white working class community in 1960s-1980s Britain. After all, at the time Samad is supposed to have moved to the UK (1975), so-called "Paki bashing" was still a common, late night pastime for many of England's white youth subcultures ('skinheads,' 'bootboys,' and other football hooligans, as well as the perrenial 'teddy boys'). The children, growing up in early-to-mid '80s London, not once encountered anything of the skinhead resurgence of that time, or the rise in popularity amongst white youth for the fascistic National Front or British Movement organizations. The Riots of 1981, which plagued the British Isles for weeks, aren't even mentioned. The other thing that displeased me about the story was the ending. I agree some of the other reviewers here that it did seem rushed.

</review>
<review>

A much condensed version would have helped but still would not have been a good story.  The end was a disappointment and the middle laborious

</review>
<review>

Zadie Smith has filled WHITE TEETH with cultural tension that drips from every relationship. Samad worries that his sons are being corrupted like all the other children in England. Alsana does not ever want to go back to India because she feels her family is safe in England. But Samad would not agree that "safe" is as clear as Alsana thinks it is. The minds, traditions, rituals, and morality of his sons are being eroded and destroyed. His sons are not safe. To him, Alsana is only "thankful [they] are in England . . . because [she] has swallowed it whole," believing the lie of safety that promises physical security while your cultural foundation is eaten away beneath you.

The question is, like Archie asks Samad on multiple occasions, "What kind of a world do [you] want your children to grow up in?" It is ironic that, much the same way Alsana is blinded by the actual world in which she lives, Samad believes that the world that is corrupting the morality of his sons is England itself. What he fails to recognize is that his moral failures - his affair with his son's teacher, his personal failure with what Poppy Burt-Jones calls his "incredible act of self-control," . . . his "sense of sacrifice," . . . and his abstinence and self-restraint - are the real source of his sons' moral failings.

The difference is that Alsana is not worried about the truth within herself or the people she loves. She is more concerned with, as she tells Neena, "the truth that can be lived with." She is tired of the tangled roots of their past and wants to struggle with today's problems, not worrying about or regretting over what lies in their yesterdays. She wants Samad to do the same, to remove his leg from out of the past and root it firmly in the present. What she fails to realize is what areas of Samad's have made the adjustment. His cultural roots may still lie with India, but much of his emotion and mental fantasy has grounded itself in his English present.

All of this familial frustration happens within an England that is struggling with the same interracial problems as their family. The country's battle between their nostalgic whitewashed past and their multi-ethnic present and future is at the center of the novel as well, not just in London but in its former colonies that are still trying to find their post-colonial identities.

Reviewed by Jonathan Stephen

</review>
<review>

This is a great little book -- a fairy tale with a twist.  There is an intelligent sweetness to it.  I think it fell down a little toward the end --   I would have liked it better if the darker plots hinted at in the beginning were not so quickly disposed of about two-thirds of the way through.  Not that I would wish darker consequences on the hero and heroine, but a little more complex working out of at least one of those sub-plots would have improved the book.  Still well worth reading.  Charming.

</review>
<review>

This is a fine piece of work by a talented author.  In essence it is a fairy tale for adults, written with some of the best prose I have ever read- smooth and flowing.  However, read Gaiman at your own risk.  His topics, sensibilities and "shock value" vary a great deal from book to book.  His books illustrate why some authors need to use pen names, so you can tell one type of writing from another

</review>
<review>

The great thing about reading Gaiman's work has always been his commitment to story telling.  Whilst there undoubtably enough themes and issues in Stardust for even the most pompous literary critic to sink their teeth in to.  The main strength of this book (and indeed of most of Gaiman's work - excluding his literary collaboraitons) is its ability to fire you imagination.

From the start of the novel to its conclusion you find yourself presented with both popular, obscure and invented myth that will allow your mind to wander in a way that you thought grown ups weren't allowed to.  Heroism, romance and imagination are abundant in the novel and best of all they don't feel beneath you, they feel like something you should aspire to

</review>
<review>

Neil Gaiman's "Stardust" takes place in a mystical version of England.  The town of Wall is a tiny, safe and quiet village that is a bastion of safety from the outside world.  Residents of the aptly-named Wall never venture outside of the village barriers and nobody from outside is allowed in, so as to keep Wall safe.  Villagers, in pairs, are assigned shift duties in protecting the Gap that separates Wall from the outside world.

Young Tristran Thorn will do anything to win the high-maintenance heart of village beauty Victoria Forester.  Victoria is not interested in Tristran who she sees as being a simpleton but one day agrees to give her heart to him if he accomplishes one improbable task: to bring back to her the shooting star they both saw fall on one hot summer night.  There's only one major problem: the star fell outside of the barricades of Wall.  Tristran, who stubbornly embarks on this improbable mission, is about to enter a world far more strange and dangerous than he ever thought was possible...

"Stardust" is indeed a fairytale although one that's written with a target audience of adults, given that it has a somewhat complex (not to mention very British) writing style.  Throughout the first half of the novel I couldn't help but feel somewhat deceived since what had been marketed to me as a "dark fairy tale for adults" seemed like a typical fantasy story of old villagers in made-believe lands and not much of it was "dark" at all.  Then midway through the novel Tristran crosses paths with some truly evil characters which more than legitimizes the "dark fairy tale" classification.

The world that Gaiman creates outside of Wall is populated with many freakish sights such as a family of brothers intent on murdering their own kin, a star that once it lands takes the shape of a beautiful woman and a witch who...well, it must be read to be believed.  The world that he creates is simultaneously enchanting and horrifying.  I loved the moral tone of this story, how coming back from his long journey Tristran found himself maturing and that his priorities had changed.  Kind of like a young person who needs to "find himself" so goes backpacking in a different part of the world and comes back a more rounded individual after the experience.

Definitely a must for fans of Gaiman, and a perfect place to start (along with "Neverwhere" and "Coraline") for those who have never read him before.  Fans of this enchanting novel will be glad to know that a major movie adaptation starring the likes of Claire Danes, Robert DeNiro, Michelle Pfeiffer, Siena Miller and a slew of other big names has just completed filming and will be released in 2007.

</review>
<review>

This is definitely, as alot of people say, a fairy-tale for adults. It is only such, however, because there is a sex scene. I don't recall there being alot of complicated or harsh language. So it's basically a children's fairy-tale with some adult content. If you like children's fairy tales, you will love Stardust. It is very well done, and the imagery is fantastic. Although they're probably not the best books for comparision, I'd say that if you're an adult yet you still enjoy reading books like Ella Enchanted and the Neverending Story, you'll like this one.

And, of course, if you're a Gaiman fan you'll love it. But Neverwhere is better

</review>
<review>

This is a lovely mix of fantasy and faery. Gaiman's characters and plot lines stack up with the brothers Grimm, but he adds some flesh and personality. But not too much personality - we don't get bogged down in introspective angst or belabouring the human condition. He's kept it simple, but managed charm over banality. We're carried along by the events, sure, but none of the characters are throwaways: my favourite was the unnamed `little hairy person' - the scene where Tristan meets him is a cracker. The magic feels magical, the innocents are good, the witches are bad, and the conventions work for Gaiman, not against him. Moreover the mix of plots and subplots is pretty much seamless - it's unusual to not notice a few bumpy links here and there, but I just realised I didn't notice a thing (well, maybe the topaz...).

It's refreshing that our hero's good nature and upbringing primarily help to get him through - that fairy tale morality that often sees a kind deed pay off (as opposed to a mystical orb of chaos or preternatural martial skills). There's even something of the feel of George MacDonald's excellent Princess and Curdie (and without a single early sexual episode you could probably recommend it to kids as well as grown ups) - the strength, and maturity, of innocence: well, in his acknowledgements Gaiman does doff his cap to McDonald's greatest fan, the unfashionable C.S. Lewis.

</review>
<review>

I truly expected more from this but from beginning to end it seemed trite, unconvincing and entirely too derivative.  The characters fall flat and the writing is simplistic.  At least it IS short

</review>
<review>

As I was reading the first few pages of the novel I thought it was boring--that was so until the storyline developed in the succeeding chapters. It held my attention and I only put it down when I had to (lunch, dinner, bathroom trip, sleep... things such as those). I found Tristran Thorn's character very handsome, especially when he set out for a journey beyond the wall to retrieve a fallen star for his love.

The writing was simple but very figurative. Here, you can notice the author's talent with words. The combination of words would definitely take you to a world beyond this one. You can even say his words are enchanted, because they have the power to take your imagination to a place where you'll believe that fairies actually exist.

Basically, this book is worth your time. The first few pages may be a bore but the rest of the novel is a total page-turner that by the end you'd want the story to go on and on and on. I was actually sad when I reached the final page, it's like I didn't want to believe it had already ended! You'd really feel for the characters to the point that you think you know them all well and to the point that you'd actually miss them when the story is done

</review>
<review>

This is my first book by this author, and I honestly feel like I might like the story after-the-fact, if the author didn't ruin all the punchlines in the book. The fact that he felt the need to explain away every twist in the plot made me feel like I was being beat over the head with a "Did you get it?" stick. I also thought he was over-doing the fairytale theme, with the swirly chapter pages and obligatory detail that had zero quirks

</review>
<review>

Very good in the sequel line, but I figured out "who dun it" before I finished.  The characters are still developing well, waiting for the next one.  I have the whole series.

</review>
<review>

Boulder, Colorado author, Margaret Coel calls the wolf a wonderful animal.  "It's always two looks ahead," of everybody else, she says.  Using the wolf as metaphor, she gets the villain in her mystery novel THE EYE OF THE WOLF  at least two looks ahead of both readers and main characters.
The 11th in her series featuring the Boston Irish priest Father John O'Malley and Arapaho lawyer, Vicky Holden as the crime solvers, THE EYE OF THE WOLF takes the reader to the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming.  There, traditional enemies, the Arapaho and Shoshone, share the land.  Father John serves an Arapaho parish.  Vicky works with an Arapaho law firm.  The two are close friends.
As EYE OF THE WOLF opens, someone has killed three Shoshone college students on the Bates Battlefield, where in 1874, Shoshone scouts led the United States Cavalry to an Arapaho village. The soldiers slaughtered everyone living there.
Animosity between the Shoshone and Arapaho, two very different peoples with diverse cultures, has smoldered since. Father John fears the worst when he sees the latest bodies at Bates, all posed like dead warriors in old photographs.  Someone wants to encourage the hatred. Why?  And Who?
He, his parishioners, and the police suspect Frankie Montana.  This Arapaho trouble has often fought with Shoshones in bars,.  Because he drifts around the reservation drinking and crashing at drug houses, most decent people of both groups despise Frankie.
His mother, Lucille, begs Vicky to become Frankie's lawyer. Lucille believes he's innocent.  Because Lucille is a friend, Vicky agrees to take the case.  However, she, too, believes Frankie is guilty. He concern is to get him a fair trial.
Frankie asserts he did not commit the crime, but will not talk to Vicky or the police.  As he eludes them out of sheer terror of jail, Father John finds a fourth Shoshone victim at Bates.
Looking at the evidence against Frankie, Vicky begins think he may not be the killer.  So does Father John, after talking to people in the parish.  But, then who is?  Can Father John  and Vicky find the person, and prove his or her identify to the police?
Or--is the murderer like the wolf--two looks ahead ?  Will that give him or her time to kill again?  Worse, have Father John and Vicky made a mistake to believe Frankie?   Is he really the killer?  Will he prove it by shooting one of them?
Their gamble on Frankie brings EYE OF THE WOLF to an end that one one could possibly expect.  But the conclusion makes perfect sense, because Margaret Coel writes with understanding of Arapaho and Shoshone history.  Through that history, she reveals the killer.
Also through that history, she also makes EYE OF THE WOLF more than just another mystery with an explosive ending.   As the story unfolds, she presents two Native American groups that get little attention from novelists.  Working closely with people who live on Wind River Reservation, she makes sure her depiction is accurate.
So EYE OF THE WOLF is  not something like, or just like a wolf, it IS a wolf--two looks ahead of everybody.  Readers will not only enjoy a gripping mystery, but they'll also learn something about other people and their lives.
They'll receive the lesson through rich, well-developed and belleville characters, quirky little subplots, lively dialogue, and solid description of locale

</review>
<review>

Margaret Coel has created an excellent series in which she brings alive the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming and describes the Arapahoe customs in wonderful detail.  In this installment, Father O'Malley receives a mysterious phone call which implies that an old grudge between the Arapahoe and Shoshone Indians has been re-ignited, and that dead Indians can be found on an ancient battle ground.  When Father O'Malley goes to investigate, he discovers three dead Shoshones whose bodies have been posed to resemble positions reminiscent of old battles. Things heat up when the young Shoshone men vow to gain revenge for the murder of their friends.  Vicky Holden, the other main character in the series, has entered into a law partnership with Adam Lone Eagle, and they disagree as to the kinds of cases they should be handling.  Vicky wants to defend Frankie Montana, who is a suspect in the murders, and Adam tries to persuade her not to take Frankie as a client.  As always, author Coel creates a wonderful setting and characters, and in this book she writes another strong entry in the series.

</review>
<review>

It is hard to believe that Margaret Coel began her Wind River Reservation series some ten years ago with THE EAGLE CATCHER, which introduced readers to Father John O'Malley and defense attorney Vicky Holden. Each subsequent novel has featured an intriguing mystery as well as a shift in the emotional but platonic relationship between O'Malley and Holden. The latest installment in this series is no exception.

EYE OF THE WOLF begins with a cryptic telephone message that is left for O'Malley on an answering machine. This leads him to the site of a historic battlefield, one that resulted in the slaughter of an Arapaho Indian village by U.S. forces, aided by Shoshone scouts. In modern times Arapahos and Shoshones are somewhat uneasy neighbors on the Wind River Reservation, with their antagonistic history providing a shadowy backdrop, gone but not entirely forgotten.

But past differences are brought to the forefront when O'Malley discovers the bodies of three Shoshones on the old battlefield, positioned to mimic those of the dead killed in the historic battle. Frankie Montana, a chronic client of Holden's, is the primary suspect. Despite Montana's recidivistic tendencies, Holden does not believe he is capable of murder. It eventually becomes clear to Holden and O'Malley that someone is attempting to revive the long-dormant conflict between the Arapahos and Shoshones --- and that Holden has placed herself in terrible danger on behalf of her client.

While Coel has created an extensive backstory contributing to the Wind River Reservation mythos, it is not necessary to read what has transpired before EYE OF THE WOLF. The tension between O'Malley and Holden builds from page to page, as they struggle to protect the innocent --- and each other --- from an unknown malefactor. At the same time, both are protective of O'Malley's priestly vows, even as their emotions practically --- but subtly --- beg for violation.

EYE OF THE WOLF is an excellent introduction to the Wind River Reservation series, while providing a welcome return to the area and its people for longtime followers of the series. Given the longevity of these novels, it is clear that Coel can continue to explore this beautiful, dangerous landscape for as long as she wishes. Recommended.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlau

</review>
<review>

The poetic macabre message shakes up Father John O'Malley, the Jesuit Pastor at St. Francis on the Wind River Plantation.  The caller stated that revenge has been taken with deaths.  Not long afterward, at the sight of an 1874 massacre in which the Shoshone betrayed the Arapaho to the cavalry, three Shoshone are found murdered with their bodies ritually left to look just like the historical slaughter here.

Frankie Montana, who was seen recently arguing with the Shoshone and has quite a rap sheet is charged with the triple homicides.  His lawyer Vicky Holden believes Frankie who insists he is innocent because she knows this low life would do just about anything but not murder.  As she mounts a defense, she wonders if the culprit is cunningly trying to cause an Indian war between the two tribes for some unknown reason or a psychopath is avenging the century plus slaughter.

The latest Wind River Reservation Mystery, EYE OF THE WOLF, is a fabulous legal thriller that uses brutal late nineteenth century carnage as the apparent motive to twenty-first century murders.  The story line moves out rather quickly when Father O'Malley listens to the high pitched poetry of the killer on his voice machine and never takes a breather as Vicky tries to prove her client did not commit the crime though circumstantially he appears heading for the fall.  Margaret Coel is at her best with this tale that affirms why so many readers feel she is the heir apparent to the Hillerman mantle.

Harriet Klausner

</review>
<review>

Eye of the Wolf by Margaret Coel ISBN: 0425205460  - Due out today (6 September 2005) - I was sent an ARC of this great book to read for review which I do gladly.  I had read a few of this series before and especially enjoyed them, especially Spirit Woman and Story Teller, so was expecting good things.  I was not disappointed - the series follows the adventures of Father John O'Malley, pastor of St. Francis Mission on the Wind River Reservation and tribal attorney, Vicki Holden and apart from a ripping good mystery, the author weaves the history of the Arapho and the Soshone tribes who share the reservation into the fabric of the story she is telling so well, bringing her characters and the culture to sympathetic life.  It is not hard to care about the "Indian priest" as they call Father John or Vicky Holden.  I think what I enjoyed most was the character studies of not only the main characters in the story but the peripheral ones as well - they were brought vividly alive by the author's words.  From the first mystery message "This is for  the Indian priest",  everything seems to hark back to a famous battle in the 19th century and the treachery that took place on the battlefield  - but does it??  This is a very worthy entry in this well written series and will keep you guessing right up to the finishing twist as everything becomes clear in a highly suspenseful finish.

</review>
<review>

It's always fun to read a best seller from almost 20 years ago, especially one that was proclaimed as something of a classic at the time.  It's even more enjoyable to discover that Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities proves worthy of its acclaim even with the absence of cell phones, email and instant messaging.

I mention the technology only because such communications dinosaurs as pay phones play significant roles in the story of how an auto accident involving a bond trader and a pedestrian teenager gets complicated by his mistress, a political hack of a DA, the resentful prosecutor, a drunken opportunist of a reporter, society matrons (including the bond trader's wife), a media manipulating black activist/minister, egotistical Wall Street executives, courthouse lawyers and a wealth of other characters.

The title says it all.  No character in the book operates without his or her ego getting in the way of things and like a small fire that gets too close to the charcoal lighter and then the gas tank... well, you get the idea.

Forget the nonsensical movie they made of this, as far as I'm concerned that film exists solely for the purpose of demonstrating that Tom Hanks can make a bad decisions once every decade or so.  This novel is a delight, one that should be rediscovered by a generation of readers that was in elementary school back in the 80's.

</review>
<review>

If you like quality writing, this is it! Mr. Wolfe is extremely talented at painting an entire scene with words that leave you feeling like you are there. Character, scene, and plot development all have depth. And I'll have to disagree with an earlier review that said the characters weren't believable. They were entirely "human" with all the rich exceptions that make a person who he or she is. I also disagree with the comment that the book, itself, was racist. No, the book wasn't, but some of the characters were, which was a point that Mr. Wolfe was attempting to make about them because their racism had to do with the larger story. I will most definitely read Mr. Wolfe again because of his extraordinary writing abilities. That said, I was completely disappointed with the ending, both because of specifically how he chose to end it and because of its weakness. The ending lacked the full-bodied development that Mr. Wolfe gave to the rest of the story

</review>
<review>

When entering the competitive, cut-throat professional world, where stories abound of the dorm-mate who just landed the six figure job at Goldman Sachs, "The Bonfire of the Vanities" just may help you maintain the precious altruism that you grew up with.

This book is honest.  It's a story of how people become when they allow their ego to be defined by their over-compensation, and it's not pretty.  'Bonfire' is witty and human.  Mr. Wolfe does a fantastic job of developing his characters into people you'll care about, and builds their stories until you'll just cringe over the situations they put themselves into.  In the end you'll thank God you're not them.

</review>
<review>

Wolfe hero worships the Irish, and all others rank below them.

The Irish detective Martin, DAs Fitzgibbon and Caughey can do no wrong. The Italians, Jews and Wasps have their good points, but are flawed in one way or another. At the bottom are the "dark people" as Wolfe constantly calls them, who have created a great, dark hole in our once-great society. There is the single exception that proves the rule of the black public defender, though the narrative implies that his legal skills are inferior.

Granted it's an entertaining read, but don't be fooled

</review>
<review>

Regarded by some as the essential literary representation of 1980s America, "Bonfire of the Vanities" was written during the economic boom and urban crime waves of that decade and published almost as the stock market crashed in 1987. It follows the lives of a group of characters who express New York City's ethnic, socio-economic, and political rivalries through their involvement in a highly-publicized case of hit-and-run. A car belonging to Sherman McCoy of Park Avenue, one of Wall Street's most successful bond brokers, accidentally strikes a young black man in the Bronx. With the injured man in a coma, Harlem preacher, politician, and general rabble-rouser Rev. Reginald Bacon sees an opportunity to advance his agenda -by delivering the racially charged case to ambitious District Attorney Abe Weiss and to unscrupulous tabloid journalist Peter Fallow. Prosecutor Lawrence Kramer jumps at the opportunity to bring down a wealthy WASP in the name of equality. And streetwise Irish lawyer Tommy Killian may be McCoy's only ally in a city where truth and justice take a back seat to just about everything.

"Bonfire of the Vanities"' flaw is ironically the source of its strength. The book is over 600 pages long. It follows too many characters and spends a lot of time describing the world from their point of view. The book's insights rely on its many perspectives, but at the same time, the descriptions are cumbersome. Tom Wolfe generally does not cast his characters in sympathetic light. His willingness to call it how they see it draws the reader into the story out of an almost perverse curiosity. The blunt talk and peek inside the worlds of city politics, tabloid journalism, criminal law, and Park Avenue lifestyles keep us interested. The story is found in the self-serving hostilities and interdependencies of New York's many factions more than it is in the sequence of events. And it's all thoroughly plausible, sadly

</review>
<review>

I didn't understand why so many people liked this book many years ago when I read it, and I don't understand it any better today.  A lot of people said they thought it showed a good perspective of the corporate climate of the eighties, but that was only a tiny part of the novel.  Stick to Liar's Poker or Bombardiers for a better look.

Most of this novel is taken up by a ridiculous crime story.  There is not a single sympathetic character, so it is like spending however many hours in a room full of highly unpleasant people.  Not only are they un-likeable, they are also unrealistic and they make unbelieveable decisions.  The young, energetic stock trader who is all charm and confidence in one scene is suddenly socially awkward and unpopular in another scene.  The smart, tough lawyer sends his client off to a romantic tryst wearing a wire, even though any idiot would know the chances of his taking off his shirt would be very high.  Other characters are just caricatures: the overzealous civil-rights activist; the arrogant cop; etc.

I seem to be in the minority, but I thought this book was dismal.  Tom Wolfe should stick to non-fiction, which he does well

</review>
<review>

Many will remember the movie made of this.  My advice?  Don't.  I was put off this book for quite some time because of having seen the film, but, finally decided to give it a go (despite having a paperbackl edition with the film characters on the cover...) This book is an example of what a meticulous, fearless and talented writer of prose can come up with in response to the world around him. While being a great 'page-turner' as far as plot goes, Wolfe manages, through a complex web of ironies and double ironies, to examine humanity as a social creature in a certain time and place. Hands down one of the most enteratining novels that I have ever read, and definitely the best rendering of modern New York City in fiction! This paperback was so ubiquitous I waited 10 years to reluctantly read it, and only because it was one of the only books on the shelf where I was staying. Boy, was I rewarded with this compulsively readable, suspenseful, razor-sharp story. For social satire to be so fiendishly plotted is a real treat and this story will have you racing to its inexorable conclusion

</review>
<review>

Bonfire of the Vanities has long been hailed as one the greatest (the greatest?) American novels of the 1980's, and its accolades bear little use repeating. Nevertheless, a new look at this classic novel provides ample proof that while many aspects of society have changed in the nearly two decades since Bonfire was published, a great many other have, sadly, not.  Just add Starbucks, the Internet, and cellular phones; you'll find that the world described by this novel is very much alive in Gotham today.
Literary celebrity and brilliant self-promoter Tom Wolfe did meticulous research on both the upper crust and under belly of Reagan Era New York City to craft this incisive, complicated, dense, and comic tale of racial unrest, political bickering, and blind sighted American bourgeois insularity.  Darting from the dilapidated housing projects of the South Bronx to the gilded penthouses of Park Avenue, Wolfe spins his tale around the fictional personage of Sherman McCoy: a WASP wall street powerhouse, a self-described "Master of the Universe", and a man who due to an accidental and tragic visit to the South Bronx ends up igniting the collective and seething racial and socioeconomic tensions vibrating beneath New York's polarized population. Mr. Wolfe has painted a rich and multifaceted ethnic landscape to navigate, avoiding any and all simplistic cultural syllogisms in lieu of both character and cultural specificity, with all of the complexity and contradictions that come with it.  Though it has a Dramatis Personae the size of a Dickens novel, none of the characters are turned into caricature; indeed, every individual is sympathetic in Wolfe's world, though none are overtly heroic or free of troubling ethical transgression.  It is a testimony to Wolfe's skill as a writer that, though this southern WASP in the famous white suit bears little relation to many of Bonfire's most colorful characters, he always presents them with conviction and believability.   His detailed descriptions of various social and professional rituals at various levels of New York life give the reader the detail needed to invest imaginatively in the lives of the many characters populating Bonfire's New York.  Whether it be the perpetually caffeinated barking of a Wall Street Investment Firm's trading floor, or the grinding, discouraging monotony of the legal machinations in the South Bronx courthouse, the reader is no doubt given the impression that this is how it really was.  The zenith of this is an extended chapter in which Wolfe intricately (and often hilariously) describes an uber-posh dinner party at a palatial 5th Avenue apartment.  One can almost taste the foie gras pate and Dom Perignon.
A lesser writer could let all this detail weigh him down and cause an otherwise interesting book to have all the buoyancy of sunken treasure chest.  Bonfire's prose eschews this particularly precarious trap.  The narrative often oscillates between traditional 3rd person description and 1st person expression.  Depending on which character is being focused on at any given moment, their own point-of-view on the narrative is seamlessly woven into the prose allowing the story to take on an emotional immediacy and deeper sense of perspective.   Most importantly, the plot itself is a thoroughly designed piece of machinery that allows Wolfe to go on his descriptive tangents without harming the book's internal feng-shui. Indeed, the story's momentum is built on this specificity.  While the general points in the storyline could be churned out in any Law  and  Order episode, Bonfire's power cannot be reduced to a simple plot description. It is not about the guilt or innocence of it's characters. Instead, the author is putting a whole era on trial. No doubt Wolfe does have an agenda (it would be foolish and impossible to imagine any writer worth his salt without one) but it only is apparent in an overarching view of the work as a whole, and is never overtly didactic.
This being said, Bonfire of the Vanities is a book about the dangers of a stratified society, in which an egregiously affluent echelon of the population ignores the clearly deteriorating circumstances of less-fortunates around them.  Equally dangerous are the politicians, public servants, "community leaders" and "journalists" who, in order to appease the mob and advance their careers, exploit these deeply troublesome socio-economic tensions with shallow displays of self-righteous verbosity and hyped-up social hysteria.  What makes Bonfire such a classic is the way Wolfe presents these social problems as a result of the elaborate Rube Goldberg device that was (is?) contemporary American metropolitan society.   This is illustrated with astute clarity by his representation of established government bureaucracy's engagment with the ever-churning melting pot of American culture, as typified by the extremely volatile ethnic smorgasbord of New York City. Running parallel and counterpoint to this is the way the Press uses these often complex problems to advance it's own agenda and increase it's profit-margin.   The characters and plot of the book move like a machine, each person doing what is generally expected of him given his social position, occupation and (less so) personal commitments.  Nevertheless, the problems of the characters, both lowly and highbrow, are not easily resolved.  The real culprit is the excesses of the 1980's, and they have never been presented with as much clarity, insight, heart and humor as in The Bonfire of the Vanities.  Of course, the lessons of the book were hardly learned, and America today has yet to escape the problems that Tom Wolfe so exquisitely and satirically addresses in this masterwork of the contemporary American novel

</review>
<review>

For me, at the beginning there was an intrest in how all of these people related together. What could a Bronx defense attorney have to do with this guy that makes a ton of money on Wall Street?

Sherman McCoy had a demanding presence throughout the book. He is the elusive millionare that everyone wants to be. He seems to have everything...what could possibly go wrong?

Then there is his mistress. She is cheating on her husband, but seems otherwise harmless. It turns out she just may be the sneakiest of all.

I cannot believe how the justice system was run in this book. What Kramer did was crazy. I felt it really gave me an inside look at what really happens and how people try to win over their consituants. Poor Sherman just got lost in the shuffle. A great read

</review>
<review>

I can just echo the substance of remarks of the other reviewers on the contents. As an avid reader of mystery fiction, I can visualize opening a page at random and picking my next book to read.  As a computer programmer, I look at books like this and envision how I would write the program that would generate this information.  If the author did not use a computer program, I am doubly impressed. This book should be on the shelf of every crime fiction aficionado. If not on your shelf then that of your local library

</review>
<review>

The brilliant author/writer/wordmaster Pat Conroy has always been my favorite all-time author.  I love his style, his way with words, his storylines, dialogue, description, and masterful similes.  Another Conroy fan once e-mailed me, asking if I knew anyone else who wrote as well as Conroy.  Well, I did a search and asked some of Amazon's top reviewers and they admitted they couldn't find anyone comparable in style, etc.

Well, now I have found Jodi Picoult and I think she's in the same league with Conroy.  Her style is decidedly different, but just as brilliant. MY SISTER'S KEEPER is a real page-turner and frighteningly thought-provoking.

For details of why this book is so great, please read Eileen Rieback's great review posted here.  She hits the high-points of the book much better than I ever could; all I know is that in author Jodi Picoult I have FINALLY found the PERFECT BOOK, comparable in brilliance to Pat Conroy.  I especially admired pages 308 through 322 where one of the Fitzgerald teen-agers enjoys her first boyfriend, her first "prom."  Picoult certainly understands teen-age angst.  If this chapter doesn't move you from the heights of joy to utmost sadness, nothing will.

Even in the midst of a long-awaited vacation I found my eyes glued to the pages of this book, abandoning many of the recreational plans I had made ... even abandoning work on my fourth and fifth novels.  Even as much as I hated for Picoult's amazing story to end, and the Fitzgeralds' family trauma to be resolved, I'm pleased to get back to my own writing ... and my personal vacation pursuits.

I have many author friends who have come out with potential best-sellers recently, but this book is undoubtedly the very best I have read since Pat Conroy's BEACH MUSIC.  It's a sure-fire winner with believable characters in a very timely, controversial situation that has been well-researched by Picoult, brilliantly and powerfully written.

The NEW YORK TIMES wrote following her debut novel, SONGS OF THE HUMPBACK WHALE (twelve books ago): "Picoult spreads her wings and catches an updraft."  To that I add: With this novel (her thirteenth) she now soars with the eagles. ... On second thought, make that angels!

WOW!  Wish I could write like her ... which is the same thing I've always said about Pat Conroy.  Now I have two favorites to aspire to.

Next I plan to read another of Picoult's books, THE TENTH CIRCLE, but NOT on THIS vacation.

</review>
<review>

This was my first Jodi Picoult book and still my favorite. I love her writing style. The way she switches between characters keeps it interesting. A real surprise ending, dont read the end and ruin it for yourself

</review>
<review>

What a very touching story...that with stem cell research, could be true!  The author tells a gripping story through each characters' perspective.  This is a story that stays with you for a long, long time!!

</review>
<review>

The emotions and events of this book seemed mostly believable.  I found myself sobbing on more than one occasion.  Terminal illness and loss are given realistic but hopeful treatment.  I identified with many of the characters and at the end wanted to send it to my brother because of a special loss we have shared

</review>
<review>

A very interesting probe into a practice that is not too far from home. Any parent can identify with the pain of having a child with health problems, and the moral dilemna of having to choose one child over another is full of anguish. Well written and enjoyed by all I have shared this with

</review>
<review>

Very well written, and presents ethical challenges of having one child to save another.  The emotional status of each family member in a family with a dying child is well represented.  These feelings and assigned roles took place in my own family so I can say with certainty the author hit the nail on the head in examining the individual impact

</review>
<review>

This was a fantastic book.  It really made me think about the politics of organ donation and the hardship of having a child with a terminal illness.  The story is told from the perspective of each family member as well as the lawyer representing the well sister/organ donor.  I really felt compelled to side with the well sister, but as a parent I could empathize with the parents as well.  This book will keep you up late until it's finished...a great read

</review>
<review>

Makes you aware of some of the medical miracles happening in this country.
I passed this on to my daughter as she is a special teacher.

</review>
<review>

This book shows you ways to connect with your students in practical and meaningful ways.  Connecting isn't a money issue, but is about using proven methods to connect with at-risk students--whoever and wherever you are. Mendler's other excellent books include Discipline with Dignity and As Tough As Necessary. For problem solving behavioral issues you can't beat Dr. Mendler's ideas

</review>
<review>

A vital element of successful classroom instruction is the establishment of rapport between the teacher and the students. This is a key to effective classroom discipline and the creation of a good learning environment. In Connecting With Studnets, educator Allen Mendler outlines dozens of positive, effective strategies for engendering good teacher student relations through personal, academic, and social connections that apply at any level, preschool through university. Connecting With Students is strongly recommended reading for anyone aspiring to enter the teaching profession or currently working in a public or private school setting, as well as being an indispensable, invaluable addition to academic and teacher training reference collections and reading lists

</review>
<review>

Harry Bosch and his partner Kiz Rider are working cold cases and they come up with one Harry worked 13 years earlier....a case Harry has not been able to lay to rest.  Connelly is at the top of his game with this one.  The plot moves along at a rapid pace though several twists and turns.  Never a dull moment.  On a personal note, I grew up in Southern California and I'm still a die-hard Dodger fan.  So, the little bit of history about Echo Park, Chavez Ravine and how Dodger stadium came to be was all very interesting to me.  A thoroughly enjoyable read

</review>
<review>

Back from retirement, Detective Harry Bosch is still haunted by the kidnap and disappearance of Marie Gesto from 1993.  Now serial killer Raynard Waits is willing to lead police to Marie's grave as part of a plea bargain ensuring he will not receive the death penalty.  When Waits escapes during the outing and the tape filming the event is obviously doctored, Harry suspects politics and career advancement are involved and that, perhaps, Waits hadn't killed Marie after all but only been told how to find her grave.

The bones of this book reflect the usual excellent quality of Connelly's writing.  It has an interesting plot, Harry operating slightly outside the regulations, and descriptive, if slightly predictable, suspenseful scenes.  The references to Harry's past always make his an interesting character, particularly in the parallels to the killer.  What set the book back, for me, was the focus on the political mechanisms and the ending with it's classic conflict of legality versus justice.  There was also a major thread left dangling at the end.  While this was a more-than-good representation of Connelly, it was definitely not his best work.

</review>
<review>

There is nobody, and I mean nobody who writes this genre better than Connelly.  He doesn't muck up Bosch's life with unrealistic actions or relationships.  I thought he was coming too close to it with Walling, but thankfully he let Bosch be who he really is...a flawed man, an honorable yet somewhat unhonorable cop, and a great detective.  I was glad it was nearly pure storyline, without the ex-wife and daughter present as well. I don't want to see Connelly take Bosch the Lucas Davenport route.

The story is one that at the beginning just eats at a mother (me) - a child killed and the killer never found.  One could absorb the frustration Bosch had felt throughout the long years of  the investigation.  The emotional tragedy he felt.  It was compelling.

Connelly is the best of anyone at capturing the essence of personalities of the different policemen who deal with Harry. Nakamura was a photograph to me by the time Connelly gets through with him. All the characters are sparingly, yet very effectively drawn. I love that about Connelly. And again, the political life of being a cop is revealed.

This is a really, really, really good book.  I would have given it 4-1/2 stars because I found the lead-up to the end just a tad overdone and a bit unbelievable maybe (the cops not imagining the restroom scene happening), but I was fascinated with this book the entire time I was listening.

I can't wait to meet Bosch again

</review>
<review>

Harry Bosch is a detective working for LAPD's Open Unsolved Unit. Marie Gesto's 1996 disappearance, a case to which Bosch was assigned when he was in Homicide, was never solved. Her clothes were found neatly folded on the front seat of an abandoned car parked in the garage of a vacant luxury apartment but her body was never recovered and the case has eaten at Bosch ever since. Thirteen years later, Raynard Waits was pulled over in his van in the early morning hours in Echo Park but the traffic stop turned out to be far from routine. The officers discovered two trash bags in the van that contained the dismembered body parts of two women. In an effort to avoid the death penalty, Waits and his lawyer, Maurice Swann, negotiate a deal with the prosecuting attorney, Rick O'Shea, in which Waits confesses to nine murders including Marie Gesto's and promises to lead the police to the location of her long buried body.

But every good detective knows that the devil is in the details and there are a few things about Waits' story and the structure of the deal that just don't ring true for Bosch. So despite all evidence to the contrary, Bosch persists in the investigation, gets in a lot of faces and takes us on an amazing roller coaster ride to the astonishing solution that has avoided his grasp for so many years.

Echo Park is a brilliant piece of literary craftsmanship that isn't so much thriller as hard-core, rock solid police procedural - gritty, sweaty, dynamic, realistic, fast-paced, exciting, political and filled to the brim with a wealth of informative detail. But, make no mistake about it, the plot is still a hard-driving page turner and doesn't let up for a single page from start to finish. An old acquaintance and working colleague, FBI agent Rachel Walling, provides Bosch with expertise in psychological profiling and fleshes out Connelly's story with a romantic twist that ends in a much more down to earth fashion than we've come to expect from more run-of-the-mill novels.

Congratulations to Michael Connelly! He seems to be moving from strength to strength. The Lincoln Lawyer was outstanding, Echo Park was superb and there's certainly no indication that his momentum is flagging!

Paul Weis

</review>
<review>

Harry Bosch had been working for the LAPD's open unsolved unit, although there were many endless cases through the years unresolved, it was one case in particular that had been haunting him. Bosch remained transfixed by it, pulling the file several times a year in the hope to discover some new information, something missed, a fresh lead, just anything, wanting more than ever to give closure to this victim's parents and also to himself, but the criminal remains still at large, one who still walks the streets and this makes Bosch nervous.

In 1993 an unknown man abducted a 22 year girl, her name Marie Gesto, she had been missing since that year not seen nor found. The most chilling factor of the case was her clothes, the ones she had been wearing at the time of her abduction, they were in the back of her car when found but what was even more disturbing was how incredibly neatly folded they were, like she had excepted to return to put them back on at some point. Bosch feared the worst, he felt she was long dead and he was now only searching for her remains.

Present day, Raynard Waits had been picked up in the early hours of the morning near Echo Park, he had been stopped by chance and mistake by the LAPD, on closer inspection of his van they had discovered a dismembered body in the back wrapped in plastic bags. Waits was arrested and questioned being caught red handed he decided to come clean for a bargining plead more victims names in exchange for his life in prison and not death, in the fanarley of names Marie Gesto came to light. Bosch being a lead on the old case is sent to question the killer to see if his lying. Waits is very intelligent, he had lived under the radar for more than ten years without being caught and still he continues to play mind games to get into everybody's head. Bosch came to realize, this is a man who has held a secret so great for so long that it has driven him to be more daring and dangerous so that he could never stop.

It is the little mistakes that a criminal makes, that open the door to the psychology and so to the mind. Slowly the mistakes begin to show but something else is going on the paperwork from the file had gone missing and replaced with forged documentation, the psychological games were being played out internally, why and where do the lies begin and end. Bosch decides to hold an investigation for himself but what is he about to stumble into, could this whole investigation be to cover a political connection, if it was, who was being lined up to take a fall.

This was wonderful, before this book I had not read any of the Harry Bosch series and this made no difference, you could easily fall totally engrossed in this book from the start it grips. I thoroughly enjoy the Psychology of the whole book I found it very interesting with all different angles weaving throughout, the Characters were very vivid and well drawn out. Congratulations to Michael Connelly on a fascinating and reverting read, you have won another fan of your writing and I'll eagerly await the next book.

A.Bowhill

</review>
<review>

Michael Connelly shows why he is the best writer within his genre.  Harry Bosch receives a call that there is a confessor to the murder of a young woman from 1993.  Harry worked the case and it has haunted him for over a decade.
When a visit to the murder site goes awry, Harry begins to suspect that things are not as they seem.  He begins to dig deeper and uncovers angles to the case that he never knew.
An excellent thriller as usual with twists till the end

</review>
<review>

Once again Michael Connelly proves he is top shelf when it comes to Crime Drama. I was first introduced to Connelly, like many; via the 2002 Clint Eastwood pseudo-flop "Blood Work". I had no desire to see another creation of Connelly whatsoever. A year later I was at a book signing for one of John Sandford's "Prey" books and he recommended I give Connelly another try. I picked up "The Poet" and that was all I needed. I can sum it up like this: No one writes flawed and F'ed up characters like Connelly. No one!

Others have given you enough plot points of this book so I will skip that. I will say in "Echo Park", Harry Bosch is on top of his game (and to be honest, when has he not been??). Among other things, we are teased with another classic confrontation between Harry and his nemesis, former Deputy Chief Irving. Alas, it was not to be, but I can see a clash between these titans just over the horizon. Can you see it??? I know that you can.

We are treated to the usual cast of characters including a special FBI agent from Harry's recent past as well as his partner, Kiz Ryder and others from the Open/Unsolved Unit. We are also reminded what a tool Jerry Edgar is. God is he useless.

You cannot go wrong with a Michael Connelly book. Trust me, pick it up today.

</review>
<review>

Fans of Michael Connelly and his series revolving around Detective Harry Bosch will not be disappointed with his newest novel "Echo Park".

It's mesmerizing from start to finish, and includes all the right elements a murder mystery should have. The main character, Harry Bosch, is engaging as a police detective who is finally on the verge of catching the killer of a woman who's unsolved case has haunted him the last 13 years. Bosch's dedication and determination to find the true murderer, even after the case had long since turned cold, gives your heart a flutter, and it makes me hope that there are many true detectives out there like him.

The novel has an excellent pace, and the reader is not made to wait long for more action, or the next clue that will bring the story a little closer to it's climactic conclusion. Although this novel is the most recent in a series of novels that deal with the same characters, it is also the kind of novel that can be read and enjoyed by someone who is reading this author for the first time. Basically, it doesn't overly confuse you with too many details from previous novels, therefore making it easy to read by anyone.

If you are reading Michael Connelly for the first time, this is a great one to start with. If you like it, and are left wanting more, I recommend going back and picking up the rest of his books that deal with Harry Bosch and his adventures.

All in all, a great read, and a very intriguing look into corruption, betrayal, and the mind and habits of a serial killer

</review>
<review>

Once again, I was thoroughly entertained with a Michael Connelly novel featuring my favorite detective, Harry Bosch.  No matter how long ago the crime was committed, Harry will solve it.  Not only with his tenaciousness, but because he happens to care.  This well written, compelling story grabbed me from the beginning.  The twists and turns were spot on and the ending was oh so satisfying.

Great job Mr Connelly.  As a fan of your novels, you're at your best when Harry's doing what he does best...seeking justice for the innocent.  I love it

</review>
<review>

I first discovered Michael Connelly (through Amazon!) because I was a Stephen J. Cannell fan. I've read all of Cannell's books, and especially liked his novels about detective Shane Scully. If you are familiar with Cannell's work--you will enjoy Connelly just as much.  He writes an engaging story, with believable characters and dialogue. It was a pleasure to read, with good pacing, interesting plot, and a satisfying ending. His heroes have flaws--the same as Cannell's do--but you know their sense of honor will win the day! A very good read...

</review>
<review>

This book is well written and easy to understand. it addresses specific issues which confront people in modern society who feel the need to reconnect with their inmost self, as well as offering methods for doing so. i highly recommend it

</review>
<review>

This is an excellent book for moving forward in your life and finding your true self.  I have felt stuck and confused for many years about the direction my life should take and this book has helped me to change that.  The activities the author recommends open your everyday mind to your subconscious or soul as the author calls it.  This has been a life changing book for me and is helping me to finally understand what it really means to grow up.  If you feel stuck and as though your story has gooten too small for you then it is time to read this book

</review>
<review>

I was drawn to Bill Plotkin's book the week it was released.  Over time I have gone back to this profound message and taken more to use in my life as I work toward life purpose, life intention.  The 'coincidences' of his story are nothing less than the spiritual power of life itself that we all experience every day, if we only take time to decide to be open for them.  Powerful truths for heart and soul in these trying years of an old and tortured world.  There is peace and hope.

</review>
<review>

This book is nothing more than a bunch of nonsense. It contains endless statements making no sense. I was truly looking forward to a book that would be a refreshing alternative to most pop-psychology that's on the market. Instead I got a text that was written by someone who couldn't think. It was full of illogical, unsupported statements and arguments. If I could, I would demand my money back I'm that upset with my purchase.I definitely would not recommend this book to anyone who has any ability to think whatsoever

</review>
<review>

Over the past few days I have been slowly reading each page of Bill Plotkin's pivotal work Soulcraft. I had read it a few months before I completed a vision quest with the non-profit he founded in 1980, www.animas.org, but it was a completely different book then. Now, having experienced the profundity of his Western based soul initiation process in the form of a Animas Valley Vision Quest,  I have revisited his life's work and boy is it GOOD! No, GREAT! No, OUTSTANDING!

The bottom line is that it is life changing. I am so inspired to work on my creativity, drumming, dancing, music making, writing and speaking, meditating and listening that I can honestly call this book one of the most important I have ever read. Plus, each chapter has excellent references and the reading list that is offered in the back is a lifetime of study, exploration and enjoyment.

In fact, I hope someone has created a list on Amazon so I can start ordering the bibliography from Soulcraft and leap into bringing forth the unique gift of my soul.

</review>
<review>

Soulcraft is a must read for any individual seeking meaning to their life through soul-connection. The book is unpretentious, easy to read, yet profound. Bill takes us on a journey of his and various other individuals' lives. At the same time, he offers us practical tools to engage in our own soul journey. Soulcraft will make many of us want to go on a Vision Quest to encounter our deepest fears with the intention of reconnecting to our Soul and living our Divine purpose.

</review>
<review>

I am currently translating this book into the German language. It is the most exciting translation I have done in the last years. Even though I am only copying it down it has already changed my life in a profound way. I am very thankful for the destiny that put this book on my desk - and I know that there was no coincidence involved.
The book provides several practices and approaches that help to address the problem a lot of people encounter in the middle of their lifes - or sometimes even earlier: The moment when you notice that things that have always made sense all in a sudden don't carry any meaning for you any more. It is the first book I ever read that does not only promise to, but actually really helps you finding out what you are here for and how you can act according to this insight. It brings you on your path - the soulpath. Work your way through the practices, exercises, and ceremonies in this book and your life will never be the same again. Seriously, I see a lot of books on new age and nature spirituality going over my desk, but this one definitely outdoes all I have been reading and working on during the last ten years

</review>
<review>

What do you get when you cross a Jungian-oriented depth psychologist, an ecotherapist, and a wilderness guide of the highest caliber?  And then what do you do?  The answer to the first question is Bill Plotkin, director of Animas Valley Institute (www.animas.org).  The answer to the second:  spend 20+ years creating a way to approach soul in a culture that over the years has lost its ways of soul connection that once were as natural as walking upright.  Half guidebook, half storybook, and half pure poetry, Soulcraft:  Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche by Bill Plotkin describes his lifelong work in discovering and developing nature and the outer wilderness as mirrors for our inner nature and inner wilderness.  In Soulcraft, Bill tries to compile and present approaches to the mystery of our souls and what Mary Oliver calls "our place in the family of things."  Of the many fruits one can take away from the stories and practices Bill describes in Soulcraft, I think four of the juiciest are: (1) his distinction between "spirit" and "soul", (2) his approach to dreamwork, (3) his belief that soul work, while not promising any easy answers to the harsh realities of life, certainly makes life more interesting, and (4) the practices that lead to cultivating a soulful relationship to life.

Bill explains, "By soul I mean the vital, mysterious, and wild core of our individual selves, an essence unique to each person, qualities found in layers of the self much deeper than our personalities.  By spirit I mean the single, great, and eternal mystery that permeates and animates everything in the universe and yet transcends all.  Ultimately, each soul exists as an agent for spirit. ... Soul is what is most wild and natural within us."  It is coming to know of this wild and natural within-ness that he seeks- through wilderness (outer and inner) exploration into the "sweet darkness" of the underworld journey of Shadow, Mystery, Love, and Death.  He does not ignore or discount spirit in Soulcraft, but he recognizes that the path to the large openness of spirit necessarily goes through the darker singularity of the underworld journey of the West on the Medicine Wheel.  Each person's individual journey, the hero's journey, serves all of life.

Bill's method of dreamwork, characterized as "soulcentric dreamwork," diverges from other approaches in its premise that every dream "is an opportunity to develop our relationship to soul ... Each dream provides ... a chance for the ego to be further initiated into that underworld story and those underworld desires."  Bill coaches us to approach each dream reverently and very slowly, "permitting yourself the sometimes disquieting luxury of hanging out among the rich symbols and events ... twisting slowly in the breeze of its seductions and abductions."  In other words, allowing the dream to dream us into being- allowing the dream to be the agent that helps to align us with our soul's deeper wisdom.  "The dream can and does transform the ego, especially when we cooperate (surrender) during dreamwork."  He goes on to suggest that when we dream, we are "dipping into a stream, a Great Underdream, that is always flowing even when we are not having what we normally call a `dream.' ... The Underdream is what the soul wants the ego to embody in the dayworld," trying to help us see the important points about the deeper life waiting and longing to be lived.

This deeper, sometimes "disquieting" soulful relationship to life is not an easy or a fun task.  In an insightful analogy, Bill likens deep soul work and the call to the journey into the West to the advertisement that Ernest Shackleton placed in the London papers for his expedition to the South Pole in 1914:  "Men wanted for hazardous journey.  Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful.  Honour and recognition in case of success."  Jungian analyst and author James Hollis's comment that "therapy will not heal you, make your problems go away, or make your life work out.  It will, quite simply, make your life more interesting" makes a compelling coda to what Bill is presenting in his book.  The work being offered, the ad our deeper selves are longing to read and answer, is simply to respond to what we know we are here for, without regard to outcome, the only reward being the knowledge that we did not, in Mary Oliver's words, "end up having simply visited this world."

Throughout the book, a practical gift that Bill gives us is a description of approaches he has discovered over the years that enable and enhance a direct experience with soul.  These are broadly categorized into "Practices for Leaving Home," "Pathways to Soul Encounter," and "Cultivating a Soulful Relationship to Life."  This is a rich compost pile of approaches and skills and attitudes that helps nurture growth of the relationship to soul, whether it be an early sprouting, a sending out of new shoots, or a sinking of deeper roots.  Among my favorites are "Welcoming Home the Loyal Soldier," "Healing Work with Sacred Wounds," "Making Peace with the Past," "Soulcentric Dreamwork," Self-Designed Ceremony," "Symbolic Artwork," "Soul Poetry," "The Vision Quest," "The Art of Being Lost," "Befriending the Dark," "Confronting Your Own Death," "The Art of Shadow Work," and The Art of Soulful Romance."  Rich stuff, all of it, and those are just a baker's dozen of more than forty that Bill offers up in the thirteen chapters of his book.

A good friend of mine turned 50 just last month.  Knowing where he was in his life and where he wanted to try and end up, the book was an easy choice for a gift.  As he thanked me for it, he laughingly hoped that this book would answer all of his important questions.  No, this book won't answer all our questions, but it goes a long way to creating a soulful approach to reconnecting with Nature and Psyche and helping the reader discover just what the important questions in life might really be.






</review>
<review>

David McCullough's 1776, an account of the American Revolution from the declaration of war in October of 1775 to the battle at Princeton in January of 1777, is well researched history told by a master story teller. The skill of the author is elegantly focused on the details of the Boston Siege, the rout at New York, the battle of Fort Washington, and the turning point battle of Trenton.

Because of the author's mastery of story telling, it is not necessary to be a history buff to enjoy 1776. Like a good fiction novel, the book brings alive the character and personalities of the people at the core of this historical story.

1776 is clearly a 5-star book.

</review>
<review>

At the crest of a hill on 150th Street, in Jamaica, Queens, a simple unobtrusive boulder with a bronze inscription announces that it was at that spot the Battle of Long Island was fought in 1776. The British had travelled throughout the night probably along what is now Hillside Avenue to take the American rear by surprise at dawn. The fact that the plaque sits on someone's front lawn, and is a brief ten-minute walk from my apartment is a reminder that before the asphalt and brick that predominate the landscape, our nation was taking its first, precarious steps toward nationhood.

David McCullogh's book, 1776 stirred my imagination about the tribulations of George Washington at the onset of the American Revolution that began in Boston, spread to New York City, and finally, Trenton. Beset by disloyalty, intrigues, and creating an army from scratch, the author makes you feel the weight of responsibility that was placed on Washington's shoulders. He was a man who had to assuage congress, keep his officers working together in spite of backstabbing, and fight the British.

McCullough provides trivial but interesting information that makes one whistle, "So that's how...." Murray Hill, a telephone exchange and landscape in Manhattan got its name from Mrs. Murray who served Washington and his officers tea as they were being kicked around Manhattan by the Brits. Washington was nearly shot from his horse near what is now 3rd Avenue and 34th Street. Although the bullets missed, today he would have most assuredly been run over by a number of vehicles that wouldn't have.

He describes how Providence saved Washington at Brooklyn Heights when a fog rolled over the East River as the Americans were fleeing to Manhattan. That and the procrastination of General Howe prevented their slaughter by Hessian bayonet the following morning. It's hard to imagine that Hessians were encamped in the same neighborhood as the house where "Moonstruck" the movie, was filmed.

Washington's other monumental task was shaping an army where conscripts never before in their lives had been told by anyone what to do. Many simply returned to their homes after a battle or at night. In a time when armies died more from disease caused by poor sanitation than battle, Washington had to teach them to stand and fight, and relieve themselves in only one place, and not do all three at the same time against a formidable enemy. The US Army was in its infancy.

The book takes us to the Battle of Trenton where Washington pulled off another miracle and did the unheard of, attack during winter. He destroyed the Hessian garrison at Trenton without the loss of a single soldier. This was particulary sweet for Washington whose troops were bayonetted unmercifully by the same contingent, earlier in the year at Harlem Heights.

For the history buff who wonders what was it like back then, David McCullough will provide the vision. All you have to do is provide the imagination.


</review>
<review>

This is my first book by McCullough, but I doubt it will be the last. His ability to breathe life into history is uncanny, as so many others here attest. This book covers the Revolutionary War from the declaration of war in October of 1775 through the battle at Princeton in January of 1777. It is a history of the military campaign, so much of the political maneuvering is non-existant, instead focusing on the Continental Army and its travails against the British Army, British Navy, and Mother Nature.

The main military engagements retold in vivid detail are the Boston Siege, the rout at New York and its subsequent retreat, the battle of Fort Washington, and the turning point of the war: the Battle of Trenton.

With reams of personal correspondence from Generals, statesmen, all the way down to the lowly footsoldier, McCullough brings a oft-omitted humanity to the events that took place. The suffering of the men, the frustration of George Washington, and the heroism of Nathaniel Greene and Henry Knox are all brought to life by their own words.

Drawing from a vast well of information, McCullough puts together a coherent story without seams. Each battle, march, retreat, and victory flow together so smoothly that the pages just fly by. It isn't hard to imagine the scenes depicted.

The pictures are also well chosen and are placed near enough to the pages that they augment. This really helps put faces to the names of General Howe, Nathaniel Greene, among others.

There are only two things that I felt left the book incomplete. The first is its total focus on the military aspect of the war. What were the members of the congress at Philadelphia up to? Besides the military engagements, what other sorts of political maneuvers were going on? As a history of George Washington and his army, the book is flawless, but as a history of 1776 it misses some key aspects. This omission can be argued that it would have been impossible to create a seamless narration if the author were required to bounce between GW and the congress and the English Parliament. I agree with that argument and don't fault the book for this little aspect of incompleteness.

The second fault of this book is that it stops right at the point where the story gets good! The war starts well with a great victory in Boston, but almost the entire remainder of the book tells the bitter story of failure after failure of George Washington to win a battle. Suddenly, in the last chapter Washington orders a brilliant attack on the Hessians at Trenton which succeeds and re-energizes the troops. A followup attack at Princeton does much to keep the ball rolling, but at this critical juncture, the book ends. Hungry for more, I can't wait to buy 1777

</review>
<review>

1776 is a nice general read on the events corresponding to the first significant year of the Revolution.  David McCullough is a nice story teller, but he is not a military historian.  Such was not the intent of this book.  What I like is that its a nice, fast moving narrative on the 1776 campaign.  Thank god we don't have another rehash of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, with Franklin, Jefferson et. al. doing all their careful draghts.  McCullogh, the voice of History on Public TV, was sensible not to drag the reader through that well known territory again.

The Book covers the seige of Boston just after Bunker Hill to Trenton/Princeton.  One can argue as one reviewer does that much of the book takes place outside the confines of 1776, but that is a matter of conjecture.  In order to understand the events of that year, one must look at both the years surrounding it.  History rarely falls neatly into dates and years as historians often to try to make it.  That said, McCullough provides a nice narrative of the Battle for New York and surrounding areas, as well as the retreat through New Jersey.  This subject is not covered in as much detail as other books, but the story moves along nicely with the usual first-hand quotes to liven up the text.  Battle descriptions are brief, lack detail of regments, movements, etc., but provide the general reader a good idea of what went on.

Washington takes the usual criticism for the often glarring mistakes he made in and around New York, but McCullough like most American historians loves the inner soul of Washy.  So we get some of the usual hero worship again of Washy and Co., but its well done.  Subordinates Greene and Knox are also shown as his reliable sub-commanders who like Washy, make mistakes, but slowly, and painfully learn from them.  Charles Lee and Gates are the bad guys!  Its the standard American tale of taking a thumpin', but learning from it.  American historians love this aspect of the Revolution, and usually revel in it to the exclusion of much other information.  Thus many of the books on the American Revolution tend to repeat the same stuff over and over.  Some take longer to do it, some less.  McCullough falls into the latter category here.

To be honest I don't know why this book was a No.1 non-fiction best seller, but probably McCullough's established name has something to do with it.  That and the fact that he is a good story teller and editor.  A nice read on the first significant year of the Revolution for the general reader.  Not spectacular, but good over all.

</review>
<review>

I read 1776 shortly sfter having read McCullough's John Adams so some of the same ground was covered but from a different perspective, I found 1776 to be an interesting and smoothly flowing read. Anyone who has enjoyed and appreciated David McCullough's other works will enjoy 1776

</review>
<review>

David McCullough does an outstanding job of presenting history as a living entity.  George Washington, among others, is portrayed as very human, i.e., not always knowing what to do or how to do it.  The supporting documentation is fantastic.  I wouldn't have thought that ordinary communications, e.g., letters from an ordinary soldier to his family, would still exist and be available to flesh out our understanding of events which were undoubtedly chaotic at the time.  This is not your usual history book, at least not like the history books that I read from elementary school through college.

</review>
<review>

Thanks book is superb.  An easy read.  Non-fiction that reads like a great novel

</review>
<review>

1776 does an outstanding job of personalizing the key figures who became so critical in the war for independence.  ALthough the year 1776 saw repeated military defeats for the Americans, the faint glimmer of hope is apparent as the Americans begin to turn the tide in a series of minor victories that kept the morale at a manageable point.
Key figures such as Greene and Knox are discussed and shown to be indispensable to Washington's efforts.  The book also brought to light the fragile nature of the soldiers' committments to the fight...how close we came to losing it all.
Great page turner, and for those not too interested in the minutia of military campaigns, this will come as a welcome read

</review>
<review>

I like the novels of Clare Boylan ("Holy Pictures"--her first novel was a bit overstuffed and almost crazed in its scope, but it was memorable and a page-turner nontheless.) In "Emma Brown," Boylan takes 20 sparse pages of notes from Bronte for a novel that was fated never to be written and she fleshes it out. It doesn't read at all like Bronte; the crisp prose is missing and this is definitely in Boylan's more ornate voice.

Emma Brown is about a girl with a mysterious past and it takes us through the seamiest parts of London. This departure from Bronte's usual venues of rural town life are excused by letters written at the end of Bronte's life where she has clearly expanded her horizons beyond Haworth as a celebrated writer. Emma is a bit like all Bronte's characters, alone in the world, with powerful figures in the background and always searching for true love and a way to maintain integrity in the face of severe trials and temptations.

As a gothic novel, this has a lot of merit and is a very fine novel. What is really uncanny, however, is that the beginning of the novel is almost a copy of "The Little Princess" by Frances Hodgson Burnett. The treatment of the show pupil at a ladies' seminary and the soon-to-be-destitute heiress's ornate wardrobe is amazingly similar, and her treatment by the tough-minded headmistress and proprietress of the seminary is right out of that famous children's classic.

I didn't find the Bronte voice, as some have, in this book except right at the beginning (possible the 20 pages Bronte actually did write0 but it doesn't matter. As a novel set in Victorian days, it's wonderful enough and despite some melodrama, well-written

</review>
<review>

In EMMA BROWN, author Clare Boylan takes two chapters of an unfinished novel left behind by Charlotte Bronte and turns them into a complete novel.  In doing so, she incorporates other pieces of Bronte's writing, including a short story published by her husband after her.  The result, while perhaps not what Bronte herself intended (we'll never know), is a rich, multi-layered novel that makes for an engaging read.

The novel's title character, Emma Brown, is introduced early in Bronte's opening chapters as Matilda Fitzgibbon, a young girl of about 13.  Her background lies in shadow, although it soon becomes clear that she is not who she was pretending to be at the small, exclusive school for girls where she was residing.  However, something about Matilda (later Emma) intrigues a local gentleman, William Ellin, who agrees to help her discover her way.  He enlists the assistance of his friend and local widow, Isabella Chalfont (who also serves as the book's narrator).

In an effort to draw Emma out, Mrs. Chalfont shares her own experience as a young girl; later, the reader gets a glimpse into Mr. Ellin's past as well.  Then, as Emma's own history unfolds, we begin to learn that these three stories are surprisingly connected.  Boylan's plot definitely becomes a bit TOO coincidental at this point, but by then, I was so engrossed in the lives of these three characters that I didn't mind.  Although I can't vouch for whether this book will please fans of Charlotte Bronte, I do think that most fans of historical fiction would enjoy it, and thus I would not hesitate to recommend it

</review>
<review>

Clare has created a polished work from scanty beginnings. It is not, despite the blurbs, Bronte's voice -- it is certainly a modern work -- but it is a stimulating read nonetheless. The characters are well-developed and sympathetic, and drew me in to the mystery. The plot is well-timed, adding in new facets just as they are needed.

Clare focuses on the social ills of the era as well. It is, for the most part, effective. The reader is given to understand that Charlotte was interested in these issues as well. I am not a Bronte scholar, so they are the most marked difference that I noticed between this and one of Charlotte's other works. She does go a little over the top in some areas and loses the depth of feeling thereby.

Overall, this is a well polished book. A compelling read.

</review>
<review>

I would absolutely recommend this novel to those who can appreciate Victorian literature.  I was an English major in college and find myself incredibly bored by most contemporary writers.  Ms. Boylan does an excellent job of writing in Bronte's style.  While it is obvious that the work is not entirely Bronte's, as one of the other review mentioned, that is besides the point.  The book is thoroughly enjoyable and a great read!

</review>
<review>

While the writing was acceptable, I felt that the juxtaposition of the classes in this novel was very forced.  The differnce between the classes is too obvious.  The contrast between the rich world (the students in the Wilcox school and the Cornhills) and the streets of London (and Isa's forced marriage to the grocer, and Mrs. Cornhill's predictable and obvious snobbery) was not one that led me to feel any of the injustice.  I was left cold by the overall plot.  One thing that truly bothered me was the fate of Mr. Cornhill and Isa.  I felt that the way it happened in the book left something to be desired, and was not in true Bronte style.  The characters and their development also left something to be desired.  They were too predictable at times, and Mr. Ellin was just annoying.  There were few occasions when I sympathized with any character, other than Isa (and only at certain points in the plot). There was nothing spectacular about this novel, though I won't discourage anyone from reading it.  It was fast paced and it did hold my interest.

</review>
<review>

Based on 20 pages of an unfinished Charlotte Bronte manuscript, you forget that it was written in 2004 and are quickly enjoying what feels like a long lost Bronte! Ms. Boylan takes into consideration Charlotte's growing concern (at the time of her death) with children born into extreme poverty and deprivation. The plot involves a search for the true roots of an orphan (Emma) and introduces the readers as well as her main characters to London's back streets. Of course there are all the undying and unfulfilled loves as well as the unlikely coincidences that make for a great period novel

</review>
<review>

It's nearly impossible to recreate another author's writing style. In fact, Clare Boylan undoubtedly took this project on knowing that it could possibly subject her to all manner of abuse. Nevertheless, I think she did an excellent job.

The things that indicate she is NOT Charlotte Bronte are subtle ones. The author indicates at the end of the book that Bronte was leaning toward social reformation at the time of her death, and she developed her story along those lines. One of the tip-offs that the writer is not 19th century is the very modern shock and dismay at 19th century social conditions. Most of the main characters are, or become fired up with 1960s idealism, and try to save the world from poverty and injustice. A true 19th century writer wouldn't feel - or more likely wouldn't dare to challenge to this degree - a social structure England took for granted at that time. More likely she would comment on it and tug at your heartstrings like Dickens, and set the story up to enable the wealthy to save the poor heroine, but wouldn't have them indignantly devoting their wealthy lives to the betterment of the poor. It would have made a 19th century author appear "odd".

But that's one of the delightful things about the novel. When I read 19th century books (and I've read many) I often get irritated by shallow concerns the characters have, like the obsession with Tess of the D'urberville's loss of her virginity (yeah, so?) and building an entire book around how it ruined her life. A 19th century audience could relate. A modern audience would not see or fully appreciate what the problem was.

So we have a book with all the elements of a 19th century novel, but a story with an appeal to a 21st century audience and characters slightly more evolved and socially conscious than your typical 19th century English lords and ladies. That's nice.

Emma Brown is a not very pretty young girl who has no memory of her past, and from the little she can recall thinks she has been "ruined" and is not fit to live. She is plopped by a Mysterious Man into a school for girls dressed as a wealthy heiress and then is revealed to be a pauper (much like Shirley Temple in "The Little Princess"). The school is run by three women who love her when she's rich, and hate her when they learn she's poor. In steps a local widow, who takes the child to live with her until she runs away with a sum of money intended for the repayment of her room and board at the school. In steps a local bachelor who devotes time and money to alternately attempt to locate the Mysterious Man among the wealthy and Emma somewhere in the teeming filth of the London slums. Enter an angelic, crippled, ragged slum child whose "baby doll" is the corpse of a little infant she found in the gutter (she would replace him with another corpse as soon as he began to look "unnatural" - infant corpses were everywhere, she explains, and she likes them because they keep her company), whom Emma befriends while she is living on the streets.

I loved the story. It was just contrived enough to be convincingly 19th century -- literature from that era is always filled with contrived coincidences and everything falling into place at the end. This novel does that, but not in a predictable way.

I also found the dialog hilariously true to Victorian literature, and wondered if the author was smiling as she wrote it. It was every bit as over-written as the dialog in any 19th century novel (in a good way). She gets five-stars for hitting the dialog nail right on the head! It's obviously not going to appeal to someone who prefers modern literature, but for those of us who swallowed the classics whole -- and for anyone who gets the joke with the speeches and letters they banter back and forth -- it was like opening a time capsule and finding a lost 19th century novel.

Well worth the read. Very good book - and very brave effort! I don't know that I would personally have dared to attempt it

</review>
<review>

This is a new Victorian novel, starting with 2 chapters that were written by Charlotte Bront. Clare Boylan did a good job, finishing what Bront started. It must be difficult to finish something someone else started, let alone that person being the famous writer C. Bront is !!!
It's not an upbeat novel, but you do not expect it to be - Charlotte Bront it not know for her light, humerous writing. It tells the story about a little girl (who seems to be rich, with her expensive clothes and good looking and well-dressed father) who's dropped of by her father in a little private school. When the tution is not paid the headmistress finds out her "father" gave a false address and name. A gentlemen they know and a widow who lives in the little town try to find out who this girl really is, where she came from and why she was left in their town. The story takes you to the parts of London where the very poor live, the thieves, the pimps, the women and children they force to prostitute...
It's a good story, well written, the characters have depth. If you like Victorian novels, you'll like this one

</review>
<review>

Stormy Weather was the first Hiaasen novel I read. I picked up a paperback copy at a remainder sale. Never heard the name of the guy and didn't expect much; but it was cheap, and so...

Boy, was I wrong! Since then I have made sure that I read every Hiaasen in and out of print, and I'm about to catch up on some of his real old stuff. His writings opened up the world of the writers and the universe of that nook of America called 'Florida', which is about as whacky and demented as it comes. Actually, I've _been_ to Florida, though not down to the Keys; but it's amazing what you miss when you basically just pass through or dip in and out of it. No wonder Piers Anthony used it as the setting for a bunch his, firmly tongue-in-cheek, fantasy novels.

Stormy Weather, to get back to the subject, piled on charcaters I'll never be likely to forget, from the skull-juggling Augustine to the simply impossible 'Skink'. A never-ending litany of ascerbically presented character sketches and Hiaasen's usual--entirely justified!--tirade and caricature of venal politicians, environmental rape and greed; plus some truly and honestly _stupid_ people.

Fun and games and I never looked back. There are other 'Florida' writers I've come to like, especially James Hall and Laurence Shames. Depending on my mood, I sometimes like them better than Hiaasen, especially Laurence Shames. All three of them offer different perspectives on life in and beyond that strange place called 'Florida'. As I said, it depends on my mood. Hiaasen usually ends up at the top when I'm in a 'South Park' disposition; needing satire with heart. And I need some more of that now and soon and please!

Till Noever, owlglass.co

</review>
<review>

Great characters, the book stays true to its genre without losing the element of surprise.  Good summer read

</review>
<review>

Given the recent hurricanes Katrina and Rita that hit the United States in the past year, 'Stormy Weather,' by Carl Hiaasen, seemed like a timely read.  This novel tells a story of tourists, native Floridians, scam artists, and insurance adjusters as they interact in Miami after a Hurricane strikes.

Max and Bonnie Lamb are honeymooning in Disney World when the hurricane hits Florida.  Bonnie just wants to resume the honey moon festivities, but her husband, Max, an advertising rep, sees an opportunity to impress his bosses and drags Bonnie down to Miami to get footage of the destruction carved out by the storm.

Edie Marsh has been roving Florida in search of a Kennedy.  Her plan has been to seduce one, and then blackmail them on her way to easy street.  The plan never bears fruit.  After the hurricane, she sees an opportunity to work another scam and sets off for Miami with a partner named Snapper, who acquired his nickname after an unfortunate childhoot incident left him with a deformed jaw.  Edie's plans go awry when Snapper turns out to be more difficult to handle than she thought.

Augustine took a plane trip one day to discover he had spent months in a coma after the plane he was riding crashed.  He also found wealth in the form of an insurance settlement.  He no longer works, and spends his time dating the wrong women and juggling human skulls.  Just before the hurricane strikes, he learns he had inherited his uncles exotic animal farm.  After the hurricane, he has a problem:  although the weather passed, the animals are loose.

Finally, there is Skink.  This crazy wild man has great teeth and a protective streak for Florida's wilderness.  He trusts one man, Jim Tile (one of Florida's few black highway patrolmen).  He has been waiting for just the right hurricane to hit Florida, and is disappointed when this one doesn't do all he hoped for.  However, when he spies a tourist taking advantage of the destruction to shoot home movies, he hatches a new plan.

These are just some of the characters that fill the pages of 'Stormy Weather.'  Throughout the novel, they end up running into each other and confounding one another's plans.  It's an incredibly twisted plot, but Hiaasen pulls it off perfectly.

This is more than just a spirited novel.  This book allows Hiaasen to take swipes at many Florida institutions from Disney World and high rise developments to crooked politicians that sell out the environment and scam artists preying on the desperate after the hurricane.  Still, the novel is a great read and to borrow a cliche, a real page turner.

I recommend this novel to anyone that wants a fun and entertaining read that falls on the edge of crime fiction.  Elmore Leonard and Dave Barry fans should enjoy it immensely.  Existing fans of Hiaasen will delight in getting more adventures of Skink.

Overall Grade: 5 stars

</review>
<review>

Once again, Hiassen proves he is an amazing writer.  Most thrillers need an intricate story to propel them forward to keep a reader turning pages.

Hiaasen's story is rather straightforward, local Floridians dealing with the aftermath of a hurricane and the assorted riff-raff that arrives to separate them from their money.

In the hands of another writer, it could have been very so-so.  But Hiaasen's little nuances, excellent characterizations and dead-on dialog are almost guaranteed to keep readers laughing, guessing, and turning pages.

Highly recommended

</review>
<review>

I admit I was suspect when I first picked up this set and saw Ed Asner was reading Stormy Weather. Carl Hiaasen books get pretty raunchy at times and I was not sure I could listen to Ed Asner reading about hot and dirty action. I was pleased to find my misgivings to be unfounded. The consummate actor Mr. Asner brings Stormy Weather to life with a dry , sardonic wit that fits the material and allows the listener to get to know the characters and revel in their adventures and misadventures.
The most colorful character in this ensemble piece- the crazy ex-governor turned swamp dweller Skink is particularily well drawn in Asner's reading. This is one of my favorite Hiaasen books and I am very happy I got an audio copy to listen to in the car!
For those of you who are new to Hiaasen- the governor appears again in Sick Puppy.

</review>
<review>

Hiaasen as his best!  What better way to write an adventurous novel about Florida than to incorporate the act of God that plagues us most...a hurricane!!!  But what most people do not think of, that Hiaasen has lived through, is the crazy aftermath of said hurricane.  Lack of fresh water, food and ice cannot drive away those hell bent on insurance fraud, roofing scams, or the crazed tourist that wants to capitalize on some original footage of the events as they unfold.

Beautifully told, masterfully woven stories of corruption, adultery, murder, kidnapping, sex, circus freaks, mafia, exotic animals on the loose, and an ex governor with an electronic dog collar.  This book will have you on the edge of your seat without the ability to put it down.  Stormy Weather provides a refreshing break from reality that makes you thankful you are not a character in the story.

I love the way Hiaasen correlates being a politician or wealthy real estate developer with corruption and complete lack of moral conviction.  In reality, this is not true but perhaps in Hiaasen's "newsworthy" south Florida world, it is true.  He comically weaves his opinions about the state of Florida's insurance laws and medical laws into this action packed story of environmental extremist who take it upon themselves to play God.

This book has my highest recommendation for anyone who loves fiction novels, particularly those who are familiar with the state of Florida.

M.J. Wright of Reed  and  Wright Book Review, Inc.

</review>
<review>

Having read and enjoyed the author's young adult book Hoot, and looking for a light adult read, I picked up this book which has the reputation of being funny and light.  Frankly, it was both of thos things, but within a hundred pages, it became eminently easy to put down.  I enoy a diversion reading book periodically, and have some adult writers that meet those needs, Thomas Perry and Harold Adams to name two.  This one didn't make it for me.  It seemed to be a lot of: given a hurricane, one darn thing after another for a group of characters I didn't care enough about to see if they ever got tied together

</review>
<review>

this is the first hiaasen book that i read and i was impressed. most lines were witty and hiaasen is one natural satirist :) even though there are plenty of characters with intertwined lives, i never got lost and i believe almost all of them were given enough space for the character to evolve. i have acquired more of his books here in Manila and i can't wait to read them

</review>
<review>

Great sense of timing and humor.  This was the first book of his I've read but I can't wait to buy the rest of his works.  Keeps me up late at night giggling

</review>
<review>

If you believe that there's a little good in everyone, then Stormy Weather and Carl Hiaasen are not for you.

Stormy Weather is classic Hiaasen. His writing is so sarcastic and unrestrained by reality that it reminds me a little of Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) or Neil Stevenson (Snow Crash). Interestingly, these are science fiction authors and Hiaasen doesn't write science fiction, but, like these science fiction writers, Hiaasen's writing is modern and clever and his imagination knows no limits. His books are parodies of human nature, especially greed and stupidity, sort of like Voltaire's Candide. After painting such surreal pictures of a cast of very selfish characters, often criminals, Hiaasen then draws upon some Dante as he assigns the characters to their inevitable and well-earned unique circles of hell (that's usually in Florida involving water, alligators, or at least a storm). It says something about a writer when his best known hero is a one-eyed crazy man who lives in the everglades but used to be the governor of the great state of Florida.

If you like the sarcastic social comedy of George Carlin, the ironic wit of Steven Wright, and the slapstick of Peter Sellers, then you will love Carol Hiaasen's Stormy Weather. If you find Carlin offensive, Wright unfunny, and Sellers overrated, then you're going to hate Carol Hiaasen.

If you're new to Hiaasen's books, Stormy Weather is a good place to start. My favorite Hiaasen books are: Strip Tease, 1993; Stormy Weather, 1995; Lucky You, 1997; Sick Puppy, 2000; and Skinny Dip, 2004.

</review>
<review>

When this book was first presented to me I was not to thrilled to read it, but when I did I found myself in tears. This book moved me to a place that I didn't know existed, it is powerful and heartbreaking. I recomend it to anyone who needs a good cry..

</review>
<review>

This is a beautiful story about an idyllic childhood and the loss of innocence.  The Kite Runner follows the story of Amir, the son of a wealthy businessman in Afghanistan, and Hassan, the son of Amir's father's servant. As children the boys are inseparable until a horrible event changes them and their lives forever.  Amir and his father flee to America during the take over of Afghanistan by the Soviets.  While in America Amir continues to be haunted by the tragic childhood event while he finally grows close to his father.  Events lead him back to Afghanistan and eventually Amir finds a way to redeem himself.

This isn't a book about politics nor does it feel like a lecture, instead you are given a glimpse into the tortured soul of a man who wasn't there for his best friend.  A man who spends his life trying to live up to his fathers expectations and always feeling like he has fallen short.  You can't help but identify with the characters in this novel even though they come from a culture vastly different then our American culture.  The timing novel also coincides with current events and makes the people and city of Afghanistan come alive.


</review>
<review>

Sometimes we must step out of our own culture or ideologies to glimpse the mindset and pain of another. I know that I've read a great book when it haunts me days after I've read it. This book did just that. The characters were raw and real and flawed. The details and setting were rich. The story was difficult to read at times, but the reality is that life is filled with both beautiful and horrible moments. I look forward to reading the next book by Khaled Hosseini.

</review>
<review>

THE KITE RUNNER is the story of two boys growing up in the tragedy that has been the last thirty years of Afghanistan's history.

Amir, the only child of a widowed Pashtun (a Sunni Indo-Iranian people who've long dominated Afghanistan both socially and politically) businessman and landowner, is an introverted, bookish child. While Amir's father makes sure he wants for nothing he is emotionally distant, often showing his disappointment for his son's timidity. The other child is Hassan, the son of the Hazara (a Shi'a Turkic-Mongol minority who are often regarded with contempt by most Pashtuns) caretaker of Amir's family home. The two of them share an unlikely but powerful bond. Hassan is dedicated to Amir and realistically his only true friend.

Despite Hassan's deep affection and almost blind dedication for his Pashtun master's son, Amir's catered upbringing coupled with a desperate need for paternal attention and approval, causes him to resent the Hazara child, whose vibrancy and loyalty are openly admired by Amir's father. Somewhat sadistically Amir plays mindgames on Hassan. Taking advantage of Hassan's illiteracy, Amir deceives him about words and stories, often mocking him. Worse, he puts him through humiliating, abusive tests of friendship. Ultimately he betrays him one day when Hassan is mercilessly beaten and molested by a psychopathic neighborhood bully and his lackeys, whom Hassan had previously fought only to protect his friend. Amir pretends he sees nothing and runs off. His guilt over this only intensifies his resentement for the Hazara, who has always stood up and defended him. Amir now not only avoids Hassan but also frames him, making it look as if Hassan's stealing from the household. To Amir's surprise his otherwise strict and uncompromising father is willing to forgive the servant boy. Regardless, however, face has been lost. Hassan and his father leave for their Hazara homeland. Amir is now alone.

After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan Amir and his father flee to Pakistan and eventually California. Here, alone in a strange land and with hardly any money left, father and son will grow closer, depending upon each other. Amir meets an Afghan girl with her own personal demons, marries her, and eventually becomes a successful novelist. When Amir hears from an old friend of his father's that Hassan and his wife were recently murdered by the Taliban, leaving behind a son named Sohrab, he is shamed with regret for what he had done to his childhood friend and feels compelled to return to Afghanistan and get Sohrab out of there.

This book hits you in so many places. Beyond its time, place and subject matter, this unforgettable story will tear at your heart because it deals with the dilemmas of timeless universals such as that of mismatched fiendships, doomed by their nature; fathers and the interaction and relationship they share with their sons; the display of conflict between individual and family; modernity vs. tradition. Most importantly it deals with regrets for the past and the yearning for redemption. It concerns people who you will learn to love and long remember because they are symbolic of all of us

</review>
<review>

This is quite possibly my favorite read of the year. It's really eye opening to the ways of Afghanistan before all hell broke loose. Heart wrenching! A beautiful story of a father/son just trying to make it in America, and a story of true friendship  and  love.

</review>
<review>

The Kite Runner gets off to such a good start, with its blend of history, observations about daily life in Kaboul, and a compelling story of two boys growing up together. The second half goes badly astray, as the novel becomes more and more manipulative and sentimental. By the end of the book, the author is willing to put his characters through all sorts of hell just so he can follow up with a teary reconciliation. I wish an editor had convinced him to tighten it up, stay focused, and resist the urge to tug at the heartstrings with such a heavy hand

</review>
<review>

What made this story so exceptional to me was the plain fact that every human in every culture wrestles with conscience and questions of truth.

Amir can be anyone--not just an Afghan boy who grows into an "acculturated" American. He can be you or me. And it's the universal matters that makes this story so real. I thoroughly enjoyed the disparate cultural depictions, but found myself relating to the feelings and situations that come up: the problem with class, father-son issues, the haves-the have-nots, the immigrant experience of being an outsider looking for other outsiders to relate to. But most importantly, going back and correcting an old wound and rectifying that.

These are the things that make novels great and this author has done that here. So recommend, along with the just-as-remarkable, (yet not as well-known), SIM0N LAZARUS

</review>
<review>

Hari Kunzru's debut is reminiscent of John Irving's "Son of the Circus" with its "East meets West" main character and his many comic escapades.  There's a little "Poisonwood Bible" thrown in as the same character, in one his guises, ends up with a demented missionary in "darkest Africa."  The writing shifts from the ridiculous to the sublime--overall an entertaining read bringing promise of more to come from a talented young (30-year old) author

</review>
<review>

"The Impressionist" is an interesting book. For me, it was so engrossing, that I realized its faults only when I almost finished reading.

The novel, starting at the beginning of the twentieth century, tells the life story of Pran, the illegitimate son of Indian woman and English engineer whose brief encounter during the flood when the woman was traveling to get married resulted in his appearance. Only the servant knew the secret and she divulged it just before the death of Pran's adopted father (till then unaware that Pran was not his son). Pran, kicked out of the house and disowned, has to manage by himself and thus starts the series of his adventures. He changes identity as a chameleon, moving through India, from Fatehpur palace of the Muslim prince, Bombay, then to England and eventually to Africa, learns a lot and changes all the time thanks to his wonderful (or not so wonderful, as it later comes out) ability to adapt. This ability improves as Pran goes on, initially having some slips, when he tries to pass for a British boy, but later, because of constant concentration, a lot of learning, and help of others, he becomes a perfect, standard Englishman. In this respect, the motif of constantly changing person, the novel reminds me very obviously of Woody Allen's comedy "Zelig".

The novel is funny, there are many comic situations and the characteristics of each setting in which Pran finds himself are very thorough. Often, the background information was for me more interesting than the plot! The conclusion is supposed to be deep and philosophical (Is it better to be yourself, or be like others? What is a success in life? To name a few questions coming to mind after reading this novel), and it is in a way, but it is quite obvious and the final events leading to it, starting with the journey to Africa, were too lengthy and if there was any deeper meaning, other than repetition and sinking of the conclusion, it was lost on me - I think it would be better if the story ended with the night in Paris. The suspense would not be lost like it is now.

Nevertheless, "The Impressionist" reads well, it is a great read for all people who are interested in India, and brings up a problem of mixed origins (the author himself being half British, half Indian) and searching for one's identity. It definitely prompted me to look for other books by Hari Kunzru

</review>
<review>

It has been quite a while since I have read a book that has touched me so deeply. Perhaps having lived several years on the Indian Sub-Continent colors my opinion, but I cannot help but believe that anyone who enjoys a fine, well-crafted tale would not enjoy this book. If you are looking to be transported (in beautiful writing style) to another place and time, buy this book!

</review>
<review>

With wit and empathy, this fantastic novel compassionately tells the life of a boy born from a wild and improbably union.  Romping through brothels in India, sex parties, and the streets of London ,the reader remembers how fortunate we are sometimes to have a place of familiarity

</review>
<review>

I found the parts of the book about the flexbility of identity and race interesting.  The boy liquidly moves through the novel adapting to new classes, races and environments.  He demonstrates the poignant struggle to be oneself and part of one's culture and the simultaneous desire to be "other".  However, this book/narrator/author is fixated on sex.  The boy's life seems to revolve around sex more than the aforementioned issues, and the discussions about sex have absolutely no reason to be in the novel.  In fact, it draws away from the momentum.  There are parts where the narrator is describing a person in an insightful and interesting way, but then throws in a comment about the man's "pulsating bulge" or something equally ridiculous.  I don't have problems with sexuality or sexual novels, but it had absolutely no point in this book and drew away from the central issues of class and race.  And you'll notice to book is heavily discounted... Hm..

</review>
<review>

I picked this novel up because, for years, I've been idly tossing around an idea for a course in "racial ambiguity" that looks at figures of mixed race in literature and culture. This debut novel follows its half Indian, half white protagonist through the various identities he inhabits in his trajectory through various scenes of British colonialism. Kunzru's real narrative gift is his humor; the first and second sections of this novel are written with a cocky, satirical aplomb reminiscent of Henry Fielding (whom I happened to be reading at the same time-still, I think the comparison holds). After these sections come to an end, not even halfway through the book, the humor wanes and so does the story's allure. I think Kunzru could have learned a lesson from the master, Fielding: that one of the benefits of having a shape-shifting protagonist is that he can serve as a foil to set off the more captivating maneuvers of an intelligent narrator. As the novel becomes more intent on "developing" the characters, the narrator fades, which is very disappointing.

Nevertheless, I look forward to reading more of Kunzru's work in the future

</review>
<review>



With so many fine novels written during the past decade about the Indian emigrant experience, is there anything new to say on the topic?  Hari Kunzru's picaresque tale of an Anglo-Indian boy answers, resoundingly, yes.

Pran Nath is the fruit of an improbable union between an Indian girl and a soldier of the British Empire who are literally thrown together during a flash flood.  The soldier dies, and the girl travels onward to Agra and her arranged marriage.  There she convinces her unworldly husband that the child in her swelling belly is his own.  Pran's mother dies giving birth, and her unsuspecting husband raises Pran as his prized son and heir.  Pran's life as a spoiled, upper class youth comes to an abrupt end when he's betrayed by a servant who knows the true tale of his patrimony.

Tossed into the streets, Pran suffers the usual depredations visited upon defenseless urchins.  After some months as a captive child prostitute, he's sold out of a brothel into the service of a minor maharajah.  Pran's new job is to seduce a British colonial administrator with a taste for young boys so the maharajah can blackmail him.  The political and erotic byplay builds to a hilarious climax involving magic potions, drugged tigers, and miscegenation.

The inclusion of "child prostitute" and "hilarious" in the description above hints at the story's accomplishments and limitations.  We're captivated by Pran's adventures, but he's more comic book hero than fully fleshed out character.  Suspend disbelief, and you'll enjoy the ride.  Look elsewhere for more literal emotional truths.

Pran escapes to Bombay, where he's given bed and board by Scottish missionaries.  While the colonial edifice in India starts to shudder and crack, Pran shuttles between high minded Protestantism and the brothels of Falkland Road, where he makes a skimpy living as an errand boy and low level pimp.  He also takes tentative steps to pass himself off as an Englishman, using his light skin as the ticket out of his Indian self.  One evening, Pran serves as night guide to a drunken English youth, raised in India but now orphaned and returning to England.  When the English boy gets murdered during a political riot, Pran takes his clothes and his identity and sets sail for the land of his father.

Passing as Jonathan Bridgeman, Pran is provided with a comfortable inheritance and sent first to a boarding school, then to Oxford.  Pran becomes an actor and an aesthete, but his real course of study is English customs and manners, which he mimics and dissects in order to discover the wellsprings of British imperial power.  While at Oxford, he begins a romance with Astarte Chapel, the daughter of a famous anthropologist.  Astarte is the peaches and cream essence of Anglo-Saxon girlhood, and the smitten Pran feels he's sailing toward the very fountainhead of Englishness.  But then he discovers that Astarte's tastes run darker and wilder than the prim and proper Englishman Pran's worked so hard to become.

Pran flees to Africa with Astarte's father to study a remote jungle tribe.  After an arduous upriver journey, the expedition finds that the long arm of empire has been here before them and upended the tribe's culture.  Now truly in the heart of darkness, Pran has to come to terms with the deteriorating situation in the bush and his own wobbly sense of who he really is.

The Impressionist is a remarkably assured first novel.  It's a sensual book, not because of the too numerous sexual escapades, but in the rich descriptions of clothes, palaces, brothels and city streets and in the striking and humorous oddities of British and Indian culture seen through Pran's boyish eyes.  Echoes of great English writers such as Waugh, Forster, Dickens, and Conrad give the book texture.  All the Big Ideas about race, class and identity evolve naturally out of the story.  This is a wise, funny, and inventive novel.  We can only hope the multi-talented Kunzru will continue working in this particular medium.



</review>
<review>

Can't remember when I have been so captivated by a novel.  The reviewers who complain that the main character hasn't much depth are right--but they don't really get that this is the whole point.  Kunzru is making a comment on the flexibility of identity.  Pran's initial identity is a lie (although he doesn't know it), subsequent identities are forced upon him by necessity and others' needs and expectations, and he eventually learns that he can manipulate his own identity to his advantage.  An absolutely stunning, yet playful, story that demonstrates the ways in which we perceive ourselves and others and how we shape personal and cultural values.  Outstanding--I can't recommend it highly enough and wish I could give it 10 stars

</review>
<review>

I am not one who can't handle any sort of violence or sexual deviance. However, after half of this book i had to toss it away because there was nothing redeeming about it. Every Character we encounter is wicked and sexually deranged. I need a shred of hope to contine reading especially if i am to endure such explicit rape scenes. ugh

</review>
<review>

Don Stoner is pretty much damned if he does and damned if he doesn't, advocate an Old Earth Creationist position. On the one hand, he faces empirical data that demonstrates clearly the age of the universe. He actually focuses on the scientific evidence and shows quite clearly using the data obtained from quasars and pulsars and the resultant red-shifting demonstrated in the light spectrums that unless one accepts the implausable possibility that the speed of light has not always been constant, the universe is Billions of years old. He then makes a compelling argument that if Scripture is to be taken as true it cannot be at odds with the truth of the creation itself.

Here's where Stoner (and all Old Earth Creationists) finds himself in the cross-hairs. The vast majority of scientists would find his arguments as basic foundational information and accept his science without necessarily seeing the need to accept his theology. At the opposite end the Young Earth Creationists, whom Stoner appears to be targeting, are so committed to their interpretation of Scripture they will reject his arguments de facto without the benefit of a great deal of thought going in to their rejection because their position is based in faith and they cannot accept anything that is counter to their espoused presuppositions. Witness other critiques of this book which pretty much deal with Scripture and ignore the strongest physical facts presented.

All this aside Stoner does a commendable job keeping the tone and tenor of his argument on the high road. He attempts to demonstrate to Young Earth Creationists how their positions in fact drive scientists and independent thinkers away because they see Christianity itself tied to what in effect is intellectual suicide. Stoner goes to great lengths to argue that the issue isn't Scripture itself; the issue is one's interpretation of that Scripture. There's room, even in Christianity for saying to some issues, "I don't know." "This is how understand it, but it is possible I am wrong." By making Young Earth Creationism tantamount to the Scripture itself, Young Earth Creationists repeat the mistakes of their intellectual ancestors who impuned Gallileo and espoused a flat earth based on much the same arguments.

Stoner does an admirable job. Unfortunately for him (or more to the point, unfortunately for many Christians) he is going to be met with indifference and unpopularity from both sides. Hang on though. Time showed Galileo right. Time may well just demonstrated Stoner's position to be right, or at least closer to right than the popular Young Earth Creationist movement, once they get past their unwillingness to accept that their position while scripturally based, is not the equivilent of Scripture itself.

Take a look objectively at both the facts AND the scripture with a willingness to listen and learn. Whether either side changes their mind, Stoner has done an admirable job, with a difficult subject and handled it with intellectual and Scriptural integrity and graciousness.

We all can learn a lot from that.

</review>
<review>

This book fights the spiritual war against the  and quot;end-justifies-the-means and quot; young earth cult. If you paid hard-earned money to send your children to a Christian school (as I have) only to have them exposed to hideous Kent Hovind videos, you will appreciate this book's clear exposition of the young earth fallacy. I never understood how World War II Germany could follow Hitler until the young earth propaganda machine deceived so many Christians. I hope others will join me in loaning a copy of this book to a young earth follower in their area. This book does a great job in challenging us to reduce the young earth following by taking a stand for God's truth

</review>
<review>

Stoner begins by warning that unscientific books written by Christians bring discredit upon Christianity and drive non-Christians away from the Gospel. Unfortunately, following this thinking, Stoner may be a major culprit. He simply accepts standard uniformitarian thinking as fact. His treatment of dating methods appears to show a complete misunderstanding of them. He says, for instance, that the circular reasoning of using fossils is obviated by the fact that fossils are used for dating only when they first have been shown to agree with isotopic dates. First of all, index fossils, and the concepts behind using them, were used for over a century before isotopic dating even existed. Second, one of the major ways that dating results are evaluated for presumed reliability is their agreement with relative dating based on index fossils. Consequently, the circular reasoning still stands

</review>
<review>

Some editions (in fact, most of them) do not tell you that this is actually the third in a series of books about the character Mitch Rapp. I was not aware that this was a series until they made numerous references to previous activities. Flynn tries to catch the reader up, but it mostly ends up as a blur to the uninitiated reader.

That being said, this was a decent thriller. Undoubtedly, I would have enjoyed it more if I had known all of the backrground, but it still got the job done. I kept turning the pages and the ending , while frustrating to some, seemed to be more appropriate than if Flynn had wrapped everything up in a nice package.

I give this one a grade of B

</review>
<review>

I could not put this book down.  VF keeps the story moving quickly and paints great mental pictures.  If you like Clancy you will love Flynn

</review>
<review>

At the beginning when the book tells us about Saddam Hussein I thought that this'll be as many books written about him. When the book turns out to be an internal affair is when you get thrilled. The book has some pages that said nothing about the main plot but you'll get hooked till the end. This is my first book by VF and I'm looking forward to read more of him.

About the end... no comments

</review>
<review>

As a political thriller, this book was heavy on the "political" and not so much on the "thriller".  The prior two books, Term Limits and Transfer of Power were more action packed.  As a fan of the series, however, I do recommend this third book in the series.  There are a large number of characters returning from the prior two books, so I'd definitely recommend reading the series in order.

Appropriateness: There is a fair amount of language used in the book.  There is violence in the form of a few killings - not overly graphic though.  And no sex scenes

</review>
<review>

I have just finished this book. I have read all of Vince Flynn's previous books and I have enjoyed all of them. If you are looking for a good book pick this one up.

</review>
<review>

Vince Flynn strikes again with anohter spellbinding Mitch Rapp novel of intrigue and politics in a not so fictional US government

</review>
<review>

A disclaimer for this book...to fully enjoy it, you really need to read Term Limits and Transfer of Power first.  There are a LOT of characters here that were in the previous two books.  Trying to digest all of them at the same time might be a little rough.

I'm surprised at the amount of negative reviews this has received.  I actually enjoyed this book more than Transfer of Power or Term Limits.  I had planned on making it through the entire Flynn/Rapp series anyway, so the fact that the ending is incomplete is no biggie for me.

</review>
<review>

Another thriller from Vince Flynn. Like Mitch Rapp, this guy just doesn't miss!! He's that good--real, real good!!  No, he's great!!

Mitch Rapp specializes in counterterrorism--as he told his friend Congressman O'Rourke, he "hunts down terrorists and kills them..."

And nobody does it better than Mitch Rapp (unless it's John Corey, Nelson DeMille's sometimes protagonist)

One suggestion:  As enjoyable as Vince Flynn's reads are--and they are enjoyable, each in its own right and on its own merit--they are probabaly even more enjoyable when read in sequence: "Term Limits," "Transfer of Power," this book, "The Third Option," "Separataion of Power,' etc.

But if this book, "The Third Option," is your first Vince FLynn read, go to it and be prepared to be thrilled, enchanted and carried away by its action and characters...

Two notes to veteran Flynn readers: (1) Neat, wasn't it, the reference to Nelson DeMille, another great writer of this genere, and (2) Flynn got one fact wrong: Congressman Kaiser, the Speaker of the House, played football at Auburn, not Alabama!!

</review>
<review>

Simply put, this was an outstanding book. If you are a guy then Vince Flynn's books are for you.  Lots of action with just a touch of romance.  You become very attached to the characters, epsically Rapp and Rieley.  In the Mitch Rapp series it is hard to put one book above any other and the third option stays true to all of that, very well written.  I am by no means the fastest reader around and being a soldier myself mt time can be at a primeium but I finished this book in two days, impossible to put down

</review>
<review>

In an unrelenting quest to understanding the history of the United States, one obscure name comes to mind, Thomas Paine.  Paine helped establish the meaning of democracy and the "united" in United States.  His two monumental works, COMMON SENSE AND RIGHTS OF MAN, provided the philosophical and rhetorical building blocks that the founding fathers, such as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, et al., would emulate with the writing of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.  Many take for granted the origins of freedom and democracy in the United States, and as with many school history textbooks depict, Paine merely appears in a paragraph or two, and quickly disappears to historical oblivion.

Nevertheless, when one reads COMMON SENSE AND RIGHTS OF MAN:  AND OTHER ESSENTIAL WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE, there will be no doubt how significant his philosophical and political writings transformed the political structure of the colonies.  Although this may sound somewhat romanticized, Paine's words ignited the energy for the colonists to free themselves from the tyrannical-monarchical leadership of England's King George III.  With all the talk of Paine being a founding father, he may also be considered the father of revolution, American Revolution and French Revolution, and human rights. Without the inspiration from his friend Edmund Burke, author of REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE, Paine may not have been able to write the pamphlet Rights of Man.  Indeed, his power of the written word translated to revolutionary action, and Jeffersonian ideology.

In clear and no nonsense language,  Paine's perspective of the state of the colonies are elaborately told in COMMON SENSE.  He adamantly shows his opposition toward hereditary rule and limitations imposed on individuals by George III and his vehement disdain towards aristocrats and kings.  For RIGHTS OF MAN, he proposed possible solutions toward poverty, and created a blueprint towards achieving social and political institutions through his written abstracts.  The other essential writings include the pamphlets, THE CRISIS, part one of THE AGE OF REASON, and selections of AGRARIAN JUSTICE.  These writings gives readers an idea the political and religious atmosphere in which Paine lived, and how "breaking ties" with the so-called "motherland" was necessary towards forging a free nation.

COMMON SENSE AND RIGHTS OF MAN is indeed accessible with its pocketbook size form.  After reading the book, readers may have a better understanding of what takes to build a nation.  Paine's words are lessons of history and humanity, and is definitely recommendable reading

</review>
<review>

I discovered Paine about five years ago, and just the knowledge that a man like him lived was very uplifting to me. If only American schools would teach more of Paine. A true friend of man and one who truly understood what society needs, if all men -- and especially their leaders -- thought like Thomas Paine, our world would be farther, much farther ahead -- not in mere "progress," but in true, meaningful betterment -- and would be as close to "heaven" as one could imagine.

Everyone in our world needs to read and understand Thomas Paine. This book and Age of Reason are essential reading today more than ever before

</review>
<review>

Pleasantly surprised, until recently I thought all of your fathers of this stolen land was for slavery with the exception of John Quincy Adams and Benjamin Franklin.  Refreshing to know that there was another, in my opinion, open minded and understanding the real meaning that ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL!!!!!!How can a government have those high minded ideals  practice SLAVERY AND GENOCIDE OF THE INDIGENOUS POPULATION of Turtle Island.
Another american SCHZOPHRENIA......IN GOD WE TRUST.....How can a nhave the unmitagated GALL to have that phrase and once again go strictly against what God's law.  Thomas Paine showed and argued this with a few others when drafting your constitution.
This should be required reading in any history class of american history.  Not the garbage I was taught in school but the TRUTH, ugly or not

</review>
<review>

I have just finished reading Age of Reason and I am ordering another copy to loan to friends.  Paine said it best... "If I am wrong, prove it!"  In detail, he proves that the Bible is an anonymous, disjointed, plagiarised, conglomeration that is unworthy of Mother Goose.  That said, he outlines the concepts of Deism that honors God as well as the rational mind

</review>
<review>

Then you have to read this book.  Thomas Paine was so amazing, not only did his writings (along with him personally) influence the colonial revolution, but it also heavily influenced the French Revolution!

Even though it can be difficult to read something written over 200 years ago.  You cannot help but be in awe of the pure genius and talent of this man.  It took me three months to read this book.  Not because I work 70 hours a week and go to college.  But because I kept going back to read parts again and again.

I always wondered what the Usa has become and what it was supposed to be.  After finishing this book I knew the answer.  The United States of America now resembles more the oppressive regime of England then the dreams the colonists/founding fathers fought for!  Canada more resembles what the founding fathers wanted and they never had to leave the Commonwealth.  Life is strange..

</review>
<review>

Thomas Paine, in short, was brilliant!  Looking to the evidence of nature for the existnce of God and not to man made/altered doctrines that have caused 98% of the wars ever fought, and 90% of the deaths ever claimed by war.  Why should we as humans push aside the only life that we know for sure we will have in hope for another.What you see is what you get, is as far as it goes; at least that is all we know for sure.  Faith is good, I do say that, but when Faith starts pushing reality to the side is when we have a problem

</review>
<review>

... Thomas Paine is one of our Nation's most misunderstood Founders.  'The Rights of Man,' contrary to public misunderstanding (usually by those who have not read it in it's entirety), bears out that Paine in fact *did* believe in a Divine entity, quoted directly from the Bible throughout the Essay, and had a near-encyclopedic understanding of the New Testament.  His criticisms were of organized religion and how *men* had used it to corrupt the very idea of an afterlife and the ideas of faith.  The publication of "Common Sense," most forget, was one of the most important causes of the American Revolution.  Often derided even in his own time, Paine reminds us that those who speak ideas that cause painful debate are at the heart of our Nation's Ideals

</review>
<review>

Thomas Paine's clear and concise writings make him one of the greatest political authors of his time. Basic thoughts of freedom and democracy, that seem so common place nowadays, were brought about because of Paines   and quot;radical and quot; ideas. His books Common Sense and The Rights of Man  were written not just for the political philosopher but also for the common  man. Both the aforementioned books played a big part in the American and  French Revolutions

</review>
<review>

Sports economics fascinates me, and MLB economics is especially fascinating.  The most powerful trade union in the world for the past two decades as been the MLPA, and this book explains why.  After getting my initial wake up call about the stupidity of baseball's ownership through Bouton's Ball Four lo those many years ago, Lords merely cements my opinion.  A more venal, greedy group would be hard to find in any other industry.  Big on detail, impecably researched and tightly written, this is a must read for all baseball fans, especially for those of you in a city which is being brow beaten into building a stadium with public funds

</review>
<review>

This book does a superb job describing the business of baseball.  Author John Helyar gives readers a strong historical perspective, explaining how and why the game got to be the way it is today (well, as of 1994).  The author devotes considerable attention to labor issues.  We learn about the days of reserve clause "slavery," the success of union chief Marvin Miller at winning gains for the players, and of owner attempts to cheat the players via collusion.  Readers see that the game's overseers (team owners) are often driven by greed and desire for power.  We also see why disparate, unshared local broadcast revenues give advantages to teams in large markets (New York, Los Angeles, etc.) and make it tough for small market teams like Kansas City and Milwaukee to compete.  The author also refutes that repeated owner lament that they are losing money.  Yes, a few teams (Montreal Expos) have bad years financially, but if most teams lost money - and they don't - then player paychecks would bounce, the price of franchises would stop rising, and owners would stop holding bidding wars for top free agents.

At this writing, baseball is enjoying both ups and downs.  Last season (2005) saw another attendance record (74 million fans), but that means higher ticket prices, and one sees far fewer kids today playing the game in the sandlots.  Still, as the late Bill Veeck said, owners haven't been able to ruin baseball despite their best efforts.  Readers that like this book might consider similar books by Marvin Miller and announcer Bob Costas.


</review>
<review>


This is a rare book about the history of baseball owners.  That wouldn't seem like a subject that's nearly as interesting as the feats of the players (and it's not), but it's a fascinating story all the same.  There's great stories about eccentric owners like Charlie Finley, Walter O'Malley, Ted Turner, and George Steinbrenner.  It shows their consistent ineptitude at dealing with issues like arbitration, free agency, revenue issues and fan relations.  And yet the game of baseball goes on no matter how they try to screw it up.  And why is major league baseball the nation's only legal cartel?  Helyar explains it for you.

</review>
<review>

I would add to my strong recommendation of this book a companion reading of Marvin Miller's  and quot;A Whole Different Ball Game, and quot; which gives a better treatment of the early history of labor relations in the sport, but unfortunately ends in the mid-80's, when Miller's retirement took effect.  I used to think the players were a bunch of greedheads...once you know the history of the relations between owners and players, though, it's easy to understand where they're coming from

</review>
<review>

How the individual owners in major league baseball on a continual basis constantly lose out to the MLB Players Union in the collective bargaining process. This book lucidly details how the owners plans are constantly frustrated by the Union and also the Commisioner of Baseball. Who is the employee of the owners,  but until recently had independent powers. This book does not cover the Bud Selig Years as commisioner of Baseball. A must read for the baseball fan who gets frustrated with the work stopages. Another must read book is Marvin Millers' Whole Different Ball Game: A History how the Union taught the players to be discontented about their salaries and the terms of employment. How one man worked tirelessly to make athletes well informed about the business side of baseball and the lies of the owners, in so doing improved the lives of all profesional athletes

</review>
<review>

If you want to know about baseball, this is the one book you MUST read.  From the early days of robber-baron owners, to the formation of the most powerful union in the world, this book tells it all in great detail.  I cannot recommend it enough to fans of the game as well as anyone interested in the history of business in America.  It has been said that to know the history of America, you must know the history of baseball.  This book exemplifies that thought.  Its out of print, but try as hard as you can to find a copy.  You will not be dissapointed

</review>
<review>

Awesome! Although it's been more than five years since I read it, I always see it on my bookshelf and ask myself if I should read it again. It was one of those books, especially for baseball fans like myself, that I never  wanted to end

</review>
<review>

As with  and quot;Barbarians at the Gate and quot;, Helyar makes what could be a boring topic into an enlightening read.  A walk through baseball's past from a business perspective, looking at the issues that shaped the game we  watch today.  If you're a true baseball fan, check out this book

</review>
<review>

Readers interested in Benny Morris should read Israeli historian Yehoshua Porath's "War and Remembrance" in the summer 2002 issue of Azure. Porath adds to the Oct. 1995 and April 1990 discussions by Robert Satloff and Shabtai Teveth in Middle Eastern Studies and to Efraim Karsh's  excellent book, Fabricating Israeli History. Don't read this book without looking at these critiques.

Why? Morris et al tell readers they have written "new" history of Israel, considering the entire previous historical record as if it were solely propaganda for the Zionist cause. Here, Morris considers Jewish conduct in the 1947 and 1948, and why the Arabs fled.

Morris claims to be the first person to have looked at Israeli archives on the Dalet Plan, a plan to move populations in certain areas. Nevertheless, other scholars show that Morris and his peers in this book misrepresent themselves and the facts.

Firstly, Yigael Alon and Israel Galili, in The Book of the Palmah, gave Walid Khalidi material to argue in 1959 that the Dalet Plan was "the master plan of the Zionists" to expell Palestinians wholesale. Furthermore, the 1973 History of the Hagana (by Uri Millstein) included the entire Dalet Plan text. Official or not, these 1959 and 1973 Israeli Jewish histories, very shortly after the the 1948 war, did not hide what happened, as Morris claims here.

Morris also writes that Arab government archives were closed to his research and and to other historians writing on the Israeli-Arab conflict before him. He writes that he relied on Israeli and Western archives. But Porath, Karsh, Satloff and Teveth all show that this is not the case.

Furthermore, Morris did no research at the Hagannah archives or those of the IDF, a fact underlined by Efraim Karsh in 2002, and one which he admits in a more recent book (The War for Palestine). Morris now writes that in the mid 1980s both those archives were closed to all researchers after all. He writes, he was limited to few first-hand military materials, indicating that there is no "new" research here at all.

Morris' charge that Israel carried out a deliberate and systematic expulsion of the Palestinian Arabs isn't even remotely substantiated by extensive research done since the mid 1980s. On the contrary, Morris takes material very selectively, from Israeli archive fringes and makes what Porath terms "outrageoulsy false claims"-- that Israel's victory resulted from "an imperialist conspiracy or an overwhelming advantage in manpower and arms."

Indeed, Morris writes here that Arabs left Israel because of many factors, their departure was not the fault of the Jewish people alone. Then, he contradicts himself, giving those who hate Israel grounds to blame Israel for the exodus, without considering the other circumstances.

This book also details a so-called "massacre" in 1948 of Arabs at the village of Deir Yassin, but not enough to mention that the incident was actually a battle--in which most Arabs killed (like those in Jenin in March and April 2002) were armed.

Finally, Morris does not note (by comparison) other massacres in 1948--of Jews, by Arabs. On December 30, 1947, for example, Arabs murdered some 50 Jewish co-workers at the Haifa refinery. On April 13, 1948, they massacred over 80 Jewish doctors, nurses and Hebrew University workers on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem.

Additionally, nearly all of the 131 people who surrendered at the Etzion Bloc were also murdered by Palestinian Arabs. Only two survived.

These latter Arab massacres of Jews do not fit the blame that Morris seeks to lay at Jewish feet. Nor does the fact that Jews did not afterwards flee, as occurred on the Arab side following the battle at Deir Yassin. So Morris omits them.

I also find it disturbing that the book nowhere mentions the equal refugee claim of 1 million Jewish refugees from 22 Arab nations, who were expelled with nothing but the shirts on their backs, and rebuilt their lives in Israel, the U.S., and Europe.

The number of Jewish refugees was actually larger than that of Arab refugees (counting only those who fled, not their descendants). Honest history would have noted these parallels as well as the entire context of the war.

--Alyssa A. Lappe

</review>
<review>

What makes this and other similar works by Israel's "new" historians significant is that they are coming around to what academics in Europe and some even in America have known for decades, that Israel forced the majority of Palestinians out of Israel through the use of terrorism, mass murder, and forced expulsions.  Morris has joined the growing number of Israelis and Jewish Americans who are coming out and looking at Israel's past without rose colored glasses and this is, of course, angering Israel's supporters who hold to such laughable notions that the Arabs left of their own accord or were instructed to leave by other Arab leaders for some reason that remains mysterious.  One might as well claim that the Native Americans moved to reservations because they wanted a change of scenery.  The criticism aimed at this book is part of the usual obfuscation process to make it seem as if "there are two truths" or that Morris and the multitude of Israeli historians like him are all prone to hyperbole."  This is nonsensical to say the least.  Neutral academics who aren't involved in this conflict and Israeli Jews such as Morris receive nothing but constant "criticism" for revealing the truth about this conflict to wider audiences in Israel and America (the Europeans and others in the world don't require "new" or "revisionist" history as they have been aware of the Palestinian refugee problem and what caused it since it happened).  The declassified information found in Israeli official archives is nothing new to much of the world, but it does help those people who know very little about this conflict or have the wrong idea in Israel and the US.  Many of the critics who have attempted to "pan" Benny Morris' work are the same "academics" who support such charlatans as Joan Peters.  They don't want people to learn the obvious truth and see past the propoganda.  This is especially important here in the United States where pro-Israeli sentiments run high and blind support for that apartheid regime is unwavering.  Also, the critics don't note some of the interesting insights Morris gives such as pointing to some Israeli actions as purely military and not meant to drive out Palestinians (and thus supporting pro-Israeli views), but they still had that effect anyway.  Morris doesn't protray the Zionists as some evil army, just a well organized one that planned for and carried out an expansionist campaign designed to disenfranchise the Palestinians of their lands.  The war was fought weeks before an Arab armies even announced their intentions to "attack" Israel and yet strangely all the fighting took place in Palestinian designated regions.  We also get some interesting insights into the major players like David Ben-Gurion who was one of the master planners of the Zionist plot to conquer Palestine.  Morris, contrary to what some reviewers claim, is actually quite balanced and neutral and isn't as harsh towards the Israeli side as purported (he's actually a Zionist himself).  Morris is just not interested in living in some fantasyland that has been built up largely in Israel and the United States that the Arabs were all rabid anti-Jewish masses waiting to attack the Jews and that the fledgling Zionists did what they had to do to survive.  It was not survival which they sought, it was conquest and expansion.  And even many Israeli academics have arrived at what has been obvious to the rest of the world.  Highly recommended

</review>
<review>

This is the MOST important book ever authored about the Palestinian  and quot;Refugees Problem and quot; written by the famous Israeli historian Benny Morris. It is full of details based on declassified Israeli, Hanagah, and Zionist documents. The book is must read for any person who wants to know the core facts surrounding the plight of the ethnically cleansed Palestinians

</review>
<review>

An excellent book that documents the origin of the Palestinian refugee problem using Israeli sources.  Well researched and written, it is hard to debate Moriss's conclusions

</review>
<review>

This book has been replaced with better, more accurate information, free of the far left-wing slant of ... Morris.  I suggest Prof. Uri Dan's excellent four volume set 'Israel's War of Independence' which is far more detailed and accurate than this [book]

</review>
<review>

Wow. I wish there was a way to give this steaming heap a rating of NO stars. O'Reilly is good at what he does and he should stick to it. Fiction is clearly not his strong suit. His characters were cardboard cutouts, his dialogue stilted and ludicris, his situations cliched and riddled with stereotypes, and his schizophrenic writing veers betweeen pompous moralizing and salacious hyperventilation. Reading it made me wonder just how sharp this guy's mind really is. If this trash is any indication of O'Reilly's true worldview, he's a sick, sad man indeed

</review>
<review>

I'm getting a little concerned about this review system because people are clearly misusing it and reports of abuse have gone ignored.  I am no fan of Bill O'Reilly and this novel is not the greatest, but there is no excuse for intentionally misstating the content of a book or using this space as a soapbox for irrelevant opinions...especially if, from the looks of some of these reviews, a reviewer have not actually read this book.

We need to set our opinions and agendas about the author aside and review the book on its own merits.

RE: a previous reviewer's statement that "under aged kids are being molested in this book by sicko [...]".  The character in question was a villain who briefly appeared -- a young ghetto dealer who was having sex with a 15-year-old when the hero/vice cop apprehended him.  In fact, O'Reilly is so busy preaching and pontificating in this scene that he forgets he is supposed to be telling a story: "Obviously, he preferred oral sex to oral hygiene."

That's the main problem with the novel.  He doesn't understand how a story is told, and it doesn't appear that his editor exercised too much control over easily correctable gaffes.  He interrupts an arrest scene with a comment in parentheses: "Homicide detectives are required to wear suits on duty".  You get the picture.  The details are not horribly original, but nothing is stolen outright that I can pinpoint.  And some scenes and subplots were actually funny.  I have a feeling it could have been a good novel with a decent amount of editing and advice.

There is nothing gratuitous, [...], or intentionally [...] in this book.  It is just mediocre -- but I did stick with it to the very end.  If you like media-related mysteries or O'Reilly, check it out of the library like I did.  Fulfilling my curiosity about what kind of story someone with his background would tell was worth a few hours of my time.


</review>
<review>

I have to say I really enjoyed this book.... no it's not Hemingway but it is fast moving and held my interest from the first page.  For a first time novelist, I give it two thumbs up.  I have certainly read worse by more established authors.

I read the entire book on a flight from Paris to Chicago and it was one of the fastest flights I have even taken.  Thank you Bill for an enjoyable story.  Will we be seeing more of Ashley Van Buren and Tommy O'Malley?  I sure hope so

</review>
<review>

Wow, before I read this book I looked up the reviews listed at this site; there are some very nasty (and disingenuious) reviews that have been posted by those who obviously oppose anything that Mr. O'Reilly does, writes, or says.

I would hasten to say that this should be a source for others to view honest analysis of literature; not a political forum.

Although Bill is no William Faulkner, Harper Lee, or Ernest Hemingway, his first effort at fiction was both entertaining and an interesting take on the state of big business network news; I have certainly read novels by authors with huge followings that have been far less enjoyable.


</review>
<review>

I'm hoping that most of the people who wrote these reviews didn't actually stoop so low as to buy the book.  I read a few pages of it, and this is truly 7th-8th grade level writing.

I didn't realize that Bill's narcissism extended to the point at which he actually thought his writing was INTERESTING, rather than just blatantly one-sided and sickeningly arrogant.  Bill should stick to repetitive, "I know better," conservative babble - it gives us liberals/radicals/freethinkers something to make fun of

</review>
<review>

Bill O'Reilly stole his idea for burying his enemies in the sand from Twilight Zone. His vision reminds me of "Manhunter"-- the Michael Mann film not the lame book he based it on. O'Reilly, tall and deformed, is the Tooth-Fairy. O'Reilly is gutter-trash

</review>
<review>

Bill O'Reilly ought to stick to what he does best, i.e. making harrassing phone calls and bloviating like an argumentative loudmouth in a saloon

</review>
<review>

I've heard this book on tape, which, poor writing aside, is more horrifying to actually hear O'Reilly read in his own voice. The gratuitous sex (which can only be appreciated if you also enjoy harrassing others with phone sex and falafels) is enough to turn anyone off, but THAT VOICE narrating the suggestive scenes is waaaay too much to endure. A sad, sad example of narcissism at it's very worst

</review>
<review>

This insight into TV journalism is about as interesting as a look into my parent's vacation to Florida. O'Reilly was obviously under the mistaken impression that his life in journalism and the places he traveled to were somehow fascinating enough to make into a work of fiction (or a work of anything, for that matter).
And his main character: Tommy O'Malley (wasn't he one of the Aristocats?) About as dull and dumb as a bag of hammers (which someone ought to whack O'Reilly in the groin with).
To sum up in a forthright, no-spin manner: this book sucks. I should have seen it coming, when my bid for eight dollars on Ebay was the only bid for five days, and turned out to be the winning bid (though, "winning" is hardly the term I'd use after listening to this piece of garbage). Since O'Reilly's a fan of torture, he ought to donate this audio CD for use in interrogating prisoners, if the Geneva Convention will allow it

</review>
<review>

This book might be a lot more helpful if it were updated regularly. The current--third--edition is from 1986, which is ludicrous with subject matter this volatile. The content itself is a bit too brief, but would still be very helpful if it had been done some time in the last 1-5 years

</review>
<review>

This book was not enlighting, alot of the information was out date. The phone numbers to the locations were disconected etc

</review>
<review>

This book has an excellent collection of recipes even if you're not vegan.  It's much better than other vegetarian/vegan recipe books I've tried.

</review>
<review>

Unbelievably great cookbook. EVERY receipt that I have tried, I love. Easy to understand, easy ingredients, and very fresh approach. Flavor, freshness, delicious. I cannot say enough good about this book

</review>
<review>

Though we aren't vegans, we do enjoy vegetarian/vegan cuisine and have almost worn our copy of this cookbook out. The recipes taste great, are clearly explained, and don't require a lot of specialty (hard-to-find) ingredients. The conversion index in the back, for metric/US measurements and temperatures is also very helpful.

</review>
<review>

The Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen cookbook makes healthy cooking taste heavenly.  I especially enjoy recipes that do not use cheese and still deliver optimum flavor.  The book is well organized and the recipes are easy to follow.  If you are serious about getting or staying healthy, this one is a must-have

</review>
<review>

These recipes are fairly simple and steps are minimal for making really delectable vegan fare, from appetizers to desserts. Easy to present beautifully, they will  leave guests wanting more of everything.  Olive oil-drizzled bliss.  Partaking of this stuff will give any omnivore friends of yours second thoughts..

</review>
<review>

My stepdaughter is venturing into the world of vegetarianism. She found this book on the Amazon site and requested that we purchase it. The first meal made from this book was outstanding. The instructions are clear, the ingredients simple...everything you want from a cookbook. We will be using many recipes in the future. The recipe for the vegetable broth sounds perfect as a base for many meals, I look forward to making it soon

</review>
<review>

Vegan recipes should be all about health and freshness--but this doesn't mean that vegan food can't taste incredible as well.  Far from it.  Donna Klein proves as much with this wonderful cookbook, which is full of interesting recipes AND beautiful photographs.  It'd be a great book even if you were just going to use it as a coffee table curio.  However, you should definitely check out the underground cookbook phenomenon Cooking com Bigode if you're into this sort of vegan food...go to somethingconstructive.net/jamanta and see what sorts of vegan recipes you WON'T find in Klein's wonderful, but mainstream, Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen.

</review>
<review>

I've been vegetarian for 19 years and vegan-ish for 13 of those years.  I've got my share of veggie and vegan cookbooks, and this is the one I go to first.  The great feat of the book is that it makes simple, ordinary ingredients taste wonderful together.  Every recipe I've made has been a pleasant surprise at the end.  I like food spicy, and I always tend to question the spice measurements of most recipes, but Donna Klein's recipes seem to always get it just right.  I also like that the recipes are free of soy products and meat substitutes.

Another reviewer complained that the recipes were old hat, but I wonder if that reviewer actually tried them out or just read them.  Have faith that these recipes will surprise you with their great flavor, even when extremely simple

</review>
<review>

I love this book! Everything I have made tastes good and I love that it doesn't use "weird" ingredients found in other vegan cookbooks. It's great for someone who is new to vegan cooking or someone who is cooking for non-vegan family of friends. You can feel confident that the recipes in this book will turn out well and will not scare your friends and family. This is one of my very favorite vegan cookbooks.

</review>
<review>

Arrived in great condition.  I read this years ago and am now enjoying the escapade again.

Highly recommend it!!

</review>
<review>

Twenty years ago the sudden appearance of a nervous looking young security guard at the door of my office nearly gave me a heart attack. It was three in the morning, the hospital's ninth floor (the non-patient biophysics department) was otherwise completely dark and empty, and I'd been laughing so hard that I hadn't heard the security guard walk up to my door. When I looked up and saw him, the shock was like a cattle prod to the solar plexus. The guard also looked sort of scared - when he'd gotten off the elevator on what was supposed to be an empty floor, he'd heard hysterical cackling coming down a dark corridor and was torn between duty and just getting back on the elevator and pretending to have heard nothing.

The reason for my hysterical laughter was this book. I'd sat down to read it after finishing some necessary tasks and before going out for dinner that evening, completely lost track of the time, and didn't go home until I finished it near sunrise the next morning. I loved this book.

Twenty years and several reading later, I still love this book. By now you know it's a satire on Stalin's USSR. You may know that it juxtaposes Stalin's Moscow and Pilate's Jerusalem, that it's built around a book (written by the Master) within the book that takes on a life of its own until Jerusalem (the setting of the Master's book) and Moscow merge into one. The structure of the novel is ingenious and original. It follows the demented journey through Moscow of a bad poet (Ivan); the wild, cruel, and very funny escapades of the devil and his retinue (a giant talking cat, a lovely naked witch, a thug with one fang) as they turn Moscow upside down; the travails of a Soviet bureaucrat as he goes about trying to make a buck and get a better apartment; a dejected institutionalized author (the Master) and his devoted follower (Margarita); and the confrontation between Yeshua ha Nozri (Jesus the Nazarene) and Roman power in Jerusalem (Pilate). It ends for all its characters either in peace or in redemption or, in the case of a soulless Soviet editor, in nothingness.

The satire is biting, but it loses something in an age when the average college student has at best a very dim memory of a place called the USSR. I strongly recommend that the reader who wants to fully enjoy the satire buy and read Sheila Fitzpatrick's book, _Everyday Stalinism_. Even the first couple of chapters of that book provide more than enough information to let one understand and enjoy Bulgakov's novel. With satire, context is everything, and context is often absent for post-Soviet readers.

Even if one doesn't appreciate or doesn't care about the satire, this book is still a very good read. It's full of ideas that aren't limited to relevance in Stalin's Moscow, and the characters are well developed, not just props in a period piece. You don't need to be a Soviet expert to enjoy this novel. It's still magical and strange even if you know nothing of the time or place. The satire aside, this book is timeless. I don't think it's the best novel ever written, but I think it's the best Soviet novel, one of the best 20th century novels. If you read it, you'll probably never again walk under a full moon without thinking about it

</review>
<review>

Reading the other reviews, I feel as if I'm going to be sent to the Devil for not bowing down before it-But let's not suspend all our (God-given?) critical faculties before what is, I agree, a magical, unique book.---This sort of literary sycophancy is just the sort of thing Bulgakov skewers herein.

To begin, the book has a deft, light rapier wit one does not associate with other dark, gloomy Russian writers of the Gogol and Dostoeyevsky School.  It is jolly fun to read. And the satire on totalitarian states and the writing establishment-PEN members take note!-is quite beyond compare.  But no work exists in a vacuum. One of the other reviewers mentions that this is the sort of book Lewis Carroll might have written had he lived under Stalin's totalitarian regime-Quite-Through the Looking Glass is this book's clearest literary predecessor, only, as novelist Malcolm Lowry might have put it, in Bulgakov "there are depths."

To quote Bulgakov himself:

"Gods, my Gods!  How sad the earth is at eventide!  How mysterious the mists over the swamps.  Anyone who has wandered in these mists, who has suffered a great deal before death, or flown above the earth, bearing a burden beyond his strength knows this." P.321, in my edition.

This passage, I think, gets to the heart of what Bulgakov is about here. But still, how mysterious the mists hang over this book!  And who has the power to dispel them?  And why am I only giving this book four stars instead of wailing at Amazon to provide me six?  The Devil only knows.


</review>
<review>

Before writing a book review, I always attempt to determine what the intent of the author was and how successfully the desired effect was achieved.  So what, exactly, is the purpose of Bulgakov's "The Master and Margarita?"

Is it to satire the literary intelligentsia of the Soviets?  Is it to criticize the over-regulation and policies of the government?  Is it to bash the atheistic policy of the state? Is it to provide an insightful account of Pontius Pilate and the crucifixion? Is it to reveal the vanities and greed of money inherent in society as a whole?  Or is it simply to provide a humorous tale of the shenanigans of Satan incarnate and his demonic entourage?

The answer, of course, to all of these questions is yes.  "The Master and Margarita" is an enigmatic, unique, and even bizarre novel at times, that will challenge the reader.  At first, the intent of Bulgakov is not entirely clear, as the first chapters detail the strange (and seemingly unrelated) tales of ordinary Muscovites and their encounter with an enigmatic foreigner, Woland, and his interpreter and talking black cat.  Interspersed in this tale of Stalinist Moscow is the seemingly unrelated (and misplaced) story of a guilt-ridden Pontius Pilate and the crucifixion of two thousand years prior.  The third subplot, and a link between the first two, is the story of the "master", an author whose book about Pontius Pilate was widely criticized by the literary Soviet elite, and his vivacious and adulterous lover, Margarita.

Bulgakov does not directly bash the atrocities of the Soviets and collectivism, but through his interrelated tales, he paints a subtle criticism of the institutions and ideals of the Soviets.  The fact that his tale (albeit embellished) of Pontius Pilate and the crucifixion is given as fact, this would, of course, directly counter the official state's atheism.  The emphasis on official documents and passports provides a window into the life of a Muscovite, for if there is no official document, then that person does not exist.

This is not a novel that should be read piecemeal, as it is best to read it in large sections at a time.  The chapters alternate between characters (and millennia) frequently, as a link does not emerge until later.  Since this is a Russian novel with a large cast of characters, the names can certainly be confusing and intimidating to keep straight.  Overall, I was initially perplexed at the complexity of the novel, but as it progressed, it become more enjoyable.

This is certainly a unique novel.  Although it may be difficult to read at first, I would recommend it as an insightful, and humorous, tale of Stalinist Moscow

</review>
<review>

First, let me deliver the highest possible praise. This novel deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as "Ulysses," "Tristram Shandy," "Candide," "Gulliver's Travels," "The Trial" and "The Metamorphosis." It is not merely one of the greatest comic/satirical novels ever written; it is also one of the most imaginative BOOKS ever written--and I mean EVER, as in 'since the invention of writing.'

OK. Now that I've calmed down, I will continue. "The Master and Margarita" is the kind of book Lewis Carroll might have written had he been trapped in Stalin's Russia during the Terror. It masterfully (pun intended) treads the line between pointed satire and outrageous imaginative invention without ever descending into whimsy.

It is quite possible that this novel was the reason writing was invented... I mean, really, do you think the Sumerians went to all that trouble just so we could read Danielle Steele

</review>
<review>

This masterpiece has gained almost supernatural halo in Russia.
Myth surrounds it like the one claiming the books would not burn if put to flame and rumors that attempts to make this book into into a play always end in disaster.
Stalin and friends indeed tried to burn them metaphorically along with the Russian soul. They failed because in people like Bulgakov the flame burned too brightly to be extinguished.

Master and Margarita puts Bulgakov in the front line of Russian literature (pretty impressive when you think that beside him you have Dostoyevsky, Chekhov and Tolstoy).
It's true, you have to be Homo Sovietic (or preferably a Moscow resident) to understand the depth of the satire and wit poured from the Bulgakov's sharp pen. However, even without a Russian translator attached, this masterpiece is guaranteed to be one of the best books you'll ever read.
There are actually three stories here - Satan and retinue of extremely funny subordinates (naked witch and talking cat included), are turned loose in Moscow and tear it upside down. In the background we have the true story (from the viewpoint of an atheist), of the meeting between Pontius Pilate and Jesus of Nazareth. Another story is the love between Margarita and her Master (Artist, writer of the Pilate-Jesus story). The stories intertwine, until finally the Master and Margarita win redemption from the hands of...Satan.
The subtitle is a satire of how the totalitarian state treads on the soul of the artist.

Events unfold at the speed of light, making this book hard to put down. The dialogs are simply too good to be true. Bulgakov has the sharp eye of Dostoyevsky when it comes to pointing human flaws, and boy oh joy, he can sure kick the human soul and bring all the ugliness to the surface.

I can keep attaching superlatives, but none will do justice to this masterpiece, so I'll end with a plea.
Please people - Read this book, you'll thank me later.

</review>
<review>

Are you tired of Russian novels where people are slaves to horrible jobs and then die terrible depressing deaths? Mikhail Bulgakov's masterpiece is unlike anything else you'll ever read. It's a story of theology, government, fantasy, and love.

The fact is Katherine Tiernan O'Connor's translation is much better; the notes are more revealing and I would much rather Bezdomny actually be called Bezdomny. Still, though, this is one of the best books ever written, and if this is the only copy you can find, get it and read it right now and if you don't I SWEAR TO GOD I'LL KILL YOU IN YOUR SLEEP

</review>
<review>

Pretentious and boring, too clever for its own good, the only good chapters in this book are the ones about Pontius Pilate and Jesus Christ, and there's not enough of that.

And this was the Michael Glenny translation

</review>
<review>

This book is a must read for anyone interested in expanding their awareness in life. I am Russian, so read this book in its original language and just for kicks in English. This translation by Richard Pevear is pretty bad, as well as the one by Mirra Ginsberg. This one is choppy and not well written, and the one by Mirra just doesn't do the original work justice. It's not poetic at all. The best translation is with the red and black cover with a profile of a cat.

</review>
<review>

While there are plenty of "business books" available by armchair CEOs, what made Gary's book stand out is his experience. When Michael Jordan talks about basketball people listen...and when Gary talks about business people listen.  Here's why:

At the age of 30 Gary founded BOOKSTOP-the first bookstore super chain-which was acquired by Barnes  and  Noble in 1989 for $41.5 million. A year later he founded Hoover's, Inc. which became the world's largest internet-based provider of information about companies. Hoover's, Inc. sold in 2003 for $117 million.

Hoover's Vision offers a glimpse into the thoughts of one of the great business minds of the past two decades.

The book walks a fine line. On one side Gary uses examples from his entrepreneurial successes and failures to paint a picture of the principles that guide business today. On the other side Gary provides practical exercises throughout the book to bring the principles home.

Jason C. Steinle

</review>
<review>

Gary's book is the right book to learn the principles for building your business, no matter what your business is or what size it is.

Gary's book is truly about vision -- about seeing truly what the landscape is about and what it could be, and developing the right path that indeed turns that vision into reality.  Isaac Newton once remarked "Innovation is tough to sell."  Isaac Newton was a vicious optimist.  Beyond optimism is entrepreneuriality, as it takes steel-jawed resolve to create the future.  Gary's book is nothing less than a manual for creating the future.

There are great books about business philosophy, and there are great books about business execution that are very rubber-meets-the-road.

Gary Hoover's book takes great business philosophy and vulcanizes right into one's tire treads

</review>
<review>

Copying success is a waste of time, is the provocative observation of entrepreneur Gary Hoover. Instead, entrepreneurs and business managers need to develop our own, original views of the world. This mind-set requires curiosity, the study of history and geography, and the formation of their own unique vision. Hoover's Vision: Original Thinking For Business Success aptly describes how to employ those elements to identify trends and create commercial ventures to capitalize on them

</review>
<review>

Gary Hoover's book is just the thing for managers, executives and entrepreneurs who want to learn Hoover's unique methods for seeing and seizing opportunities for new business in markets of all types. If you've every had a chance to hear Hoover speak during one of his many lecture engagements, then you know just how dynamic his ideas can be. Pick up this book as soon as you can and you'll be dreaming up new business ideas of your own starting with page one

</review>
<review>

As usual, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child confirm their great ability in writing cool, well-conceived page turners.

In this book in particular, a lot of details about some of the characters are unveiled, and the "Pendergast Trilogy" featuring Aloysius vs. Diogenes finally comes to an end... and what an end!

Apart from the praises for the writing style and action scenes, for the characters and the mood, another point I found particularly strong in this book was the obvious amount of research the authors did. I am Italian, and the small details, for example the streets of Florence, or the cuss exclamation of a Carabiniere, or even the cell number of a bus driver (which uses a correct prefix for an Italian cell phone, no fake "555" number) all prove that they really went into research for the book.
Also, the frequent sentences in Italian are correct and do make sense this time (unlike some of their previous books where the sentences were dictionary-translated and light-years from what a "real" Italian would say).

The only quirk I found was with the audio book itself - while the guy who reads the book has a fantastic voice and a clear, perfect tone, it's also very clear he is not at ease with the Italian language.
Some accents he uses while reading Italian words range from mildly amusing to utterly ludicrous, but then I guess it's something only a native Italian speaker would notice.

All in all, a fantastic book, definitely well worth it!

If you appreciate Preston and Child's novels, don't miss this one, with a single caveat: for maximum enjoyment you will need previous knowledge of facts and characters, so reading the other books (at the very least Brimstone and Dance of Death, ideally quite a few others) is *strongly* advised

</review>
<review>

The alternate title of this book should have been "HOW TO AFFECT AN AIR OF SOPHISTICATION AND URBANITY IN SEVERAL HUNDRED PAGES OF PLODDING AND FRANKLY UNBELIEVABLE PLOTTING COUPLED WITH TWO DIMENSIONAL STEREOTYPES SO PREDICTABLE IN THEIR PRETENTIOUS MUSINGS".

An overly long title you might opine but surely not in light of the success of two such eloquent and verbose authors. I had hopes for these two having started with "Cabinet of Curiosities". Their subsequent offerings flagged sequentially but I retained hope for latent talent. Then this? This self-indulgent, conceited tome demonstrated a predisposition not unlike that so manifestly exhibited by the socially-upward-mobile.

I am so saddened to see that some of the most lauded exponents of modern popular fiction are the likes of Messrs. Preston and Child and perhaps the worst offender of all, Dan Brown

</review>
<review>

Book of the Dead is a perfect ending to a great triolgy of books, the started with Brimstone and Dance of Death. I highly recommend reading those before starting this one, each book basically continues from where the previous one left off in a cliffhanger fashion. The Book of the Dead continues with Pendergast battling his evil brother Diogenes, and it continues to be compelling. Dance of Death was probably more exciting than this book, but I found this book to just be more interesting. It reveals alot about the characters, and you learn more about a certain girl who is shrouded in mystery. She plays a pivotal role in this book, and it ends in a bang. You honestly can't go wrong with these books, they once again show why they are the masters of mystery

</review>
<review>

The final chapter to the "war" between brothers, a page turner which does lead to somewhat of a anti climax. I expected a more elaborate ending after such a build up during the three novels. But nevertheless a good ending to the series

</review>
<review>

I've read every Pendergast book, and Still Life with Crows is by far my favorite. So I tend to measure each book by Still Life. This book, while a lot better than the previous Dance of Death, still doesn't eclipse Still Life. However, it's good for what it is: a fairly predictable and formulaic Pendergast novel. But what's wrong with that? The formula is fun, Pendergast is an intriguing and neat character, and the expanding role of Constance Green is well worth a return trip to whatever Pendergast novel comes next

</review>
<review>

Very clever premiss, caused me to look into the actual "Books of the Dead" which are simplistic yet provided the entire faith system for an ancient culture that dominates the world today. The mystery was fun to read and there were a few nice twists but as in "The DaVinci Code", the historical fiction far surpassed the story telling

</review>
<review>

After stumbling over a weak and silly plot in Brimstone, the authors recovered nicely in Dance of Death, and now has brought the trilogy home to an-almost flawless conclusion in Book of the Dead. From the moment Pendergast busted out of Herkmoor prison, this fantastic and horrifying tale held me enthralled. The book features wild action, the "gotta-love-him" journalist Smithback, interesting tidbits involving Egyptology, some laugh-out-loud scenes, and plenty of fun technical information (dynamite, anyone?). I could not put this book down and read it over two days ("sorry, honey, the dishes aren't done and nothing's cooking on the stove"). Note: this novel is not "stand-alone"; start with Cabinet of Curiosities, Brimstone, and Dance of Death. Book of the Dead is definitely my favorite in the Pendergast series.

Nevertheless, the book sagged in some points. (1) The opening gala museum story is a retread, and after what happened in previous books, you'd think no New Yorker with a lick of sense would ever attend one again. (2) Despite the tension between Diogenes and Pendergast building over three books, Pendergast was inexplicably relegated to bystander in the final face-off. (3) The reason given for Diogenes hating his brother seemed too soft to cause a lifetime of homicidal psychosis. Granted the Event itself scarred young D in more ways than one, but his brother's role in it seemed relatively benign. (4) A sheltered, nervous woman suddenly morphs into a commando in the final chapters, capable of tracking a diabolical villain halfway around the world in two days. Even allowing for "hell hath no fury..." it was too big of a stretch to believe that she could expertly ambush him on a city street or start blowing bullets into his bay windows. (5) The closing sentence was pitifully soap-opera-ish. Please tell me this isn't the direction the authors are going to head the series in. Just the thought of this extraordinary, super-cool FBI agent reduced to a homebody with a baby sucking on his shoelaces makes me want to reach for the Advil. How disappointing that P and C managed the novel's multiple gut-wrenching ordeals with the finesse of a slick juggling act only to drop the ball on the reader's toe in the final page.

Despite the weaknesses, I'm addicted and when the next Pendergast novel comes out, I'll be first in line. 4.5 stars.

</review>
<review>

The other reviewers will tell you about the book.  I've read most of Preston and Child's works, including the other two books in this trilogy, and they are a good read.  What gets very old and nauseating is the continual saps to modern feminism.  I guess it's a necessity to get published today, but you'd think that at least SOME male authors would get tired of grovelling just to get published.  I guess most people will sell their souls for money.  Just about all the men in P and L's books are either wimps, effiminate, weak, bumbling, stupid (or liars or murderers), cry-babies, scared of their own shadows, and thoroughly unlikable (even Pendergast has his moments).  The women, of course, are, without exception, tough, brilliant, shrewd, fearless, always right, on the rise to the top, always outsmarting the men, able to knock out a 7 foot, 300 pound man with a single karate chop to the neck (forgive the slight hyperbole), totally unfeminine, and just as unlikeable as the men.  The stories are very good; it's unfortunate Preston and Child couldn't have come up with better, more realisticly human, less insulting characters.  This slop may play in New York and California, but in Texas we still want our men to be men and our women to be women.

So this is just a warning.  If you're a MAN--and those of you who are know what I mean--you'll get sick of the characters in these books.

</review>
<review>

Preston and Childs have ended this trilogy with a great high adventure read. Agent Pendergast is a most intriguing central character as are the supporting cast members.  The ending leaves one to believe that there could be yet another novel.....????

Keep 'em coming!

</review>
<review>

This is a book that all students of the American Revolution should be forced to read. Without understanding Bailyn's argument, that the "conspiracy against liberty" was the main reason why America decided to break away from the British Empire, a student will be forever lost in trying to understand the roots of the American Revolution. Almost all of the books on the outbreak of the American Revolution have had to take Bailyn's argument into consideration; so, if you're interested in the study of the American Revolution, then this book is an imperative read. Read T.H. Breen's "The Marketplace of Revolution" after this book, and you'll have a decent grasp of the roots of the American Revolution.


</review>
<review>

While the 17th century witnessed the failure of the libertarian Levellor revolution, the 18th century can be said to embody its partial victory in the form of the American Revolution.  The radical libertarian nature of the Yankee revolutionaires has only recently been acknowledged by historians.  Bailyn's volume broke new ground when it was published in 1967 by showing the Radical Whig foundations of the American Revolution.  He says "attitudes and ideas that would constitute the Revolutionary ideology was present a half-century before there was an actual Revolution".

The two most widely read polemical Radical Whig authors were Thomas Gordon and John Trenchard.  By means of their anti-clerical and anti-military essays, known collectively as "The Indpendent Whig" and "Cato's Letters", they kept alive the Radical Whig traditions of natural rights, suspicion of the ever-encroaching nature of state power, and justified rebellion.  Gordon and Trenchard were able to transmit these revolutionary ideas in popular form to the American colonies.

Bailyn says "Everywhere groups seeking justification for concerted opposition to constituted governments turned to these writers [Trenchard and Gordon]".  He adds "By 1728, in fact, 'Cato's Letters' had already been fused with Locke, Coke, Pufendorf, and Grotius".

Another important connecting link was Thomas Hollis.  Bailyn says "that extraordinary one-man propaganda machine in the cause of liberty, the indefatigable Thomas Hollis" distributed libertarian tracts in England and British America, and subsidized the publication of American revolutionary pamphlets, as well as reprinting the classics of the 17th century Whig tradition such as Sidney and Locke.  He was instrumental in supplying radical libertarian literature to libraries in France, Switzerland, Italy, and to Harvard University.

Radical Whig libertarianism comprises a coherent body of principles that are held together and given meaning by two fundamental moral principles.  The first being the right of the individual to own justly acquired property; the second being the right of the individual not to be aggressed against.

The individual is defined by his physical uniqueness and so has the potential to develop into a mature and responsible acting individual.  The individual's uniqueness forms the basic element of all social interaction and is the source of the division of labor and the exchange process.  Similarly, privacy is the result of recognizing the dignity, worth, and sanctity of every individual.  Only by permitting the individual to enjoy his or her property unmolested, within the protected sphere defined by the self-ownership principle and the derivative right to own property in  other physical objects, can there be true privacy and protection of the private side of human life.

Tolerance results from the recognition that all individuals are potentially morally perfectable.  As long as no property rights are violated, then all consenting, peaceful activity must be legally protected.  Tolerance is vital because it allows each and every individual to exercise moral autonomy.  Only by being free to choose between different courses of action can the individual learn from past mistakes and so strive for moral perfection and self-fulfillment.

It is a consequence of the ownership of one's body and the moral autonomy that springs from this ownership that no one can act on any individual's behalf unless expressly and formally delegated to do so.  This means that individuals have to begin claiming their rights of self-determination, the right to withdraw or secede from any political organization that is not to their liking, and the right to resist political intervention in their social and economic activities.  Bailyn says "Such ideas, based on extreme solicitude for the individual and an equal hostility to government, were expressed in a spirit of foreboding and fear for the future".

In 1765, Charles Carroll of Carrollton said, "corruption . . . will produce the same effects . . but that fatal time seems to be at a great distance.  The present generation at least, . . . will enjoy the blessings and the sweets of liberty".  Bailyn says "Suspicion . . . of an active conspiracy of power against liberty . . . rose in the consciousness of a large segment of the American population before any of the famous political events of the struggle with England took place".

Bailyn cites the Report of Speech in the House of Lords, 1770: "Lord Chancellor Camden . . . accused the ministry . . . of having formed a conspiracy against the liberties of their country".  Bailyn also cites the Boston Town Meeting to its Assembly Representatives, 1770: "A series of occurrences, many recent events, . . . afford great reason to believe that a deep-laid and desparate plan of imperial despotism has been laid, and partly executed, for the extinction of all civil liberty . . . The august and once revered fortress of English freedom - the admirable work of ages - the British Constitution seems fast tottering into fatal and inevitable ruin.  The dreadful catastrophe threatens universal havoc, and presents an awful warning to hazard all if, peradventure, we in these distant confines of the earth may prevent".

Colonists such as radicals Thomas Paine and Richard Price added to these fears.  Paine is best noted for his popular tract, "Common Sense"(1776), which attacked monarchical government and urged immediate declaration of independence from the Crown and the formation of a Republic, as well as for his passionate defense of the French Revolution in his "Rights of Man"(1792).  Richard Price, a Dissenter and self-styled "Honest Whig", defended natural rights, justice, and the right of a people to rebel against oppression in his "Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty . . . and the Justice of War in America", also publishe in 1776.

Bailyn says "the colonists' ideas and words counted too, and not merely because they repeated as ideology the familiar utopian phrases of the Enlightment and of English libertarianism.  What they were saying by 1776 was familiar . . . ; yet it was different."  He says "The radicalism the Americans conveyed to the world in 1776 was a transformed as well as a transforming force", namely "to make federalism a logical as well as a practical system of government".

Proponents of liberty were mistrusted as well.  Bailyn says "denunciations of the work of seditious factions seeking private aims masked by professions of loyalty, which abound in the writings of officials and of die-hard Tories".

It is significant that Bailyn seems only to touch lightly upon the views of the Tories - predecessors of today's neocons.  He draws heavily from the radicals.  This cozy accomodation and convenient oversightedness is also suspicious.  It is an approach that is commonplace concerning the American Revolution.  State public schools do not teach the Tories' views, rather their aim is to justify the present organization of American society.

More questions arise from reading Bailyn's work.  Why did the Radical Whig revolution in England fail to attract the ruling elite and beneficiaries of monopoly profits resulting from the political system?  And why did their counterparts in the American colonies embrace Radical Whig ideology?

My guess is that, when examined closely, the American Revolution fails to live up to its libertarian origins.  My particular concern is with the Declaration of Independence - the supposed listing of reasons for the revolt.  The facts indicate that the goals of most of the signers of the Declaration were quite different from their rhetoric.  They sought freedom from Britain, it is true - the freedom to govern the lives of Americans THEMSELVES.  This is obvious, not only from the words of the Founding Fathers, but from their actions as well.

In short, a valuable collection of primary sources.  It should be read alongside Raoul Berger's "The Founders' Design" and Cecelia Kenyon's "Men of Little Faith"

</review>
<review>

As of today, the work Bailyn did in this book is not new.  But if considered in the context of the time period when he wrote it and what it did for the study of the American Revolution, this book was the beginning of the current dominate thought on the Revolution.  Bailyn changed the way historians and Americans look at the Revolution by challenging the work of several scholars.  Written extremely well, this book deserves every award it revceiced and is still entitled to be a mainstay in history departments around the country

</review>
<review>

Bernard Bailyn's "The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution" is a truly masterful work. Bailyn gets to the heart of the radicalism of the American Revolution: a deep suspicion of government power, particularly centralizing power.

I also must agree with reviewer Ken Riley about the non-influence of Christianity in revolutionary thought. Bailyn shows the the Enlightenment influence of Locke, Montesquieu, Algernon Sidney, Harrington, and even Rousseau. The attempt of fundamentalist Christians to portray the Founders as evangelicals and the Revolution as a Christian revival is both dishonest and criminal. This book was written long before such right-wing nonsense became popular. The American Revolution was an Enlightenment revolution and the most radical of all modern revolutions. Bailyn clearly shows the ideological ideals as one of liberty, freedom, suspicion of all government power, the ancient rights of Englishmen, and the sovereignty of the people.

These rights are traced back to ancient Roman law, Anglo-Saxon law,and as stated by another reviewer Danelaw. Nowhere are there references to the book of Exodus,Deuteronomy. or Leviticus as the source of anglo american philosophy. Conservative and religious fanatics who peddle their version of history are either lying or totally ignorant of the truth. Bailyn smashes all of these false theories and presents the origins of the Revolution in all it's glory

</review>
<review>

Long before there were bloggers and political pundits there were the pamphleteers.  Bernard Bailyn shows just how important pamphleteering was in getting the message out.  Take Tom Paine's Common Sense for instance.  More than 200,000 copies were distributed throughout the colonies, making it a runaway bestseller in its day.  He championed universal suffrage, the unicameral legislature and a clean break from England.  He was countered by John Adams, who, in Thoughts on Government, felt a more prudent course was in order.  Bailyn gleens from these famous pamphlets and many others and presenting a very compelling history of the American Revolution.  It was a revolution in thought as well as government, that eventually saw Adams' Federalist ideas seize the upper hand.  But, Pennsylvania initially adopted many of Paine's ideas, creating the only unicameral legislature in the United States, and extending voting rights to most men.

My book is heavily tagged, because there is so much to draw from these pages.  Bailyn lays the foundations for the political discourse that would shape our nation.  At times this discourse could be quite vehement in its pronouncements and its denunciations. It was never boring. Tom Paine emerges as one of the heros in this book, championing The Rights of Man, which have a far greater impact 50 years later when Andrew Jackson rode into the White House declaring himself a champion of the common man

</review>
<review>

When it comes to American history, it is arguably so that the most important dates or events, whivhever you prefer, is the American Revolution.  The dates run from about 1764, with the passage of the Sugar Act to 1783 the Peace of Paris was decided, or even as late as 1787 when Delaware became the first state in the Union.  However you look at it, there is no one text that gives you a better, more thorough telling and understanding of the most important time in out history, before we officially had a country to even have a history, than The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution by Bernard Bailyn.  This is the most thorough and most balanced fusion of primary documents and secondary analysis.  Every topic is important every conclusion is crucial to understanding the truth about this great and terrible period in our history.  It receives my highest recommendation

</review>
<review>

I didn't read this book for the "truth, or the lie", but just TO READ IT! It was an amazing story, whether or not it's true was irrevelant in my eyes. James Frey is an amazing author. Putting all the "drama" aside about everything that went on, I really and truly enjoyed this book

</review>
<review>

This book could have been written in 200 pages instead of 400 if James Frey did not repeat himself a million times.
Although, the book is based on fictional characters the author could have developed the characters more by including more of the occupants from the treatment facility and told their individual stories to make the story flow and make the book more interesting instead of being so repetitive.
This book however, did shed some insight on what addicts go through during detox.
He could have been less descriptive in the sections where he described getting sick and throwing -up, and the very graphic descriptions he gave when taking his stitches out; even though his tactic was to show how brave he was, the reader could tell that it was all in his addictive mind!
This book would be an encouragement for someone who is an addict and need something to pull them into reality to show them that they can kick their addiction and change their life before it is too late, like it almost was for James.
It was just an okay book and we hope James Frey's next book will be much more interesting

</review>
<review>

I think if you've lived life under a rock, watched a lot of soap operas, and enjoyed life playing out in neat formulas, this book will appeal to you.

It makes me angry to read this book; not because it's fiction (and I'll call it completely fictitious garbage), but because James Frey tried to pass it off as nonfiction!  He writes this book with an underlying tone "I'm better than all of you."  Not because he thinks AA is BS, but because this theme runs throughout his book, in so many situations, that after awhile it becomes laughable!  He prances around feeling vindicated for all of his actions and everyone else is just a plain a-hole, except his tough guy "friends."  I ask you, if Leonard has such a reputation... where's his protection?  People would be after him in such a vulnerable (read: no security) place like rehab.

I think if you sat back and read this book you as the reader could discern its BS by feeling its predictability.  It reminds me of a comic book where the tough guy is actually the hero who comes in to save the little people, yeah, he's got problems, but he'll prevail because he's James Frey!

No thank you.  I absolutely hated this book, but I read it so I at least deserve credit for trying.

</review>
<review>

I've done some investigating on this book and James Frey as an author. When he first started looking for a publisher to publish A Million Little Pieces, we titled it as a non-fiction work, and was turned down for years. He finally put the title of Biography on his book and it immediately was picked up by a publisher.

All that aside whether he was right or wrong..the book is very well written. One of the best books I have read in a while. Frey is an amazing sensory writer and really lets the reader imagine the scenarios described. You can't help but feel sad for James at his lows and rejoice with him at his highs.

Overall..I would recommend this book to anyone with enough time, and the stomach for some graphic stuff :

</review>
<review>

This is a book written from the heart; filled with deep soul searching and honesty. I'm familiar with alcohol and drug addiction. I'm familiar with treatment centers. For those of you who know this road - this book touches home. For those of you who don't - don't be the first to throw that proverbial 'stone'. I've heard the reports of the 'untruths' regarding this publication. I read it anyway. Pain is an immense ocean. The depth of that ocean is different for each of us. This 'message' could be a gift for many; a starting point, a different way of looking at life and it's unkind lessons. This book offers an open hand to start you on a journey towards reality; toward clarity. For those of you who belittled this book - be it truth or sensationalism - be cautious! You never know what life holds for you or yours around the next bend. The information offered here, the idea of taking that 'first step towards recovery', the process of becoming HONEST with yourself and others, could well be the salvation for someone you love. Yep, it's got some rough language. Did you really expect anything else from a drug addict? Common! Gimme' a break! Get real with yourself! Keep an open mind and dig into this book! It's a good read!
You might just learn something you didn't know in the process.

</review>
<review>

I have always wondered what happens in a Treatment center. How do people stop being an addict? What do they do all day? What kind of people are in a treatment center? This book answers those questions and shows that there's hope for every addict. I think it's an excellent read. A gift to all addicts.  It's exiting, I couldn't put it down and I thought about it quit a lot.

</review>
<review>

I'd heard the buzz (both pro and con) and thought I'd take an independent read. I was dismayed with this book.
James Frey has insulted anyone who has gone through a real experience with substance addiction by trivializing the truth of whatever experience he really had. One of the hardest things an addict has to grasp is the TRUTH so that he can take ownership of his actions and take the 12 steps or whatever is necessary to save his life and often the lives of loved ones tangled up in the mess with him. Lies are what enable "slips" and "enabling" and "denial" and those other catch words that describe continued misery and failure. Recovery is nearly impossible without honesty. So, can we look at this man's "memoir" and expect it to offer anything of value? It's poorly constructed, repetitive, and narcisitic. Even if Oprah hadn't exposed him, the writing takes the tone of "whoppers" like Frey's account of the drug house visit in which he "rescues" Lilly. Other reviewers and Smoking Gun have written about the fantastic episodes one by one, and I can't improve on that.
Suffice to say this mockery of misery and hope is no more real than a daytime soap opera.  Story lines in a soap may look like real life to one who is isolated from real life, the same way A Million Little Pieces might look to someone who has not been touched by real addiction. A real addict with typical delusion could be misdirected from a true course of treatment with tragic result.
I was left with the impression he thinks institutions and people who help others with substance recovery are pitifully misdirected or inept. Like a joke of some kind. I'm not laughing.

</review>
<review>

it would be a very irritating and unbelieveable read.  I read this book after knowing it is mostly fiction to see what all the hype was about.  The writing style of this book is annoying and difficult to read.  I ended up skipping over much of the content because it was repeated over and over.  I know this is supposed to be for emphasis, but I just found it indulgent.  The lack of correct punctuation was distracting, too.  Had I read this when the book first came out, before everyone knew he lied, I would have found it hard to believe that most everyone in the book relapsed but he was completely fine without the help of AA.  Although I have not attended AA or any similar support groups, I feel that this book sends a poor message to people with addictions, that they are perfectly capable to handle their recovery on their own, which in most cases I am sure they are not.  I found the other characters in the book to be much more interesting than James Frey, and I can't say that I felt any amount of sympathy or connection to him as a character.  Maybe that is what he wanted since he supposedly feels so horrible about himself....but I am sure that now he has made a pretty penny pimping a fake story he isn't feeling so badly anymore

</review>
<review>

If you can get past the scandal that revolves around this book and actually read it, you will not be disappointed.  This is a MUST-READ for anyone who has been touched one way or another by a drug or alcohol addiction.

</review>
<review>

My mother has introduced numerous authors to me, and I am glad that she has. She has introduced to me to classics, to modern day litature, and some crud books. I learned what to pick from her. I know what to read. When she introduced this book to me, I had no prior knowledge about the author, James Frey. For all I knew, it was a "drug" book. After my mother had finished it, She gave it to me to read. I was skeptical about it. I felt that I could not read it, because it didn't sound intresting. It was a story of a man that defines rock bottom. He wakes up on a plane, covered in body fluids, and has a hole in his cheek which he has no recollection of getting it. He is then taken to a rehababilitation facility, where he detoxs and thinks about life. He then meets love and finds himself there. It is a uplifting story.

Prior to finishing or during the course of my reading it. I found that there were accusations of lying in the story. I was flabbergasted by it. I didn't understand why he would make up stuff in the book, but I got over it and understood that it was a solid story and had solid writing. I felt that the people that blasted it for being fabricated probably read some or none at all of the story. They were probably understandbly upset at his success with the book. I am not blasting them, but they need to open their eyes and read what is in front of them.

Frey's writing stylye is highly unorodox for a writer. He doesn't write in paragraphs or is highly detailed. He just is honest and to the point. He doesn't hold back when he writes. Some people might find the story annoying, but I find it original and it helps showcase the conversations which usually are in "" but not the case in this book. It kind of reminds me of ee cummings and his poetry, but Frey doesn't do the random placement of punctuation. He does get his point, his mood, and his feelings across though.


The conteversy of the book has severly damaged Frey's reputation as a Author. He probably is spit on by the other authors for the fabrications. This society is totally obessed with bringing out ONE key aspect of a person or thing and blowing the whole thing out of poportion. Frey is a solid author that deserves another chance. He possibly has helped millons of people with his book get through whatever they were struggling through. It is a inspiring book, that is, if you take off the goggles thrown on by the conteversy and read the book.

</review>
<review>

My publisher recommended this book as I prepared to write my second non-fiction book.  I was looking for guidelines for proposal writing, and was not disappointed.  I found something helpful in each of the ten proposals the Hermans chose to illustrate their guidelines. The list of elements that need to be included in any proposal, no matter the genre, convinced me I'd do well to follow their advice.  I recommend this book for new authors looking for help getting their foot in a publisher's door

</review>
<review>

Many unpublished authors have never seen a successful book proposal that landed a book contract. In simple, straight-forward language, Jeff Herman and Deborah Herman provide would-be writers with TEN different examples of book proposals which sold--combined with their analysis of why they sold.

After reading thousands of book proposals, I know there is no single way to create a book proposal. At the same time, there ARE elements which need to appear in every single book proposal for it to receive serious consideration. Write the Perfect Book Proposal gives you a rich series of examples combined with excellent teaching

</review>
<review>

I recommend this book to anyone who tells me they need help with a nonfiction proposal.  Literally.  I can't think of a better resource on the market in terms of giving concrete examples and explaining what a proposal should accomplish, and how precisely it should be organized.  A MUST for anyone looking to nail down a nonfiction proposal

</review>
<review>

The book was recommended to me by a literary agent and after reading through it and using it as an example I can understand why. It's just an excellent book proposal reference.

The first part of the book goes through the steps and elements necessary for a book proposal. The descriptions are straight-forward, easy to read and follow, and the "formulas" are easy to copy. The second section, as the subtitle says, contains 10 full book proposals, along with margin notes that explain why different elements of the included proposals are good examples to follow.

This was the third book proposal writing guide that I read when I was working on my own first book proposal. I liked this one because of the margin notes and the element descriptions. It's just well put together and follows a logical (to me) format.  Plus, I sold my very first proposal, so I guess the advice from the Herman's works.

</review>
<review>

For a slim volume, this book packs a punch is its limited number of pages. If you prefer seeing actual examples as opposed to just reading how-to, then pick this up. I used it to guide me as I wrote the proposal for my 1st book; within 14 days of sending out my proposals, I had a contract

</review>
<review>

I added this book to my writing reference section because I know I will be referring back to it again.

If you learn by example, then you'll love this book.  The section containing SUCCESSFUL book proposals really proved to be helpful.
I also appreciated the fact that  the book didn't contain any extra "fluff", but simply got right to the heart of the information that every writer needs to know.   Writing proposals takes time, and who has time to waste reading irrelevant information?    No writer that I know!



</review>
<review>

I just reread this edition of this wonderful book and came away even more impressed than the first time.

Getting a book published on how to write a book proposal sounds like something that would be hard to do. One of the telling points of how good this book is that the authors explain how they did it: No one had ever developed a book that showed what makes for a successful proposal using actual proposals.
Like the Chinese philosopher would have said, seeing a successful proposal is worth 1,000 books about how to write one.

The examples are even more interesting because they are annotated for their good and bad points.

I am working on a business book proposal now, and four of the examples contained very valuable ideas and language that I need to capture for my proposal. I found it very practical, and marked up notes all over the text and examples. I will use this as a guide in my next redraft.

I must admit to being chagrined by how much my past successful book proposals fall short of the mark established here. But I would have been slow to improve without the benefit of these examples.

If I cannot write a good book proposal now, the fault will be mine, not that of the authors.

If you plan to write book proposals for nonfiction books, THIS BOOK IS A MUST!


</review>
<review>

Dry and Running with Scissors were incredible.  Possible Side Effects is also a great read, only it's slightly less edgy and slightly less consistent than the other two were.  ?Maybe less editing?  But if you liked Dry and Running you will like Possible

</review>
<review>

Beware! Possible Side Effects is a witty glimpse into the mind of Augustin Burroughs.  He's funny, neurotic and very articulate. You'll enjoy getting to know one of the most imaginative and talented writers to present himself to the public.  You're going to Love this!!

</review>
<review>

The thing about Augusten Burroughs is this: he can take a mundane situation (like chipping his tooth while eating a bowl of soup) and turn it into a hilarious retelling. His use of similes and metaphors is often hilarious and, in general, he just has a hold on the English language.

The majority of the stories found in Possible Side Effects lack substance and rarely have a moral, though; I sometimes wondered why Burroughs chose to tell that particular tale. But at the same time... I'd read it again. The stuff about Mrs. Chang made me laugh so hard that I cried

</review>
<review>

Ok, so I was literally almost sobbing as I read this book because I was laughing so damn hard. Augustun Burroughs appears to let his id run around outside his body and the results are freaking hilarious!
Sometimes I wonder if he really has the thoughts he writes about, but after his upbringing......who knows.
Definately a worthy read. Good book to read when you need some cheering up or a nice endorphin storm

</review>
<review>

Out of fairness, I should tell you that I didn't listen to the whole audiobook.  I got about 1/2 way though the first CD and just couldn't stand it anymore.  What I heard was boring and extremely slow moving.  It's read like a "see spot run" story for children, which makes the boring storyline even more boring and I found it to be a bit insulting.  I think an audio book of names and nummbers in the phone book would be more exciting.  Maybe it gets better as it goes along, but I am not willing to endure any more to find out.

</review>
<review>

I really enjoyed this latest memoir of Mr. Burroughs, almost as much as his first - RWS, Dry and MT.  My favorites were his essays on Cow  and  Bentley, his French Bulldogs, Julia's Child, and the essay on his paternal grandmother.  There were a few that seemed like he might be reaching for things to remember to fill out the book, but overall it was with much enjoyment that I read his latest

</review>
<review>

It takes a lot for a book to make me laugh out loud -- not only did this one make me snort, it also squeezed my gut  and  made me want to cry.

I'm a big Burroughs fan; I enjoyed this more than Magical Thinking.  Can't wait for another one

</review>
<review>

I remember when I first got into spirituality and metaphysics, I was so naive about certain things. I really thought that once a person begins to practice their True Self...their Inner Spirit...when they remember that they were a Soul with a body and not a body with a Soul...than they were automatically free from all things human; they were impervious to any thing from the sniffles to cancer to death. But the thing is, that no matter how "advanced" we are on the Spiritual Path, and I use that word with some hesitation, because there is no advancing on the Spiritual Path, we are already as Spiritual as we are ever going to be, the bottom line is that we are still in the world of form. This is where the words of Jesus ring so clear, "Be in the world, but not of it..." In other words, remember that no matter what may be going on in your world, you are still a Spiritual Being NO MATTER WHAT!

I love this book because I love Ram Dass. This man has added so much to humanity in so many beautiful and wonderful ways so when I learned that he had a stroke, I was really taken aback. I almost slipped into judgment about it and I almost thought and felt more than a few times of how unfair that he should be going through such a thing.

But I believe that the Soul that we truly are knows exactly what it needs to be doing on Its path. There is a lot of talk in metaphysical circles that if you manifest a certain disease your thinking is out of alignment with the Divine. For instance, a manifestation of cancer might mean hidden rage, or a stroke might be unability to deal with life, or developing cataracts may be that you are refusing to "see" something in your life that needs to be healed. In some ways, I believe that these metaphysical "diagnosis" may have some validity, but in some ways I really feel that the Soul is always and in all ways in charge and is always seeking Higher Understanding of Itself and if It can manifest a disease or condition to learn from, so be it.

I read this book when I was recovering from back surgery. By the way, a problem with the spine means that I am out of alignment with my true Purpose. I had many well-meaning friends tell me that this is what was going on with me. I did listen to them, but not as much as I listened to my own heart. Being laid up allowed me to get even more quiet and just reflect on the Blessing that is Life Itself; that each and every day is sufficient unto Itself.

I lost my mother when I was very young. When I saw her body laying in that coffin, I had an "instant" awakening. I knew that that body in the coffin was not my mother; that it was only her "shell" that my real mother was still very much alive and continuing her journey in a splendid way. Of course, explaining this to the rest of my family made me about as popular as a turd sandwich. Somehow I was made to feel guilty and bad that I wasn't mourning the loss of my mother, so instead of feeling joy that she was now free of a body that no longer worked, I was made to feel bad...in fact, horrible that she was no longer with us when the Truth was she was with me more than ever.

I thought that realization was gone forever when at 22 years old, after 13 long years of unnecessary grieving and mourning, I had the same ephiphany. This time I kept it to myself and let her Love be a guide to the Love that is also within me...the Same Love that everyone really is behind the various masks of illusion.

And that is what this book gave me, that we are all playing "peek-a-boo" that everything is an illusion...albeit a persistent one...that the only Reality is the Eternal; that every thing is just backdrop. Even my cherished spiritual practices are part of the illusion because in Reality I am already there, so are you, so is everyone. Our life spent here while on this Earth Plane is just to learn how to make the hallucination work for us. Going through painful rehabilitation became easier when I remembered I am not the body.

This book is a gift and it can really make us clearly aware that although we are Life Itself, our form is but a temporary shell that we can either use to free us from illusion or to imprison us in limitation. It is a read well worth it.

Peace and Blessings.


</review>
<review>

Could anyone other than Ram Dass bring such a light-hearted, unattached, almost whimsical approach to the subject of aging and the accompanying physical problems that go with it as we journey towards death. Ram Dass shares his personal journey of aging with us just as he has everything else in his life for almost half a century now. Though his body has changed with time he still maintains that infectious smile, those bright, mischevious eyes and a beguiling wit and wisdom that has so endeared him to a generation of seekers who still look to him not so much for answers, but to posit the questions we cannot quite grasp ourselves.

One of the greatest gifts of understanding Ram Dass has given me is the realization that EVERYTHING in life is a lesson to be embraced. For him even a catastrophic stroke can be transformed into a form of yoga.

The lessons continue! Enjoy!

</review>
<review>

This is a book on the yoga of aging consciously. In 1997 Ram Dass experienced a stroke that left him with expressive aphasia and partial paralysis. He has learned the hard way that aging can be unkind to the body, but in every situation Dass seeks the opportunity for spiritual growth. He teaches us how to diminish our suffering despite the aches, pains, and limitations that come to us with age by stepping away from the ego-self to embrace the soul-self, where we can witness our thoughts and emotions and evaluate their effects on us. No one gets out of life alive. Read this book and enjoy the journey

</review>
<review>

I loved this book - Ram Dass has been a pioneer in so many areas, and now he's leading the parade of aging baby boomers into a whole new territory. I admire his courage, his humor, and his boundless spirit. This book is simply written, yet the message is profound. It was just what I needed to hear at this time of my life.

</review>
<review>

This is one of those books you end up buying copies for your friends.  It deals with something we are all going to have to face.. the transition from this life to the next one. I really love this book    Thank You Mr. Dass

</review>
<review>

Here is a book continuing the path of help and service to others, except this time Ram Dass, from a stroke, has more personal experience in the receiving end of helpful service, which makes his book that much more meaningful.

I'm jumping around, but here are some of the ideas raised in this book.

Here is information to help cope and understand the habits of thinking that occur as the body gets older and death is approaching. In this he touches on how society values information over wisdom; the wisdom found in aged persons, how many ancient cultures and spiritual teachings value elderly and wisdom, the spiritual over the material society, the eternal soul or jivaman and reincarnation, the ability to go outside the subjective self seeing three areas, the ego, the soul and the awareness level, the leap from self to awareness difficult for the ego as it signifies going home to what we are in union with God or the Universe.

In growing old we can shift from our loneliness to aloneness, objectively accepting what is without suffering or pushing away, anotherwards ways of developing a new frame of mind as the mind becomes older, we become newer; Zen mind Beginners minds. The wisdom in aging, "being" over role playing, the ego mind and the witness soul, how what we do is only a part of what we are, how others perceptions are their problems not ours,  how to face the silence without rushing back into activity, how are dharma is our karma in the world, how to face ourselves in the present moment and drop our personal histories and future obligations as the problem is not thinking of the past, but getting locked in the subjective waves of attachment - or race, culture, self-pity, etc. "The key to freedom is understanding that in the present moment, there is no time." p.135 By viewing all time or taking a time as the Sabbath or daily meditation times we consider as sacred and free from past and future, we can find the soul view, God, Awareness.

We learn to take on the soul view of life with acceptance which equals wisdom. The soul can rest in silence, it needs no meanings, we let the ego cease to tyrannize us, we embrace our fears over denial, escape the ego prison. If we take things slow in mindfulness, we cease the cruel rush of "time is money" or "time is efficiency," then we can taste the freedom of experiencing life and communicating with others - soul to soul communication - as he took his father to a childhood farm in two trips; one rushed, the other slow with the communication and connection.

And as our bodies age we need to accept them. It is the ego which rejects as the king rejects the messenger or prophet with his news. We help ourselves by sitting in soul quietness over speaking. bringing listening calm over conveying our models of reality. In this as we can cope with pains by watching verses experiencing, letting it pass as the clouds pass by.

There is advise on learning how to die, knowing the Soul consciousness at the time of death in mindfulness to stabilized us through the tumult of dying.  The dissolution of the ego structure, of the conceptual map by which we have chartered reality

</review>
<review>

When I picked up the book "Still Here" from a roadside bookstall at MG Road, Bangalore, I was attracted by the title and the face on the front cover that looked very Western and yet carried a Hindu name, Ram Dass.  The title raised certain questions in my mind.  Why still here?  Where was the author before?

This book is about an American Professor who gave up a cosy middle-class life for drugs, regained his paradise lost through a spiritual awakening and lost it again: this time to be wheelchair bound from a massive stroke in 1990.  "Still Here" is not an academic work on social gerontology but an account of how one copes with disability and embraces the frailty of ageing.  One may well call it a book on spiritual ageing or conscious ageing.

Ram Dass, born Richard Alpert, was a professor of psychology at Harvard. Together with Timothy Leary another psychology professor at the same university he explored human consciousness through the use of LSD and psilocybin ("magic mushrooms"). They promised a new experience for the restless American youth of the 1960s through the free use of drugs. That led many of the youth of that era down the slippery road of LSD tripping. Their book, the "Psychedelic Experience" became a sort of a guide for experiencing such drugs as LSD and psilocybin.  In 1963 they were both dismissed from Harvard for the controversial nature of their research.

In 1967 Richard Alpert sought spiritual enlightment and became a disciple of Neem Karoli Maharaja a highly respected yogi who lived in the Himalayas. He went through a spiritual transformation and took on the name RAM DASS or "servant of God" given by his Master.  He returned to the United States charged with the desire to do what he could do to alleviate the suffering of his fellow human beings, to "spread the grace around".   He set up many helpful projects such as the Prison Ashram Project, Dying Project and Creating Our Future Project.   He became an inspiration to a new generation of spiritual seekers and his book, "Be Here Now *", that sold millions of copies, changed the lives of many including prisoners.

Leaving spirituality aside, "Still Here" is a must read for the "young old" who need to face the inevitability of increased frailty as they age even further. Health care providers and social workers engaged in the care of the frail and aged sick, stroke patients, and also those providing hospice care will find it a timeless compendium.  Written in a caring and sharing style, the book is easy to read and comprehend. It exudes an honest and unpretentious attempt to reassure that growing old or being afflicted with stroke and becoming wheel-chair bound, is not the end of the world but a new challenge to embrace the changes that are going on within and without us.

It is an inspiring and warm personal account of the physical and psycho-social problems that one has to confront with advancing age or physical disability.  He draws immensely from the anecdotal experience of others. Among his "top ten hits" of possible inevitable medical woes are arthritis, insomnia, constipation, high blood pressure, hardening of arteries, blindness, deafness, loss of bowel and bladder control, prostrate cancer, osteoporosis and stroke.

The usual psycho-social aspects are even more difficult to handle: for example, loss of role and meaning and independence. These are accompanied with a sense of powerlessness, depression and fear. With the feeling of powerlessness comes a loss of meaning.  As our roles to which we were accustomed change, we "cease to become individuals" and tend to view ourselves as meaningless and a burden to our family and community: the more so when we find ourselves in nursing homes, homes for the aged or a home for the destitute aged. Our lives become deprived of socially activity and our decision making process sadly curtailed.

Ram Dass devotes a whole chapter to coping with his stroke.  For some days after the stroke he was just observing, not thinking wide-eyed he was watching "everything that was taking place with a kind of wonderment". As he went through the medical world of doctors and therapists of various disciplines, he observes with affection that "therapists and doctors believe it's their techniques that make the difference, but I've come to realise that it's much more the power of the certainty that counts. It's their heart-to-heart resuscitation".

The message, Ram Dass projects is clear.  The problems of ageing need not overwhelm us.   We need to embrace them for all the ups and downs as a natural response, and age gracefully with worth and dignity even in a "society that would like to pretend that old people don't exist." In a culture where old people are sometimes treated like yesterday's old computers, the real treasure the old have is wisdom and it cannot be ignored: "wisdom is one of the few things in human life that does not diminish with age."

There is no right or wrong way of growing old, says Ram Dass.  If we could have managed to live through marriage, parenthood, work and other areas of social functioning, age should not pose intractable problems. We must, however, accept the futility of our continued attachments to power and other worldly possessions and persuasions.  We need to give them up.  The pursuit of spirituality can help.  As Ram Dass points out, "cures aim at returning our bodies to what they were in the past, healing uses what is present to move us deeply to Soul Awareness, and in some cases, physical improvement".

Ram Dass, past seventy, is still learning the joy in being "STILL HERE".

</review>
<review>

Another epoch in our lives (us Baby Boomers) and Ram Dass is right there to point the way once more.  I can't say enough about how appropriate this book is for anyone getting on in years that wants a proper approach towards aging with happiness and a spiritual focus

</review>
<review>


Having been in the nanotechnology field for six years, I have seen many books on nanotechnology.  This is the best one I have seen for business executives and other decision makers that are new to the field and trying to understand where the opportunities are for their organizations.   The book is well-structured, and written in an erudite, accessible and engaging style.

Unlike many books on the subject, Gasman provides specific guidance on the applications that are most likely to pay off in the near and medium term, and which are not.  While not exhaustive, it provides a good overview of the most fertile opportunities.  The summaries of the "takeaways" from each chapter, and the ample reference to further reading are particularly useful for the busy reader.  These will help the neophyte to locate the gems as they wade through the huge amount information on nanotech, much of which is quite mediocre.  Unlike many authors who provide a superficial and shallow treatment of the subject, Gasman's experience as a high-quality, disciplined and thorough market analyst comes through in this book.

If I have one primary complaint about the book, it is that there are a few important elements of the nanotech field that are missing.  For example, his summary of nanotechnology tools does not make any reference to electron microscopes and focused ion beam devices, which are key to imaging and manipulation at the nanoscale.  These omissions are more than balanced by the overall quality of the book.  I recommend it highly

</review>
<review>

The strength of this book lies in its broad scope. Gasman provides an up to date survey of nanotech's prospects in a wide range of applications. From semiconductors, computers, communication to the currently very hot energy field. Other topics include medicine and pharmaceuticals.

For semiconductors, I see the nano prospects as just hype, for the near future. Semiconductor research and fabs are already at or near the so-called nanoscales. Current linewidths of circuits are reaching below 100 nm. Sure, new and very different production methods are being devised, to get around various limits in current technology. Call these nanotech if the trends continue, perhaps. But it's just a change in label.

The very breadth of the book's scope also means that it is unable to enter any given topic to any depth. Of necessity, the book then functions as an alertness indicator, if you will. Then, for a topic germane to your interests, you might follow the references cited for a more indepth exposition

</review>
<review>

This book offers a broad overview of nanotech markets. It is structured around major markets where nanotech is likely to have an impact (energy, healthcare, IT). The author's background as a high tech market researcher is evident: while the book is hopeful, it's informed by experience with hype in other industries (disclosure: I was a contractor for the author's telecom market research company in the 1990s). There is ample discussion of different scenarios and their relative probability, and effective summaries at the beginning and end of most sections, which make it very easy to scan at different levels of detail. The book also includes a method for assessing the likely impact of nanotech on the reader's company and industry; for people in the planning sections of large organizations, this section is reason enough to buy the book. The weakness of the book is related to its strength: most of the discussion is necessarily introductory. That said, the book is rich with pointers to other resources, and though the focus is on business, aside on societal, legal, cultural, and other implications included throughout

</review>
<review>

At $79 for a 242 page book, don't bother with nanotechnology.  Invest in the guys marketing this book

</review>
<review>

As author of the first book on successful investing in nanotechnology, Nanotech Fortunes: Make Yours in the Boom; Winning Strategies, I can say that Nanomarkets.net's Lawrence Gasman has produced an exceptional contribution to the literature of nanotech, Nanotechnology: Applications and Markets. Everyone interested in exactly how nanotech is going to impact products, markets, industries and businesses must study this concise and worthwhile read. Gasman's intuitions, opinions and arguments are not only right on target but they are informed by a lively intelligence and decades of real-life experience and deeply thought analysis. Whether you are in the business or just looking to invest with a real understanding of what you're doing, you are going to love this book and thank the author as well.

Lawrence has decades of experience analyzing the impact of, commercialization processes and "productization" of new technologies, and he is one of the most down-to-earth reporters on the goings on in real world manufacturing and basic industrial demands, as well as the far-out world of nanotechnology.

The book's real value lays in chapters on nanotech's likely and UNLIKELY impacts on industries as diverse as semiconductors, medical, computing, pharmaceuticals, communications, alternative energy, pollution control and advanced materials. From there, Lawrence leads executives (and investors) on an examination of specific industry-related opportunities and then the step-by-step tools on exactly how to conduct a nanotech audit in any particular company. His strategy will help businesses, large and small, identify both commercial opportunities and threats stemming from advances in nanotechnology.

If there is any "weakness" to the book some might argue that it is too short. At only 200 pages perhaps several chapters and discussions could have been expanded and more time could have been spent debunking ideas and processes, current in the nano-community, that have little or no commercial future. That said, Gasman covers all the important topics, markets and applications.

I feel that scientists and engineers can also benefit from Nanotechnology: Applications and Markets simply because it orients any reader to a perspective where solutions to problems and products that are needed or useful become the key areas of interest. Clearly, a fruitful place for engineers to start . . . I think one that more and more scientists will find a beneficial focus.

All and all, along with Nanotech Fortunes, of course, this is one of the few books related to nano, that belongs on everyone's shelf.

</review>
<review>

Having lived 60% of my life outside the USA in various countries, I've often been surprised at how unhappy many Americans appear to be. In the poor countries where I've lived ("third world"), people generally seem happier, friendlier, more willing to share/give and less stressed--even though they have much less (material goods, that is). Those of you who have travelled, that is, actually gotten off the beaten path, the megaresorts, the disneyfied locations, to places like the Phillipines, Colombia, Honduras, Mexico, Guatemala, Peru, etc., have probably noted the difference.
Why are people in the richest society the World has even seen, generally, so unhappy? The book makes a very strong case that the lifelong advertising barrage Americans endure, has gotten too many people to believe that happiness comes from acquiring stuff, always more stuff, better, newer stuff. However, as Americans have gotten materially richer, their happiness indeces have gone down as a result of trying to acquire more stuff and the damage that producing/marketing/moving/disposing of the stuff has inflicted on the environment. Along with longer work hours to pay for all the stuff, our health, time for leisure, time to be creative, and much more, has been lost.
The book offers genuine, practical solutions to many, if not most of the problems our society(ies) faces.
I found the book's tone to be engagingly honest, fresh, not patronizing or preachy. I also disagree with some reviewers' views that the book falls into the category of "liberal". Such a simplistic tag is virtually useless when it comes to trying to intelligently discuss the complicated issues facing humanity.
I'm buying five more copies to send to people like legislators and university presidents

</review>
<review>

The authors of this book are concerned. Americans aren't doing what they should.  Specifically, to paraphrase former president Bill Clinton, they're not spending their money right.  They value things they shouldn't.  They work too much.  They own too much.  They shop at evil big box stores like Wal-Mart.  So, with paternalistic concern in their hearts, they have written this book to warn us that we're in need of a correction.

The enemies they identify read like a laundry list of the Left's archetypal villians: wealthy merchants, credit card companies, and of course Ronald Reagan.  Along the way they disparage virtually every technological and economic innovation that has occured over the last 25 years.

Particularly sickening is the warm, fuzzy picture they paint of the "good old days" when most Americans bought their goods from locally owned stores.  I grew up in a town identical to the one they idolize in this book.  It sucked.  All of the stores were located around the downtown square.  They closed at six o'clock or earlier.  Wednesdays most didn't open at all; Sunday was dead.  Parking was extremely limited.  Lack of selection forced consumers to go from one shop to another, often in blistering summer heat or freezing winter temperatures.  Prices were high and selection limited.

Especially bitter are the memories I have of trying to find part-time work in these businesses while in high school.  Virtually all the owners had their kids filling what few jobs existed.  Being from a lower-income family I desperately needed to work to help my family out.  But I was unable to find anything in the stagnant local economy.

Then one day a Wal-Mart came to town. My mom took me there on a bright Saturday morning.  She was ecstatic.  Here at last was a wide variety of goods she could afford.  She didn't have to hurry to get there before the store closed at dinner time.  As for me I landed a position with the store which allowed me to contribute to the family income as well as save for college.

Writers of books like this one love to talk about how merchandisers like Wal-Mart "steamroll" over Main Street.  Bulls***.  Stores like Wal-Mart don't put guns to anyone's head to gain them as customers.  Rather the local people look at Main Street with its inflated prices, inconvenient hours and parking and limited selection, and then at the new Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Home Depot or whatever, and freely choose how to best spend their money.  In other words they control the way their community works.  And no one seems to mind except for a handful of elitists living in faraway places who are upset that people would rather spend less of their hard-earned money than live the rest of their lives in a Norman Rockwell painting.

But I've saved the worst for last.  After wringing their hands for a couple hundred pages over the current state of prosperity in this country the authors outline their plan for "recovery."  Guess what it consists of?  Bingo!  Higher taxes and more government control.  They even pull that tired old cliche out of their rectums: "we must protect the children."  Not from sexual predators or terrorists, but from the local mall.

My response to this 300 or so pages of hysteria: get real.  This is the 21st century.  Modern technology and business innovation have given Americans marvelous new options for travel, work, leisure and, yes, consumption.  In other words, our society is evolving.  The local coffeehouse now has a Starbucks sign hanging in it.  Main Street is dead, replaced by a row of 24 hour big box stores.  Spending one's life hanging out with good ol' Bob and Joyce from down the block has been swept away by Internet chat rooms and social mobility.  Most of us are happy with this arrangement.  If you aren't then that's fine, but keep your damn noses out of our business.

I give this book two stars rather than one because they bring out a solitary point worth pondering: how corporations like McDonald's deliberately market to kids, even teaching them how to bilk money out of their parents.  Bravo for pointing this out!  But rather than Big Brother tackling this problem, how about parents grow spines, learn to say "no" and tell the companies they won't get another bloody dime until they amend their marketing practices?  That's a solution that goes unmentioned in this preachy, whiny, paternalistic volume.  In the end it's the individual, not the collective, that guides society.  Let's have more celebration of individualism and less of the socialistic nonsense our oh-so-concerned authors seek to impose on us - for our own good of course.

</review>
<review>

Basically an interesting, revealing if not alarming book, with loads of data, some striking graphs, and several silly cartoons. The authors have a "bullet point" approach to the topic, with short chapters (30 chapters in 247 pages) and multiple headings within each chapter. The data themselves are quite compelling, even if the writing style is not.

And there are three non-trivial significant problems in the analysis.

In their fifty-item affluenza self-diagnosis test, they perhaps inadvertently mix in wealth creation and savings priorities and activities with consumption, when they cite concern over one's financial investments (#17) and goals (#43) as signs of consumption. That's just wrong. The book would benefit from more attention to the creation of wealth and its effective use instead of a heavy-handed, almost singular chastisement of consumption. At least the authors acknowledge that time, comfort and happiness are forms of wealth, that wealth is not just all of a person's accumulated, tangible stuff. And they don't write much, as I recall, about spiritual wealth. But saving for financial goals by monitoring one's investments are counter-consumption.

The use a misleading graph (Chapter 20, p. 167), where they use 280 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide as the baseline or horizontal axis, greatly overstates the climb of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from 280 to 380 ppm in the past 200 years. Worse, they use the year 1000 as the vertical axis, cutting off a not insignificant portion of the baseline. This is the same deceptive, biased practice the authors accuse the advertising industry of using. There was no need to exaggerate and there are significant points lost for doing so.

The "answers" devolve into traditional liberal solutions: more maternity leave, more sick days, more vacation, more day care, higher taxes on wealth creation, and universal health care. A carbon tax is not a bad idea, but why stop there? Why not tax all forms of foolish consumption? And why tax people for making money? In fact, American spends almost as much of its GDP on public health as do the countries with "free" public health. In fact, America's obsession with and expenditure on health care is a sign of attention to the things the authors laud: person well being and comfort. And, as introduced above, we need to improve our wealth creation and, contrary to what the authors recommend, the use of "uncommercials" is not much of a solution. Let's not leave the solution to the same medium that accelerated us down this path

</review>
<review>

I was very much looking forward to recieving this title from Amazon.com after reading the first few pages online. And, admittedly, I did like the first few chapters; however, the tone and style of presentation changed very quickly, and became almost smug and self-aggrandizing. The authors seemed far too pleased with themselves, and, by approximately the halfway point I felt as if I were reading some kind of bizzare Conservationist Manifesto. I like to think - as a self-appointed conservationist and vegan - that I try to mind Mother Nature and all living creatures, but after I finished reading this repetitive, pedantic bore, I lost the will to care. Maybe I am being too harsh, but this book seemed to peak in the first chapter; then, it became exasperatingly preachy and redundant. Others liked the book, and that's fine; But I was disappointed

</review>
<review>

OK--I loved the book and agreed with the basic premise that Americans sure need to take a good look at their lifestyles---the whole materialistic overconsumption thing is really disgusting once you recognize it-I have read several books with this similar theme(Kalle Laasen, Naomi Klein,Travels of a t-shirt in a global society, etc) and the more I read the more "stuff" I eliminate from my life- I do not think that all the kids are as bad as some of those out there think- and not everyone is so pathetic and greedy as the book points out--it is just better imagery to paint a portrait of an America that has lost itself in a self-centered materialistic mire- I have 4 kids who do not get everything they want--they do chores--they learn to behave and show respect and they work hard. I know so many parents just like me and there are many very close neighbors in my neighborhood and others in my town. There are block parties, people help eachother out (not only after disasters either) and life goes on--no--we do not live in some imaginary Eutopia--we live 0n the East Coast- we work jobs and save money for our childrens college etc-- I say all this because although I agree with the book that American culture as a whole is going down the tubes,I think there are many people who are living in America that are resisting this cultural downfall--I do wish that this book could be required reading in schools !!! Sometimes it is difficult to get my teenagers to understand my rantings!! It is worth the effort and if each of my kids and all those other great kids out there can recongnize the   games advertisers play and can resist the temptations toward overconsumption that is pushed on them-then they will lead us into a fine future. Lets encourage the "counter-materialistic-culture" and pass the reading along!!

</review>
<review>

I agree wholeheartedly with the excess and the overconsumption that is the main theme of this book. I also agree with the lack of free time and the toll that working longer is having on our mental and physical health. I am sick of the suburban sprawl around me and the rapid rate that every piece of green open space is getting concreted over. Overconsumption is killing us.

This book is a must read for every parent, for it is hard to raise non-materialistic children in this era. It should be required reading in schools and I reccommend this book to every adult I run into. Many were offended that I gave them this book, but I am trying to save their lives!

However, there are a few parts of this book that I do not agree with. First, the idea that somehow Jimmy Carter was a great president for suggesting a slowdown on overconsumption. I think the inflation rate in the late 70s, high interest rates, the Iran hostage crisis and Carter's cozying up to murderous dictators like Castro and Pinochet overshadow his cry for less consumption...sorry!

Also, I find the many quotes from the writings of Karl Marx very disturbing. Communism simply does not work and produces nothing but a society of oppressed people that are equally miserable. We have many examples of this throughout history.

Can we consume less, focus less on materialism, be more connected to our community, work less hours and help the environment without becoming communists? I sure hope so.

Not everyone in this movement is a card-carrying leftist

</review>
<review>

This book is a fantastic collection of the effects and symptoms of greed and materialism.  It fails to address why these elements exist in the first place, it fails to address how the liberal ideology of the Left in America are hypocrites by promoting this rampant materialism, and hypocritically denouncing it.

Another coined the term "leer jet environmentalists" to illustrate the absolutely criminal hypocricy of John Kerry, and most of the so called hollywood "concerned".

I agree with everything this book says.  Except it forgot to address the two root causes - self centered greed, and our own media.

Think about a society that has people who can denounce materialism and rain forest destruction and out of the same mouth advocate killing an unborn child if they pose a personal inconvenience.  It is simply astounding.

Read this book, and contrary to what some blind reviewers here are saying, pay special attention to those supposedly "against" materialism and greed from their mansions, and millions made by promoting the very same attitudes that give rise to this in the first place.

Want to help limit the damage of greed?  Boycott Hollywood and everyone associated with it.  Denounce "special interest" groups, and other "perpetual victims", and everything to do with the political Left and what used to be the Democratic Party.  There is more danger from within than posed from the obvious corporate issues.


</review>
<review>

Every once in awhile, you come across a book that manages to strike a core and stick with you long after you're finished reading it. It really made me stop and think at how wasteful and materialistic my own life and habits have become. I don't entirely blame myself however, for I am simply another victim of this plague, a sickness that has completely taken over America and is far worse than the flu or common cold...

All one needs to do is look around them and see how far this once mighty and proud nation has fallen. There's something about the Christmas season that changes people's entire personalities-and not for the better. Witness the spectacle of those two guys battling it out at Wal-Mart shortly after the holiday shopping season started... Take a look at how lazy and spoiled rotten this generation is, and yet they still complain and want more and MORE. Witness how materialistic our own adult lives have become, as we move into bigger and bigger homes and drive vehicles large enough to hold an elephant! Look at the amount of waste and trash that we're sending to our landfills and dumps every single day. Read about the girl who simply ran out of closet space to store all her clothes. See how this throw-away society has made us rely on shoddy products and cheap goods that are manufactured in China from slave labor. Think about that the next time you fill your cart up at Wal-Mart! I read this book and came away with a profound awakening of the world around me, and how much our lives and behavior are influenced by society, our fellow Americans, and the media. I now see things a little differently, and have come to understand why America is the way it is today. We have made a god out of consumerism, materialism, and credit. The unholy trinity of capitalism. I remember someone once saying that if you took the credit cards away from everyone, then stores would cease to exist. How true that is!

As another poster just mentioned, the holidays have now come and gone, and the onslaught of credit card debt has reached record proportions. I read somewhere awhile ago that most Americans are only two paychecks away from financial disaster. More people file for bankruptcy each year in America than graduate from college! Our kids have been dumbed down to the point that they are completely unable to function when they go off into the "real world" and look for gainful employment... We are swamped with commercials and ads everywhere we turn. From TV and magazines, to subway ads and radio broadcasts, we are repeatedly reminded to BUY BUY BUY and CHARGE CHARGE CHARGE! Bigger, better, faster, fancier. Newer is not always better. We keep pursuing more and more, yet we fail to realize that the majority of what we have already is mostly useless junk that serves no practical purpose except to take up valuable space in our attics or garage!

As I finished the book, I came to the conclusion that we're all pretty much screwed, financially, environmentally and emotionally, UNLESS we can stop this stupidity and reverse this suicidal trend before it's too late. Good luck to everyone as we enter the second half of this decade. We're all going to need it.

</review>
<review>

I purchased this book when I unexpectedly had a new german shorthair puppy to train. I purchased it because it had an extensive section on puppy training and I was anxious to get started. I also soon purchased several other bird dog training books, including some very famous ones, but I kept coming back to Larry Muellers book. I like his attitude toward dogs and his willingness to go against commonly held beliefs and techniques. He is a very obsevant man who incorporates the latest dog psychology into his obsevations. The emphasis is on avoiding mistakes or techniques which cause setbacks and cost you time to correct. This gives you a lot of insight into dogs minds and training in general. Most importantly every technique he recommended WORKED! I cannot say that about any of the other books. Also every thing that he said to avoid that I did not manage to avoid cost me time. He was right. I have repeatedly received compliments on my dogs performance and manners even by pros. The biggest factor in that was this book. This is an excellent book to purchase before acquiring a pup. His puppy training section(2-4months old) is extensive, excellent and effective. He also has techniques for selecting a pup which make a lot of sense

</review>
<review>

Larry Mueller offers his unique way of speed training a bird dog, however, I do feel that his techniques are stressing to a dog - especially a sensitive dog or a young dog (say six-months).  Larry does offer some excellent ways to train your dog on the basic obedience/hunting commands, but his use of force training goes beyond my personal preference.  If you are a first-time trainer, training your own dog, this book is excellent - if you approach training with love and patience.  Remember, you are training a friend and companion, not a strickly business hunting dog

</review>
<review>

i spent the entire summer of 2006 starting in about may thru till november reading the left behind series in its entirety from the rapture book onwards. (i already read the rising and regime previously).

i finished glorious appearing on november 18th. i read other reviews on this book saying bad things about it and i have come to 2 conclusions:

A. the people that gave bad reviews ARE NOT BORN AGAIN CHRISTIANS but unbelievers who have no spiritual clue as to what the book is all about -
thus their erroneous reviews on the  book !

B. the bad reviewers are born again Christians but they cant accept the fact that Jesus will return again to the earth and sentence to hell all those who take the mark of the beast (antichrist) !
these type of Christians want to believe in a jesus that fits their mentality - however it is not the Jesus of the bible - THE TRUE AND COMING KING!


having said all that. let me tell you i was so blessed by God reading the whole left behind series during the summer. if you ever want to understand the book of revelation,reading the series is one of the best ways to do that. the authors have done a fantastic job weaving futureevents and a storyline together. dont believe all the bad reviews!
those bad reviewers couldnt find a good Christian book even if i gave them a flashlight!

this book predicts what will happen in the battle of armaggedon - the antichrist and devil lose! and Jesus and his army wins! to win - one must confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior , and NOT TAKE THE MARK OF THE BEAST - IN THE NEAR AND/OR FAR FUTURE!  that is the whole premise of the book - which side will you choose?  will you be a winner or a loser?


God bless you - JESUS LOVES YOU - JOHN 3:16


AL



</review>
<review>

I have listened to (and enjoyed) many books on CD in the past few years.  This reader is among the worst that I've had the displeasure of hearing.  The content of this book is great, so don't get me wrong.  However, the reader makes it impossible to experience the book the way it was intended.  He pronounces many character names incorrectly, including Carpathia and Adbullah.  His character voices range from unconvincing to downright abrasive and/or annoying (especially Carpathia's).  His voice inflection is often very wrong when reading dialogue.  He also adds pauses in the middle of sentences without any obvious reason.  These are just the most obvious and annoying problems.  There are too many to list completely here, so please trust me and avoid listening to this book

</review>
<review>

I dragged myself through every novel in this series with soap-opera like compulsion, always looking forward to the climatic appearance of our Lord.  Therefore, I anticipated this final novel to be glorious, as the title indicates, but I was woefully wrong.  Are my expectations too lofty for the day of our coming King and His Kingdom?  Certainly not!

I support Christian fiction with many 5 star reviews,--just look at my other reviews--but I can not recommend this series

</review>
<review>

I truely enjoyed reading the series and actually hate to have reached the end. I am blessed to see the reviews of other christians who enjoyed the series as much as I did. This book was straight from the Bible and painted a picture in my mind of what the glorious appearing could be like. I think Rayford should have spent more time with Kenny rather than he being put off on others especially after his "job" was done. I also wish there would have been more to the reunions at the end, it focused on Rayfords family but I think there would have been more to it that what is written. Overall I love this series and hope they do make more movies based on the books. God Bless

</review>
<review>

I must admit I was surprised by how many people gave this book bad reviews. This book offers a biblical account of the return of Christ based on what we know from the Bible, especially from the book of Revelation. I was more surprised for the reasons that were used to justify those bad ratings. Since so many others have used this page to support their views, I have decided to do the same.

It doesn't matter what you what to believe, what only matters is what is true. The God that you believe in don't matter unless it is the true God. I believe in the God of the Bible, because I can know him through the words about The Word (Jesus Christ), and even if someone argues with me about my beliefs I can use the Bible to defend my beliefs. Some other people can only quote their opinions or expectations from their own head, having no other reference to go by.

A common argument I hear people try to use to put down the Bible is that God is not loving because He punishes sin and doesn't let everyone into Heaven. Well, he doesn't because He is also a holy God (Lev 11:44-45). Sin sickens him like nothing else (Ezekiel 23 compares our sins against God to a wife committing gross adultery with other lovers). God can't let us into his presence in our sinful condition and we can't work enough to earn our own forgiveness because we are too sinful (Romans 3:10-18, 23). God wanted to offer everyone a chance to go into His presence, so He sent His son, who because he is God and committed no sins, died for our sins on a Roman cross, a death so painful and incomparable to any other death they  needed to make a new word to describe it (excruciating). Jesus served as both the perfect priest and the perfect sacrifice in order to redeem all who would be saved through him. After 3 days in the tomb he rose from the dead in his own body. (The tomb was empty and the Roman guards hired to guard his tomb needed to create the lie that the disciples moved the stone and stole the body while they were sleeping. Who could sleep while a stone that had to weigh a least a ton was being moved.) God PROVED his love for us by taking the punishment that needed to be paid in order to buy our forgiveness (John 3:16). All you have to do to receive his righteousness is believe He is the Son of God and try to live according to his example and teachings. If you don't commit to that before you die, you have condemned yourself because you know the truth and refused it (Romans 1:18-20).

Despite the numerous arguments against the resurrection, none of them have enough logic to stand against the facts: (1) Christ did die on the cross because there is no way to fake death or swoon on a cross, you suffocate for that. And lest you forget the Romans stabbed him in the side of the chest with a spear after hours of relentless torture. (2) Peter, James, and John (3 of his 12 disciples and witnesses to his resurrection) were tortured and Peter and James were executed for their beliefs. If Christianity was a hoax, these guys would know it, and it is unthinkable that someone would die for a lie.

</review>
<review>

My kids started reading the Left Behind Kids books, and because I was concerned about the message and theology of the books, I started reading them also.  Then I decided to check out the "adult" books from the library.

I am a born-again, pentacostal believer in Jesus Christ, and parts of the theology are not what I read in the Bible.  OK.  I can stil enjoy a good book, one with interesting characters, realistic dialogue, and a good plot.  The issue of plot is difficult for the Left Behind books, I admit, because we know who wins if we've read the end of the New Testament.  As to the rest, it fell flat.  Most of the dialogue didn't ring true.  After a few of the books, I was interested in some of the characters, but by the end of the books, there were only a few of the original characters left, and they were some of the least interesting to begin with.  How many times do we have to read through the same sermons from the exact same scriptures in Revelation?  How many times do they have to tell us about the almost affair that someone had back in Book 1?  There is nothing new and interesting in this book. The last book is just boring.

It would have been nice, at the end of the book, to wrap up everything.   Jesus comes back, and everyone should be reunited at the end after the battle is over, right?  Some of the characters that were important early in the books are either barely mentioned or not mentioned at all.  It was an incredible let down.  I felt like I had invested in these books only to see what life would be like for everyone after the battles are over.  Nothing.  We stick with that one main guy, and everyone else is left in the dust.  It should have had a really, really happy ending, but even that was boring.

If I had my time back, I would stick to the kid versions, if only to discuss theological issues with my children.  At least in the kid books, the sermons are shorter.  And I will know not to get my hopes up for happy reunions at the end of the series

</review>
<review>

The book arrived within the promised time frame.  Would certainly buy from Amazon again

</review>
<review>

Although fiction, this book, as well as others in this series, follows the predictions in the Bible.  It is a very feasible scenario of what is to come.  I greatly enjoyed reading the whole series.  I am an avid reader, reading up to eight hours a day.  When I start a good book I can rarely put it down before finishing it.  I certainly recommend this whole series to everyone, religious or not!  You just might learn something

</review>
<review>

Tim LaHaye, Jerry Jenkins, and others in the Pre-Trib circle, such as Ed Hindson, Tommy Ice, Chuck Missler, etc., continue to put forth the same deceptions that Hal Lindsey popularized decades ago.  The notion of a pre-tribulation rapture is foreign to scripture, it is foreign to the teachings of the early Church, and it is grooming the Church for destruction through ignorance and lack of preparation for what is really coming.  These men are novices and not prophecy "experts" or "scholars" by any stretch of the imagination; they are those who tickle the ears of gullible Christians.  Why continue to be deceived?  Tim Cohen, in his excellent book, The AntiChrist and a Cup of Tea, provides biblically sound and testable evidence to show that the coming AntiChrist is known NOW.  Not only that, the same author (Tim Cohen) has now put out the strongest presentation on the whole issue of the rapture EVER offered to the saints of God in Christ: The REAL Rapture.  If you really want to know the truth about the timing of the coming rapture, then you need to hear Tim Cohen's The REAL Rapture (based on a volume in his forthcoming "Messiah, History, and the Tribulation Period" series (see Prophecy House's web site for details on these items)

</review>
<review>

Did not like, thought stories were full of Idealistic nonsense. Unrealistic options for the family farmer.

</review>
<review>

As a fan of Barbara Kingsolver's nonfiction I recommend the book's Foreword, in particular, for a personal and incisive statement of the agrarian ethic and its relevance for this time.  Editor Norman Wirzba's counsel that we cannot live well if we do not attend to the human and non-human "bonds of relationship" is also of deep import in an age of mindless surfeit masquerading as self-realization

</review>
<review>

I own the book as well as the set of CDs and have listened to and read over again.  I can't say enough good about the content and I've read lots of trading books. You'll get more than your money's worth on the psychology of trading, money management and trading tactics. Definitely a keeper

</review>
<review>

If you read and follow the principles in this book you will make enough money on your trades to pay for this book many times over. I have been active in the market for years (Averaging  and lt;20% return a year) and I agree with this author completely having lived out the greed, fear, and mistakes he talks about.Read this book and save yourself a lot of unnecessary losses.

The first section of this book teaches you the psychology of successful trading:
1). You must be committed to being a trader for the long haul.
2). Learn all that you can, but be skeptical, go with what works.
3). Develop a method for analyzing the market.
4). Develop a money management plan.
5). Do not get greedy and rush trades.
6). Understand that you can be your own worst enemy through greed, fear, and emotions.
7).You must change to be a winner.

He introduces his own trading tactic of "Elder-ray" and also force index, triple screen,parabolic, and channel trading.

In the Risk Management section he covers the most important strategy of when to exit? He suggests setting a stop-loss on every trade at it's past days low and if it ticks up to reset a protect profit stop at 50% of your paper profit.

He also suggests never risking more than 2% of your account on any one trade, and never losing more than 6-8% of your account in any one month.

He makes a great point that all true professionals in any field do not count there money daily. Traders should focus on their trading not their daily paper profits.

Buy this book, you will profit from it, whether you are a beginner or an advanced trader, it will make you more professional and logical

</review>
<review>

This book is a gem amongst average books.  I've read about 100 Technical Analysis books... and I've gone back and re-read this one 6 times.  Very important

</review>
<review>

The info in this book stays current it's the "Art of War" of tradin

</review>
<review>

If your are going to buy a single book on trading, this is it.  Go ahead and buy it! This is a scolarly book that explains the complex workings of successful trading in simple and clear terms.  Don't hessitate and get it it is worth i

</review>
<review>

This book changed my life and changed the way I trade.  Part of the reason I can say that is the fact that I developed my all-time most reliable and profitable trade from Elder's simple explanations.  Fully 80% of my trades are based on a formation that occurs using two indicators described in this book.  Elder even identifies the formation as being "the strongest signal in technical analysis."  I will certainly agree, though it took me some time to find the ideal market and time-frame for it.   If you trade futures, stocks, or currencies with Candlesticks, the secret is in this book.  It gave me the edge I needed to become consistently profitable.   I own more than 60 trading related books (those are just the keepers) and I think what makes Elder stand out is the fact that he is/was a successful trader for many years and that the content of this book is the hard-won wisdom of those years.  This is not a book written by some infomercial peddler who makes his living selling trading "courses."  I chuckle when I see the price for this book is $47.25 because I would have counted it a steal at a hundred times that.  To unlock the strategies in Trading for a Living you will have to adapt them to your own trading style, vehicle, and funds.  I agree with another reviewer who said this book is for a person who is more than an amateur but not yet a pro.  I believe that the techniques used by most very sophisticated professional traders are built on the indicators and principles found in this book.

</review>
<review>

I bought the book nine years ago, and it still is after reading several other books, Elder is my personal number one as this is the only book who dives into the personal mind. Dr. Alexander Elder, has a psychiatric background what makes him extremely powerful in explaining what is actually happening with the mind and with the masses who are trading. It gave me as a novice a deep and thorough understanding of what makes the market move. He also gave me as a starting trader excellent idea's and rules on money management which is absolutely crucial. I personally have this book on my number 1 for people who want to learn trading and get a deeper understanding of their own behavior and possible dangers. Beside that lots of practical tips and strategies are given. The book is an excellent book for the beginner and the advanced trader who needs to review his own behavior

</review>
<review>

I just finished the book and plan to read it again from cover to cover. It will definitely pay for itself and is one of the best trading books I've read. It is also well written and offers some good ideas on money management as well.

When I first got the book I skipped to the chapters that offered different systems so I could put them to use then I went back and started at the beginning.

I wish I could have read the whole book before losing money in the market. Hopefully my future performance will be better now that I've read it.

Michelle Res

</review>
<review>

After suffering a loss due to 'Unreasonable Exuberance' in 1997, I was about to quit market. I borrowed this book from library and from the very first page I felt as if Mr. Elder had written my trading biography. This book was a retrospect on my trading psychology/habit and realized my wrong approach to market. I read this book couple of time so that I fully register Mr. Elder's teaching and started trading again. It has been 9 years, I read this book, once every year just to make sure I do not deviate from my trading discipline. Every trader once in his trading life must read this book.

</review>
<review>

So basically everyone reads the two MAGICIAN books and thinks "Whoa, that was a great series". But they don't even suspect that the next two books could have anything to do with books 1 and 2. Wrong. In fact, they have so much to do with the books that that in book 4 the real Riftwar ends. But this book sets up for book one. This, in my opinion is the worst Riftwar book. But since I loved it, how much do you think I liked the others.

So, maybe it was kind of bad the Raymond E. Feist read LotR just then; he put clich�s in that unluckily were very obvious. Except that this series has sort of turned around into a romance/fantasy saga, with drama like nothing else. It starts with a scene where Laurie and Carline are arguing over when to get married!

Storyline: Prince Arutha is about to be wed to beautiful Princess (can't remember the name) when Jimmy the Hand finds an assassin on the rooftops of Krondor while stealing from a rich man. The assassin is trying to assassinate Arutha. After a catastrophic turn around (at least for the assassin), Arutha is happy to say that he's getting married that day. However, another attempt on his life misses him, and hits the Princess. It turns out that the only thing that can heal her is a flower called Silverthorn. They must journey to the north to the Dark Elf capital, Sar Sargoth to get this plant, and then ride back. Will he, Martin, Laurie, Roald (a mercenary) and Baru (a Hadati) and of course Jimmy be able to survive?

Pros:
-Great storytelling; turns and twists that you never expect.
-A lot of INTERESTING characters.
-Action by the tons. Also, if you're an LotR fan, you'll love this more than me.

Cons:
-A heavy, brutal LotR clich�.
-A mind-killing beginning that annoys you

</review>
<review>

That is exactly what this book is: a great book. It's absolutely amazing. It takes the story a little while to get going, but that's only a little while, and after that it's great, active, and enjoyable.
This book shows characters in a realistic way(even if the story isn't realistic). The characters all have good points and bad points, comprehension and confusion, and everything else a real person would have.
The story line is great, adventurous, and more like that. They have to do something, but at first they don't even know what. They find out pretty soon, without any idea of how to do it, then they decide to try. I'm not going to tell you any more about this because that would ruin the suspense.
The style of writing, past tense, third person, is great. I barely like any books written differently. Still, this book shows you the person as if they were narating, even though they aren't. This writing shows everything while still writing past tense, third person.
Overall, I can't think of anything to critisize about this book. Well, it's only three hundred something pages, which isn't quite as long as I like, but other than that it didn't have anything about it that I didn't find great.
I completely and wholy recommend this book to all readers. You should probably read Magician first, but this book still makes sense without

</review>
<review>

Silverthorn is the 'second' book in the Riftwar Trilogy ( I say second because it can be considered the third since Magician is broken into two books )  This book is more a segway into the third - not much happens in the way of plot for the trilogy until near the end, but when it does it does it well.

I did enjoy this book, but seriously missed Pug and Tomas through the beginning as it began in the courts of Prince Atrhur (sp.) and Jimmy the Hand, though the part that included Jimmy were great.  This story really told itself very well and was quite straightforward.  That is, until we ran into Pug again ( later on ).

This was a story of love and the drive to save it at all costs.  The prince's fiance' has been poisoned and the cure must be found for her to be saved.  The drive that pushes him on verges on the edge of sanity and he comes close to losing himself in madness, but because of the control that he can take of the situation, and his love for his madien he pushes through even seeing what is ahead.

If you enjoyed Magician or any other Feist work then pick this one up.  The story is a bit bland and done over, but it is enjoyable nonetheless.. ;)

</review>
<review>

Silverthorn by Raymond Feist in the 3rd (or 2nd depending on how you read Magician) book in the Riftwar saga. With this installment Feist picks up where he left off. The best thing about books like this is the author doesn't need to invest as much time and energy setting up the players, as we already know who they are and what they stand for.

On to the book.

Characters first. I love how Feist writes his characters. To me not one of his characters are all powerful,w ith the exception of Pug. They all have doubts and flaws that effectively make them 'normal'. Jimmy the Hand easily steals almost every scene he is in (at least for me anyway) I really enjoy reading about that character. The other characters in this book all serve a purpose and are well written. Feist has a knack for writing his characters in seemingly simplistic terms, but yet complex outcomes.

The plot lie(s) in this book are fairly straight forward. Aurtha is on a quest to save his beloved all the time dogged by a power that he doesn't know. This journey makes for some interesting scenes as well as some harrowing times. I really like how Feist doesn't have his characters just run into a place and start swinging a sword to kill everything, some times stealth serves a better purpose and Feist does this perfectly. The other major plot line is that this rising power in the north and a prophecy the centers around the young prince. The prophecy is hinted at and we are given bits and pieces, but I think it will all come to fruition in the last book. While the plot is straightforward, there is still enough varation to make you want to read and find out what's going on.

I try to end the most of my reviews with either recommending the book or not. This book I would recommend to anyone who enjoys fantasy. While these books aren't difficult reading they are still a blast to read. I would be willing to bet most people will enjoy this series. Give it a shot, it's worth it

</review>
<review>

Silverthorn picks up Feist's Riftwar storyline several years after the end of the Tsuranni-Mikemia war detailed in his previous two books.

The character's have had a chance to catch their breath, adjust to their new lives, the positions they have been pressed into, and the relationships that developed over the years covered in Magician: Apprentice and :Master.

Silverthorn begins with a heart-wrenching attack, and then drags our heroes about Midkemia and beyond as they begin what I see as the second part of the Riftwar.

Feist excells in his character development: seeing the established characters continue to grow is a treasure, but the gem in this book is the addition of previous-bit player, Jimmy the Hand as a major character.  The addition of a viewpoint that is not 100% in line with the rest of the cast provides a refreshing change of pace.

Silverthorn introduces the story that Feist really wanted to tell us, a story he began the moment you met Tomas and Pug.  Looking back over the books as they are read will provide a great deal of appreciation for the care to detail that Feist put into his series.  Enjoy

</review>
<review>

I hated this book. There was no point to it cept to waste pages and time reading it. This took me the longest to read and actully like.  I never got instrested in the book and there no premise to it that made me wanna read more of it.  Its about Arutha the new prince of Korndor having to save his princess.  To me thats all you need to know.  I would really not say to read this book, but skip to A Darkness at Sethanon.

</review>
<review>

Continuing the story that started with Magician:Apprentice and Magician:Master. The Riftwar saga isn't just about a war between two worlds anymore. Previous enemies have a truce and a peace but a new enemy emerges. The moredhel army, nighthawks, and their prophecied leader heralds the return of an ancient race. This book drew me in even deeper into the world of Midkemia and have influenced my interest in fantasy literature. Very highly recommended

</review>
<review>

This is the 3rd book in this most excellent series. First of all I would like to say that this book splits it's time between following Prince Arutha on his quest for Silverhorn and Pug and his search for answers about the danger they face. As with the other books in the series the story grips you and the action is plenty. I would say that Arutha's quest for Silverthorn is almost like a side quest in terms of the whole plot. It does help to introduce new aspects of the plot and it also has young Jimmy the Hand in the spotlight. I like how his character is developing. I also hope that his relationship with the  and quot;Upright Man and quot; is further explored in later books. The one main gripe I have is how easy this books' main bad-guy was dispatched. You are made to believe that he is much more powerfull then he turns out to be. Everything is always wrapped up in a neat package at the end. Would not be so bad to see a good guy get his head kicked in (Lyam????)from time to time. Having said that I ordered the 4th book in the series within hours of finishing this

</review>
<review>

Near the level of Magician Apprentice and Magician Master, now those were awesome

</review>
<review>

For those who already know the various authors of this book individually,  words will be in excess to describe the treasures contained therein. The  five Spanish already classical authors and Jorge Luis Borges closing the  group with honors are a guarantee of high quality and deep touching  entertainment. Tasting the fluent and sincere social verb of Quevedo, or  absorbing in silence the sweet and perfect mysticism of Juana Ins would be  sufficient to recommend this book. But we find much more, Machado, Garca  Lorca and Miguel Hernndez, marked by the horrors of the Spanish Civil War,  found in their sensibility, the way to transform hate and blood into the  purest and most powerful poetry. About Borges, well, what can one say about  a man of his talents, his well known depth is something you will find  easily linked to his enormous sensibility and human solidarity.  Definitively, this multiple anthology is a treasure to keep forever

</review>
<review>

I am a big fan of Noam Chomsky, and if you like to read a short book about 9/11 and the lies and deceptions attached to this tragic event, I highly recommend this book

</review>
<review>

I thought this book was a good read. I don't totally agree with all of Chomsky's views, but getting an semi-alternative view was good. I think he does press a little too much by accusing the US and Israel of being terrorist. We (the US) didn't specifically target civilians by hitting the towers, but I think the book sheds light on that we were involved in activities that killed many innocent people, not that we wanted people dead but to maintain control. I can't agree that with Chomsky that we shouldn't have played a role in Afghanistan during the 80's. It was a good way to indirectly hurt the Soviet Union. But our previous administrations foreign policies failed to protect us with what happened on 9-11. If something remotely similiar happens again, then the Bush administration has failed. The book is good to read if you are open-minded and not-biased against or for the US, Israel, or who ever. Chomsky makes the US look bad so if you the American thats refuses to accept our wrongdoing don't read it. If you are anti-Bush and whatever, reading it might fuel your bias. If you are more moderate then its a great book to give you some things to think about but don't take everything to seriously but seriously don't outright deny any possiblities

</review>
<review>

The religion of peace is at it again!  In response to the popes words, muslims all over the world respond with violence, destruction, rage, hatred, burning down buildings, burning papal effigies, issuing fatwas against the pope, and even shooting a 70 year old nun in the back.  Wow, such peace from a religion of "peace".  If Islam is a religion of peace, then all the guns in the world are pink flowers, and every nuclear bomb, a soft feathery pillow.  Violence for words.  Destruction for speech.  PLEASE!  This is a religion of war, and bereft mindless 70 year old bags like Noam have begun to lose a lot of mental function with age.  This old bag of a man gives Muslims free passes and blames America.


Question:  When will the world start holding to account the actions of Muslims, and stop blaming others, such as Bush, America, the Pope, or God knows who else? How many more innocent people will die at the hand of Muslims before the western world finally, and for the first time, holds the Muslims accountable for their own actions, rather than someone else?

Well Im sick of the left defending this vile cesspool of Islamofacism.  Im tired of the leftist media beating up on Israel and coming to the side of middle-eastern tyrants who shoot 70 year old nuns in the back in response to spoken words.  And then these radical leftists have the audacity blame the pope!  Can you believe it?!!  Yes, idiots all over the western world actually blame the pope for the mindless violence and destruction that followed from a spoken word.  Its unreal!  A grown man got a gun, deliberately aimed it at a 70 year old woman's backside, and deliberately pulled the trigger, purposefully killing her in cold blood....and yet according to socialist America-hating leftists, he couldn't help it.  Its not his fault...its the Pope's fault guys!    Respond to words with violence, and then blame the speaker, absolving the person who actually commits the violence of responsibility.  As absurd as that sounds, I'm sad to say there are actually people all over the world who think that.  And they are idiots (like Noam)

</review>
<review>

I picture Chomsky in a sunless, cluttered apartment full of scattered yellowing newspapers, surrounded only by walls of his own clippings.  Yes, his recent writing is the result of too little exposure to the real world.  Not everything is a conspiracy theory, and not all facts or events paint an overall trend or picture.  The world is too random for all similar events to be related.  But when you surround yourself with your own highlighted facts of history and dwell on them day after day trying to sell your thoughts, the result is going to be nonsense.  I respect Chomsky's right to say what he thinks, and as a liberal I often find myself agreeing with him (but for vastly different reasons).  What I do not respect are those readers who take his words as gospel, when they are simply the rantings and ravings of someone who has lost touch with how the real world works.  Throwing together a bunch of events across history does not make for a lucid view of how we got to the present and what to do about the current problems.  To me, he is no different from those who have assembled enough disjointed evidence as to convince themselves that 9-11 was perpetrated by the U.S. government.

I am not excusing the actions of any U.S. administration, past or present.  All that I am saying is that the actions of the U.S. 10, 20, even 50 years ago bear little relation to each other or to the present.  And where they do, it is not worth arguing that it is the result of some long-term phenomenon of evil U.S. power.  The world is comprised of random actors interacting constantly, and to say that the U.S. should be able to control or foresee the future is nonsense.  All the U.S. can do is preserve and fight for its own interests, which is all that any state does.

Chomsky's anti-capitalist, anti-globalization, anti-aggression stance is based on an ill-conceived vision of a utopia, one far distanced from the real world in which we live.  In Chomsky's world, it is possible for everyone to get along in a state of equality, and no interests ever conflict.  In the real world, interests do conflict, and equality is impossible without sacrificing absolute welfare.  While I often disagree with the chosen approach to resolving those conflicts, I at least accept that the conflict needed resolution and that doing so presented difficulties beyond the ability of a human mind to conceive.  Sometimes we get it right, sometimes we don't.  But it is only a fool who would take all of the failures and weave together a story of evil intentions.

That Chavez would brandish Chomsky's book while ranting and raving about good and evil on the floor of the U.N. shows just what company Chomsky's theories find for him.  Chomsky's theories could use less lofty language and more grounding on planet earth.  It is no wonder that half of the evidence provided cannot be backed up with verifiable sources

</review>
<review>

This is a spiteful, hateful man who is out of his element outside of linguistics.  And he got that wrong, as well

</review>
<review>

Noam Chomsky has thrived greatly in this great country of his, yours, and mine - the United States of America.  He has made millions of dollars teaching, lecturing, selling his books, and investing.  His world-wide fame in psycholinguistics is well-deserved.  His infamy is merited for his lack of loyalty to his own Jewish ethnicity and the U.S., in spite of the fruits he has received by being a citizen of the United States.  He has repaid this country in bile with his incredibly biased analysis of American foreign policy.  He goes way beyond a balanced multiculturism, when he always ranks the U.S. and Israel as foremost among the terrorist forces in the world now, and even in history.  His distrust of any authority, benign or otherwise, is reflected in his dogmatic and unexamined support of the "underdog," even if that underdog is a suicide bomber or a major terrorist organization such as Al Queda or Hezbollah.

Yet since 1955, hypocrite Chomsky has worked for the "overdog" Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which has actively and enthusiastically participated in the development of weapons of War and mass destruction, and continues to this very day.

Chomsky trumps his own potential for gifted analytic objectivity with his simple hatred of the United States and the Jewish State.

If he were not so attached to the freedom of making money, earning the adulation of the American Left, and freedom to express himself, he might be able to give more direct and personal support for our enemies and his friends by taking up residence in North Korea, Iran, or Syria.  Let us hope he retires outside of our homeland that he hates so much, the United States of America.

God Bless America, which will continue to give Chomsky the right to speak, teach, and make lots of money.

Raybo

</review>
<review>

This is excellent material from Chomsky.  Inspired me to reread some of his earlier works and to purchase 2 I hadn't read.  This is clear, concise, if somewhat repetitive(but it tells you it will be, so that's all right too).  Gives a different view of the cause and effects of 9/11, a must read for anyone wanting a well rounded view of that time

</review>
<review>

Chomsky main failing in this work and it appears to be a recurring theme in his 40 year career as a propagandist, is he begins with a typical theory: America is bad and all that it does is bad, finds information to corroborate this through a creative process of distorting sources or failing to mention them all together, and ignoring anything that might deconstruct his theme. Despite Chomsky's belief that Bin Laden's attacks were driven by US foreign policy, all one has to do is go to the source, whom Chomsky believes can be taken at his word, to realize the goals of Bin Laden.

All actions taken by Bin Laden and his organization have this specific and narrow goal: to re-create the Islamic Caliphate that existed centuries ago and basing it on Shari'a. It is driven by a chauvinistic belief that "Dar es Harb" does not deserve its prosperity and "Dar es Salam" deserves to take its rightful place of power on the world stage. Realistically, the only thing standing in the way of the recreation of the Caliphate is the United States and the force it can project to prevent this, and that's why Bin Laden believes it needs to be destroyed. One does not even have to stoop to Chomsky's level of vile intellectual dishonesty to make this point, Bin Laden's own words are very clear on this.

"the pious Caliphate will start from Afghanistan"

This is Bin Laden's reason for 9/11, everything else from the Palestinian issue to Iraq, to Saudi Arabia is a pile on to garner him mainstream support, but his core ideology a, Shari'a governed Islamic Caliphate, is what motivates his backers, allies. and foot soldiers.

Chomsky confidence that he understands everything that motivated Bin Laden, is more a projection of his own beliefs, ideology and motivations for wanting to see America destroyed than Bin Laden's motivations. Chomsky on September 11th is like someone who, upon hearing that Reagan was shot, immediately launches into a ten-minute tirade  about the Contras, Cuba, Palestine, Vietnam (etcetera), only to be told that was all about Jodie Foster.

His analysis, if that's what one could call this tripe, about Bin Laden also repeats the often told lie that Bin Laden was involved with the US during the 80's in Afghanistan. The Mujahideen were split into 6 different factions , three of which were hardliner Islamists : Islamic Party , Islamic society , Islamic Unity and three moderate factions : Islamic Revolutionary Movement , National Islamic Front , and National Liberation Front . None of these factions were led by Bin Laden and not all them were supplied by America, the hardliners were supplied by Pakistan , Egypt and Saudi Arabia . Don't believe it, look up Rober Fisk's interview with Bin Laden in 1988 where Bin Laden categorically denies that he took any assistance from the US during the Afghan Jihad.

If you want to know who Bin Laden is read Michael Scheuer, if you want to know what drives him, read Daniel Pipes, and if you want a poor alternative for toilet paper read Chomsky.

</review>
<review>

This is book is collection of Interviews by Noam Chomsky given before and after the attacks on the WTC.

I found this book a little too brief and would recommend to first time readers of this author to read some of his other work and then come to this particular book.

This book is nonetheless an Interesting view to take on the events that are discussed in it

</review>
<review>

I havent get the book yet???? back order it is been like almost 2 months

</review>
<review>

Tom Hopkins has set a standard to which all others must aspire.  This book is the epitome of good selling techniques and the lost art of just down right communicating in a language all interested parties can understand.


Reginald V. Johnson, Author, "How To Be Happy, Successful And Rich

</review>
<review>

This book is primarily a book on the art of selling, which you probably already guessed from the title.  It is also much more than that.

If you are in sales, going into sales, or might ever go into sales, you should read this book.

If you think you are not in sales, think again.  Almost every aspect of dealing with other people, is sales.  Want your kids to clean their room?  Sell them on why they should.  Want a raise at work?  You have to sell your boss on why you are worth it.  Want some lovin from your wife?  Once again, you gotta sell her on the idea.  Obviously some things are much easier to sell than others.

I started looking into the field of selling after reading many psychology/trading/improvement books.  Many times I read examples that related a particular topic to the field of selling.  It made sense to me.  Then I started thinking about how almost every interaction with others that I had throughout the day was related to "selling".  I started using many of the techniques I read about and they worked in most situations even though I was not trying to get someone to buy a product from me.  Its still sales!

This book has a lot to offer even if you are not in the sales field.  After reading it I realized I may need to switch careers and start selling.  I am sure I would be good at it

</review>
<review>

A must read for those who are starting out in Selling. Saves you a hell of alot of time!

</review>
<review>

This book is not as good as i thought it would be.  I hope i have better readings with Bryan Tracy's Advance selling

</review>
<review>

Classy cover, over 100 pages more than the previous edition. New and revised. Easy to see why this book is the #1 best selling booko n sales of all time and what Tom Hopkins is the #1 best sales trainer in the entire world!

Just using the NEADS and triplicate of choice multipied my income by 500% in one week! Using the multiple tie down and tag along questions that Tom explains is helping me get through to more prospects than ever before. Tom's qualifying techniques is helping me stop wasting time with non buyers and get right down to the people who really need and want my services. And I am sleeping better at night knowing that I am actually helping people as a problem solver.

Making money is great but helping people is FANTASTIC

</review>
<review>

This is by far the greatest book of all time. Not just on selling, but on almost everything that life can throw your way.  I trust Tom Hopkins and everything he says is very real to me because he tells it, and tells it perfectly.  He is certainly a true Champion.  I will reccomend this book to anyone who ever wants to achieve anything in life, and wants the money, security, and recognition that goes with it. This is the least expencive most valuable tool you could possibly get. Tom Hopkins is brilliant and every sentance of this book reflects that perfectly. If your fed up with being less than you know you can be, GET THIS BOOK!

</review>
<review>

That old cliche has never been more true than today. And that is very apparent by the review supposedly written by Lisa M. Malki who claims to  have 30 years of sales experience and refers to these techniques as "old-school sales junk", "manipulative" and "closing questions that are designed to arm wrestle me into buying."

This reviewer obviously read but did not understand the methods that Tom Hopkins teaches. It is not high pressure, there is no "arm wrestling, manipulating or old school sales junk." Perhaps this reviewer missed the NEADS formula and no doubt missed the entire section on qualifying buyers.

Revier "Lisa Malki" goes on to sat that she listened to the tapes and "cringes" when Mr. Hopkins "calls us champions because we are listening to his training." Perhaps this reviewer would prefer if Mr. Hopkins called his students "losers."

One point this reviewer makes is in reference to consultative selling and I agree that this is a part of the selling process. And in fact if this reviewer had truly studies Tom Hopkins training, would have found that there is consultative selling involved i.e. The NEADS Formula and qualifying the buyer. H-E-L-L-O!

Reviewer "Lisa Milki" goes on to say in consultative selling, "if the product is not right for them you tell them that." NO KIDDING! Read, really read 'How To Master The Art of Selling' by Tom Hopkins and you will find that is exactly what Mr. Hopkins suggests.

Best advice I have for this reviewer is to read Tom Hopkins books and listen to his tapes before writing a impartial review based on opinion.

There have been many excellent books written on consultative selling by people like Brian Tracy (the best on this subject) and others like Neil Rackham (Spin Selling) I recommend those books to round out your sales training. However, Tom Hopkins is the single best source for professional sales training, for those of us who want to help our clients become happily involved with our products and services and earn a high six figure income for ourselves.

Non sales people, people who merely write reviews without actually reading the material and have never sold anything can hardly be considered a reliable source of information.



</review>
<review>

Over the 25 years of my sales career, I have purchased many copies of 'How To Master The Art of Selling' Some I have given away, others literally fell apart from constant rereading, highlighting and so on.

This new and revised version is 23 chapters and 390 pages. It is a H-U-G-E- book and includes the most current sales secrets that Tom has discovered for the new millenium.

Tom Hopkins is indeed head and shoulders above the rest of the sales trainers. Nobody offers more high powered sales training. His methods and techniques are practical, field tested and effective. Just ask the millions around the world who use his techniques successfully.

Read and use the 25th Anniversary edition of How To Master The Master The Art Of Selling and launch yourself into financial self reliance.


</review>
<review>

This book masters the art of getting the clients to sell themselves to you by teaching you to ask the right questions. The instructions and suggestions are given through a variety of sales conversations.  I highly recommend this book.

</review>
<review>

Monographs dealing with West's rise from a backward feudal society to the most technologically advanced and wealthiest civilization this world has ever seen, seem to come a dime a dozen nowadays. Given the large amounts of books available on this topic, and the fact that it was published twenty years ago, what reasons are there for reading How the West Grew Rich? Quite a few I would argue.

The main question of the book is of course: how, or rather why, did the West (as opposed to the South or the East) achieve modern economic growth? The authors come to the correct conclusion that standard growth models can only provide the proximate causes of growth. Innovation and accumulation of capital, labour and natural resources is growth, it does not explain growth.

So what, according to R and B, are the fundamental causes of growth? The answer lies in favourable institutions and freedom from political restrictions - more specifically, secure property rights and the freedom to engage in any line of business and to acquire and sell goods at an unregulated price. This meant that the process of innovation was delegated to private firms and that individuals themselves were forced to bear full responsibility for their failures and reap the full benefits of their successes.

Why then did such favourable institutions and political and economic freedoms arise in the West? The answer according to R and B is political fragmentation and competition between different territories in Europe. Investments and the merchant class were drawn to areas were property rights were respected and where they could carry out their business without too much political interference. There was no single empire in Europe. The growth of markets - especially that of cities and long-distance trade - further spurred this development.

The arguments in How the West Grew Rich are, which should be apparent by now, very similar to those found in The Rise of the Western World by North and Thomas, although they focus a lot less on population growth. As they should, R and B refer to this book on several occasions. Despite this fact, How the West Grew Rich proves to be an interesting read: the familiar arguments are explored further and the book includes several interesting examples of how institutional innovations lowered transaction costs and facilitated further development.

There are a number of objections one could raise against R and B's account of the rise of the Western world - their account of the middle ages and alternative explanations behind West's success are far from satisfactory, to name a few. There are however a few things speaking in favour of this book. First of all, it has a clear message. It does not, like some other books on the same topic, name hundreds of different reasons for why the West grew rich. Rather, it presents a clear hypothesis that is present throughout the book and it also provides very clear policy recommendations to current developing countries wanting to emulate West's success. Secondly, and perhaps because it has such a clear message, it is fun to read

</review>
<review>

this book is good, has alot of games I plan on trying alot of them

</review>
<review>

As an acting teacher I was thrilled with this book. It has lots of terrific improv games and ideas. I'm inspired and I know my kids will be too.

</review>
<review>

To start off, I am the author of the book so take the "star review" for what it is.  I just wanted to give you a little more depth to what this book is about in case you are looking at purchasing it.  First I will tell you that I've had over 12 years experience of not only performing improv and owning a troupe, but I've been very lucky to teach improv to people of all ages and walks of life.  I will be up front with my statement that no ONE person can teach you everything about improv.  I learned from many people and took what I liked to form my style and beliefs. It is that style that is in my book and I encourage you to look at several books if you are really serious about it.

My book starts off as an introduction for teachers looking at adding improv to their lessons.  This is mostly aimed at school aged children, but I use the same practices for Adults.  The publishing company wanted to add this to their "101 _____ for Children" series so I fitted everything for that.  I got them to add the "Adults" part so potential readers who were older wouldn't turn away.  I've outlined a lot of stuff on how someone who knows very little about improv can teach it (at least teach it my style) and have tried to include everything I would do in front of a class.  This same information can be used by the reader to learn the basics.

I ended the book with tips for Advanced people.  Again, these are theories of mine gained over watching and performing with people 2 to 5 shows a week every week for over a decade.  These tips not only include how to stretch yourself, but also some hints on what to look for when forming your own troupe.

In the middle is the 101 games promised in the title.  This being the first book I wanted to have a strong list of "beginners" games and warm up exercises, but there are still plenty of games for all levels of players to be found.  The games listed are all what would be called "Short Form" games, the type you would find watching Who's Line Is It Anyway?.  There was a second book planned that would include more of the tougher games and a section on Long Form, but I'm not sure if that book will ever be published.

If you are a very seasoned improv actor this book will only have a few games that you might not have tried yet, and I don't know how much you'll get out of the "beginners" section.  But I for one feel that you never stop learning about improv and there is some very good stuff throughout the book.  And if you are in the early stages of improv learing, there is no doubt that you'll find a lot of stuff to take with you on stage.

If you are a teacher looking at having fun in the classroom, this book is... well, it's hard to say "perfect" because I'm biased.  But it works very well in the classroom.  And not just for theatre teachers.  I've had several teachers who tell me that they use it for helping with creative writing and other types of learning that require more imagination.  Another teacher told me that they use improv early in the year to get everyone used to being in front of the class and not being embarrassed about themsleves or speaking in the class.

I have a huge love for improv and that is what I tried to put into the book.  I can't call it the ultimate Bible on improv because there is no such thing.  Improv is like art, everyone knows what they like.  This is not only what I like, it's what I love.

I applaud your interest in improv.  Learning how to adapt to changing situations is not just a great thing for the stage, it's helpful in all forms of life.  I hope that this has been helpful to you in some way and if not I'm sure you can alwayas track me down -- darn internet.

Take Care, Bo

</review>
<review>

This book is not for everyone. If you do not like to read classics with everything that goes along with that (such as long-winded language that seems outdated to us today), then you should stay away.

For lovers of classical and relatively easy to read literature, this is a good book. A lot of things are amazing, considering how long ago they were written and what overall level of scientific knowledge was at the time. Some of it just boggles my mind.

At the same time, the book is long winded and in the end, not quite as much happens as one would expect. Dan Brown's DaVinci code has more things happening in the first 20 pages than Verne has in his entire book. But that is OK in a way, because when I read a classic, I do not expect to compare it to modern standards. The entertainment is due to different factors. In fact, the way the book is written is part of the entertainment and not just the story.

I do not give this book 5 stars however, because I was disappointed in the end, since not enough of the story really comes to a conclusion. I do not want to spoil the book for you, but there are a lot of unanswered questions, and getting those answers really was what kept me reading. There is quite a bit of build-up, and then in some ways, the book just ends. (I noticed that style in many books of that time, where the narrator just says "here is what I know... but I do not know the whole story...").

Also, to some extent, I agree with some of my fellow reviewers that gave a lower score, in that it is too much of a narration rather than a real story. I do not complain about some of it being like a log book, but I would have wished to get a bit more information about the daily life on board. I just do not buy that the 3 travelers just stayed in their room. They must have found out a bit more about other parts of the boat. Or at least attempted it, and that would have been interesting to read about, without breaking with the overall style of the book

</review>
<review>

Note to all first time readers. This book was created for serialization and so comes across in a somewhat repetitive chapter formula. I read this in grade school and have yet to find anyone who truly disliked it. Journey To The Center Of The Earth is also a Classic, but I prefer this. Well written, with a unique story and good visuals throughout. The reader can clearly identify with the characters and their view of being on the Nautilus. Captain Nemo is an enigmatic person with many layers. In this one will see Man vs. man, and man vs. nature. For some the descriptions of various Marine life may seem over done. For me they gave context within a slide show of what truly made Captain Nemo tick. Mr. Verne's book deserves the appelation, "far ahead of its time."

</review>
<review>

Having chewed and digested "Around the World in Eighty Days", "Five Weeks in a Balloon" and "Journey to the Centre of the Earth", I set out to devour another chef d'oeuvre of Verne [the often overlooked "true" father of science fiction] with much relish. Sure, "20,000 Leagues" seemed bigger than the others I'd read, but I thought it would be the classic excitement and drama of Verne all the way. Well, I was nearly right.

Professor Arronax leaves a "normal" life in France for the US, taking his assistant with him, to investigate the matter that has taken all the attention of the "modern" or "known" world. Joined by the egotistic harpooner, Ned Land, they seek adventure, and they find it.

Again, I see Verne's classic touch of the dramatic as the threesome find the monster - the Nautilus - or rather, as the Nautilus finds them. They awaken to an interminable adventure under the sea. The Professor is fascinated, or perhaps, intoxicated with the endless wealth of life in the sea and spends hours, days and months observing and recording. The tireless taxonomist takes in all the eye can see and with the help of his assistant, classifies it all. This is where the tedium began for me as the reader. Pages upon pages of pure taxonomy.

The accounts of the undersea explorations in specially designed suits offers some relief. The enigmatic Captain Nemo is in charge; incidents and never accidents. Everything about him is shrouded in mystery - pondering on the life of Captain Nemo offers some useful distraction and provides the fuel to consume more and more pages.

However, you can never miss Verne's climactic scenes, where he brings drama and suspense to their peak. The almighty Nautilus is trapped inside a huge mass of ice at the South Pole, and for the first time, Captain Nemo shows signs of worry, however subtle. Yet, he goes on with a steely determination. Things are looking very desperate, but as usual, the day is saved. However, I found myself following every detail, sharing all their fears, their toil, their despair. Their ecstasy was mine when the Nautilus broke free. I was totally drawn in...

...The irritable Ned Land sparks the fire of escape. He's sick and tired of submarine life as Nemo shows no signs of releasing his charges. The adventure ends with the escape of the threesome back to terra firma, or does it? I guess it continued with Captain Nemo and his longsuffering crew until his death, burying years of useful knowledge and resources under the sea. Or did he live forever?

A highly challenging but rewarding read for the discerning reader or Verne fanatic

</review>
<review>

20,000 Leagues Under The Sea was a very complex book. The authors word choice was what made it so complex, the author used words like "Vexed" "Zoophytes" and "Connoisseur." The majority of these words were Old English, which added to the complexity of the book. The sentence structure was similar to the word choice, it was also very complex sentences, the sentences were usually not to long but not to short, at times they could be quite long though, and they were old an English style. The book itself is about Three Human beings chasing after a giant "Narwhal" as the author calls it. These three characters are known as Professor M. Arronax, a genius Professor from France whose passion is to study, Conseil, a teenage boy who devotes his life to serving the professor, and Ned Land, a Canadian Harpooner. Conseil and the Professor accept an invitation to the boat the Abram Lincoln, the goal of the voyage is to track down a giant Cetacean, or a sea creature. This creature has apparently been reeking havoc across the world causing all sorts of deeds, and so the 3 meet up at the boat. They pursue the creature for over a month, when they finally catch up with the lightning fast Cetacean they pursue it, however when the creature strikes back Ned Land, Conseil, and Professor Arronax are thrown into the ocean, and separated from their boat, they awake to find they are in the supposed cetacean, to find out that it is not at all a sea monster, but an amazing Submarine named the Nautilus led by Captain Nemo. They then learn of Captain Nemo's plans, and embark on a Submarine Hunt on the bottom of the Ocean, they Discover Atlantis, they venture to the south pole, and even fight among Poulps or Cuttlefish of enormous size, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea is full of adventure.
In 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea The Brilliant minds of Captain Nemo and Professor Arronax save them in times of danger, Captain Nemo's knowledge of the sea allows him to guide his submarine across the world, confronting the sea's greatest beauties and threats. Jules Verne does a very good job of telling the story and making out every last inch of the amazing journeys taken place on board the Nautilus. In my opinion this was a very good book, there are times in the book were discussions between the captain and the professor take place that are extremely difficult to comprehend, but in the end I would say this book is definitely worth the money. However as I've said before almost every page has Old English in it and is hard to understand, the sentences are very difficult and there are some words which I'd never heard before in my life, so because of the books complexity I would have to say that only someone 13+ can read this, this would be great for adults even, but I don't think anyone below the 7th grade could fully understand it, a 6th grader could but not get the full detail of the book

</review>
<review>

If you're going to read one of the great classics of literature-and you should-don't pick up this edition.  It is a reprint of a version that dates back to the 1870s and was exposed more than 40 years ago for cutting nearly one-quarter of Verne's story and mistranslating much of the remainder.  Its reappearance in this edition is all the more amazing considering Tor's status as a leading science fiction publisher, and the company's willingness to perpetrate this fraud on is many readers is truly stunning.  If you want to truly get to know Verne's novel, pick up the elegant Naval Institute Press edition, in a modern, complete, updated translation, with commentary by the leading American Verne expert today, Walter James Miller.  That book also comes with many of the artistic engravings that illustrated the original French first edition (no illustrations are to be found in the B and N Mercier reprint).  Less attractive but more academic is the Oxford Classics version of Twenty Thousand Leagues.  This review is posted on behalf of the North American Jules Verne Society by Jean-Michel Margot, president NAJVS

</review>
<review>

I'm a bit surprised to be the first reviewer of this classic. When I began my career in Wildlife Management over 30 years ago I was surprised at how many people quoted this work, but admitted they had not actually read it. I had read it in graduate school and was amazed at how prescient Leopold had been. He accurately predicted where Wildlife Management would go in the future and what would be necessary for success. (As a side note, Leopold used the two word term `Wild Life' meaning plants, animals, the soil; i.e. ecosystems. The term was changed to one word by the Wisconsin Legislature and defined as certain animals only.)

While this book is technical, it is not obtuse or wordy. It follows in the easily read style of Leopold and is worth the time and money of non-professionals as well as professionals. To the latter, wildlife management professionals however, I especially recommend reading this work. It will hold surprises for even those who think they "know" what Leopold had to say.

One more aside; Leopold had little use for political intervention and organizational concerns as is displayed by the fact that he devotes only a few sparse pages to organizational issues in this book. It is, in my opinion, unfortunate that Leopold did not turn his incredible intellect, wit, and writing abilities to this topic as it is, in truth, of more importance in the management of natural resources than the scientific issues.

This book is a classic in the field and deserves to be read as much as "A Sand County Almanac." I strongly recommend it

</review>
<review>

No one likes difficult conversations, but we must have them. This book guides you in dealing positively with these situations and conversations to make the best possible outcome

</review>
<review>

This is a must read for anyone involved in communications - with your boss, your colleagues, your clients, your suppliers, your spouse or partner, your kids, your friends (have I missed anyone out?).
The book describes the 3 different levels of a conversation; the 'what happened' conversation, the 'feelings' conversation, and the 'identity' conversation. The joy is in the simplicity; we talk about 'what happened' but what we really mean is our feelings are hurt, or our identity has been questioned, and once we can sort it all out and speak truthfully about what is going on for us, it enables others to help us and understand us.
Its not an easy band aid and requires patience, tolerance, and a great deal of courage - but I think you'll agree that having truthful and open conversations would save us all a lot of pain and grief in the long term. So hurrah for this book for being easy to grasp, not jargoned, and very helpful.

</review>
<review>

Have you ever had a challenging conversation with a spouse, co-worker, friend, or family member that didn't turn out so well?  Did you ever wonder how to best deal with a significant person in your life without causing stress when needing to approach a topic? The authors give great advise to handle most conversations that might otherwise cause stress.

I love this book. I loved it the first time I read it, the second time, the third, and more.  It's a must for anyone interested in getting more from their relationships.  An absolute must read!!

</review>
<review>

Ever dread having to hold a difficult conversation? I recommend this book for as "basic training" for anyone who has faced the prospect of speaking with bosses, co-workers, employees about negative workplace behaviors, skill deficits, attitude issues, interpersonal conflicts, or blind spots.

"Difficult Conversations" first explores the incompatible perspectives that create every difficult conversation and then explains how to deal with them. The authors show how to move from a destructive and frustrating interchange to what they call a "learning conversation." They offer the steps to help shift your perspective and the direction of your difficult conversations. The book is written from a general perspective, applicable to all communications, and it contains many examples from the workplace. Highly recommended

</review>
<review>

Each time I read Difficult Conversations, I learn something new that is practical.  A must read for anyone looking to improve their understanding of family, friends and others

</review>
<review>

I'm writing this review of the 5-CD audiobook, not the book. The CD is a must-have, whether you've read the book or not. In it, actual examples are acted out of all kinds of conversations before and after the techniques are used. After listening to the CD I can easily recall what to do when I find myself suddenly in a difficult conversation, because i've actually heard it. Also, as you move through the sessions, the authors go just a bit deeper and deeper until one finds oneself admitting some very personal truths. I think the reviewer below who recommends Dale Carnegie instead didn't hear the CDs -- I didn't get the same result from Dale's books, as I have from listening to these CDs. The ultimate result of having listened to the series a few times? I don't get thrown off balance (their term) so often when I suddenly realize the other person is reacting negatively to what I thought was positive, and vice versa. I just switch into a different mode and many times, the person (either me or my companion) has forgotten they were upset at all.

Now for my complaints, which lost them a star: the CDs are extremely low budget. The packaging has no guide and the content within the CDs is not organized very professionally. There is no heading labeling each track, so if one has to stop listening one won't know where they left off. Also, sometimes a section that should be on its own track begins within a track, somewhere in the middle, so if you want to find where it begins, you have to go back and search for a while for the exact beginning of the idea. How they thought that was logical I don't know. And, they don't have a recording at the beginning of each CD so you know where you are, to help you in remembering so you can refer back to which CD has what you want. Finally, the voices used to herald new chapters/key points, are not consistent - so that it's easy to miss them as they go by, if you're doing something else at the same time. This is a major no-no in radio presentation, which I would have thought the experts at Harvard would be on top of

</review>
<review>

i recently spent almost $300 of my own hard-earned cash to buy this book from amazon and mail my friends their own copies. yep, it's that good

</review>
<review>

This is an excellent resource for talking about difficult topics, especially in areas that are highly charged e.g. in family life or in a couple.

While it covers the basics of negotiation, it also breaks down crucial conversations into component parts.  This book really helped me to understand the underlying emotional dynamics of difficult conversations which are often hidden.

Two good books to go along with this are Getting to Yes and Crucial Conversations.  They are all complimentary to each other

</review>
<review>

Despite the overwhelmingly positive reviews here on Amazon, I really cant appreciate the value, usefulness or practicality of this book. The proposed framework, that each difficult conversation is really three (The "What Happened?", The "Feelings" and The "Identity") Conversations, is complicating rather than helping to solve the problem. You may think I am a contrarian or a poor communicator. However, with my very positive experience (and reviews) on books like "How to win friends and influence people?" by Dale Calegie, "Get anyone to do anything and never feel powerless again" by David J. Lieberman , "How to talk to anyone?" by Leil Lowndes and so on, I am obliged to warn potential buyers, in particular regular readers of relevant books, of a big disappointment.

</review>
<review>

Douglas Stone demonstrates great awareness of the subject matter. He states the principles and then illustrates them with powerful examples. He made me think of my own approach in difficult conversations. The person who buys this book will not regret the purchase

</review>
<review>

I have read all of the Artimis Fowl Books and loved them until now

I was disapointed with this one, and not found Artmis unusaly irritating, but felt the whole book was the lacking the charm and wit that had made the other three so good.

Truth be told I was younger when I read the first three, but still I can reread them and enjoy them (as I did after reading the fourth and being very disillusioned with the whole seris) so if you want my advice then I suggst you don't buy this book and let the magic of the first three live in peace

</review>
<review>

My 2 kids (and I ) have read all the 4 books. (and have bought 2 of them. We'll be getting the 5th one soon.
You'll enjoy all the books, this one - artemis has lost all his memory about elves, and his enemy opal is dead. What happens? Read to find ou

</review>
<review>

I am always looking for as-good-as-Harry-Potter books. Look out Harry, Artemis Fowl is here

</review>
<review>

I still think the first book is the best, but this is a close second and a much better book then the last installment.  I felt the same thrills and laughed at the same humor as the other books.  It brought to life more of the original spirit of the first book and the idea behind the series then the last two books.  It is another fantastic read from Colfer, but all this being said, it just seems to be getting repetitive.  There are no new characters of interest, and the characters aren't developing all that much for a series with four books.  I am still unsure about getting the next one.  Nevertheless, I suggest you read the first four

</review>
<review>

Great book! I loved the easy to read layout, the logical and clear organization and all the excellent tips along the way; and the
interview responses were often as interesting as the questions. Great job!! I will recommend it to all my dissatisfied/out-of-work friends!

</review>
<review>

Good book, but there many well known questions and answers, i was looking for something more detailed.

</review>
<review>

Vicky Oliver is a woman, lives in New York, and works in the advertising industry. Nothing wrong with any of that, except that she tends to forget that not everyone is exactly like her. The result of this is that if, like me, you are a man, live in South Carolina, and borrowed this book from your local library in order to prepare for an interview for an administrative position with the state Highway Patrol, much of the book might as well have been written in Chinese. Good for urban professional women seeking executive positions, but of limited use to anyone else

</review>
<review>

Bravo to Vicky Oliver for explaining the inside scoop on mastering the art of the interview. She does so in an intelligent and entertaining fashion. I found her recommendations to be witty, insightful and a valuable asset to anybody who needs to be able to persuade an audience, be it for a job interview or for that matter, anything else.

Abbe R. Krieger, AbbeRose Marketing and Public Relations

</review>
<review>

This is the essential guide on how one should present oneself.  First impressions do matter.  This is book was also informative and entertaining at the same time

</review>
<review>

A second career attorney, I was looking to transition out of law and back into a pre-law interest.  Needless to say, despite my skills, talent, and having been around the block several times, I guess I must have slept through Interviewing 101.  Vicky's book and semininar enabled me to hone in on producing a better resume, turn supposed "quirks  and  weaknesses" into strengths, answer difficult interview questions, and basically, duh, remember who I was.  She helped me nail the job, and frankly, I haven't been so happy in ages.

</review>
<review>

i really enjoyed this book for the simple fact that it actually mentioned some new tricks instead of the same old ones, and it reiterated some old standbys that we all forget after time. there is a lot of good (un)common sense to it, for new comers and seasoned alike. as a recruiter myself, i would love it if everyone of my candidates would read this before coming to me, it would certainly impress me if they came up with just some of the answers in this book!

</review>
<review>

Over the past twelve months, I have both interviewed for jobs and interviewed over two dozen potential employees.  Only after reading this book did I realize how much I had to learn, whether being interviewed or trying to discern the quality of those I am interviewing.  301 Smart Answers is an easy read, but filled with so many inciteful comments on how to effectively control the interview process, communicate your strengths and avoid the common pitfalls.  I am strongly recommending this book for anyone who plans to sit on either side of the desk

</review>
<review>

This is the best new job hunters book to come out in years!  Vicky Oliver's answers are smart, insightful and will help any one get prepared for those interview questions that can take you by surprise.  All college grads should be issued this book with their diplomas

</review>
<review>

Larry Dossey is a prolofic writer and researcher on holistic healing, and in this book he assembles a number of articles and essays in support of a cohesive concept.  Dossey invites the reader to explore the power of consciousness for healing transformation.  The different sections in the book sometimes refer to scientific theories and research, some of which would usually be considered in the realm of parapsychology, such as remote influencing, healing with prayer, non-local telepathic communication, etc.  However, the focus is more on how these concepts can be applied in our lives to bring about healing.  Dossey helps us peer beyond the veil of illusion we call  and quot;reality and quot; to help us connect with the source of our being and the power of mind/consciousness to transform.  Having practiced mind-body/enegy medicine approaches such as hypnosis, reiki, and neuromodulation technique, I have experienced the power of the non-local consciousness to create healing shifts in a manner that would appear magical or unbelievable to those convinced of the solid, objective nature of perceived reality.  It is much easier to  and quot;bend spoons and quot; when one lets go of the illusion that there is any objective spoon in the first place!  Enjoy this book and begin to put into practice the ideas and methods that unlock the power of consciousness

</review>
<review>

This collection of essays examines how thoughts and emotions affect our bodies and the bodies of others at a distance.  It is an insightful look at the relationship between science and "unscientific" topics like prayer, love, laughter, work, creativity, dreams and more, an examination of consciousness and spirituality in medicine. Everybody knows that something vital is missing in modern allopathic medicine - the role of the human mind. The author points out the deep level of ignorance within science about the origin, function and destiny of human consciousness. But at last we are moving toward a vision of consciousness that liberates the mind from its identification with the physical brain and body. Of course, the implications for medicine are vast. He refers to the ideas of Jung, Ken Wilber, Erwin Schrdinger, David Bohm and Rupert Sheldrake and makes a valid case for the fact that our power to heal and be healed extends beyond our physical bodes. The essays fall into the three categories Meaning, Mind and Nonlocality, and the book concludes with a bibliography, a section on sources and an index. This is a classic and I recommend it to all who are interested in holistic or spiritual healing and those want to take responsibility for their own health

</review>
<review>

I bought the book to add to my collection of stained glass books. I like the shapes and forms she uses and have gotten a few ideas from it. Very nice

</review>
<review>

Another excellent read by a very talented yet underrated author.  Thanks for the ride Greg

</review>
<review>

I am a fan of Greg Iles - it's always good to see a Mississippi boy make good.   In *Dead Sleep*, he introduces a fascinating premise and follows through with a tremendously entertaining - though slightly flawed - tale.  The good, the bad below:

*1*  He does an excellent job of telling the story from a female point of view. Jordan Glass was believable, and her character was (to my mind) thoroughly developed.  I understood her motivations, and while I might not agree with her choices, I could easily determine why she does the things she does.

*2*  The whole plot-line concerning the paintings was unique and well-drawn.  It is also well-paced - a rare phenomenon for thrillers these days.  He keeps the reader interested from beginning to end.

-3-  The romance angle between Jordan and Kaiser was a little . . . forced.  Talking about kids on a first date in the middle of a serial murder investigation (while agent Wendy was looking on no less) seemed a little odd.  Thrillers and romance novels should not mix.

-4-  The ending was a little too convenient.  The "loose ends" were slightly annoying after spending so much time with these characters.

Overall, this is a very entertaining novel. Iles seems to be getting better at his craft, mastering many different types of plot, rather than veering into formula.  I am eager to see where his talent takes him (and us) next . .

</review>
<review>

I like books that get me hooked in the first page or two, then keep me hooked till the end.  This was one of those books.  Interesting plot that keeps you guessing till the end.

Problems...  Kind of disappointed at how the story ended.  Seemed too obvious and a bit of a let down.  Secondly, I was surprised that the male author chose to write the story through the voice of a woman character.  Since he often dealt with women's issues in the story, it just felt weird to know a man was speaking for women on issues.  Still, these minor issues shouldn't keep you from reading this book if you are looking for a fast paced page-turner

</review>
<review>

Having read Iles earlier work Spandou Phoenix, I was thinking that this would be the same type of tense thriller all the way up to the end.  Though this book is a fairly decent read, I was a little disappointed up front because the story is told in first person.  Usually, this ruins the suspense because you know that nothing too bad is going to happen to the narrator.  The second objection I had was that the narrator is supposed to be female, while the writer is male.  This in itself is usually a turn-off but the writer seemed to be able to pull off a somewhat convincing first person tale.

Jordan Glass, a political photographer happens into an exhibit of paintings in a Chinese art gallery entitled "The Sleeping Woman"  When Jordan notices one of the paintings bears an incredible resemblance to her kidnapped twin sister all sorts of alarm bells go off in her head.  She manages to contact the FBI agent that helped her with her sister's investigation and they determine that all of the painting resemble woman that had gone missing.   Thus begins a search to unravel the mystery and locate the anonymous painter that created them and possibly locate the missing women in case any of them are alive.

The book plods along for about 230 pages and then picks up and moves to a fairly tense conclusion.  I had a few problems with the total lack of following proper police procedure and what the FBI allows a civilian to know and to participate in.  If not for the obvious problems I have mentioned I could have easily given this book five stars but as it is I give it just slightly under four.

</review>
<review>

This is a great book.  I was given it in a pile and recently picked it up and then could not put it down.  Great characters, detail and story.  My wife stayed up until 3 in the morning to finish it.  Read this book if you get a chance

</review>
<review>

Ever since he hit the scene many years ago with Spandau Phoenix, I have followed Greg Iles' amazing career with a great deal of interest.  I don't know of any author currently working that can hold a candle to his sheer talent for writing in such a wide variety of genre's.  So far he has tackled historical thriller, legal thriller, supernatural, murder/mystery and straight-on action/adventure thriller.  What genuinely sets Mr. Iles apart is that not only has he written these many styles, but he quite literally COMMANDS each genre that he writes.  I know of NO living author who has made such a wide attempt at writing, and certainly nobody who has ever managed to do it so incredibly well.

His stories rarely take long to unfold.  They grab you almost from the first page with the lyrical prose of some of the all-time greats.  There is simply just a very addicting way which Greg Iles writes that draws you in and quick.  Dead Sleep is yet another one of his amazing plots that is virtually mesmerizing.  The idea of a painter who uses Real dead women as subjects of paintings is facinating enough, but add to that the twist of Jordan Glass suddenly seeing her OWN face on one of the paintings -- or rather that of her missing and presumed dead twin sister is enough to force me to read on and on.  That scene in this book is alone worth the price.  The breakneck pace that follows is enough to keep you entranced in this tale.  But as others have noted, while reading a Greg Iles book, there is just something almost intangible in the way he writes that virtually compells you to read further, almost desperately in the sheer need to finish the story once you've started.  VERY few authors have EVER been able to pull that off (Phillip Margolin's Gone, But Not Forgotten is another).

I could go deeper into the plot, but you probably already know what the basic storyline is, so I won't bother you with going over what you have picked up thus far.  What I wanted to bring up is just how satisfying a Greg Iles book can help you feel, especially if you are a voracious reader like me.  I am certain you have read your fair share of novels that lacked decent resolutions or character development or just something that made you less than happy with the end results.  What truly sets this author apart is his uncanny ability to pull off the whole package, making you quite satisfied with almost every part of his stories, and almost forces you to come back to read all his other books.  Now is MY experience the same for everyone who reads Greg Iles?  Obviously not.  There have been some reviews of some of his novels that were downright insulting to anyone who even remotely found his books entertaining.  I have always found it interesting that the books that have traditionally been viewed as 'Classics' and 'Great Literature' have been by and large pure drivel as far as I am concerned.  Why?  I don't know exactly.  All I know is Greg writes the kind of books I really enjoy reading and he makes me look forward to what else he is planning on doing.  What more can a reader ask for

</review>
<review>

Greg Iles' Dead Sleep depicts the thoughts of an independent career woman with eloquence.  The ability to show how frail the human psyche is when faced with dire family issues is outstanding.  Issues of rape, child abuse and post Vietnam stress compound the problems and are taken on with balanced composure.
The book begins with a photographer needing a break from work and taking a vacation to Hong Kong.  To her disbelief, a portrait is on display in a popular art exhibit that is a replica of her twin sister who has been missing for 18 months.  To get closure from her sister's death or disappearance, she begins a journey to answer questions the FBI can't find.
At times, the reader loses patience with the investigation's pace because the team is truthfully depicted as trained to "follow the book".  The ebb and flow of detective work is weaved into the plot to understand why women are disappearing without a trace of evidence or ransom demand.  The effective use of bouncing from masculine and feminine individual traits adds to the seamless story of a family member who owes a sibling a childhood debt.  If you want to follow the mind set of a woman in the men's world of police work, this is a good place to start.


</review>
<review>

When Jordan Glass, a photographer known for seeking dangerous assignments, finds the lifeless form of her missing twin sister depicted in one of the paintings that are part of an exhibit of "sleeping women" in Hong Kong, little does she know that she is about to embark on a perilous journey searching for the connection between one or more artists and a series of kidnappings of women in New Orleans, including her sister.

Having been stonewalled by law enforcement personnel when her sister first disappeared, Jordan insists on being an integral part of an intensified investigation now conducted by the FBI. Through her eyes, the reader is treated to an inside look at FBI processes, including psychological profiling and the identification and questioning of suspects.

The characters are well sketched, including the suspects. The peculiarities of the art world and the predilections of its inhabitants is well explored. The dialogue can drag a bit, but not to the point of distraction. Jordan is a compelling character with the edge taken off her tough-girl routine just enough in her relations with FBI agent John Kaiser. The book does generally have a good pace with the ending flowing well from what has transpired. This book shows why Isles is regarded as one of the better writers in this genre.

</review>
<review>

If you're acquainted with Greg Iles' work, you know that he's a different author. His books are very different one from another. He changes subjects, pace, types of characters. He's able to write a legal thriller with the same easiness he writes a very fast kidnapping story. With "Dead sleep", Iles continues to prove - at least to me - that he's one of the most talented thriller authors of the last ten years, along with Michael Connelly.

In "Dead sleep", the main character this time is a woman. I think most male writers have this dream of writing at least a book where the main character is a woman, but few dare to try, because creating a decent character of the opposite sex is not an easy task. I think Iles did a good job with Jordan Glass, the award-winning war-zone photographer in "Dead sleep". He did a good job, not a great one, but that's good enough. Jordan came up a little too similar to a man, but even so she has interesting feminine features, and she's believable for most of the novel. Her background life is very interesting. She's a strong character, living - and doing well - in a male environment.

While visiting Hong Kong, Jordan faces a series of paintings portraying sleeping women, but one of those women has her very face - or the face of her twin sister, who's been missing (kidnapped) for the past year and half. Jordan teams up with agent John Kaiser and his FBI squad, in the search of eleven kidnapped women and the madman - or madwoman - that's killing to create his artistic masterpieces.

As usual, Iles throws a lots of balls in the air, and during the entire novel he keeps them off the ground. I didn't like the ending, though. It is not much believable, and a little too convenient. But it didn't spoil the fun of reading this great thriller. The series of interviews with the suspects has great dialogues, and a very good character development - the level of which is hard to come across these days.

Grade 8.8/10

</review>
<review>

Man could Buk write. But could he write. I suppose we are all just posers and pretenders and wanna-bes in his shadow, but Buk is essential reading for anyone interested in studying the craft and art and technique of writing, of, as Buk would say 'laying down the word,' and when it came to it, Buk could do it better than anyone. I've tried to write a passage with as much simplicity and elegance and attitude as he had and failed completely. His sparse prose and mastery of the obvious and attitude all contribute to a unique style in American letters that exemplify the beauty of our language when wielded by a master. Post Office, Hollywood, Factotum and Ham On Rye are MUST reads for any serious student of modern writing. And damned entertaining stories to boot

</review>
<review>

This had to be one of the most enjoyable books I've read in years.  It's actually based on Bukowski's life and the events that lead up to and involve the making of his movie  and quot;Barfly. and quot;  It's totally off the wall, but Bukowski's take on Hollywood's own particular brand of insanity is probably just as true today as it was when Charles Bukowski penned this masterpiece of the absurd.  Definitely a great book from one of my favorite writers.  Highly recommended

</review>
<review>

excellent story about how charles' BARFLY movie came to be. written in all honest candor and the trials an author has to endure throughout the system of getting this complete

</review>
<review>

Although far from Bukowski's best, this is a revealing send-up of what happens when brutal honesty (Buk) interacts with the California entertainment industry. A roman a clef about the making of the independent film Barfly based on Bukowski's life and some of his earlier stories,the book shows Bukowski finally gaining some recognition and acceptance near the end of his career. The movie stars Faye Dunnaway and Hollywood badboy Mickey Rourke who does a good job slurring and walking about with hemorrhoids. Yet it appears from the text that Bukowski would have preferred Sean Penn, who was originally cast in the part, to play him in the film--Penn had more heart. As always with Bukowski, there are real emotions, honest appraisals, and bone-cutting prose--not compromise, pandering, mediocrity, and unfortunately often successful attempts by MSG-dazed writers to pluck the heart strings and collect the cash.In all his books, Bukowski's presence is perhaps the most palpable of any author behind his fictional protagonist. This is, one might argue (and Phillipe Lacoue-Labarthe did, in the Paradox of the Actor), the diametric opposite of actors, whose abilities lie in taking on the personae of others, and consequently losing their own identity in the process. The story is that when Bukowski, although much older, first encountered Arnold Schwazenegger in Hollywood, he had to be restrained from attempting to fight him just for being such an obvious phony. Far from his most testosterone-crazed, drunken bull self here,he does not seduce but does manage as if for old time's sake to pull onto his lap the pretty co-star during a wine-drenched film party. Even and especially when confronted with (and making some money off of) L.A.s billion-dollar dream machine, Bukowski (as alter ego Henry Chinaski) preserves his uncompromising heart and unwavering eye in the face of the ugly truth. A welcome tonic to Hollywood's treacle

</review>
<review>

Buk was right. His take on screwie Hollywood. Funny and true. He was smart to stay clear of  Hollywood's phonies and neurotics (with the exception of writing Barfly for the big screen). See the flick by the way, doubt you'll be disappointed--unless you've got a bit too much starch in your white collar. Buk wrote about blue collar down-and-outers like himself, and did it with a uniqueness and originality all his own

</review>
<review>

This novel by Charles Bukowski is basically the making of the movie Barfly.  All of the people are recognizable even if given not so obvious fictional names.  If you are a lover of Bukowski and a lover of Barfly the movie, this is a five star classic.  If you are a lover of either of the above----it's still a four star, well written work.  I found that this novel exceeds both Pulp and Women, his other known longer works, in both writing style and movement of plot and characters.  Theme wise it takes you to the familiar places that Bukowski often drags you to

</review>
<review>

BARFLY is what first brought Buk into my life, so this thinly veiled fictional account of its making was a joy to read. It's a bit goofy in spots (some of the names Buk came up with to represent the real stars he encountered are ridiculous), but classic Buk nonetheless. Why isn't Buk taught in college English classes yet

</review>
<review>

This book should be required reading for anyone serious about breeding quality dogs. Easy to read with lots of valuable information, but detailed enough for the experienced breeder

</review>
<review>

Every single dedicated breeder should have the knowledge found in this book.
In addition to important information on genetics, it has very interesting information on the evolution of dogs and a great chapter on behavior which even goes into detail on the stages of development in puppies and effects of environment on behavior.
There is excellent information about hereditary problems, genetic disorders, and even mate selection.  There is a list at the back of every breed with their hereditary disorders listed and mode of inheritance when known, which should be especially helpful for breeders.  There is also breed-specific information on coat colors and alleles- which, by the way, used to look like an exotic foreign language to me and now makes sense!

I had a very simple understanding of Mendelian genetics before I read this (from reading "The Joy of Breeding Your Own Show Dog by Anne Seranne- another great book.)  This book made my understanding complete.

Before I read this book I thought that genetics were going to be difficult and boring to learn, but the author does a great job of keeping the subject interesting.  The preface mentions that the author had her breeder friend, who was confused and intimidated by genetics, read the manuscript and point out areas that were especially confusing to a beginner or areas that needed clarification, etc.  Maybe this is one of the reasons why this book is so effective.

A great, absolute must-have book that I highly recommend

</review>
<review>

This book should be read by anyone the least bit interested in breeding better dogs. Not light reading but extremely valuable to the serious breeder. The Author gives a basic course on genetics and backs up her facts. She applies these principles easily to dogs and makes it easy to understand. The photos and graphs are very helpful.The section on color inheritance is fascinating!If you are not interested in improving your breed do not bother but if you dedicated to your breed this book is invaluable

</review>
<review>

Jackie Isabell has a wonderful way of explaining genetics that is detailed yet easily understood. She brings you along with her in an enjoyable discovery of what could be very dry subject, and even adds a bit of humour from time to time. I learned what I set out to learn from this book and I thank Jackie Isabell for being an excellent teacher

</review>
<review>

Boogey Man
By: Stephen King



Stephen Kings book "Boogeyman" was a great book. This story will make you leave closet door open while you sleep, and keep you up for days. Stephen King really has a unique way of writing. He knows how to build and keep suspense on for periods of time. This is exactly what he does, and it's truly great. The story is a must for those who like suspense and those who like horror stories.
The story starts with a guy that goes to see his therapist, and confesses that he feels the deaths of his children are his fault. His children were always afraid of the closet. The police declared one death to be a cradle death. Its little details such as these that make the book as good as it is. The little hints to what is going to happen, makes you want to read more. These build up suspense and keep you wanting to read. Stephen Kind also has a good way of making you wonder what's going to happen next. Its one of the many techniques he is skilled in. This story is truly worth your time to read, and it is suggested to do so.


</review>
<review>

I have read this book twice now and have also read another of Beahm's books. They are hands down GREAT. I originally picked up this book as a Stephen King fan, but needed it for a school report. It gave me so much more information than I could have POSSIBLY dreamed of. While still be intriguing, it gives neat facts, important information and everything else about King's writing career as well as his life. Don't take this as a book of records though; it's a good book to pick up and read for pleasure. There are many stories that are woven into this book as well as King's family and life. It's a worthwhile book for any person who enjoys Stephen King's work as well as those who want to learn about the man BEHIND the pages

</review>
<review>

I just read this book, (in one sitting)!  A must read for fans.  This book chronicles King's work up to late last year ('98).  It almost reads like a novel itself.  I was absorbed by Beahm's willingness to focus on King's  work and not his private life (something he makes note of in the book).   You'll get a feel for where King has come from and how he's evolving.   Beahm even chronicles the movies (most of which don't do justice to the  books). My only complaint is the short stories in the collections were  sparsely reviewed.  If your looking for a  and quot;biography and quot; this isn't  it!!

</review>
<review>

George Beahm has done his usual outstanding job as a biographer and Stephen King expert.  I definitely and highly recommend this book

</review>
<review>

This is a big disappointment! Pictures are not all on one page. The animals are split in half because of this. What a dumb idea!! Save your money. This book isn't worth half of what I paid

</review>
<review>

Elliott Erwitt loves to take photos of dogs - all kinds of dogs doing all kinds of things - and Woof is a reflection of his passion for the animal, providing black and white shots of dogs in or near water, on land, on display, at play, and more. An outstanding, artistic celebration of the canine which dog and art lovers will find a satisfying blend of diverse images

</review>
<review>

I enjoyed the pictures in this book.  They show dogs of all ages in various positions.  The orientation on some pages is upright, on others, it's sideways, so you turn the book to look at the picture straight on.  It's a wonderful book to use to break the ice, or just to keep the conversation going.  The use of black-and white photos was genius - I found myself relating to the dogs as personalities.  Color photos tend to make me think of the background more than the dogs.

</review>
<review>

First of all the sender was wonderful with the time it took to get the book. I received it in a day! The book is wonderful and a great addition to any family who owns a dog. A great picture book full of all kinds of breeds, although i would of liked to see more cocker spaniels!

</review>
<review>

This book is brimming with tons of useful and eye-opening tips that channel the hypochondriac in everyone. The author has done an exhaustive amount of research on the hazards of our day to day choices--many of which I have never even thought twice about. The mini packaging makes it an adorable and handy gift

</review>
<review>

This book should be read by all parents/adults.  Educate your children on how to keep germ free and be consistant with that teaching.  Many illnesses/deaths can be avoided by following the simple steps given in this book.

</review>
<review>

This book is chock full of great tips.  It's breezy and informative style is definitely geared for those who love trivia and for the compulsive worrier!  It's attractively packaged and fits into a stocking

</review>
<review>

BE SAFE is a safe gift that I am giving to all my loved ones. It is a humorous approach to many of the kinds of problems that you want to save them from without being preachy

</review>
<review>

Be Safe is great book for the 20 or 30 year older. It has helpful hints to keep them safe. The book shows you care.

</review>
<review>

Looking for a perfect Holiday gift? This is it. Small and compact but with so much info and fun to read. I now know what to get my college age relatives as well as  a gift for the person who has everything. I hope it is the beginning of a series because there is more to Be Safe about than just one book

</review>
<review>

This book is witty and informative and the mini-size version is perfect because it fits into your purse and is a perfect gift to send to all your safety-conscious friends. The best thing is that although you may think you are safe, this book will open your eyes to things you haven't considered: the safest bathroom stall? the safest artificial sweetener? the safest seat in a car?...if you want the answers, buy this book! Delightful!

</review>
<review>

This is a great coffee table book even though its diminutive size would belie that. Everyone will want to pick this up and check it out. There are so many facts about things you never thought about but will now question why you hadn't before. Unfortunately, now I can't make it through the day without thinking about something relating to the book. Seriously though, this book can be enjoyed by everyone through all walks of life. Fantastic gift idea

</review>
<review>

I loved this book!  I found it very interesting and i have changed my ways and used many of the suggestions given on healthy living(especially the part on cleaning your kitchen!)  It will really make a great gift for the person on your list who has everything because everyone needs to know, and likes to know, about the facts given in this book!  Great Job Melissa!  We can't wait for more of your books

</review>
<review>

If you have a son or daughter away at school, this is the ideal gift. It will make you feel better ... and it's even likely that they will read it. It will also fit in a stocking at holiday time. The soft, squishy cover would have made Freud comfortable. All around, a witty, well-designed, helpful book

</review>
<review>

... The beauty is Guerilla Marketing falls within the standards of using multiple Amazon.com accounts to create very convincing and completely flattering reviews of books so that you sell more of them.

Bit of paradox, be warned about books with such flawless ratings.

BTW I'm a marketing manager --- I eat this sort of stuff up.  In fact for *some reason* this book appeared in my search results while researching a semi-fraudulent search engine company. Cheers and I'd suggest you save your cash and watch more Geico commercials! =)

~tom

</review>
<review>

This is one of my all time favorite marketing books. I often refer to it time and time again.  A MUST read for every business owner, manager and entrepreneur!..

</review>
<review>

This book as well as the other Geurrilla marketing books by Levinson adjusted my entire concept of thinking as a businessman and I made miracle happen as a result.  Levinson really sifts out a lot of nonsense of  marketing tactics, and gives you one atomic weapon after another to really  launch an effective attack on the marketplace and hold a position.  It was  a book of continuous eureka's for me as I read.  I suggest keeping a  notepad handy as you read because your bright ideas will begin to explode  one after the other and you will want to record them for later use.  This  book is entirely loaded with data.  I recommend it for everyone with a  desire to be successful in business

</review>
<review>

WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO SUE HENRY?  THIS BOOK IS SUCH A LET DOWN; I ALMOST THOUGHT THAT SHE HAD SOMEONE ELSE WRITE IT -- THE STORY IS FLAT AND THE SENTENCE STRUCTURES ARE CONFUSING.  SORRY TO SAY THAT I REALLY CAN'T RECOMMEND THIS EVEN THOUGH I WANTED TO

</review>
<review>

When a book title begins with "Murder at...." I know I am going to have a good time. Sort of reliving the old Nancy Drew days!!!

Sue Henry has written an able mystery again featuring Jessie Arnold.  Jessie gets a request from an old friend to help renovate the lighthouse they just bought.  In the process of getting to her destination, she does a good deed for a fellow traveler on the run from an abusive boyfriend.  The story takes off from there.

I have lost track of Sue Henry's books lately but intend to catch up soon.  The concept - Murder on a remote island with just a small circle of friends, one of whom is a killer.  Ms. Henry describes Alaska nicely, but praises Cruise West too highly.  I was not that impressed with CW on my vacation to Alaska.  I am sure it was a fluke, but the other descriptions were right on track.

Also as a fan of New England lighthouses, I was interested in the detailed description of the lighthouse and its history.  Ms Henry gets you right there into the action.

The ending, as well as the book, was not melodramatic. It was good to see that Tank, her faithful lead dog, is as devoted to Jessie as always, and that Alex Jensen is back in the picture.  Very pleasant read

</review>
<review>

Jessie Arnold has sustained an injury, so she is unable to participate in her favorite sport of sled dog racing.  Instead, she decides to go with two of her friends to help renovate an old lighthouse they have bought.  In the intriguing setting of Alaska's Five Finger Lighthouse, Sue Henry creates another well-written mystery.  Jessie looks forward to joining a crew of volunteer workers, but on her way to the lighthouse, she becomes acquainted with a young woman named Karen who is running from a man who has abused her in the past.  Desperate for a place to go where she will not be found, Karen accompanies Jessie to the island where they are to work on the lighthouse.  Soon a dead body is discovered, and the workers know that they have taken on more than they bargained for.  As the communication system to and from the island is cut off, the situation becomes more serious.  Sue Henry's fans will enjoy this latest addition to the Jessie Arnold Mystery Series

</review>
<review>

Sled dog racer Jessie Arnold feels the world is looking up as she rebounded from knee surgery, recovered from a DEATH TRAP, and is back with her beloved State Trooper Alex Jensen.  Jessie accepts an invitation to a paint party thrown by close friends Laurie and Jim Trevino, who are renovating a fixer-upper Five Finger Lighthouse on Alaska's Inner Passage; Alex has a meeting that he must attend so he cannot accompany Jessie, but tells her to have a good time.

However, thinking this will be fun though hard work, Jessie goes leaving Alex behind.  However, the idyllic gala of paint and panorama ends when Jessie finds the corpse of another guest.  Assuming a tragic accident occurred Jessie changes her mind when she tries to call for help by phone and radio; neither work as a killer has severed the lines with the objective to snuff the life out of the party one death at a time.

The latest Sue Henry Alaska mystery will remind readers of Agatha Christie's classic Ten Little Indians.  The story line is action-packed once Jessie stumbles over a dead body and never slows down as the sleuth realizes a murderer is amongst the guests.  The scenery as usual is breathtaking, but it is the cat and mouse game between the culprit and the detective that will have the audience spellbound.

Harriet Klausner

</review>
<review>

In his 1950 study of the authoritarian personality, Theodor Adorno constructed a political-psychological profile of people he called "pseudo-conservatives." These were people who called themselves conservatives but in truth adhered to political agendas that betrayed the ideals of individual freedom and free markets. Pseudo-conservatives were motivated by hate, fear, and power, not the desire to conserve or guarantee liberty. A few years later, the eminent historian Richard Hofstadter appropriated Adorno's term in describing what he called "the paranoid style in American politics."  In Adorno and Hofstadter's day, this paranoid style of pseudo-conservativism was still in its embryonic state, personified by the rantings of Joseph McCarthy but still far from being the game plan for the Republican Party as a whole. David Brock's Blinded by the Right chronicles how this movement slithered its way into power long before anyone had heard of Karl Rove, whose name isn't even listed in the index.

Blinded by the Right amazingly combines the political history of a loathsome political movement with the personal story of a sympathetic individual who found himself at the center of that movement. Always an idealist among opportunists, Brock's entr�e to conservatism was admirable enough, as he was a former Kennedy liberal who was turned off by Berkeley protest-ologists who simply shouted down their adversaries, thus betraying the cause of free speech that had galvanized the campus in the glory years of the 1960s. But those ideals quickly dissolved into an us-versus-them battle which was motivated by a hatred for liberal enemies more than anything else. Ironically, Brock and his colleagues had much more in common with late 60s revolutionaries like the Weathermen, with their constantly escalating rhetoric of destroying the establishment, and Stalinists in the Communist Party, who enforced the party line by threatening dissenters with the charge that they were helping "the other team."

Blinded by the Right is an essential chronicle of a political movement and a historical era, but somehow it is even more than that. Its personal narrative of a young person's rise to power and fame, followed by descent into disillusionment and depression, is gripping enough for Hollywood. Brock came out as a homosexual while he was in college but then shoved himself back into the closet as he ascended to celebrity status on the Right, whose agenda became increasingly homophobic after the collapse of communism left them without the enemy they had depended on for so long. Brock now sees his willingness to parrot right-wing ideology as part of his attempt to fit in with the movement when he secretly knew didn't, and he sees the vitriol that he spewed in his writing as a subconscious expression of his own self-hatred. In fact, Brock offers many penetrating insights into the psychology of his right-wing former colleagues, and for the most part they appear to be a miserable bunch prone to textbook cases of projection.

Brock's break from the right corresponded with his personal move toward self-acceptance. It is heroic act of liberation that sometimes made me want to stand up and cheer for him, but it was clearly a journey full of pain. His liberation proceeds in stages, with Brock initially portraying himself as a victim, and then only later coming to grips with his own complicity and eagerness to serve the movement. Changed but not bitter, Brock comes out the other side as a very wise man who can see clearly now only because he is able to accept himself, his past, and his imperfections. I hope we'll see more books like this in the future coming from the current throng of right-wingers, but I'm not holding my breath, because this required a ton of courage and compassion, and that's precisely what this movement lacks most.

</review>
<review>

This book is a terrible exposure of the powers behind the (extreme) right in the US, of their methods, of their foot-folk and their `morals'.
The powers are the fundamentalist Christian Right, extreme wealthy families and corporate interest. Those powers are firmly anchored in the Republican Party.
Their means are disgusting smear campaigns, vulgar attacks on political opponents, totally biased reporting, in one word `whournalism'.
Their working method are `see what you are supposed to see', `turn a blind eye to facts that do not suit your political aims' and `paper over monstrous moral wrongs in the service of the perceived morality of your cause'.

Their foot-folk are members of think-tanks, media men, investigators, journalists, intelligence personnel. The author considered himself as a right-wing hit-man, profiting hugely from his totally biased or completely fabricated scribbles.

This book unveils the raw selfishness, the protection of sinister (Bertrand Russell)   interests (`cutting taxes to defund the left') and the blatant hypocrisy and hidden opportunism of many of the members of these groups (`a decadent and hypocritical conservative elite, leading public and private lives that bore little resemblance to each other').

This book exposes relentlessly huge monuments of vulgarity and ghastly political horror stories.
It gives a terrible picture of extremely powerful political groups within the US society.
Not for the faint-hearted.

</review>
<review>

David Brock's memoir, Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative, made the New York Times Best Seller list, landing the author on Good Morning America and other prime time television shows. In sixteen chapters with names like "Leninists of the Right," "A Counter-Intelligentsia," and "Strange Lie," the 378-page mea culpa names many familiar right-wing names, enumerating the wicked behavior of Brock's erstwhile politically "conservative" accomplices. His public soul searching caused me to free associate Brock's with a similar fascinating memoir published in Poland by Otto von Hoess in 1947. von Hoess similarly asked his readers for understanding and sought redemption for his wrongdoing -- after the fact. Because of its striking similarity, I'll later get back to the nearly 60 year old mea culpa.

In Blinded by the Right, Brock traces his trajectory from boyhood through a high school youth working for liberal Democrats into the inner sanctum of the most rabid right-wingers of the Republican jihad. He self psychoanalyzes his brief love fest with Kennedy liberals by juxtaposing this with his disapproving and conservative Catholic father and moderate yet secretive mother. His family's big secret is that Brock and his younger sister Regina (who the author loves very much) had been adopted. This secret, plus several others, haunts Brock through adulthood. His other secret which is much more inconvenient to hide from the world is that ever since he was eleven years old, Brock knew that he was a homosexual.

Brock's homosexuality was no problem in college because he attended the University of California at Berkeley where in the 1970s being gay was no big deal. But it was in Berkeley that Brock metamorphosed from a diehard liberal Democrat into an extreme right wing Republican. While Brock was writing for the Berkeley student newspaper, the then new U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Jeanne Kirkpatrick had been scheduled to speak. But rowdy anti-Kirkpatrick students kept disrupting her speech and hounded the speaker off the podium (finally, by splashing it and the speaker with fake blood).

Struck by the hypocrisy of liberal Free-Speech-movement promoters denying a platform to a conservative speaker who they didn't like, Brock was prompted to write a scathing denunciation in the student newspaper of the students' hostile intervention. Student backlash for Brock's piece was prompt and violent. He enjoyed the fracas and decided to join the ranks of right-wing writers, repelled by what he had perceived as the phoniness of "politically correct liberalism." Notwithstanding his evolving closet homosexuality, Brock was drawn to the seemingly straightforward simplicity and clearly articulated positions of the political conservatives.

Brock traces the ascendancy of his investigative "journalistic' career through writing for the Rev. Sun Moon-owned Washington Times. While ascending through his writings for the ultra right-wing American Spectator, Brock broke bread with ideologically hardened, prominent right-wing luminaries such as Marvin Liebman, Terry Dolan, Paul Weyrich, Bill Kristol, Grover Norquist, and even gay basher David Horowitz. Because the religious right-wingers condemned all gays, Brock's shadowy lifestyle was a constant source of anxiety for fear of his discovery.

Brock really struck gold at the Spectator right after the now, ultra right-wing Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas had gone through a very difficult confirmation hearing because of Anita Hill's accusations of sexual harassment. It was Brock's assignment to write a believable smear book about Anita Hill so that Thomas could appear to have been a victim of a liberal conspiracy. Brock wrote the best selling The Real Anita Hill, which demolished Hill's testimony, credibility, and character. Later, and now in Blinded by the Right, Brock freely admitted making it all up and then neatly packaging this smear literature in an investigative journalistic package.

A similar attack on president Bill Clinton based on rumors and made-up stories of his Arkansas sex scandals started the ball rolling towards the president's eventual impeachment hearings. But at each turn of Brock's right-wing literary fusillades he got deeper into the inner sanctums of radical conservative, rich and powerful movers and shakers. But Brock's Clinton sex scandal writings are what would finally do Brock in.

Clearly, Brock didn't have a sudden epiphany of the harm his writings had done to America or that he had been serving wicked people who call themselves conservatives. Rather on page 180, Brock tells us that the Washington Post's media critic Howard Kurtz phoned him to ask about his sexuality. Presumably, a writer exposing the president's sexual waywardness can similarly be scrutinized. That petty much did it. The rest of this story is about most conservatives, especially the religious right-wingers, turning on Brock after his public outing. That's when he decided to "come clean" and admit that his written trail of smears against Anita Hill and the Clintons were lies.

When a writer like Brock loses his right-wing career, what's left for him to do?: What's left to do -- that can still earn good money -- is writing a best selling revelatory memoir, a mea culpa that names names. But what kind of harm had Brock done to America? His lies had influenced what happened in the Thomas-Hill debate and undermined a constitutional process His lies helped to stage the political assassination of a sitting American president and further divide an already badly divided and, thereby, weakened United States. His lies were extremely useful to the misanthropic ultra conservative crowd that would love to preside -- and are beginning to succeed at it with George W. Bush -- over a tyranny of the Right. After admitting all of this lying, Brock wishes us to believe that Blinded by the Right is the truth. So then concerning Brock's implicit appeal for our understanding and seeking redemption for his wrongdoing, I return to Otto von Hoess.

In 1947, von Hoess penned his bizarrely fascinating memoir "Commandant of Auschwitz" in which he freely acknowledges being responsible for the murder of two and one half million Jews. His memoir is an account of his ascension in the Nazi party first as a competent prison warden for ordinary criminals in Germany to his final post a commandant of Auschwitz. He explains how his background and historical events propelled him into that position. von Hoess pleads with the reader to understand that he is no monster but just an ordinary man placed in extraordinary circumstances.

Now clearly, Brock and von Hoess had committed very different kinds of crimes. The Nazi was hanged for crimes against humanity in Poland, right after completing his, indeed, fascinating self-searching memoir in 1947. After getting outed for being gay, Brock lost all of his right wing connections and then tried to atone for his crimes against journalism by setting the various records straight. But since both von Hoess and Brock had their revelations and admitted their guilt after having been exposed, are they entitled to our understanding and have they earned redemption for their wrongdoing

</review>
<review>

Brock's book is a tale that should warn all of us about the dangers of political and cultural extremism, as well as blind devotion to an ideology. This book also warns us that money in the American political system, in the hands of people with ulterior motives and lax morals, can potentially take over the entire system.

Another lesson is the need for journalists, politicians, and the public to be more discerning about the claims made in the popular press and media. We must strive for accuracy in reporting and truth in journalism so that our nation can have a constructive discourse about the issues of the day. Anything less is unacceptable.

I suppose this work is also a call for a return to civil politics -- maybe to a realization that we are a nation of diverse people with diverse views and diverse needs. What we should strive for, then, is to strive for a political system that uplifts and promotes the needs of all Americans instead of the needs of the few

</review>
<review>

This book is an excellent primer on how the religious right wing extremists have hijacked the Republican party and dirtied the face of conservatism. Please note: I did not call them "Christians," because I think these extremists have also blackened our name as well. Brock's personal story illuminates the "back story.

</review>
<review>

1- President Bush is building a base on the moon as our forward post for attacking evil aliens on Pluto. Just today we launched a ship toward pluto to start our attack.

2- A secret Cabal of Sceintologists have taken over the Defense Department and a working for Donald Rumsfeld who is actually L. Ron Hubbard come back from the dead.

3- Right Wing activists invented alcohol and drugs through funds from Jack Abramoff in order to make money for Tom Delay's trial.

4- Samuel Alito is actually Pat Robertson under a mission impossible style mask.

5- Edmund Burke and John Adams planned the JFK assination nearly 200 years before it happened and left notes in fortune cookies to tell their plans to future generations.

If you believe any of the above then you will love Brock's book. If not then its not the book for you

</review>
<review>

I was one of the new American Spectator subscribers David Brock writes about who were influenced by Rush Limbaugh and Mr. Brock's earlier writings. I devoured anything anti-Clinton that was written during the early 90s and I was convinced that the sitting President was an immoral villain who deserved the castigation he received from the honorable Republicans who relentlessly pursued him.

Then I woke up. My conversion to and from conservatism coincides with Mr. Brock's own timeline. So I found this memoir about the unscrupulous reporting that went on at the American Spectator very interesting.

Politics is a dirty game and I certainly don't think Democrats and liberals are immune from pursuing their opponents with questionable tactics. But Republicans play dirty tricks and then postulate they are elected because of their "moral values". Uh, I don't think so.

In "Blinded by the Right", Mr. Brock reveals that he was a tortured soul struggling with both his sexual orientation, his politics, his relationship to his father, and his own success. It is a classic tale of the problems that result when a person sells his soul to the devil.

One of those problems is that fact that when an author confesses his earlier writings were lies or stretched truth, he loses credibility in his future writings. So, I am a bit skeptical when Mr. Brock asserts Matt Drudge and Armstrong Williams made sexual moves on him. Apparently, Mr. Brock's new editors still didn't demand that these accusations be fact-checked. Were there any witnesses to these events? Or is David getting a little full of himself. Does he really think he is that good-looking and irrestible? And if they did make a move on him, why did he feel the need to publish it in this book? Was Mr. Brock trying to embarrass them? Discredit them? I'm not so sure David learned from the viciousness he skillfully wielded when he was attacking the Clintons and other liberals.

And I am not sure why all of a sudden in a later chapter that his conservative ex-friends become "elves". Mr. Brock was once an "elf", so why is he so hostile? This just another insult from a man who has made a career insulting people.

As of the writing of this book, David Brock reveals that he still was a tortured soul. I know he runs a website that analyzes the media and I know he is a frequent guest on Air America radio. I just still don't know if I can trust him yet.

</review>
<review>

As an Australian who has begun to suspect that many American 'conservatives' are actually creepy bug-eyed loons, I found Brock's diagnosis of their weirdness very absorbing.

If these fanatics and greed-heads can't mend their ways, we might see a Union of Soviet Socialist America by 2017 . And perhaps it will come as a relief.


</review>
<review>

The reader interested in Moss Hart and the golden age of Broadway will be much better served by going directly to Steven Bach's biography. Brown's workmanlike tome is short on style, short on feeling for the era (something Bach provides in spades), and the material from Hart's diaries doesn't amount to much. Compare Bach's thrilling re-telling of the birth of MY FAIR LADY with Brown's tepid version, to name one instance, and you'll see why Bach's is by far the better book. DAZZLER is indeed dazzling; Brown's PRINCE does nothing to de-throne Bach's definitive bio and lacks---dare I say---Hart

</review>
<review>

Having recently discovered Jared Brown I have become a fan of his writing.  "Moss Hart: A Prince of the Theater" was a welcome addition to his list of biographies.  Deeply researched and well written, it was a joy to read and a font of information.  Hart was an extremely interesting man, and his relationship with his wife, Kitty Carlisle, was heartwarming; in fact Carlisle is every bit as interesting as Hart.  Brown gives insight into the art of play writing, the emense amount of work involved and the talent of Hart and his early partner, George Kaufman.  From writing Hart went to directing and was even more successful.  A gem of a book.

</review>
<review>

MOSS HART A PRINCE OF THE THEATER is a major achievement.  At first I wondered why even Moss Hart fans need another biography of the fellow so soon after Steven Bach's well-reviewed DAZZLER from a few years back.  For indeed Moss Hart is rather a forgotten figure nowadays, even though the august Library of America published a collection not too long ago of Kaufman  and  Hart's biggest hits.  Even his critically acclaimed musicals, JUBILEE and LADY IN THE DARK are today honored more in the breach than the observance, and his memoir ACT ONE is fading fast from cultural memory.  That's not to say that, at any moment, he may return to our zeitgeist, and it's great having his widow still around and performing at age 90 something.  Still I hesitated before taking Jared Brown's book off the shelf.  LOL, Back Stage Books issued the review copies of this title with the publication date of "July 2007" printed on the back cover, so I didn't think there was any big hurry, that's for sure.  They must have been thinking of 2006, it's just that there's not much urgency to the topic nowadays.

However once begun I warmed up plenty to Jared Brown, and yes, I can say that this book improves on DAZZLER.  Brown attacks Bach for spreading the rumor that it was Moss Hart's aunt Kate who set those mysterious fires that plagued the backstage of Cole Porter's JUBILEE, and Brown put forth the theory that it must have been Hart's own mom, who was something of a mess mentally.  She seems to have been a victim of Munchausen's syndrome by proxy, which happens when people don't have enough drama in their lives they have to invent some.  Hart's youth was marked by dark episodes in which a skull and crossbones would appear carved into his bedstead or the door to the family apartment, and threatening messages would cause the frightened family to flee to a "safe house."  This happened over and over again for years, and now it seems obvious that the mother was doing it all the time.  Sad.

Because of this unstable childhood, Hart grew into a man subject to crippling fits of depression.  Even when everything was going right for him, gloom sometimes would descend on him like a trap over a rat.  No one could touch him, not even Kitty Carlisle.  She said it was like they were in two different countries, hers a bright sunlit land, his a room in hell.

Brown provides some new details regarding Hart's last play, THE NATURE OF THE BEAST, which aired on TV.  How I wish this would be released on DVD!  Nor had I any idea of how badly Danny Kaye behaved in Odense at the childhood home of Hans Christian Andersen.  All of the Danish material is new and perfectly fascinating: the film was criticized for its German flavor--even the name "Hans" is pronounced the way Germans do, not the way Danes do.  Brown has been to the manuscripts and outlines for us the different stages of each of Hart's major works.  Did you know that THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER, which already has caricatures of Harpo Marx, Noel Coward and Gertrude Lawrence, had a surrealist painter (Miguel Santos) modelled on Salvador Dali at one time

</review>
<review>

This book has been a TREMENDOUS help to not only me but my family as well.  Whenever anyone of us as a problem with either our own dogs or the dogs next door we open the book and there is the solution!  It is easy to read and clearly gives the suggestions and why they will work. ...and they do!  Ms Carlson has also been helpful with her phone consultations.  I don't know how anyone with a dog manages without this book

</review>
<review>

Provides guidance and examples of basic obedience training using positive reinforcement training with variable rewards.  Good basic techniques.  Believes that once a dog has learned the correct command and knowingly disobeys, a verbal  and quot;no and quot; is appropriate.  Well indexed and cross referenced.  65% of the book is organized into specific problems, why your dog is doing it, what you should do or say, why the correction works and how to prevent the situation. Training methods recommend use of leash, collar, spay bottles, rattles, and lots of personal positive reinforcement techniques. A very good, stick to the facts, basic training book

</review>
<review>

You don't have to read the whole book to solve every problem you have with your dog--just pick the problem and read that section.  This is the best book I've ever read on how to deal with doggie issues.  It also helped me  understand my dog's mind and heart.  The best chapter is the one on what to  do if your dog sniffs people's crotches!  The author's writing is  entertaining, clear and quite funny.  I have given this book  to over a  dozen friends who got new puppies and they all swear by it!  Read this  book!!

</review>
<review>

I really loved this book. It's amazing and so romantic. We start with the first story which is Opposite Attract with Ty and Asher. They had been lovers 3 years ago but Asher had left Ty to married someone else. Ty who thought had been played by Asher come face to face with her at the tennis championships. And a knew romance started with heated nights in each others arms. But Ty still didn't know why Asher had left him 3 years early and was trying to figure it out. But Asher had a big secret that she didn't want Ty to know about, but a their new romance gets more intense. And secrets are too close to get revealed and change everything between them.

The second story The Heart's Victory which i absolutly adored is with the sexy  and  determind Lance and the grown and beautful Foxy. Foxy had been in love with Lance since she was 16 years old. But Lance would only make her feel like if she was an annoying child and push her away. Heartbroken Foxy decided to forget him. But even though six years had passed since she had laid eyes on Lance when she saw him again she knew she never stop loving him. But Foxy felt at a loss because she thought that Lance just wanted to take her to bed but her thoughts change dramatically on the night that Lance asked Foxy to marry him. Once married they discovers passion never felt before.

</review>
<review>

I liked both stories, but I liked The Heart's Victory the best. It was great to see the couple get together after being apart for 6 years. I loved getting a look into their lives after they were married, which is something we don't get to do often in Nora Robert's books. Also, the storyline took place in different cities/countries, and it was great getting a look into the car racing world. The main characters, Foxy and Lance were well developed, we get to see (through flashbacks) Foxy go from a 14 year old girl with a crush into a grown woman who has realized that it's true love.
Loved it

</review>
<review>

both books were similar in the sense that they both had a theme of past love's that were now being faced in the present. However, each situation is quite different, and so are the locations and charcters.

I love this book, your filled with emotion, hope and all sorts of feeling, and as a romantic I'm glad they turned out nicely. If you've ever had a childhood crush, or fantasy, its even much better

</review>
<review>

Even though Mrs. Roberts' novels are a bit "formulaic" I still
love them.  Her settings take one on a beautiful journey and
even though you know the boy will get the girl, it's a joy
to find out how he does it

</review>
<review>

Creative and fast paced novel. Main characters are bigger than life. Enduring supporting characters, natural dialog, sensible storyline and satisfying conclusion. This is a well written novel by a talented writer. A must read.

Janet Sue Terry - CEO
JMB BOOK PUBLISHING COMPANY
(....)
Author of Contemporary Romance Novels "Possibilities," and "Resolutions," as well as, "Just Our Best Short Stories 2005.

</review>
<review>

I'm sorry, but this book went way over my head. Was this the plan, or am I just not up to all this

</review>
<review>

I read this book as part of a personal effort, stretching back over a decade, to find answers to some of the deeper mysteries surrounding that gray area of minds, brains, computers, and souls.  An explanation for consciousness is central to such an undertaking.  This book, like so many others on this subject, served to raise a lot of fascinating questions, illuminate a little around the edges, but ultimately leave the big mysteries undisturbed.

In some ways a sequel to "The Emperor's New Mind", the present volume is much more focused and ambitious.  It can be read as a stand-alone, though a familiarity with mathematics, physics, and philosophy of the mind are most helpful.  A lot of the material is deeply technical, by the very nature of the author's task.  The material is broadly divided into two parts, the first being a logical proof that whatever it is human minds do, it cannot (even in principle) be entirely replicated by a computer.  The proof itself is as fascinating as it is demanding, sort of a Cantor's diagonal argument on steroids.   The main point is to establish with strict mathematical rigor that there is something profoundly special about human mental processes (i.e., it is "non-algorithmic", to use the jargon), that could be a clue in our search for the soul.

If you are convinced by (or are willing to accept) Part 1, then second part of the book tries to explore the physical (or material) basis for non-algorithmic processes in the brain.  The author starts out with a straight summary of the relevant aspects of modern physics and the anatomy of the brain.  He then concludes that existing science cannot furnish the mechanism he is looking for, and sets out to speculate about what kind of new science might fill in the gap.  The argument is compelling and makes a strong case.   However, if we step back a little, the conclusions and speculations don't quite add up to a satisfying picture: "an edifice built on sand," wrote another reviewer.

Still, this was a fascinating and worthwhile read.  It was a very rewarding exercise to work through the proof in Part 1, and Part 2 served to clarify much of what lies on the current frontier of knowledge in the science of the mind.  Penrose, a direct successor to Isaac Newton in a chaired professorship at Cambridge, is a brilliant and accomplished scientist.  As I noted above, however, books on the subject of minds, brains, and related philosophical issues don't provide answers to the ultimate questions.  Rather, they tell us about what is already known (relatively little), raise interesting questions, challenge the reader with clever arguments, and speculate about what might be discovered someday.  Readers derive more from the journey than the destination.  Maybe that is all we can hope for in this genre.




</review>
<review>

After reading again part of Roger Penrose's exhaustive book, my tentative conclusion is as follows:
All thinking is physical action.
All physical action cannot be properly simulated computationally.
Even if it can, computational simulation cannot by itself evoke qualia.

I believe G. Edelman that the mind is a matter of matter and that consciousness is an emergent phenomenon.
In John Boslough's 'Steven Hawking's Universe', Steven Hawking said: 'Even if we do achieve a complete unified theory, we shall not be able to make detailed predictions in any but the simplest situations.'
And, J. von Neumann  and  H.H.Goldstine stated: 'a mathematical formulation NECESSARILY (I underline) represents only a (more or less explicit) theory of some phase (or aspect) of reality, and not reality itself.' (Quoted in K. Popper - The Open Universe)

More, computation is Lamarckian. If we program even very sophisticated robots, they will live in their own reality. A computer does not attain any genuine understanding of what he is actually doing.
Human understanding is not an algorithmic activity. Human behaviour is in its essence not rational. It is Darwinian (look what is happening all over the world).

A big part of this book is also based on the wave function in quantum mechanics.
The decoherence theory explains clearly that continuity (waves) does not exist in the universe. The waves collapsed : 'The constant bombardment of objects by constituents of their environment reduces the probabilities inherent to quantum mechanics to coin tosses and roulette wheels' (Brian Greene). Everything in the universe is discrete, even time (Lee Smolin). Schroedinger's cat is dead or alive. Not both.

Even if I cannot always agree (or comprehend) with the author, I consider this book as a brilliant achievement. It contains a wealth of information (e.g. Goedel) and is thought-provoking.

N.B. For Platonism, see my comment on 'The Emperor's New Mind'

</review>
<review>

Whatsoe'er word that Penrose has written, THAT word shall I read.  For it is my solemn duty to imbibe the ideas of another person, and come to grips with them.  This I style philosophy.  Thank goodness I have Rog' to "argue" for a "philosophical position."  And of course there will be lots of people arguing against him.  They will all be jostling around like stock-brokers on the floor of the exchange, waving little slips of paper, sweating, grimacing, their  faces a gray screen with hustler faces moving across it.  But lets see, let me furrow my brow and adopt a serious expression when the words "Physicalism" and "Mentalism" are bandied.  Let me puff on my pipe and say "Hmmmm" at irregular intervals.  Let me hear mention of John Searle with a straight face.  For this is the stuff of life.

</review>
<review>

Godel's theorem has been entirely overused!
Lets get one thing straight people: all that theorem says is that in any decently powerful formal system you are forced to decide between either have a complete but inconsistent system, or have an incomplete but consistent system!
It has no relevance to AI, so go find some other argument to bolster your bio-bigotry

</review>
<review>

I have own this book since it first came out, and to this day, I like to pick it up and read various chapters and times of Harry S Truman. With this book, I feel as if I am standing right next to President Truman at whatever stage of his life and feel like I am there, live and in person.

I admit I like David McCullough's style and his detail research. Plus, like me, he is from SW Pennsylvania. But I have read many of Mr McCullough's books and I simply have a hard time putting them down or putting them away. They sit within easy reach of my hands so that I can re-live a part of US history.

And those who do not learn from history as destine to re-live it.....

</review>
<review>

The history of Truman and his birth in the 1880s through WW1  and  WW2 as well as the Cold War and Korea is remarkable. The evolution of a man from small town farmer to President of the United States and the weight of history thrust upon him at the expected death of FDR makes for a great read.I found the difficulties in the post WW2 era to be most interesting such as the strikes and the creation of the Truman doctrine and the Marshall Plan.
The regular correspondance between Truman and his family provide insight into the decision making process as well as personal opinion to the process.
The contrasts between the Roosevelts and the Trumans are also a treat

</review>
<review>

I can't add much to what's already been said in these reviews.  McCullough is a fantastic writer, and Truman is one of the most under-appreciated figures of the 20th century.  He lived during a pivotal time in American history, and presided over some of its greatest moments.  If you read John Adams and liked it, you'll like Truman.  (If you liked Truman, may I recommend John Adams.)  As per his usual style, McCullough takes his time in telling the story (the book is nearly 1000 pages!), and stops to dwell on the characters involved.  He does it so well.  This is the sort of book that even casual readers of history could appreciate

</review>
<review>

As a republican thru and thru I came to this book with a HUGE bias against Trumann, namely that I remembered him being one of Jimmy Carter's hero's!  However I was taking a long drive so I took the book on tape and WOW!  David McCullough certainly demonstraits why he wown the Pulizer Prize by taking a man I was inclined to dislike, who social politics I tottally disagreed with and got me not only interested in the man but liking him.

Harry as an officer in WWI was delightfully insightful.

His rise in machine politics was fascinating proving even to this reader that sometimes good men do rise in machine systems.

Harry's personal commitment to people who had stood by him even when politically costly showed much about his character.

There seems little question that the Truman Commission contributed mightily to the war effort not so much in what it exposed but in the fear it inspired and hence the encouragement it gave to government contractors to do a good and honest job.

The late presidential years were eclipsed by world events, so his inovations and refurbashment of the White House got little play but his contribution in perserving the structure cannot be understated.

Truman was a man, a leader, a president besought with problems and difficulties as well as bad luck and some very poor choices.  His popularity was very low by the time he left office, but history, at least David McCullough's has been kind to him.

A very satisfying read on nearly every leve

</review>
<review>

A truly remarkable, thoroughly enjoyable book! Having read "John Adams" and "1776", I was looking forward to reading Truman with great anticipation. This book exceeded my expectations! While reading this book, it seemed as if it were warmly written by a close, caring family friend. No skipping through long passages here. So interesting and informative is McCullough's style of writing,that I wanted to read each and every word he wrote. I now have a greater appreciation for a much under-appreciated president and all the noteworthy and far reaching events of Truman's era. An added note about the large size of the book - I placed a throw pillow on my lap underneath the book - made it more comfortable to read. Since first reading "John Adams", I've become an enthusiastic fan of David McCullough. I plan to read each and every book he has written!

</review>
<review>

McCullough does an excellent job of writing a historical, yet interesting and personal biography about Truman.  He includes his childhood, WWI experience, failed business venture, Presidency, and retirement years.  What I like is his ability to be very historical and accurate, while remaining quite readable.  I had a hard time putting this one down.

In Truman, you will read about his triumphs and failures.  Truman had a reputation for never forgetting a friend.  He was famous for his honesty.  On the other hand, he had at least one business failure.  The very human side of Truman comes out in this bio.  Good examples are Truman's quarrels with a music critic regarding his daughter's singing performance, and dealing with Douglas McArthur.  Truman had acted as any father would when his daughter was giving a poor review by a music critic.  Truman's difficult relationship with McArthur, including his decision to fire him is also discussed.

McCullough is currently my favorite biographer.  His books seem to be meticulously researched, and his works have a bibliography at the end.  If you, like me, enjoyed McCullough's other works, like Path Between the Seas, and Mornings on Horseback, then you will love this one.

</review>
<review>

I was a little scared when this book first arrived.  It was huge (almost 1,000 pages of text) and I didn't really know much about Truman so I was affraid I wouldn't be interested.  I am happy to say this ended up being an awesome book.  McCullough is my new favorite author.  After reading this book I feel like Harry Truman is an old friend that I've known my whole life.  That is why I love McCullough's work.  Once i finished this book someone asked me if Truman was my favorite president.  I didn't know what to say.  I can't say that I agreed with everything he stood for politically and he messed a few things up while in office but you have to love him for the man that he was and McCullough does a great job of capturing Harry's personality.  Don't just buy this book but all of McCullough's books.  I have since read 'Mornings on Horseback' and 'John Adam' is on order.

</review>
<review>

This is awesome, the book is huge, but just incredible....I loved it...

</review>
<review>

I must say as a fan of history and American politics I have enjoyed all of McCullough's books that I've read to date and "Truman" is easily one of his masterpieces.  However, I think McCullough fails to inform his reader of some important details while portraying the life of Harry S. Truman.  For example, McCullough portrays Truman as a heroic visionary acting courageously to prevent the spread of communism into South Korea but fails to mention that the "democracy" Truman was protecting was a military dictatorship.  Other than that, this book is a great read about a great man and admittedly McCullough's "oversights" are innocuous to the finished product.

Almost immediately when reading this book you get the sense that from an early age Truman was too big for his surroundings growing up at the turn of the cenutry in Jackson County, Missouri - and clearly he was.

Without-a-doubt, Truman was the "American dream" realized.  Only in America could a young man, the son of a political savy farmer with what seemed to be perpetual financial problems, grow up to be one of the greatest statesmen of the 20th century.

McCullough takes the reader through all the life-shaping events of Truman's life without a loss of enthusiasm be it Truman's time spent as a artillery captain on the Western Front in World War I, to his days as a county Judge in western Missori, his associations with the Pendergast political machine, to his subsequent election and rise to prominence as a U.S. Senator, the political maneuvering that put him on the ticket as VP with FDR, to the agony of the decision to drop the atomic bombs, the shaping of post World War II America, Truman's astonishing victory in the 1948 campaign, the Berling airlift, the Korean War, and ultimately Truman's return to private life.

This is a great book and a great read.  Not only is it a remarkable biography, but it is also a great study of an important era in American history and the man who shaped American policy towards communism, for better or worse, that lasted up until the end of the Cold War

</review>
<review>

This book is a great source of information that helps in a pinch. I recommend this book to all who own pets

</review>
<review>

This is a great book to have if you own a cat or dog! I've used it more than I ever thought I would. From destructive behavior to depression to obesity this book covers ALOT of issues pets suffer from and can be helped by their human gaurdians. I volunteer at an animal shelter and I see everyday how quick people give up on their pets. before you make that decision- get this book and give your pet the time,patients,and the second chance they deserve!!

</review>
<review>

I have purchased many books on pet care. I honestly think this is one of the best I have ever had. It is filled with ideas to help your pet in a natural way....its a must have for any dog owner

</review>
<review>

This book is filled with good advice for pet owners. Almost every type of pet health problem is discussed in this book.  Unfortunately, because the book covers both dogs and cats some of the information is brief. This is a good reference book for pet owners. I would recommend this book to people who own both a dog and a cat and need a good overview of pet health. If you have only a dog, or only a cat, you might want to get a health book that is more detailed for your type of animal

</review>
<review>

For an experienced assembly language programmer looking to apply C programming to embedded systems, this book has just the approach that suits my needs. Logically organized and very readable, it keeps layering concept upon concept, subtley bringing in different techniques, while informing not only about the language, syntax and use, but also about how compilers interact with various constructs.I also enjoyed the well thought out example programs and exercises.

</review>
<review>

After having unsuccessfully searched for the perfect C tutorials and also K and R C, I can confidently report that this is by far the best introductory text to the C language.  You can think of it as K and R in a truly tutorial mode.  Very complete coverage of language features and just the right amount of instructional aid without being too terse on the one hand (K and R) and without being to plodding and wordy on the other (Deitel and others).  You should find it as a thorough yet relatively quick read.  Kochan has a very nice writing style which makes the tutorial also very enjoyable and rewarding.  The example programs are short and sweet; very similar to the kinds of programs found in K and R.  There are also lots of appropriately challenging programming exercises at the end of each chapter and half the answers are available on the author's website (www.kochan-wood.com).  Another good feature is that the tutorial is arranged by subject matter so you can use it also as a user-friendly reference in addition to K and R

</review>
<review>

if not the best computer-related book I've read. The author's unassuming and eloquent discourse makes reading the book a very interesting proposition. The manner in which the topics are covered are absolutely great and very intuitive. The books is absolutely well structured and well supported. It was surely a surprise to find a computer-programming book where the author was candid and unambiguous. As a programmer coming from Java I found this book to be quite helpful and straight forward. The chapter on pointers and references does a superb job at getting the reader to understand the concept and to be able to apply it. The appendices are also great with lots of handy information. This is one of the few computer books that I actually dare to recommend buying without any qualms

</review>
<review>

I was still left scratching my head after having read twice and attempting the problems in K and R.  Literally, I was excited as I read Kochan's book.  His presentation is so clear, with the right balance of explanation and examples without being too wordy/vague/simplistic? (SAMS C in 21 Days) or too terse (K and R).

This book is an excellent introduction to C language (covering all the fundamentals and then some) with some consideration on good programming practices.  I'm happy to see they've released a new edition.

After Kochan definitely consider any or all of the following:

C Traps and Pitfalls, Expert C Programming, C Companion, C Puzzle Book, and Memory as a Programming Concept in C/C++.  Cheers!

</review>
<review>

I suggest this book to anyone who wants to, or are thinking of, delving into C - no matter how deep!

What I love about this book is that it's good for a non-motivated person like me as well, because the exercises at the end of each chapter really make me wanting to finish them up (sort of like how teacher used to make us do it in high school.) If you think you already know the material of a chapter, then just skip to the exercises and try to see if you can do those - if you can, then just continue on. If you can't, then simply check over the chapter again to re-test your knowledge

</review>
<review>

As someone who is very familiar with programming logic using VBA but who has never stepped foot near C or C++, i found this book to be a great book. Technical books can quickly turn into fire kindling if there details that are not fully explained, but so far I have not found a single character of code that is not explained in the book. The book also manages to not be a "Bible" on C, it only presents key programming tools and common, practical programs. An awesome book for both beginners and those who are familiar with programming and simply need the C vocabular

</review>
<review>

READ THIS BOOK and learn how it's supposed to be done! As for programming books, I've wasted money on some 'stinkers' over the past 20 years, and I've browsed through many more in bookstores that I quickly realized weren't worth buying. This book, however, is not only the best introduction to C programming, it may be the most well-written programming book ever published. It's a step by step guide with concise examples that are clearly explained. No previous programming knowledge is necessary. I must point out, however, that I'm reviewing the version from 1988 (before 'ANSI' was added to the title... then removed again). I'm sure the current 2004 version is even better. I just ordered Kochans' book  and quot;Programming in Objective C and quot; without reading a word of it and I'm not worried at all that it was a waste of money. Thanks Stephen.



</review>
<review>

I loved how this book addressed pointers - probably the best I've seen. Good logical presentation - recommended for anybody who wants to learn C!

</review>
<review>

Nafisi's memoir, "Reading Lolita in Tehran", takes its readers deep into the life of a woman living under the ever increasing repression of the Iranian regime.  She is an academic whose love of books drives her to use them as lenses through which to view the horrifying events that surround her. Each of the book's four sections takes the works of a different author and uses them to illuminate aspects of the oppressive Islamic regime under which she lives. The book presents a startlingly vivid picture of day to day life in Iran as suffered by a woman who, though very intelligent, is unsure of whether her allegiances lie with her government or with the west. Though Nafisi explains the political events surrounding the Iranian revolution and the Iran-Iraq war, she does so not from the view of the history that's been written, but from the view of a citizen living in the times, providing an essential shift in perspective.

Even though "Reading Lolita in Tehran" is an eye opening look at the life of modern Iranians, Iranian women in particular, it is not without its flaws.  Nafisi's love of literature is used to good storytelling effect throughout the novel, but at times her parallel threads of reality and fiction can devolve into needless academic pontification. Her characters are so numerous that few have enough words on the page to allow them to become more than dimly remembered fragments. Finally, and most damningly, Nafisi writes the last half of her book without the energy and excitement with which she began.  It's as if her story finished at the beginning of the Iraq-Iran war, and the last two sections of the book were merely chronological housekeeping.

Even with these flaws in mind, which could be argued are quite intentional, "Reading Lolita in Tehran" is a remarkably involving memoir and a highly recommended read

</review>
<review>

Although many people might question whether everything in this novel is true or not, it states on the front that it is a memoir, therefore that is how I thought of it while reading.  As far as I am concerned, everything but the names and some situations ("to protect individuals") is the truth, and since I have not been to Tehran, I would not know any different.  I found this book captivating in most every way from the detailed descriptions of the "girls" in the book club to the references to other novels such as The Great Gatsby.  Although I have not read all of the books Nafisi referenced in her memoir, I still understood her story and appreciated her sharing the private (or public) moments with her readers.  I was shocked when I read about some of the laws that women (and men) must obide by in Iran, and this book sparked my interest regarding the stunning ways of the country enough from the very beginning to encourage me to look even further into the culture.  Being a secondary education English major, I would suggest this book to anyone from the age of 13 on, with hopes that he or she would read it, appreciate it, and try to gain some knowledge on a very different culture than our own while recognizing the everyday freedoms we take for granted on a daily basis.

</review>
<review>

If anyone wants to know what living in post-revolution Iran is like for a woman, this is the book.  Great detail is given to how the messages of western literature apply to life in the theocratic totalitarian state. The scariest thing, for me, is how closely the vision of Iran held by muslim extremists conforms to the stated vision of the U.S. held by christian extremists.  This touched me with reality the way The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood touched me with fictional possibility.

I have to say that I felt undereducated where her literary criticisms came in

</review>
<review>

I'm a little hesitant to write a review of this book as a male reader that does not gush with positive statements about it being an affirmation of the hardships women face (same would go if I were reviewing The Fear of Flying or A Room of One's Own, both of which are far superior to this outing, although of different genres), but I'll go ahead and write one anyways. Nafisi's account of her life and those of her female students during the past few troubling decades in Tehran didn't provide all of the insight that many have used to champion this work. Nor has she really provided any insights into the works that she uses nor many links between the relevance of these specific works with her students. I know I may get lambasted for saying so, but the memoir and literary criticism does not mesh together well and at no point do we get some semblance of true cohesion. Instead, we get pockets of reflections that come out slightly forced or too general. The layers of interpretation for a character such as Humbert is simplified to either he's a villian or a misunderstood villian, neither of which deals with many of the nuances Nabakov has included. You would expect more from someone who teaches these works if she wants to actually flesh out some of these ideas and the relevance and impact upon her students. The strongest parts of the text lie with her description of university life and the political complexities that emerge surrounding being a literature teacher educated in the West who comes back to Iran to teach. I think one of my problems was the way which the book is marketed as a celebration of sorts of the way literature is important within any context, yet the novel devolves into a simple description of the life of one brave English professor who stands up to the conservative regime and its attempts to curb access to certain books in the country. On a more stylistic level, I was slightly annoyed that the students she describes in the text, as much as she loves and cares for each of them and does try to differentiate them, actually become a massive blob without much indivuality. I had many problems picturing them and the way that they are different from one another. Her husband is also described more as a shadow than anythign else, even though he does play an important role, although a subtle one in many scenes. I think I expected a lot from this novel that I couldn't get from picking up a newspaper and I didn't get much beyond that.

</review>
<review>

In all honesty, upon first reading the course list for ENGL 474 Issues in Rhetoric, I did not immediately understand why this book was in the course list. But, now that we're halfway through the book, I understand quite well. This book answers some questions that I've had in my own mind regarding why certain books are banned. The book discusses Gatsby, by FS Fitzgerald, as it is a work studied by the author's class in the Tehran U. I read Gatsby twice in highschool and never considered it a controversial work. However, in American society, we are well acquainted with the idea of cheating on spouses, for example, (as it is always all over the news/tabloids at the grocery store - "who's cheating on who", etc.) which is one of the issues that the Islamic students in Nafisi's class found disturbing. But in Iran, however, during the Revolution, everything was controversial - but the concept of adultery to Nafisi's characters is completely heinous. So, culture plays a huge role in why works are banned or are considered controversial.

Nafisi, quoting Thomas Adorno, makes a great point that is paramount to studying controversial works: "The highest form of morality is not to feel at home in one's own home" (94). She further explains Adorno's point by writing that ideas, theories, novels, etc. that make the reader/audience uncomfortable is incredibly significant because it makes us, the audience question what we've always taken for granted. She makes a fantastic point there, and I've kept that idea in mind for the rest of the book

</review>
<review>

"Reading Lolita in Tehran" (RLT) is a Persian variation on "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich."  Both are about surviving cruel, arbitrary tyrants.

There was a brilliant essay on RLT in the July 19, 2004 "Washington Post" entitled "Sorry, Wrong Chador."  At the time, Nafisi's book had not even been translated into Persian, but Iranians still had opinions about it:

"The problem, several Iranians said in interviews, is that Nafisi left Tehran seven years ago. Her highly personal account of 18 years living under the mullahs is as absorbing a history as might be found of this place in that time. But it ends precisely at what most people here call the dawn of a new era in Iran, the 1997 landslide election of Mohammad Khatami as president."

Some may believe it dated, but "Reading Lolita in Tehran," just like Solzhenitsyn's classic, is actually timeless.  Nafisi's mullahs may be history, just as Stalin's labor camps are now history, but somewhere in the world people are still unjustly imprisoned. Somewhere in the world women are still treated as non-citizens.

Iran itself is not yet a paradise for women.  The Iranian Nobel peace prize winner, Shirin Ebadi has recently received death threats for her 'un-Islamic' behavior (she shook hands with the French President)--she is the cofounder of the Tehran-based Center of Human Rights Defenders, which was banned by the Interior Ministry.  Iranian women are still fighting for free access to public places such as universities and coffee shops.  The police periodically campaign against 'un-Islamic' dress.

As far as I know, it is still legal to marry a nine-year-old girl in Iran, a practice Nafisi fiercely condemns--and this brings us back to "Lolita" and why Nabokov's book was so popular with Nafisi's students.

My own impression of "Lolita" was 'silly nymphet with heart-shaped sunglasses seduces helpless adult male'.  Yukk!  I had never actually read it or seen the movie.

Nafisi points out that my synopsis was completely wrong.  It should have read, 'powerful adult male kills young girl's mother and takes complete control of his stepdaughter, even to the point of renaming her (Lolita's real name was 'Dolores'.)   He forces her to conform to his most intimate fantasies, and if he is in some way disappointed, he blames and punishes her.

Humbert Humbert reminds Nafisi's students of various males who had abused them, including the mullahs who were then in power.  One student was sent to prison because a male caught a glimpse of her neck and found it highly erotic.  There are some very sad stories in this book about the abuse of women and the stunting of human relationships, all in the name of religion and power.

But RLT also pays tribute to the vitality and teaching power of Western and Persian literature.  I had never realized how gloriously subversive Jane Austin's novels were until I read Nafisi.  Tyrants should never rest easy on their thrones if their subjects can read Austen, Nabokov, Henry James, or even Mark Twain.   This book really opened my eyes as to why fiction should be read.  It can be even more dangerous to repressive governments than books about making bombs.

</review>
<review>

I loved this book! Finally a woman brave enough to stand up for women's rights and freedoms in Iran. Too bad she couldn't bring her female students with her to America to enjoy the many gifts their teacher gave them through literature. As a American Muslim
woman in America I can feel their suffering--my husband is very religious and many of my freedoms disappeared when I converted to Islam. Every woman should give this book a chance. It is a great read!!

</review>
<review>

Like the hero of "All the Pretty Horses," the first book in Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy, Billy Parham is a teenager who crosses the border into Mexico, where he must struggle for survival at a primitive level.  At first, he makes the crossing to release a wolf he has trapped and cannot bear to kill.  Later, he returns with his brother.  In the course of this novel, Billy undergoes just about every misfortune it is possible to encounter, becoming progressively more wretched until the final pages, an understated vignette with a potent, heartrending effect.

McCarthy is a fine writer and story-teller, particulary in the early section concerning the wolf, but I have to remove a star because of a number of dull episodes in which Billy encounters various old Mexicans, gypsies, and soldiers who inflict their convoluted philosophies upon us.

</review>
<review>

This is an undeniably beautifully written book and wonderful story, but was a little less of a personal favorite than was the first book of this Border Trilogy. McCarthy dropped a bit of the power and simplicity of language of "All The Pretty Horses" and instead became much more wordy and allegorical. I appreciated the straight-ahead story of the first book that also managed to project a lasting emotion at the same time. In The Crossing, the language was as beautiful, but there were often stories and sub-plots that stalled out the otherwise fast and engaging book. These asides seemed to have been added to build depth in the characters, but for me weakened the story

</review>
<review>

Just re-read again.  Great story, brilliantly written.  It's readers will appreciate the wolf over most of their human acquaintances.

</review>
<review>

I feel that CM really excelled in this second book of the trilogy. While I thought that "Pretty Horses" was quite wonderful, "The Crossing" really works its way into one's mind and soul. Character development, scene description, dalogue are superb. One of the best books I have read

</review>
<review>

Billy Parham sets about tracking a she-wolf roaming his father's land, but by the time he traps it, he finds he has gained a respect and understanding of it and can't bring himself to kill it.  Billy muzzles the wolf and pulls it by horseback into Mexico to set it free.  As is the course of things, Fate eventually separates the two, and the wolf ends up in a ring baited by dogs.  Billy delivers a mercy killing in a moving scene -- as the bloodied wolf is held by the collar up against his leg, the crowd looks on.  He trades his rifle for the dead wolf's pelt -- "I don't reckon I know exactly why" -- and heads back to the States, where he finds his home and life have changed forever. . .

Not believing or coming to grips with the news, Billy returns to his home and stands in front of his parent's bed, where he notices rust marks on the up-side of the mattress from the pattern of the bedframe below.  Realizing the mattress has been flipped, he turns it over and his worst fears are proved true.  He and his brother then set off for Mexico again to retrieve their father's stolen horses and perhaps catch the Indians likely to have committed the crime.

Keeping track of the names of all the villages they pass through can be confusing and tedious; the book is best read not trying.  But my deeper complaint is about the extended monologues several of his characters deliver.  The Mexico they travel through is a huge country peopled mostly by peasants, and it's doubtful these people (most of them, it seems, withered and blind) would have such sophisticated ideas about fate and order in the universe that they espouse.  What's more, all these speakers begin to sound the same: just as if Cormac Mccarthy were delivering the lines himself.  Not to mention they're way too long.

This is an unforgiving world.  In the final scene Billy sits on the road, his head down and rain falling on him.  This is what life has left him.  Inevitable and relentless, the world moves without heeding the pleas of men.

</review>
<review>

The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy is an interesting but somewhat confusing look on the early west of America. The story begins with a father and two brothers trying to track and trap a wolf that had crossed over from Mexico. The Wolf is a mother and is supposedly carrying around pups with her. This part was particularly well written, but became confusing when Spanish was being used heavily. In review of this part I believe that there was something deeper in the crossing of the wolf and thought of it as a metaphor to immigration issues. The short-lived story of the capture of the wolf was ended by a cleverly placed trap by one of the sons.
Instead of killing the wolf as some would have expected (though that would have ended the book rather abruptly) the two sons decided to return the wolf to Mexico. After this happening the brothers go on various adventures including running away with a heartthrob, attempting but failing to join the U.S. army and crossing in and out of Mexico a total of 3 times.
This was a well written book but there were many useless characters in it that just seemed to distract you from the actual point. The over use of the Spanish language confused me and would confuse anyone who doesn't speak it. I thought this book lacked motivation and suspense, but because of the author's brilliant mastery of the English language he was able to entangle me enough to finish it all the way through

</review>
<review>

The Crossing is set in New Mexico and Mexico in the late 1930s, during the last days of the Wild West before the onslaught of the motor car ends the frontier once and for all.
The story is centred on two adolescent, monsyllabilic farmer's sons in New Mexico. When a wolf comes up from Mexico the farmer and his two sons decide to set traps and catch the wolf. McCarthy takes us into the mind of the wolf and an interesting, but sadly short, period of the book ends when the older son, alone, catches the wolf. Here he decides, rather than kill it, to return it to Mexico from where it came. When he reaches Mexico he is surprised to find the Mexicans don't see his generosity in quite the same light. After they commandeer the wolf and set it to fighting dogs Billy shoots it, and drifts through Mexico before returning home where he finds his parents murdered by horse thieves. An obvious plot at this stage would be for them to seek revenge but no. Instead they become thieves themselves and we find ourselves heading back to Mexico, with an unclear goal except to find their horses, a big country in which to find half a dozen horses, and our two protagonists becoming less and less likeable by the page. It is a pity that although McCarthy manages to take us into the mind of the wolf he never once reveals what the two boys are thinking, nor why. What motivates Billy and Boyd? For the entire book we never find out.
They meet a girl in an encounter that will be confusing to anyone who does not speak fluent Spanish. They also meet several Mexicans, some with their parent's horses, and they reacquire some of the horses in equally confusing scenes. Later Boyd, the younger brother, runs off with the girl; Billy returns to the USA, tries and fails to join the army (we are now in the 1940s) and so works on various ranches before returning to Mexico, for the third time, to find his brother.
In `The Crossing' there are in fact three `crossings' into Mexico, which is projected as a lawless country full of generally unpleasant people, much like the USA. In fact, through the book there are few endearing, likeable characters that the reader can actually root for; the wolf and one or two horses are the possible exceptions.
Much of the dialogue is in Spanish and difficult to follow. McCarthy may be pleased with himself for speaking Spanish but many readers of English literature do not and with so much dialogue in Spanish, and untranslated, it makes the story difficult to follow.
This is further aggravated by a lack of proper punctuation. Mr McCarthy should remember that punctuation is something that has evolved with the English language and is there to make the language more comprehensible. To eliminate this not only distracts readers from what you are saying, but stops readers from enjoying the writing. Reading a sentence of 80 words without so much as a comma is very hard work. Lawyers often omit punctuation when writing a legal document to protect them legally. At times, `The Crossing' was much like reading a legal document, you need to read each sentence twice to understand exactly what McCarthy is saying.
Yet McCarthy still gives a compelling story described in vivid locations. Behind the faade of Spanish dialogue, unpunctuated English and dull characters there is a powerful storyteller at work here. It is a pity he chooses two charisma free lads having a loosely connected series of mini-adventures to express himself

</review>
<review>

The Border Trilogy continues with THE CROSSING.  In the book's early going, sixteen-year-old Billy Parham visits an eccentric old Mexican man who is rumored to be a brujo.  Billy seeks this man's advise regarding the ways of wolves as Billy has been stymied in his attempts to trap a wolf who has wandered into New Mexico from Mexico.  As Billy is helping the old man rise up from his bed, McCarthy writes "The boy almost put his hat on the bed but he caught himself."  Now what is that supposed to mean, you may ask.  Perhaps some western readers of McCarthy may know the reference here, but for rest of you, here goes.

Hats on a bed are back luck - not only bad luck, but specifically the kind of bad luck that this Mexican man may be particularly susceptible to.  Here is what Texas Bix Bender writes in HATS AND THE COWBOYS WHO WEAR THEM, 1994, Gibbs-Smith:  "Seems the expression comes from way back when people believed in evil spirits - other than the ones you drink.  These evil spirits lived in the hair.  This probably came from static electricity in the air crackling and popping when you came in and took off your hat.  So, the idea was, don't lay your hat where you're gonna lay your head `cause evil spirits are spilling outta the hat.  It doesn't make any sense.  But then, superstitions seldom do."

So there you have it - why Billy caught himself before putting his hat on the bed.


</review>
<review>

Having read All the Pretty Horses, Blood Meridian, and now The Crossing, I feel a little compelled to comment.

I got through 3 of McCarthy's books because the writing technique is very good. The imagery of the desert and of survival is well done and vivid, and makes the flaws in the narrative easier to take, but in retrospect, this book was awful.

The book should have been titled The Crossings, because the protagonist puts himself through the hell of journeying into Mexico three times, each time for a less compelling reason. I almost expected he'd make a fourth trip because he forgot to turn off the stove. Each trip requires an extensive cataloging of the trials and tribulations of the journey, and while McCarthy's writing is good, it's not so good that tedium is avoided in the repeated trips.

The 3 books I mentioned above all share a morbid fascination with Mexico. McCarthy is like one of those moralists who go on and on about the decadence of pop culture, until you start to wonder whether prurience is really the motive for their obsession. For McCarthy, Mexico is the land where the upright, brave and resourceful gringo confronts human weakness and cruelty, slumming among the brown people who either offer him tributes of food, or test his manly mettle with their perfidy. Referring to Mexico as a "negligible republic", and comments about being "nigger-rich" make McCarthy seem like the typically complacent and hypocritical citizen of a country that relies on the misery of others for its comforts and stability. A McCarthy novel would look right at home in the pocket of a Ralph Lauren model.

Another tendency of McCarthy: extended pseudo-philosophical monologues by wizened codgers. The pathetic thing is that the protagonist's response to these windy metaphysics is usually, "Uh huh. Well, gotta move long now."

If you have to read McCarthy, read Blood Meridian, and plan on skimming

</review>
<review>

If you don't mind having your brains twisted by stories-within-stories-within-stories, your brain will change from being a 98lbs weakling to a taller, stronger brain.

I found this book at my local chain bookstore, where it literally fell into my hands (it fell off of a shelf). I count myself lucky. It is a wonderful read - the translator did a great job- full of murder, mystery, sex, and darn near everything else. But, beware of the sisters and don't read before you go to bed. You may wake up with a couple of, shall we say, companions, who won't have a lot to say?

Buy this book. You won't regret it

</review>
<review>

The book is a collection of intertwining, often hilarious, stories of various natures, styles, and character: gothic, romance, a singular mathmatician, erotica, chivalry, adventure, greed, religion from many perspectives. It seems that this novel deserves to be more popular, it fits the modern attention span with its substratum of vignettes, and the larger grand story that encompasses them, a timeless tale. The book is funny and the message profound, but of the bewildering conundrum sort that some great poems often leave one with, as the story intertwines the symbols of various lives into something that was mature and introspective but uplifting and cathartic -- it doesn't rely on words but on situations to do this; so probably losses little in translation as many poems do. If anything it leaves one with stronger sense of brotherhood and love for one's neighbor. Definitely fits with modern multiculturalism, or what it should be anyway, and I guess the author was also a Freemason; a strange bag of humanism. I will never forget some of the images, Potocki had quite an imagination.

There are also a lot of parallels with Parzival (the Grail Story) of the farcical sort. The man who can neither stand, nor sit, nor lie (A symbolic castrated Christian in the Grail); the apostasy of one's religion for the sake of a beautiful girl(s) (in Parzival the Muslim gives up his religion without a second thought); mindful, mocking anchorites (in the Grail he scolds Parzival for blowing his chance); the lone search verse the social search.

How does one end a book like this? I think the question is was it really meant to end

</review>
<review>

This is yet another Chinese puzzle of a book with stories within stories within stories, reminiscent of Charles Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer and just as crazy. A soldier who travels through a haunted land and spends the night romping with two lovely sisters and awakens with a rotting corpse on either side; Rosicrucians and the Wandering Jew and a whole spectrum of memorable characters and ghostly goings on--penned by a genius Polish Count and pioneering aeronaut who commited suicide with a silver bullet to the brain, this book is the mental equivalent of climbing rocks without a safety, or flipping 360's on a trail bike, or snow-boarding down a cliff--you've got to keep the mind sharp and keep balanced on the cusp of the page or you will wipe out badly!  Yeah!  Yeah!  Yeah! Get it, you Extreme Dudes!  Oh Yeah

</review>
<review>

I discovered and read  and quot;Manuscript Found in Saragossa and quot; earlier this year.  And I cannot get it out of my head!  It's everything I ever wanted in a fantasy novel- ghosts, ghouls, occult philosophy, gypsies, romantic landscapes, murder  and amp; mayhem, the Kabbalah and sex.  What more can a bibliophile want?  Treat yourself- get a copy as quickly as possible.  Though I prefer the Christine Donougher translation to Ian MacLean's.  She more successfully captures the surreal whimsy of the narrative that I feel was Potocki's intention

</review>
<review>

A latticework of tales within tales, ranging from Gothic horror, to comedy, to Arabian Night style adventures. The horror element is more pronounced at the beginning of the novel, and the loose ends are tied up rather too rapidly at the end, but the tales themselves are so well written that they carry you along by their own strengths. If you are looking for a simple linear narrative, beware. The novel skips from tale to tale, and characters within tales often tell their own stories, so it can be demanding of the reader's memory. In that sense, the structure is more akin to the time and place shifts used by some modern novelists. The reader's patience is rewarded by a work far superior than Boccaccio, and much better than anything produced by Lawrence Norfolk

</review>
<review>

Dont know much about History does pretty much what it purports to do; fill in certain blanks in US history in a concise, almost too concise, manner. It is quite objective and makes no attempt to re-write history to promote a particular political leaning - until the final chapters. Then it is fairly clear that Dr. Davis leans a bit away from the status quo. This poses no real problem, as most of the Viet Nam generation are quite negative as to how that was handled. Now, the next edition of this book, which will of necessity deal with Irak, will be a very interesting read

</review>
<review>

This was absolutely the funniest parody I have ever read. The eager repetition of "The Supremem Court interpreted the 14th Amendment to give civil rights to Corporations" as the SINGLE WORST argument to ever come forth from that body was one of the funniest lietmotif's in this hysterical parody of US History told from the standpoint of an over-the-top Marxist. Worse than cowboys were BUSINESSMEN!! Eugene Debs and WEB Dubois were the ONLY white americans who were not evil!

All in all, a very funny read, skewering the extreme Left's take on US history

</review>
<review>

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one to notice the anti-White preaching in this book.   Not what I expected at all because this is how History is taught today and this is supposed to be an answer to that.   I was expecting to learn a lot more - most of the things mentioned I already knew.   I graduated from high school in '89 and then got a Bachelor's degree from a state college that wasn't in History.   Perhaps this book would be useful to those who have less education.

</review>
<review>

Davis's treatment repeatedly tells us how boring other histories are until we are bored with the repetition.  Then he gives us the thinnest liberal telling.  White men were all bad, indians were good.  Women were brave.  Conservatives are anti-semites.  Republicans are bad and pro business.  Anti-communism was silly. And all history is filtered through the vietnam protestor's filter. Mr. Davis is boring and totally predictable and has sacrificed accuracy for liberal orthodoxy.  This is offensive when it neglects Margaret Sanger's racism, and communist depredations

</review>
<review>

Kenneth C Davis presents an unvarnished look at the history of America from Columbus to mid-2002. His viewpoint incorporates modern scholarship and sensibilities and avoids the traditional oatmeal that America is always right and good, but not in a particularly accusatory or condemning way. For example, it exposes Jackson, Sherman, and others for their mistreatment of the Indians but doesn't actually condemn them. It explains Washington and Jefferson's ownership of slaves without apologizing for them.

That said, Davis makes some of the traditional mistakes, such as mistaking presidential politics for history, treating peace as just the uneventful time between wars, and focusing on meaningless scandals (his conclusion after a long discourse on Jefferson and Sally Hemmings? "We don't know.") Davis fails to address the rise of high technology any more than the rise of heavy industry. There's not one word about developments that define modern American culture: cinema, rock-and-roll, suburban sprawl, e-mail, and so on.

Still, Davis addresses the major events we all learn about in school but forget the details of and does so in an engaging and meaningful way. A note to audiophiles: I listened to the unabridged version on CD and found the frequent lengthy timelines to be hard to follow, especially since the narrator doesn't reiterate the year for each event

</review>
<review>

I don't know if this is one of the essential historical works, but it is definitely one of the most fun.  Kenneth Davis strives to provide a remarkably comprehensive and centrist survey of American history by addressing a series of questions that structure the work as a whole.  For the most part, he articulates the standard current few of the various figures he treats.

All major periods in American history are treated well and in pretty good detail.  Because I've been a pretty intent student of American history for some time, I'm not sure that I learned all that much, but I did find it to be a great review session.  One of the things that I liked most about the book was the "Must Read" recommendations where Davis indicates books that simply must be read.  I had actually read about half of these, but I've added several titles to my rather cumbersome reading lists.

The one place where Davis lapses a bit, I thought, was dealing with the Clinton years.  Truth be told, in a book like this it is probably a mistake to examine recent history.  We are too much influenced by the mood of the moment.  Most careful writing about the Clinton years has revealed how embattled he was, not how awful he was.  Davis's assessment of Clinton was, in fact, remarkably ill-informed, and he cites as "Must Reads" some very odd titles indeed, while ignoring most of the best books on that decade (i.e., that were written before the latest edition of the book).  The view of Clinton that prevailed circa 1998-2002 is quickly fading from view.  In GREATNESS IN THE WHITE HOUSE, Murray and Blessing convincingly argue that evaluations of presidents over time tend to deemphasize the force of their personality and linger over their actual achievements.  This is why for most scholars Reagan's reputation is steadily fading, despite the almost overwhelming force of his personality at the time.  During the nineties many--and David is guilty of this--obsessed over Clinton's actual or supposed crimes and failed to evaluate Clinton over the actual achievements of his administration.  I do not believe Clinton to be a great president, but neither do I view him as a bad one.  In future editions of his books, I would prefer seeing Davis stop twenty years from the time of the revision.

One other issue:  bias.  In many of the reviews here one seems mention of bias.  Interestingly, most scholars quite rightly ignore issues of bias.  But to the poorly education, bias seems to be an issue of overwhelming gravity.  The truth is that honest scholarship truly is possible, and while everyone has a point of view, having a point of view doesn't mean that you actively engage in twisting facts.  A recent surprising example was Conrad Black's biography of F.D.R.  Though Black is himself quite conservative politically, his biography of Roosevelt is quite balanced and fair.  In other words, he doesn't skew the facts to fit his own political beliefs.  There are books where authors ignore the facts of history (Ann Coulter's TREASON is merely one example--and by "facts" I really do mean events that any minimally rational person will agree on), but the truth is that most books do not.  Daniel Boorstin is a conservative historian, but he doesn't write every book with a conservative axe to grind.  Someone with left-leaning politics isn't necessarily skewing everything to his position.  Not everyone writes with an agenda (say, like Coulter does) and many write merely to narrate history.  I think that is what Kenneth Davis does here.  Myself, I think the temptation to talk about "bias" at the drop of a hat is misguided and should in general be jettisoned.  I'd prefer to focus on whether a historical narrative is accurate or not

</review>
<review>

Short, concise, and to the point chapters. Great wealth of knowledge and trivia

</review>
<review>

Nafisi's memoir, "Reading Lolita in Tehran", takes its readers deep into the life of a woman living under the ever increasing repression of the Iranian regime.  She is an academic whose love of books drives her to use them as lenses through which to view the horrifying events that surround her. Each of the book's four sections takes the works of a different author and uses them to illuminate aspects of the oppressive Islamic regime under which she lives. The book presents a startlingly vivid picture of day to day life in Iran as suffered by a woman who, though very intelligent, is unsure of whether her allegiances lie with her government or with the west. Though Nafisi explains the political events surrounding the Iranian revolution and the Iran-Iraq war, she does so not from the view of the history that's been written, but from the view of a citizen living in the times, providing an essential shift in perspective.

Even though "Reading Lolita in Tehran" is an eye opening look at the life of modern Iranians, Iranian women in particular, it is not without its flaws.  Nafisi's love of literature is used to good storytelling effect throughout the novel, but at times her parallel threads of reality and fiction can devolve into needless academic pontification. Her characters are so numerous that few have enough words on the page to allow them to become more than dimly remembered fragments. Finally, and most damningly, Nafisi writes the last half of her book without the energy and excitement with which she began.  It's as if her story finished at the beginning of the Iraq-Iran war, and the last two sections of the book were merely chronological housekeeping.

Even with these flaws in mind, which could be argued are quite intentional, "Reading Lolita in Tehran" is a remarkably involving memoir and a highly recommended read

</review>
<review>

Although many people might question whether everything in this novel is true or not, it states on the front that it is a memoir, therefore that is how I thought of it while reading.  As far as I am concerned, everything but the names and some situations ("to protect individuals") is the truth, and since I have not been to Tehran, I would not know any different.  I found this book captivating in most every way from the detailed descriptions of the "girls" in the book club to the references to other novels such as The Great Gatsby.  Although I have not read all of the books Nafisi referenced in her memoir, I still understood her story and appreciated her sharing the private (or public) moments with her readers.  I was shocked when I read about some of the laws that women (and men) must obide by in Iran, and this book sparked my interest regarding the stunning ways of the country enough from the very beginning to encourage me to look even further into the culture.  Being a secondary education English major, I would suggest this book to anyone from the age of 13 on, with hopes that he or she would read it, appreciate it, and try to gain some knowledge on a very different culture than our own while recognizing the everyday freedoms we take for granted on a daily basis.

</review>
<review>

If anyone wants to know what living in post-revolution Iran is like for a woman, this is the book.  Great detail is given to how the messages of western literature apply to life in the theocratic totalitarian state. The scariest thing, for me, is how closely the vision of Iran held by muslim extremists conforms to the stated vision of the U.S. held by christian extremists.  This touched me with reality the way The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood touched me with fictional possibility.

I have to say that I felt undereducated where her literary criticisms came in

</review>
<review>

I'm a little hesitant to write a review of this book as a male reader that does not gush with positive statements about it being an affirmation of the hardships women face (same would go if I were reviewing The Fear of Flying or A Room of One's Own, both of which are far superior to this outing, although of different genres), but I'll go ahead and write one anyways. Nafisi's account of her life and those of her female students during the past few troubling decades in Tehran didn't provide all of the insight that many have used to champion this work. Nor has she really provided any insights into the works that she uses nor many links between the relevance of these specific works with her students. I know I may get lambasted for saying so, but the memoir and literary criticism does not mesh together well and at no point do we get some semblance of true cohesion. Instead, we get pockets of reflections that come out slightly forced or too general. The layers of interpretation for a character such as Humbert is simplified to either he's a villian or a misunderstood villian, neither of which deals with many of the nuances Nabakov has included. You would expect more from someone who teaches these works if she wants to actually flesh out some of these ideas and the relevance and impact upon her students. The strongest parts of the text lie with her description of university life and the political complexities that emerge surrounding being a literature teacher educated in the West who comes back to Iran to teach. I think one of my problems was the way which the book is marketed as a celebration of sorts of the way literature is important within any context, yet the novel devolves into a simple description of the life of one brave English professor who stands up to the conservative regime and its attempts to curb access to certain books in the country. On a more stylistic level, I was slightly annoyed that the students she describes in the text, as much as she loves and cares for each of them and does try to differentiate them, actually become a massive blob without much indivuality. I had many problems picturing them and the way that they are different from one another. Her husband is also described more as a shadow than anythign else, even though he does play an important role, although a subtle one in many scenes. I think I expected a lot from this novel that I couldn't get from picking up a newspaper and I didn't get much beyond that.

</review>
<review>

In all honesty, upon first reading the course list for ENGL 474 Issues in Rhetoric, I did not immediately understand why this book was in the course list. But, now that we're halfway through the book, I understand quite well. This book answers some questions that I've had in my own mind regarding why certain books are banned. The book discusses Gatsby, by FS Fitzgerald, as it is a work studied by the author's class in the Tehran U. I read Gatsby twice in highschool and never considered it a controversial work. However, in American society, we are well acquainted with the idea of cheating on spouses, for example, (as it is always all over the news/tabloids at the grocery store - "who's cheating on who", etc.) which is one of the issues that the Islamic students in Nafisi's class found disturbing. But in Iran, however, during the Revolution, everything was controversial - but the concept of adultery to Nafisi's characters is completely heinous. So, culture plays a huge role in why works are banned or are considered controversial.

Nafisi, quoting Thomas Adorno, makes a great point that is paramount to studying controversial works: "The highest form of morality is not to feel at home in one's own home" (94). She further explains Adorno's point by writing that ideas, theories, novels, etc. that make the reader/audience uncomfortable is incredibly significant because it makes us, the audience question what we've always taken for granted. She makes a fantastic point there, and I've kept that idea in mind for the rest of the book

</review>
<review>

"Reading Lolita in Tehran" (RLT) is a Persian variation on "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich."  Both are about surviving cruel, arbitrary tyrants.

There was a brilliant essay on RLT in the July 19, 2004 "Washington Post" entitled "Sorry, Wrong Chador."  At the time, Nafisi's book had not even been translated into Persian, but Iranians still had opinions about it:

"The problem, several Iranians said in interviews, is that Nafisi left Tehran seven years ago. Her highly personal account of 18 years living under the mullahs is as absorbing a history as might be found of this place in that time. But it ends precisely at what most people here call the dawn of a new era in Iran, the 1997 landslide election of Mohammad Khatami as president."

Some may believe it dated, but "Reading Lolita in Tehran," just like Solzhenitsyn's classic, is actually timeless.  Nafisi's mullahs may be history, just as Stalin's labor camps are now history, but somewhere in the world people are still unjustly imprisoned. Somewhere in the world women are still treated as non-citizens.

Iran itself is not yet a paradise for women.  The Iranian Nobel peace prize winner, Shirin Ebadi has recently received death threats for her 'un-Islamic' behavior (she shook hands with the French President)--she is the cofounder of the Tehran-based Center of Human Rights Defenders, which was banned by the Interior Ministry.  Iranian women are still fighting for free access to public places such as universities and coffee shops.  The police periodically campaign against 'un-Islamic' dress.

As far as I know, it is still legal to marry a nine-year-old girl in Iran, a practice Nafisi fiercely condemns--and this brings us back to "Lolita" and why Nabokov's book was so popular with Nafisi's students.

My own impression of "Lolita" was 'silly nymphet with heart-shaped sunglasses seduces helpless adult male'.  Yukk!  I had never actually read it or seen the movie.

Nafisi points out that my synopsis was completely wrong.  It should have read, 'powerful adult male kills young girl's mother and takes complete control of his stepdaughter, even to the point of renaming her (Lolita's real name was 'Dolores'.)   He forces her to conform to his most intimate fantasies, and if he is in some way disappointed, he blames and punishes her.

Humbert Humbert reminds Nafisi's students of various males who had abused them, including the mullahs who were then in power.  One student was sent to prison because a male caught a glimpse of her neck and found it highly erotic.  There are some very sad stories in this book about the abuse of women and the stunting of human relationships, all in the name of religion and power.

But RLT also pays tribute to the vitality and teaching power of Western and Persian literature.  I had never realized how gloriously subversive Jane Austin's novels were until I read Nafisi.  Tyrants should never rest easy on their thrones if their subjects can read Austen, Nabokov, Henry James, or even Mark Twain.   This book really opened my eyes as to why fiction should be read.  It can be even more dangerous to repressive governments than books about making bombs.

</review>
<review>

I loved this book! Finally a woman brave enough to stand up for women's rights and freedoms in Iran. Too bad she couldn't bring her female students with her to America to enjoy the many gifts their teacher gave them through literature. As a American Muslim
woman in America I can feel their suffering--my husband is very religious and many of my freedoms disappeared when I converted to Islam. Every woman should give this book a chance. It is a great read!!

</review>
<review>

Buy this book because you want to be able to use VBA to help you at work. I wrote a program to automatically generate and send reports via email - about 500 of them - and my boss was in awe.

You CAN develop VBA custome applications where the user can't see the underlying MS Office application, i.e., Excel for example. They use your program like any stand-alone application. COOL!!

</review>
<review>

In spite of being an advanced book, difficult concepts are explained clearly and in a very simple way.

You can find a lot of advices on best practices throughout the book as well as very powerful techniques that are really useful while you develop your applications.

For an advanced VBA programmer, this book is a must

</review>
<review>

The depth of Excel development knowledge of the authors can be readily seen a few pages into the Introduction.  If you have been frequent visitors to Excel/VBA programming newsgroups like myself, you will notice immediately that all three authors are well-recognized experts in this domain, and have answered countless tricky questions on the topic of Excel/VBA.  In my opinion, the particularly valuable chapters include:

- Chapter 3 on "Best Practices"
- Chapter 17 on "Optimizing VBA Performance"
- Chapter 19 on "XLLs/C API"
- Chapters 20-21 on VB6
- Chapter 22 on VB.NET/VSTO

This is such a comprehensive book that will transform your Excel development skills to the professional level.  Without reservation, the authors have delivered what the book title promises

</review>
<review>

I've been working with Excel for years...

This is by far the BEST EXCEL DEVELOPMENT BOOK I've ever seen.  It paid for itself many, many times over in the theory, and code tricks I've learned from it.

BEWARE BEGINNERS....if you're unfamiliar with Excel or VBA development, this isn't the book for you...start with Excel 2003 Power Programming by John Walkenbach.

If you're looking to take your spreadsheets to the next level, BUY THIS BOOK...IT RULE

</review>
<review>

This book is a fantastic edition to any programmer's skillset.
These guys prove that Excel is not just a toy programming platform.


</review>
<review>

I have got this book. The comment on cover page says "it is for the serious developer who is creating advanced applications". Well... I say it is a must read for any VBA programmer who wants to write good quality code. Every line that I have read so far has a meaning. The book is written in a simple fluent language and brings out the point very clearly. It will take me to the next level of programming.

I AM SURE ABOUT IT.

A BEAUTIFUL CREATION

</review>
<review>

Working with Excel since ten years and writing add-ins with VBA and also by using the C API, I can claim myself as an experienced user.

In this book the reader may find everything regarding add-in development with VBA, VB6 or C, which cannot be found elsewhere.

This book is REALLY a great source of information for me and I keep it always within easy reach on my desk. If the price for it would be ten times higher, it would be still worth it

</review>
<review>

The typical Excel programming book is often like a VBA cookbook.  Just a succesion of VBA code snippets and at the end the reader has a nice collection of VBA recipes, but doesn't really know how to cook.  This book will show the reader how to cook.

From chapter to chapter the authors incrementally develop an Excel-based application.  As they do this they skillfully introduce and interweave a number of development topics. Some topics are specific to Excel such as user forms, others are general like error handling. Each topic is discussed in isolation as well as it how interacts with the other aspects of the development process.

After just a few chapters I had a much better sense not only of the capabilities of the Excel programming environment but also how you can make it all fit together to achieve a highly functional and maintainable application. Highly recommended.

</review>
<review>

Book for no VBA beginners and about professional applications.
A lot of explanations to help us in high level development

</review>
<review>

And the Band Played On is an act of phenomenal research and writing, and a very frightening book on many levels because of the political wrangling, political bumbling, and political disregard for a medical crisis which cost the lives of so many, the scientific in-fighting which slowed medical break throughs and sacrificed lives, and the insanity of national agencies which were supposed to be saving lives, but which in this case knowingly risked the lives of many either because they didn't want to do the work, didn't want to spend the money, or didn't want to anger certain political groups.  Gay men were deemed to be utterly dispensable by so many.

It's the sign of a good book when it brings out strong emotions.  This book provoked in me anger, rage, confusion, compassion, sadness, and tears.  I wish I could thank all those, like Don Francis, Dr. Michael Gottlieb, Dr. Selma Dritz, Marc Conant, Dr. Dale Lawrence, Paul Volberding, and Dr. Arye Rubenstein, who tried so hard, against such overwhelming odds, to save lives quickly.  I would also chastise President Ronald Reagan and Merve Silverman and give Margaret Heckler and Bob Gallo a piece of my mind -- the skunks!

I am thankful that there are politicians like Orrin Hatch and people behind the scenes like Bill Kraus and Cleve Jones.  Though he was woefully slow in responding I'm grateful for the response of C. Everett Koop and that once having made his stand he never wavered and took it to the media wherever he could.

Randy Shilts did an excellent job of showing the culture in the United States and France and the politics in the medical and scientific communities and the political posture and arena during the 1980s.  He also humanized the crisis by following many of the patients from onset of medical problems to death (Enno Poersch, Gary Walsh, Frances Borchelt, Bill Kraus, and Gaetan Dugas) and by following the doctors and scientists in their fight to discover the properties of this terrible disease and conquer it.  It was enlightening and helpful to have the book structured as a time line.

The amount and variety of research done for this book is astounding, requiring Shilts to conduct hundreds of interviews and read millions of pages of articles and medical material.  In reading this book, my education has been enhanced and my life is more full and forever changed.

It is a great tragedy that AIDS killed Randy Shilts as it had killed so many other innocents, and that as I write this there is still no cure for AIDS.  As far as I can tell, it is again being largely ignored by governments and the medical community.  Where will the next Randy Shilts, Bill Kraus, and Dr. Gottlieb and the other saviors come from--and will they come soon enough?

</review>
<review>

Good stories work on several levels; they are multi-dimensional views of the same event. To honor the 25th anniversary of the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, I reread Randy Shilts's groundbreaking work, which was published a mere six years after the reports of a `gay cancer' first surfaced at the CDC.

It is still an intense and provocative book that reveals the social and political motives that became both pathways and obstacles for finding a cause and a cure for the killer disease. Shilts, who tested positive during the research for his book, but said he didn't ask for the results until his writing was finished, nonetheless brings an emotional bias to his research. His regret (he engaged in many of the risky sexual practices against which he rails) runs like an electric current throughout and gives his story a kind of missionary momentum and zeal.

As a result, "And the Band Played On" survives as a masterpiece of nonfiction storytelling because it is as much about a human disease as it is about the human condition including themes of betrayal and sacrifice, fear and love, exuberance and panic, loss and redemption - contrasts that the play "Angels in America" perfectly captured when it premiered in 1991.

Shilts explored AIDS in America as a disease of both body and spirit - seemingly through the prism of his own tragic circumstances. It's a timeless and priceless view.

</review>
<review>

To me this important expose on the begining of the AIDS crises and Reagan's response is extremely important.  It's now classic and old information.  But it's a valuable history lesson we all must read

</review>
<review>

The sexual revolution is over, wrote an old revolutionist named P.J. O'Rourke, and the microbes won.  This book, by an SF journalist now dead from AIDS, tells how the microbes won the war.
Author Randy Shilts tells the story of all-night all-day playgrounds on America's left coast and of the way those bath houses and bent brothels became incubators for retroviruses.  AIDS wasn't the gay plague, Shilts reports.  It was the 4th or 5th gay plague, nurtured by a radicalized and sexualized subculture that had blown out of Stonewall's closet.  Gay sexual activists took it for granted, writes Shilts, that an indulgent and helpful society would always find a magic bullet for their promiscuously transmitted diseases.  When the magic bullet for a strange plague of the early 1980s didn't magically appear, sexual athletes did what any normal hot-blooded Americans would do:  they blamed Reagan.
Mr. Shilts in his book was judicious about the blame game.  His scorn for bath house behaviors  and  for blood banks is loud  and  clear; cheap-shotting of Reagan is muted.  Reagan, after all, had other wars and a rocky post-Carter economy on his hands.  By the time Mr. Shilts' book became a tv mini-movie, however, Reagan moved to the front and center as its designated villain.  If only he had uttered the name of the sickness that dared not speak its name, thousands and millions and billions of us would have been saved ... after all, we are now told, we all have AIDS.  (Ponder what Reagan might have said if he'd been convinced by Koop or somebody to speak the name of AIDS in 1982 or 1983:  Well, as your mothers probably should have told you ... Reagan, being a realist, understood that AIDS in America was/is overwhelmingly a behavioral disease.)
Read And the Band Played On in tandem with Dragon Within the Gates by Stephen Joseph, former health commissioner of New York City and former Clintonista.  These books, together, are the best war reporting of the recent past.  They show how microbes won the war, and how microbes then won civil rights.

</review>
<review>

You want to read a horror story? This is it. This is the shameful way our government dealt with AIDS in the first six years it appeared in the country- by doing nothing at all.

EVERYONE ignored it. The CDC, the NIH, the National Cancer Institute, it was ignored by everyone but a handful of scientists and doctors, and they were ignored too. Over 2000 gay men (and hemophiliacs, and straight people, and babies) died before the government even acknowleged that yes, something new was going around. Newspapers and media did not report this, because it was too embarrassing talking about how it was a "gay disease." Gay men didn't want to discuss that it "might" be spread through sex, and the ideas of shutting down the bathhouses and losing that little bit of hard-won liberation was unthinkable. Blood banks wouldn't even ACKNOWLEGE the fact that their products were contaminated, even after it was PROVEN that transfusion AIDS was possible and happening.

By the time President Reagan FIRST uttered the word AIDS, over 25,000 Americans were dead from the disease.

This book made me cry. The entire way through it, I wanted to scream, I wanted to throw things, I wanted to hit people until they realized that gay people deserve to live too. A university official that was denying AIDS researchers desperately needed funding had the nerve to actually remark, "Well, at least AIDS is getting rid of a lot of undesirable people." How absolutely disgusting.

This is a dauntingly large book- 621 pages of reading, all of it frustrating, angering, scream-inducing, and yet, still inspiring. They didn't give up. No one threw in the towel until their last breath, or until funding, sufficient funding, was finally granted. Sadly, the author himself died of AIDS in 1994. God bless everyone who worked so hard to make AIDS a household word, which finally happened, oh, about SEVEN STINKING YEARS after it first started killing people in the US. What the heck is wrong with this country? Why did people have their heads in the sand for so long? What's so stinking WRONG with us?

Another book everyone should read, if only to know how our government helped spread AIDS around the world by ignoring it for six damn years. How many people did they kill by doing that? Far, far too many. We were the last civilized nation to institute an AIDS education/prevention program. This book made me dislike the bureaucracy of this country even more, and I didn't think that was possible.

God bless everyone who is working to make life better for people with AIDS

</review>
<review>

Having been born in 1981 I was educated as a teen about the importance of safe sex and the realities of HIV and AIDS. But, this book brought home the true horrors of the history of the pandemic. While lengthy, it is extremely informative and, if read with an open mind, refreashingly unbiased. I found myself taking extra time and care in reading "And The Band Played On" just to let the information sink in.

</review>
<review>

Having seen the film that this book is based on several times, I was curious to read into the whole story... and this book does not pack any punches.
Whilst I did not expect a 'G' rated book, I certianly did not expect some of the in depth writing that is included.  However it is all relevant to the story.
Definately a book for our times

</review>
<review>

The amazing part of this tragedy is that Shilits was a frequent visitor to the baths he condemns in this book even after knowing he was infected and thus infected countless other humans, directly or indirectly.
This book is good only if you view it as an example of someone blaming someone else for your own destructive behavior. While this book has become a major read for those who are into "victimhood" the sad truth is that Shilts is far more guilty than any of those he condemns in this book because he was the one who transmitted the virus, not the owners of the baths he paid money to in order to have his night of fun and ultimate death.
Shilts was sick in more ways than one when he wrote this and deserves condemnation rather than praise. Good night, killer.

</review>
<review>

I was required to read this text for a class.  I would not have normally picked something like this to read for pleasure.  I found that this text is very attention grabbing, and it is extremly informational.  I would recommend this text to others

</review>
<review>

Shilts' great book shows us how much of the AIDS related suffering of the last twenty years could so easily have been avoided. The book opens with the July 4th 1976 bicentennial celebration of American independence and closes with the death of Hollywood star Rock Hudson, whose passing garnered the necessary oxygen of publicity that all the thousands of previous AIDS casualties could not.

In between, the book revolves around the hedonistic community of San Francisco's Castro Street area and brings us an amazing array of villains, victims and plain heroes. The villains include the bathhouse owners, who used America's First Amendment to keep their businesses open even as it was blatantly obvious that they were a major conduit for the spread of the virus; Dr. Bob Gallo of America's National Cancer Institute, who put his own prestige ahead of everything else, normal scientific and academic ethics included; and the Reagan administration, which did as little as politically possible to stem the burgeoning plague that blighted America during those years.

Because the air bridges between Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco helped spread the virus at breakneck speed, Shilts also introduces us to Gaetan Dugas, the Canadian air line steward, who is credited with infecting many of America's earliest victims. Shilts paints him as half victim and half villain.  Dugas, he shows, went from being the pretty boy everybody in Castro Street wanted to bed to being the terminal AIDS case they all eventually feared.

Rock Hudson, Liberace and other closet gays are likewise painted as half villains and half victims. Michael Foucault, the fashionable French philosopher, must rank with the vilest villains; he hid his diagnosis from everyone, even his devoted lover. So much for that pompous philosopher and philanderer!

But even in the blighted world of AIDS, there were many heroes. These include the French scientists who discovered the HIV virus and, Gallo excepted, the American ones, who followed up all the early clues that eventually led to the discovery of the medications that can now tackle the illness. Many of these American heroes, Shilts shows, were penalized rather than praised by their universities for performing their singular services to mankind.

The bathhouse chain owners, who were more interested in profiting from the unbridled orgies that gave them their profits than in stemming AIDS, were not the only amplifiers during the crucial early years. The blood banks, by refusing to screen blood, also contributed to the death of thousands of Americans. The Reagan administration's preoccupation with Central America and the Soviet Union was also a godsend to the virus.

And, as the band played on, AIDS wormed its way through America's marginalized communities of hookers, hemophiliacs, heroin addicts, and Haitians. Gay activists, who tried to sound the alarm bells, were dismissed as sexual Nazis and theocrats by their confreres who wanted to party on in Castro Street's backroom bars and bathhouses, even though, as Shilts constantly reminds us, it meant almost certain death.

Shilts has sent us a powerful message that we ignore at our peril. AIDS means that hedonists can expect to die sooner rather than later. The world's legions of drug shooting hookers will remain major amplifiers for AIDS, hepatitis and related illnesses as long as their addiction continues. So too will other marginalized and uneducated people. So too, of course, will people like Robert Gallo, who put his own narrow agenda ahead of humanity's.

On the positive side, the book shows us that the villains are vastly outnumbered by the heroes, not the least of whom is Randy Shilts, who also finally succumbed to this great human calamity.

</review>
<review>

type smudges / translation bad / in short, a disposable boo

</review>
<review>

Who published these weak translations?  Yup, they are on newsprint and get smudged immediately.  How about using real paper?  B and N needs to stop thinking opportunistically and start thinking about quality

</review>
<review>

The Brothers' Grimm wrote beautiful fairy tales, and they can be enjoyed by all ages.  I think I enjoyed them most when I read them to my own children, but I have read them again since, and enjoyed them again.  I read this collective edition in order to get all of them at one go, so to speak.  The Brothers' Grimm were not writers by profession.  They were scientific philologists, but decided to make up a collection of folktales.  They spent thirteen years gathering the tales from various sources, and then put them down in writing in order to preserve them.  Everyone knows these tales, but to name a few - The Frog Prince, Rumplestiltskin, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty.  These tales have endured and been loved for many years, and Disney has made some very memorable animated movies out of quite a few of them.  Read them for your enjoyment, and to recapture  a little of your lost youth

</review>
<review>

You don't need to trust me--you can look inside the book and get a load of the first translation of the "Frog King" which is unreadable.  Someone just took an old translation and reprinted it on poor quality paper.  This does not do justice to the tales

</review>
<review>

when i received this book, i was amazed by how great it was. the condition was very good. i was so plesed by it. it was so clean, and looked untouched. i am very happy with it. thank you for doing a great job. this is the first time i have ever bought anything on the net. i was kind of scared about it. i know i can buy from you guys and not worry about it. e

</review>
<review>

While I'm sure the stories are great, I can't get past the poor type setting, and cheap paper which is practically newsprint. The words and illustrations bleed through from the next page making reading very difficult. And to make matters worse, the stories are set in a terrible, hard to read font and tight leading. This book is NOT kid-friendly at all. YUCK! Same is true of the Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales by same Author/Publisher

</review>
<review>

The book is a bit rough in places and lacks some of the crisp dialog I have come to expect, but all of that is overshadowed by the good points of the book.  Buy the book, enjoy it and support Sir Francis

</review>
<review>

It's really good to have Dick Francis back in the saddle, or rather at the typewriter.
I do wish he had invented a new character instead of re-hashing sid halley.
unless it was done by a ghost-writer?  it does sound like him.
a satisfying book but not one of his best... too predictable.
like another reviewer, i liked the DNA information tied into the plot.

</review>
<review>

Dick Francis is back!  Rejoice!

Almost as wonderful, Sid Halley is back.  Readers who have followed Sid through his depression at being a crippled ex-jockey to his accomplishments as a shrewd investigator will be delighted by Sid in love.  We have seen Sid with women, but never as a main element of the novel.  This time around, we see Sid happy and settled.   No, no, not with the wonderfully prickly India Cathcart of Come to Grief, but with a blonde Dutch scientist whose name has already evaporated from my mind, for all that I finished the book only days ago.

So, yes, as other reviewers suggest, there is a certain something lacking from the development of the secondary characters in this novel.  Charles,the ex-father-in-law, is still Sid's port in the storm, but here we see him out of his environment, showing up less well in London, unraveling a bit as he is more interested in single malt than is good for him or Sid.   Jenny, Charles' daughter and Sid's ex-wife (lots of ex-s in Sid's life,) does develop as a positive - if not 100% believable - character.  It's hard to accept that any woman THAT bored with her life would/could acknowledge openly her degree of inconsequence.  Dutch-blonde-scientist is brave and smart, worthy of Sid we are told, although we never get a glimpse of her mind working.

But the book is about Sid.  Fair enough.  We get horses as the beloved back-drop and DNA as the subject of interest - although not much news for those devoted to CSI or even Law and Order - and we get Sid being stoic and ethical while risking life and all three limbs.  This is enough.  Those looking for loose ends from earlier books will look in vain.  Not only is India (whose name I HAVE remembered after a gap of years) never mentioned, but neither is the child Rachel, whose health took up so much space in the last Sid Halley book.

These are quibbles.  As with all Dick Francis novels, Under Orders offers a strong plot, a compelling main character, lots of horses in the background, and good people doing their work well and cheerfully.  The writing may be a bit below Francis' usual standard, but it is still A+ for the genre.  Let us all be thankful that Francis has offered us another window on his imaginative world.

Now if he would just revisit Christmas Fielding . . .

</review>
<review>

I was so happy to find a Dick Francis Book after so many years,and written in his usual format.Sid Halley,in his usual form and thesubject matter was great.I am not a good writer,but,believe me, if you are looking for an enjoyable read,pick up Under Orders and start in

</review>
<review>

I began reading "Under Orders" one evening and literally could not put it down.
As usual, in "Under Orders" Francis does an exceptional job of putting forward a likeable but not perfect protagonist with a core of steel. The story is fast paced, and the good guys finally win, which is the way I like my fiction.

I have been reading Dick Francis novels for 20 years, and I can say with certainty that I enjoy his books more than any other fiction author.

</review>
<review>

It has been a long drought.

One constant throughout the 80's and 90's was that Fall would bring a new novel by Dick Francis.  The quality might vary, much like the color of a diamond, but there were a few certainties: the hero would be a unique man of intelligence and accomplishment bound by a strong sense of honor and loyalty who would in some fashion find himself embroiled in a mystery somehow related to horse racing.  He would face danger from what likely would be an unexpected source, and he would prevail.  His first person narrative would be self-effacing and sparkling.  Satisfaction was guaranteed.

The string came to an end in 2000.  There were rumors of the author's ill health. The death of his beloved wife in that year, followed by the absence of new titles, lent credence to the whispers that she rather than he had been the driving force of his remarkable literary outpouring.  The phenomenon had reached its end.

Until now.  No telling for how long, but Dick Francis is back.

With him is his most celebrated hero, Sid Halley, the only of his characters to reoccur in his novels.  This latest effort, so long in coming, is, happily, one of his best.

Halley is a champion steeplechase jockey who suffered a disabling injury and made an alternate career for himself as a trackside detective.  He has assisted the Jockey Club and other public as well as private clients in their inquiries.  At the start of this novel he is given several commissions: to find for a wealthy owner whether there is a sinister explanation for why his runners finish below expectation, and to probe for a legislative study group the legitimacy of on-line gambling involving horse racing.

The straight path through these investigations takes unexpected turns as several of the principal figures turn up dead, and Sid sets out to confirm his instinct that the simple explanation for homicide is a smokescreen for a more nefarious plot.

There is a new woman in his life.  This relationship is explored tenderly as are Sid's relationships with others in his life who have been both drawn to him and held at bay by his imperviousness to danger and his somewhat selfish resolve to win despite great cost to himself and, incidentally, to those who love him.

This is a fine book and captivating reading, truly one of Dick Francis' finest.  Given that the author now is in his mid-eighties, there may never be another.  But I for one will be keeping an eye out next Fall, and I am sure not to be alone

</review>
<review>

I've long been a fan of Dick Francis, since he first began writing in the 60s. His earlier books were my favorites, as I loved the milieu of the steeplechasing world. I loved some of his later works too, but was saddened as the scene moved further and further from the racing world.

And much as I have loved Francis I found some of his later works to be so dreadful as to be almost unbearable. Just *thinking* about 10-Lb. Penalty still makes me shudder.

But because I'm a long-time fan I just had to give this book a try, and was quite pleasant surprised. I loved the return of racing front-and-center. The writing was the crisp, clean, classic Francis writing of old. The style reminded me so much of the earlier novels I loved.

Sid Halley was never a particularly favorite character of mine, and I've often wished Francis had chosen someone else to make multiple appearances. There are various continuity lapses here. Early on Halley refers several times to his "widowed" mother, even though we know from previous books that she was never married due to her fiance's death just days before the wedding, and in fact Halley evens repeats that again later on in this story.

Anfd with each Halley book we seem to lose complete sight of characters who were important in the previous books. I still want to know whatever became of Zanna Martin from the first Halley book - probably one of my favorite characters.

But overall I was unexpectedly delighted with this book.

</review>
<review>


I agree with Jeremy Hope that those who are -- or who aspire to become -- a CFO need to understand that, as Hope explains, "too many CFOs...remain prisoners of dysfiunctional systems and mental models that were developed for a role that is fast becoming obsolete." That is to say, the position of CFO must be reinvented. However, my own opinion is that that will not happen unless and until governing boards and CEOs insist that CFOs be centrally involved as part of the senior-management team running the given business. The same is also true of CIOs and heads of HR. Today, CFOs face a number of extrernal pressures. For example, new success drivers such as strategic planning, resource allocation, and performance measuring systems as well as a new regulatory environment and more demaning shareholders. With regard to internal pressures, they include too much detail and complexity, inadequate forecasting capability, too little understanding of how to reduce costs, and a lack of risk management expertise.

In this volume, Hope addresses with rigor and eloquence a number of key issues that the CFO and her or his finance team must accommodate to transform the finance operation. He suggests that the CFO be viewed in several different roles:

As a "freedom fighter" who liberates both finance and business managers from "huge amounts of detail and the proliferaion of complex systems that increase their workload and deny them time for reflection and analysis"

As "analyst and adviser" who, by breaking free from detail and complexity, "creates time for finance to provide the information that managers need to make effective decisions"

As "architect of adaptive management" who enables managers to be liberated by releasing them from "the chains of the detailed annual planning cycle" by replacing targets and budgets with "effective steering mechanisms, including continuous planning reviews and rolling forecasts, that enable managers to sense and respond more rapidly to unpredictable events and to changing markets and customers"

As "warrior against waste" who with her or his finance team is able to focus on "huge swathes of costs that have remained unchallenged for years"

As "master of measurement" who brings measurement back under control and provides clear guidance about its meaning to managers at every level who, with rare exception, only need six or seven measures

As "regulator of risk" who provides an effective framework for good governance and risk management "by using multiple levers of control that support corporate governance controls, internal controls, strategic controls, and feedback controls"

In the final chapter, Hope focuses on the CFO as "champion of change." He cites a number of exemplary CFOs who have transformed their finance operations, examining how they started, what vision or goals they set for themselves, how they got buy-in from key people, and how they implemented the changes. His case examples include American Express, Tomkins, and the World Bank.

Hope devotes a separate chapter to each of these "roles," explaining how the reinvention of the CFO inolves a multi-dimensional process of increased involvement in management at the highest level. To repeat, this will not happen unless and until the governning board and CEO insist upon and support, then sustain that process.

In this context, I am reminded of what Robert Kaplan and David Norton characterize as "the strategy-focused organization," one which is guided and informed by five core initiatives: translating strategy to operational terms, aligning the organization to the strategy, viewing strategy as everyone's job, making strategy a continual process, and mobilizing change through executive leadership. The first four principles focus on the Balanced Scorecard tool, framework, and supporting resources; the importance of the fifth principle is self-evident. "With a Balanced Scorecard that tells the story of the strategy, " Kaplan and Norton suggest, "we now have a reliable foundation for the design of a management system to create Strategy-Focused Organizations."

Hedre's a key question: When embarked on the reinvention process, how to gain the support of key people? In response, Hope stresses the importance of involving operating people in the change process, avoiding more complexity, showing some "early wins" (i.e. picking "low-hanging fruit"), and being patient while maintaining momentum. He makes a convincing case that financial managers really can "transform their roles and add greater value" but only if they are allowed to do so. Moreover, they must be actively involved in a process, a "journey," shared with others. Only then can everyone on the senior-management team, working effectively together, establish and then strengthen "a more adaptive, lean, and ethical organization."

That is a journey all senior-level executives in a given organization must complete together, with the active involvement and solid support of governing board members. Hope explains not only why that is imperative but also how to do it effectively, to the substantial benefit of all stakeholders.

Well-done

</review>
<review>

Of the original 36 "excellent" companies listed in the '82 book "In Search of Excellence," only two (Wal-Mart and IBM) remained in the '02 Forbes top 100 companies based on similar criteria.  Jeremy Hope believes that CFOs must adapt their activities in such an era of rapid change.

For example, planning what to make/sell 12-18 months in advance doesn't make sense when markets are changing rapidly - managers need to know where they are right now (not eg. 7+ days after month's end) and what the next 6-12 months look like so they can influence them.

New, increased pressures include Sarbanes-Oxley, shareholder initiatives, reducing costs (eg. finance-related from about 3% to 1% of revenues), and handling greater detail and complexity (average large organization has 10 ledger systems, 12 budgeting, and 13 reporting systems - vs. best practice of a single platform).  (One large U.K. company had over 5,000 general ledger accounts, but only 250 had over two entries in a year - the result was a trivial focus on meaningless variances and budget detail.  Hope also points out that companies report an average 132 metrics to senior management every month - 83 financial, 49 operational - over 6 times the number recommended by Kaplan and Norton for a balanced scorecard; meanwhile, none of these usually assess customer value.

"Reinventing the CFO" asserts that senior executives should not use powerful IT systems to drill down to increasing levels of detail, demanding instant answers to irrelevant questions.  Instead, the CFO must lead for less detail and creation of more time for reflection.  Statistical process control evaluation of variations is one suggestion; another is transferring power to lower levels within agreed boundaries but without specific targets.

Example of a Simplified A/P System:  A P.O. is entered into the data base - received goods either match, generated automatic payment, or they're sent back - nothing else.

Hope also believes pursuing market share can drive up costs and bring in unprofitable customers - in a large population 20% are likely to account for 225% of profits, while 80% "lose" 125%.  (A clue - it helps if the customers focus on "value," not costs.)  An important CFO role is identifying those customers that are profitable, and suggesting changes (eg. delivery, transaction costs) for those that are not.

Another key CFO role, per Hope, is ensuring that all activity adds value by focusing on processes and their improvement, rather than functions.  Toyota has no standard cost accounting system - the only measures inside the plant are visual ones, some of which are kept on daily graphs.

Provides good insight regarding how typical CFOs typically spend their time, where it should instead by focused, and how to get there

</review>
<review>

Jeremy Hope's REINVENTING THE CFO: HOW FINANCIAL MANAGERS CAN TRANSFORM THEIR ROLES AND ADD GREATER VALUE  tells how CFOs are moving beyond managing numbers and reports: now companies except them to provide strategic support and leadership to enhance manager performance and bottom line alike - on top of their jobs of budgeting and processing transactions. Jeremy Hope has co-founded the Beyond Budgeting Round Table, a nonprofit collaborative helping organizations improve performance management - and REINVENTING THE CFO tackles the nuts and bolts, outlining seven roles CFOs must embrace to change their company's finance operations. An excellent set of reflections on the changing CFO role and how to achieve the most from it.

</review>
<review>

While taking a rather different direction from Jane Austin, the picture of shifting class options, alignments, and calculations reminds one of Pride and Prejudice.  Shirley Hazzard's writing is lucid and clear, her comparisons illuminating.  Although not as much so as the Great Fire, it is a book of great economy in telling a great story well

</review>
<review>

Shirley Hazzard is Australian by birth, but her extensive life experiences make her a wise world citizen.  After winning the USA National Book Critics' Award in 1980, this book should get more attention than it does. An amazing love triangle forms the plot, but it's the writing that takes my breath away, as well as the post WWII history on three different continents and the vividly drawn characters.  I'll admit I had trouble getting into it at first, but persistence paid off so that by the startling revelations at the end of the book, I was ready to start it again.

</review>
<review>

The only reason I finished "The Transit of Venus" was the hope of any improvement.  This book took away two hours of my life-two hours that I can never earn back by reading true literature.  The story (is there a story?) is dreadful.  The sentence structures, the paragraph performances, the offered descriptions assist in one wondering if Ms. Hazzard is merely attempting to impress the audience with her self-perceived insights.  I will never recommend this book to any audience.  Ms. Hazzard and her publisher should refund my money

</review>
<review>

"The Transit of Venus" is an extraordinary piece of modern literature.  Hazzard has a special talent for combining words on a page.  This talent is truly and uniquely illustrated here.  Her similes and metaphors, her adjectives and adverbs, her incisive psychological look at the characters inner thought processes and pattern are all here beautifully put together.

In this wonderful novel, Hazzard follows the love life, non-love life, adultery and non-adultery to illustrate the depth of human emotion.  Using world traveling characters, the book takes place all over the world, but mostly in England and the United States.  Hazzard is at her finest in some of her descriptive narrative about people's appearances and the physical realities, both beautiful and ugly, in the world about her characters.

With painstaking excellence, the lives of the two girls are illustrated.  There marriages; various deceits and betrayals; various divorces and continuations, the pace and thoughts of the ladies' encounters and interactions are elucidated.  Hazzard makes these two ladies a huge metaphor for love and dislove.  And yet, her focus surely is on love.  The many forms it takes are sketched out by Hazzard like a Renoir.

The book is highly recommended for those looking to read great Modern Literature.  Hazzard starts to reach her peak in this book, and only exceeds it in her most recent novel, "The Great Fire."  Those who wish to understand just a little better the phases of women's changing emotional patterns would be most enlightened by this work.

</review>
<review>

This novel was written with intelligence, insight and focus which demands the same from its reader.  Shirley Hazzard assumes the reader is well read on matters regarding literature, poetry and international politics which is refreshing in fiction.  This is not a light read.  The language is dense, erudite,  often the sentences do not breathe, but the story is engrossing and rewarding - suspenseful, until the last chapters when all is revealed

</review>
<review>

I read this book about 20 years ago, but when I picked it up again, I didn't remember a thing about it except that back then I didn't like it. I liked it this time, but found the writing pretentious. Why should I read entire paragraphs without understanding them when I have read, understood and enjoyed other "difficult" books from Tolstoy to Bellow to Atwood? Maybe the problem is that this is British from an unfamiliar era. Oh, well. I didn't really like any of the characters. Caro was cold, Grace a whimp, Christian self-involved, Ted a martyr, Paul egocentric. The protraits of minor characters such as Caro's fellow office workers were the best part of the book. The plot was nothing much and the end...well, did they live happily ever after or not? I couldn't figure it out.

But it did keep my attention and entertain me for a week. Not all that bad

</review>
<review>

I must confess that I have only finished two of the short stories thus far but from the moment I read the dedication I suspected that I would not be dissapointed and have so far not.  I adored "The Known World" and find myself being at once drawn in and recoiling with Jones's writing:  the subject matter is often heartbreaking yet he writes with such confidence, beauty and clarity that I can't help but hunger for the next page.  I don't know that this book is for everyone (it isn't Tom Clancy or Stephen King if that is what you are looking for), but if you enjoyed "The Known World" or the writings of Toni Morrison, this is the book for you.

</review>
<review>

One of today's most compelling author weaves stories about how lives change due to tragedy.

</review>
<review>

Reviewed by Joanna Pearson for Small Spiral Notebook

Since the 2003 publication of his novel The Known World, Edward P. Jones has picked up the occasional award--a MacArthur here, a Pulitzer there--but had there been any doubt about his place in the pantheon, his new book of short stories, All Aunt Hagar's Children, secures it.  Taken as a whole, Jones's works (including his 2004 short-story collection Lost in the City) do for 20th-century Washington, D.C., what Joyce's Dubliners did for Dublin:  create that city within our literary imaginations.

This is not the Washington of bright-faced interns brandishing fresh degrees.  Jones's city is a place where African-Americans newly arrived from the rural South grapple with their first experience of urban life in the early 1900's and then continue to make lives for themselves into the mid-twentieth century.  Although Jones depicts this time, when certain parts of rural community life still remained intact, with great nostalgia, his characters all struggle within the vast new loneliness of urban life.  In the book's the first story, "In the Blink of God's Eye," two newlyweds move to Washington from Virginia:

[Aubrey] smiled when he said Ruth's name, and he smiled when he told people he was going to live in Washington, D.C.  Ruth had no feeling for Washington.  She had generations of family in Virginia, but she was a married woman and had pledged to cling to her husband.  And God had the baby in the tree and the story of the wolves in the roads waiting for her.

Ruth's fear that wolves roam the D.C. streets seems symptomatic of her new loneliness and vulnerability as a result of her sudden distance from the Virginia family that used to surround her.  The baby is a foundling Ruth insists on bringing home, even though the baby's presence threatens her husband, who fears this impenetrable closeness between the woman he married and a child who is not his own.  As Ruth's love for this orphaned baby grows and her feelings for her husband weaken, it becomes clear that in this new city, family will come to be defined not as the people you're supposed to love but as the people you actually do love--a change that will affect both Aubrey and Ruth's lives permanently.

This story, set as it is in 1901, seems to forecast the new but delicate sort of family life that will evolve as the twentieth century unfolds--the family life of the Washington neighborhood, still steeped in a collective Southernness--that Jones explores in the stories that follow.  This is a Washington of old women whom all the neighborhood children call Grandma, and festive Saturdays on H Street; a place where everyone has an aunt in Alabama and Mississippi, and the devil could swim right across the Anacostia River.  Even this new urban family, however, will not be completely viable.

In the story "A Rich Man," Horace, the seventy-something charmer and flirt of a senior citizens' residence, takes up with a bunch of twenty-something partiers.  Horace thinks that his new life is exactly what he's always wanted, until his new friends end up stealing from under his nose and he finds himself in unexpected trouble.  Sometimes, Jones suggests, you don't really want what you've hoped for.  Or, as in the story "Root Worker," maybe you yourself have perpetuated the trouble of those you seek to help.  In this story a young doctor must accompany her ailing mother when the elderly woman seeks treatment from a traditional healer in rural North Carolina.  For Glynnis, the doctor, this collision is uncomfortable, but the trip ultimately gives her insight into both herself and her family, as well as a belief of sorts in the bad voodoo of her own making.

The sectarianism of Washington lurking in the periphery of these stories is writ in black and white. But the divisions extend further than simple race, and Jones doesn't shy away from exploring the classism that emerges with the African-American neighborhoods.  These families in Washington have new aspirations for advancing in class and acquiring wealth, and some families have the access to higher education to make good.  The story "Bad Neighbors" illustrates this beautifully.  Sharon grows up to marry the groomed, Howard-educated good neighbor boy.  Meanwhile, Derek and his family, the "bad neighbors" with their run-down cars and ragged-looking children, serve as a reminder of the image that the rest of the community is trying to escape.  They are kicked out of their house by their neighbors.  Even so, it is Derek who demonstrates the grace, loyalty, and good timing to help Sharon when she needs it years later.

These stories amount to clean, aching storytelling from a master.  Many reviewers have referred to Jones's God-like perspective, from which he reveals, often within the same sentence, hints about a character's past, present, and future--he'll often throw chronology aside and hint at how the distant future will relate to a particular character, like the narrative voiceover in a history documentary.  Perhaps in lesser hands, this stance would seem overwhelming or even grandiose, but here it only adds to an overall feeling of historical truth and great scope.  There is great sadness, loneliness, and love here.  Perhaps as good an example as any is the book's dedication:

To my sister
Eunice Ann Mary Jones-Washington
and
to the multitudes who came up out of the South
for something better, something different, and, again,

to the memory of my mother,
Jeanette S. M. Jones,
who came as well and found far less
than even the little she dared hope for

That, if for no other reason, is why we will read Edward P. Jones's work: for that heartbreaking hope, both its presence and absence, and how all that's hoped for ultimately breaks the heart.

</review>
<review>

According to Hebrew legend (see chapters 16 and 21 of Genesis, the first book of the Torah), Sarah was the wife of Abram, and Hagar was the servant of Sarah. It was a Middle Eastern custom in those times that a wife could give her slave to her husband and the child thus conceived would be counted as the child of the wife. The child born to Hagar and Abraham was given the name Ishmael.

In Edward P. Jones's new collection of 14 short stories, "all Aunt Hagar's children" refers to the descendants of slaves, or, in the context of the present work, to African Americans, most of whom live in or near Washington, D.C., who try to "put more and more distance between themselves and the legacy of slavery."

Jones, an African American, has impressive credentials as a writer. He won the Pulitzer Prize for The Known World: A Novel (2003) and his earlier book of short stories, Lost in the City (1992) was short-listed for the National Book Award.

In spite of the foul language ("trash talk") used by many of Jones's characters (anything less would be inauthentic), the author writes with graciousness and a "great-souled" felicity. He describes people struggling to make something of their lives, to make the best of the human condition.

Life isn't easy for descendants of slaves living in "the white man's world." Jones's characters are torn between hope and despair, love and lust, faith and unbelief. They battle the demons of drugs and alcohol. Many of them are obsessed with religion or sex, or both. According to Jones, the mumbo-jumbo of religion revolves madly around sexual questions.

Viewed through Jones's spectacles, the deity doesn't fare well in this world of "Aunt Hagar's Children." In the title story we read: "I sat on my bed in the upstairs back room and drank the last of some whiskey a friend had given me, listening to WOOK all the while. On Sundays WOOK was full of religious [expletive deleted], and it always depressed the [expletive deleted] out of me. But I didn't change the station."

Again, from "Tapestry," one of the best stories in the collection: "God, people said, did more mysterious things in Mississippi than he did anywhere else on Earth. . . . Lucas's grandfather, who had been lynched, [was] just the opening act of the entertainment for an Independence Day celebration, just before the white people's picnic and five hours before the fireworks. . . . Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. And God would lick the tip of His forefinger and turn the page."

All is not gloom and doom. Although some of "the good people" turn out to be less moral than they appear, some of "the bad people" (see the short story, "Bad Neighbors") turn out to have more compassion than we first believe.

Throughout these 14 stories, one is impressed with what might be called a ripple effect: how the words and actions of one character can profoundly affect the lives of others--for weal or woe.

The stories are tantalizing, leaving us, like short stories are often wont to do, wanting more--wondering what happens next. But more would be less; to "tell all" would compromise the emotional impact of the tales. All Aunt Hagar's Children will add to Jones's reputation as a consummate artist.

Mr. Jones has taught fiction writing as a range of universities, including Princeton. He lives in Washington, D.C

</review>
<review>

I usually do not read short stories, I just love novels, however, because it was by the author of "The Known World" I had to read this.  Edward P. Jones has written a thoughtful, well crafted, haunting collection of short stories.  "The Root Worker" makes you wonder about the choices that you make in your life, and how they can haunt you.  Riveting

</review>
<review>

There is no one else like Edward Jones writing today.  Imagine someone writing with the elegiac tone and richness of language of Doctorow mixed with deep emotion and you get Mr. Jones.  In these stories, the lives of ordinary citizens of Washington DC come to life in a way that gives testimony to the creative spirit.  In a literary world crowded with the talented and clever but short of heart, Mr. Jones is the real deal, someone who writes with intelligence for readers who love to read serious fiction and care about the human condition.  With his three books of fiction, Mr. Jones has reached the rarified air of the greats of American literature.  If you are passionate about serious writing, you'll read these stories again and again.  They are that good

</review>
<review>

The best writers--or at least the most memorable--are the ones who can break the rules of writing and somehow still tell a great story or convince us of something. Jones often changes points of view, shifts time, and fills his stories with a variety of characters. He seems to lack the ability to write a one-dimensional, uninteresting character. Even the one or two stories in the collection that I didn't particularly like left me wanting to read more. And I felt as I read the stories that each was so well wrought and imagined that Jones could easily turn them each into novels.

Some readers thought that there were too many characters in Jones' novel _The Known World_, which made it a difficult read. But I found little difficulty reading it. In the short story, however, with its limited space, I think that the large number of characters placed in one story give them little breathing room and make the reading a bit challenging. Sometimes Jones falters, but when he gets the story off the ground right, he soars so high that he can be placed among the best short fiction writers today in the English language.

One story, "The Devil Swims Across Anacostia River", despite its provocative title and some amazing passages, I found a little odd and below the quality of the other stories.

Stories such as "Old Boys, Old Girls", "A Rich Man", and "Adam Robinson" are truly short masterpieces. I originally read them in the New Yorker. But however many times I read the stories, they continue to amaze me with their elegance.

Some characters in this book first appeared in _Lost in the City_, Jones' first collection of short stories. Though some stories in _All Aunt Hagar's Children_ approach perfection, _Lost in the City_ was a far more even work, perhaps because of its consistency of style and genre. _All Aunt Hagar's Children_ contains several stories, such as "The Root Worker" and "A Poor Guatemalan Dreams of a Downtown in Peru" (a very Gabriel Garcia Marquez-esque title), that have magical realist elements.

After reading all fourteen stories in this book, I felt a pang of grief, as if I had a finished a good conversation with a friend I knew I would never see again.

Read this book. It's simply amazing.

</review>
<review>

This collection of stories really has depth and insight. Edward P. Jones writes about the black community in Washington D.C. with great compassion and understanding. There is considerable heartbreak here, but it is presented with such sensitivity and authenticity that it is hard to put down. Jones needs to get some more awards with this one. It is beautifully crafted literary work that deals with the real world.

</review>
<review>


Some things are well worth waiting for and Edward P. Jonses's follow-up to his Pulitzer Prize winning debut novel "The Known World" (2003) is most assuredly one of them.   Once again he uses short story formats to illuminate and make memorable his characters, ordinary people, really, but to the reader they are unforgettable.  This author's evocation of  black life in America is incomparable.

The 14 stories that comprise "All Aunt Hagar's Children" are set in   Washington, the city where Jones was raised and now lives.  He opens with "In The Blink of God's Eye," the story of Ruth and Aubrey, a young couple in their late teens and recently married.  Ruth does not always rest well in "godforsaken Washington" while Aubrey "always slept the sleep of a man not long out of boyhood."   One night when Ruth was wakeful she went out in back where she found a baby tied in a bundle hanging from a tree limb.  Thus, she thought Washington was "a city where they hung babies in night trees."

As is his wont Jones treats readers to the earlier lives of his characters, rendering them all the more accessible and sympathetic.   This is especially true in "Resurrecting Methuselah" in which we meet Anita Channing who sits by the bedside of Bethany,  her ill daughter.  She sits in a wooden chair built a century and a half ago by a former slave.  Anita's husband, Percival,  is serving in Okinawa, where he spends much time with a prostitute, Sara Lee.   When Percival discovers he has breast cancer he calls Anita and asks her to come to him.  She reaches Honolulu, a stopover in her flight, where she has an opportunity to look back on her childhood and wonder what the future holds for herself and her child.

"All Aunt Hagar's Children" concludes with "Tapestry," another story of a young couple, Anne and George,  marrying and leaving their rural roots behind.   George is a porter on a train, the train that carries them to Washington.  As the train slows close to its destination Anne whispers, Mama, Papa, "I'm a long way from home."

For this reader that was the gist of all of these marvelous stories, people seeking a better life a long way from home.

Jones is such an incredibly gifted writer, his prose is succinct, true, impeccably crafted.  Reading his work is not only a pleasure but a privilege as well.

- Gail Cooke





</review>
<review>

I thought that this book would be one that would be mediocre when I started it, but good gracious, was I mistaken! It was a wonderful series of tales that I couldn't put down. I rarely read such interesting stories and the ones featured here are gems

</review>
<review>

Shipler has compiled a great deal of first person accounts and analyzed them in such a way that the reader cannot deny the truthfulness and depth of the arguments. A must read for all

</review>
<review>

I found David Shiplers book to be very true and to the point. Being a person of color, I already know how we (people of color) feel about race relations. I found it most helpful to see it through the eyes of a white  male. I have been tempted to buy a box of this book and carry it with me to  give to people. I believe everyone should read this book and debate the  content. Of course, not everyone will agree, but for those who are just  beginning to explore race relations, this is a great introduction and a  most interesting read

</review>
<review>

Three-fourths of the way through this book, I am blown away by what I have read so far. It is NOT an easy book to read, especially for someone like me, who has led a pretty sheltered life. Although I knew about 'slavery'  and  and quot;civil rights' and thought myself to be pretty educated, this book  makes me realize that I have known NOTHING of the real world,the one that  African-Americans, and other oppressed people, live in. I really appreciate  the chance that this book has given me to see the world and live the day  through their eyes. I find myself thinking about it all the time--do blacks  really think of me like THAT? I wonder. Do I ever do THIS unconsiously?  This is the kind of book that makes you ache for company to discuss it; to  debate it; to share. If you belong to a book club, this should be your next  read! I cannot say enough about how it has stirred my emotions, my  imagination, my shame, and my sadness

</review>
<review>

As the white father of black/white  inter-racial children, I needed to better understand some of the reasons and motivations driving racist behavior.  Shipler's book took me through several on-point situations that have arisen in my life and enabled me to understand how   and quot;color-blind and quot; people can continue to discriminate through their actions and deeds. Shipler's ability to observe and report without scathing judgemental attacks enhances the book's credibility.  Our copy of the book now has many dog-eared pages that will be shared with friends, teachers and others.   My decision to purchase the book is an interesting story:  Our third grade daughter, returning from school recess with play-tossed hair, was told by her white teacher, and quot;Gee, your hair looks like Don King's! and quot;.  Even though our little girl had no idea who Don King was, we confronted the teacher  about this inappropriate comment.  The teacher was insulted that we could assume she was biased in any way.  That evening, NPR interviewed Mr. Shipler, and the book was ordered from Amazon.com within the hour.Shipler's book points out that many of us are convinced we are not racist or biased, however, our upbringing and the input we have received living in a racist country leaves many of us with residual habits that are percieved by others as racist ways.  These are very difficult habits or attitudes to change, however, his book should enable many readers to anticipate and prevent behavior that may be interpreted as insulting by those of different colors or cultures

</review>
<review>

H.G. Wells wrote War of the Worlds as a warning to the complacent, world-dominating British citizens of his era to not take the status quo for granted. The arrogance of some British politicians in particular rubbed Wells entirely the wrong way, particularly their sentiment that the British had an 'obligation' to 'civilize' the world (read: colonize) for its own good. Well's book was a rock thrown at that attitude-on-a-pedestal, and although he didn't knock it down, he made his point- and in spectacular fashion. In one way, the Martians *were* the conquering British, with their superior weapons and baffling ways that must have seemed incomprehensible to the natives of Africa and other areas colonized by force.  Wells' dark tale was also a warning that even the British- despite their firm belief in their world destiny- could be squashed like so many bugs by an indifferent cosmos that didn't give one whit about the British (or anyone else's) false boast of superiority. In the end, though, it's a hopeful book- just as the Martians died off because they weren't biologically suited to live in this world, Wells also foretells the end of the British Empire because the British (alien) way was not the native way of life in the colonies, suggesting that the British wouldn't survive there long; the natives would eventually prevail. And they did. On top of all that, it's rousing entertainment that can be read just for its drama and suspense.

And that's why it's still in print a hundred years later.

-Mark Wakely, author of An Audience for Einstei

</review>
<review>

War of the Worlds has come and gone in many different incarnations but I kinda just knew that none of them were really being faithful to HG Wells' original story, especially the mis-judged Spielberg/Cruise flick. So I decided to give the book a shot since it was cheap and this particular printing by The Modern Library looked rather sleek and sexy. I know it's sad, but I like my books to look good.

Wells was actually the first writer to do the 'alien invasion' story and tells it from an everyman's perspective (like in that awful movie Signs, only much, much better). Our unnamed narrator is some sort of writer/journalist who lives in rural England. He is pals with a man named Ogilvy, who works in an observatory and is one of the first people on Earth to notice a series of explosions on Mars and projectiles launched towards our blue planet. When the projectiles (cylinders) arrive, no one is really freaked out but approach them with interest and curiosity.

Our narrator feels the same way but slowly realizes that he should keep his distance. It's interesting to note how people either react with indifference or ignorance in these first few chapters. Before the advent of tabloid media and long, long before those dreadful cell phones were invented, it would be totally believable that major news such as alien landings would spread through the country pretty slowly.

As you know the Martians turn sour and decide to start zapping everyone off the face of the planet with their mysterious heat-rays and tripods. Our narrator reacts with smarter logic than the rest and keeps a cool head while everyone else is a panicking idiot.

I did get a little bit bored in the middle when our nameless narrator tells the story of his unnmamed brother in London (a thin attempt at fleshing out the chaos elsewhere) but it picked up the pace again rather quickly after that. It is a rather short book also and I feel like a total moron at the fact that it took me a month to read it. I did get pretty ill in the middle, which made the boring bit even worse and I put it down for a couple of weeks. I planned to read it in a few days, but I guess fate was against me.

You know the ending already and how the Martians are defeated by germs, which might seem a bit of a cop-out to any young readers but to me, reading it like it was 100 years ago (a world I particularly like, the old english countryside filled with inns, cottages, paperboys, pubs and post offices) , it's rather ingenius. HG Wells must have been a really smart guy to come up with ground-breaking stuff like this.

War of the Worlds IS an undeniable classic and is still far superior to any knock-offs and every-single-one of the movies. Give it a go for sure

</review>
<review>

Beware: The War of the Worlds is nothing like the movie with Tom Cruise; it's better. It's interesting to look back at at life 100 years ago and see how they used the little technology they had to fight off the enemy. This book is entertaining if you can put yourself in the era that it was written. It's not easy to understand, however. There is a lot of old English

</review>
<review>

I consider "The War of the Worlds" to be one of the top five science fiction stories of all time. It has been the model for two excellent movies and the driving force behind one of the greatest unintentional hoaxes of all time. The original story is set in England at around 1900 and that has not been altered in this story.
Evans does an excellent job in altering the language to fit current usage while maintaining the integrity of the original story. The abridgment retains all of the excitement of the story and the presentation is suitable for the target level of reader. The illustrations capture the action; I was particularly struck with the detail of the facial expressions.

</review>
<review>

"The Martians have arrived. Let the war begin." A catchphrase that could easily be employed for Herbert George Wells's most acclaimed science fiction "The War of the Worlds". This is a novel revolving around the highly improbable but simultaneously stunningly imaginative idea that the earth is invaded by organisms residing on Mars. Composed in a first person narrative,"The War of the Worlds" is a gripping saga of the millions of people's agony and loss of ease in the face of a confrontation that would change the world for good.

The story begins directly with the theme. In the last years of the 19th.century,in the most unassuming and delicate of all propositions,England witnesses the most surreal threat:ten bizzare cylinders all containing Martians fall near London. A wave of bitter agony,nameless fear and hopeless apprehension rocks the peole and as the Martians gradually come to terms with the Earth's gravitational strength,the police and the military of surrounding regions stolidly enarm themselves for an imminent war. The greatest of all human fallacies is perhaps the absurd universal acknowledgement that humans are the most accomplished creatures anywhere. This myth is firmly exploited in the book a the narrator---an ardent follower of astronomy and scholar of philosophy---perceives a plethora of harrowing incidents that compel him to shudder to his boots.

The narrator's town of Maybury is completely demolished and so are the nearby towns of Woking,Weybridge,Shepperton and others. The narrator manages to traffic his wife to his cousin's place in Leatherhead in asumed safety but himself gets entangled hopelessly and helplessly in the boughs of life and death. In his maddening and desperate escape from the clutches of the more intelligent and powerful Martians,the narrator pairs up first with an artillerman and then with a curate. The latter is a lost soul whose faith in God and religion has broken in the wake of humanity's greatest ever calamity and the former is confident and visonery whose preferred modes of survival in a Martian dominated Earth is not that improbable,if at all naive. H.G.Wells's artistry lies in speedily building up to a great climax and in a plot so utterly novel and unique and symmetrical,this is a marvellous diusplay of wit,intelligence and clearness of structure.

"The War of the Worlds" on one level may appear to be a mere science fiction with vivid illustration of beings from outer space and the havoc they cause on our planet but the essence of the book transcends much beyond this demarcation. The weahness of mankind in the face of unknown,unheard and unthought catatrophes is firmly delineated in this landmark novel and Wells applies a very,very subtle satire on humans' grotesque complacency on teir own abilities. When the artilleryman admits,"we're down;we're beat" with "absolute conviction",the reader fathoms the author's surrender of "the greatest power in the world" to Fate. On a much higher level,"The War of the Worlds" is a massive comment on man's petty as well as magnanimous follies garbed in a dress of science fiction.

Composed in a sense of retrospection,the book does lose some of its charm from the very beginning that the narrator is alive and kicking. and the confinement of the sequence of events within a relatively small England territory narrows the scope of the novel and also trims down its volume. But even so,"The War of the Worlds" is a brilliant science fictin that leads the rteader on a journey on the back of an unfaithful wave that conpires to lead the world to the ultimate diasaster. H.G.Wells was a great visonery in the late 19th.century and it's no less remarkable achievement that this Englishman's great book is still being studied today and would be read for several decades to come. "The War of the Worlds" is a captivating and telling tale that would dazzle the reader by the shine of the writer's craftmanship.




</review>
<review>

H.G. Wells' WAR OF THE WORLDS is a wonderfully imagined science fiction novel. But it is also a biting commentary on its era and on the evils of British imperialism in the late Victorian era.

Supposedly inspired by the British decimation of the South African Hottentot tribes, WAR OF THE WORLDS concerns intelligent, pitiless, technologically advanced Martians invading Great Britain and laying waste to humanity. Little more than giant bloodsucking brains, the Martians care not a whit for the natural world they have discovered, and they care even less for its denizens, except as a source of sustenance. Earthly culture is likewise eminently disposable. Wells rather intentionally puts one in mind of Jonathan Swift's earlier A MODEST PROPOSAL, which postulated that the young children of Ireland could make a fine food source for the British, and for the same satiric reasons.

The narrator (essentially Wells himself) is a philosophical writer living in the comfortable West End village of Woking. He is intimately connected with the Martian invasion from day one and becomes a chronicler of it's inauspicious beginning, it's destructive high-water mark, and it's ignominious end. Although written in 1896, WAR OF THE WORLDS has a bizarrely twenty-first century feel to it. The pastoral and complacent environs of Woking become a perfect counterpoint to the chaotic fog of war, death, and indiscrimate destruction wreaked by the Martians, a prescient envisioning of The Great War, glimpsed in the middle distance of the future, and World War Two, dimly lying beyond.

Wells imagines his Martians and their almost sapient war machines in exquisite detail, including the Martians' great flying machine. Martian technology literally suffocates humanity (the Black Smoke) and is so advanced that it renders humanity's technology obsolescent ("Bows and arrows against the lightning").

Wells' commentators include his intellectual narrator who becomes a kind of British upper-middle-class Everyman, a rough-hewn artilleryman who envisions a pragmatic future under the Martian heel even while plotting the invaders' overthrow (yet significantly, he lacks the energy to do more than dream), the half-mad and unthinking Curate, who calls blindly upon God even while it is evident his faith has been shattered beyond restoration, and the narrator's brother, who fights manfully against the blind panic that has gripped humanity in its talons. Taken together, these four characters represent all the aspects of man.

The downfall of the Martians, as most people know, is caused by insignificant microbes, "the humblest things on God's green earth" to which the Martians have no resistance. Substitute "natives" for "microbes," and the ending presages the setting of the sun on the British Empire. The meek do inherit the Earth.

WAR OF THE WORLDS moves along at a good clip. The writing is crisp though prolix in the fashion of the ninteenth century. There are a few disconnected sentences missed by the editor's blue pen, essentially nicks in the fine surface of this very fine story. While not as well written as THE TIME MACHINE, WAR OF THE WORLDS grips the imagination more powerfully. This slim book has been the direct inspiration for a number of films and TV shows and several recorded versions, including Orson Welles' famous 1938 Mercury Theatre production, which caused widespread panic in the northeastern United States. Archetypal, WAR OF THE WORLDS has also indirectly influenced virtually every alien invasion movie and show ever created, from ALIEN to ZARDOZ. WAR OF THE WORLDS all but singlehandedly created its genre.

</review>
<review>

I've been reading novels for a long time, I like sci-fi, but sometimes I'm very selective when buying a sci-fi. With War of the Worlds, well, this was different. I've seen the different films, etc. I decided to read the novel. To my surprise it was more interesting than any of the movies or any other thing I've read.

It's interesting how a novel that was written so long ago has so many details regarding things of the future or technology, and it's interesting because, the author didn't put the enemy with weapons like bombs that could destroy an entire galaxy or something like that. It was just a simple laser and a few robots.

It keeps the novel in a small place; he didn't try to cover the whole world with this, just this city and villages, but the most important, LIFE, the survival of the human race and how a man could maintain his sanity or not in such chaos.

Keep in mind that this novel was written a long time ago, don't make like some idiots that tells you or write critics, saying, what's the fun in it, what happened with the armies, the new weapons, etc. It's a very futuristic novel, but don't compare it with the things we have now. Just step back in time (their time) and enjoy.

The movies were good, specially the last one (Tom Cruise), well adapted, great special effects, but, read the novel, put your self in the shoes of those people who suffer that terrible extermination.

</review>
<review>

It isn't embarrassing for me to admit that this wasn't my first Gabriel Allon read by Silva. Probably like a lot of others, I started somewhere in the middle. So, when I read "The Confessor", I had to fill in a few blanks for myself. I left some of my questions unanswered until I got to find out where it all began, and here it is... THE KILL ARTIST! I wondered if Silva would have really made it interesting for those who thought they knew about Gabriel Allon and Ari Shamron. I had some stuff to learn, and what I never knew was some life restored for me!

So you learn some background about Gabriel Allon. You realize he is a world class art restorer. He has his regrets, and he has his reasons, some pretty good. Oh, but he gets the challenge, and Ari Shamron pays him a visit. Hey, Allon's working on a masterful Vecellio, so why the heck would he want to go back into the game for? Maybe for a man named Tariq? Oh yes, that just might prick the ears and enlighten him just a bit. But he's also put with a beautiful agent, and that makes the stakes just a bit higher. Put a man named Yusef in the picture, and boy do you have a deadly kiss of chaos, but the lips just might be worth the kiss! And while you're at it you'll eavesdrop on meetings in Paris, and you just may taste the cold steel of a Beretta. You may even care to crave a Tunisian date with Yasir Arafat, but you'll wonder if you dare take a bite. It all comes together in the end.

This is where we meet the great Prince of Fire! There's a lot of hostility built up in this, emotions pumped for the greatest of revenge. Yet at the same time you find such a human element that you can't put it down, because you know you'll miss something great. I still have some catching up to do with "The English Assassin", and I can't wait! I'm here to tell you that Silva paints quite carefully, bringing with him to the canvas an advanced palette. The brush strokes are ever so careful and delicate, yet the finished work might be a sight for sore eyes. That combined with good wine, and great fury. Daniel Silva isn't a man to be missed with his work. If you do, you're missing the best

</review>
<review>

The Kill Artist is the first book in Daniel Silva's Gabriel Allon series and is a good start to a great series!

The Kill Artist opens in Paris, where the Israeli ambassador to France is murdered by an Arab assassin.  The crime has all the hallmarks of an operation by Tariq al-Hourani.  Tariq's brother was part of the Black September Movement and was assassinated by the Israeli Secret Service (also called The Office).  Once aligned with Yasir Arafat, Tariq broke with Arafat and the PLO when they entered into peace negotiations with Israel.

Ari Shamron, former head of The Office, seeks out the services of Garbriel Allon, an art restorer who has also served The Office as an assassin.  Although reluctant to become involved, Allon has a personal grudge to settle as Tariq is responsible for the car bombing that killed Allon's toddler son and maimed his wife (physically and mentally).  He agrees to again work for The Office, and his job is to find and murder Tariq.  He has the assistance of a beautiful French model and sometimes Israeli operative, Jacqueline Delacroix.  Allon uses Delacroix to infiltrate Tariq's inner circle so that he can discover his whereabouts.  What Allon is not gambling on is that at the same time, Tariq is trying to find and kill Allon.

The Kill Artist is just a bit hokey in spots.  To think that a world famous model could be used as an operative is a stretch.  Allon also makes wrong assumptions that put him and others in danger.  But I'm willing to overlook these flaws because Silva's writing is so good.  Allon muses "As always, he was struck by the similarities between the craft of restoration and the craft of killing.  The methodology was precisely the same: study the target, become like him, do the job, slip away without a trace."

Since I've already read the other Allon books, I'm now looking forward to Silva's latest release which I understand will be out in February 2007.



</review>
<review>

In "The Kill Artist" Daniel Silva introduces readers to Gabriel Allon, a retired Mossad Secret agent.  I admit I have read Gabriel Allon books out of order. This was my third Gabriel Allon book, but "The Kill Artist" is the first in the series.  Silva is worth reading for several reasons. His European and Middle Eastern settings are extremely well researched an accurate. He does not just set his scenes in the most well known and popular areas of Israel, London, or Germany, but in the ethnic suburbs, run-down areas, and other lesser known regions.  This gives the book a real authentic feel.

The author appears to have more than a passing knowledge of Israeli intelligence operations.  My guess is that he has several friends/contacts who "advice" him on tactical details.  The story of the reluctant Jewish fashion model turned operative was interesting enough to be spun off into its own novel.

Gabriel Allon is a deep and very human character, despite being an assassin.  The art restorer/master assassin combination is great.  My only complaint is that I wish we could see a plot line that does not just end up in an epic showdown between two master assassins fighting to the death.  There is more to intelligence operations that just assassinations.  Despite this minor issue, I look forward to working my way through Silva's other Gabriel Allon novels.

</review>
<review>

Having read a few other books by Silva I figured this would be good. No mistake, it was very good. I enjoyed his walking you through all the steps in the tracking of a Terrorist. What has to be done and sometimes hurting your own to accomplish the capture. All in all a very well written book. I recommend it highly

</review>
<review>

I have become a Daniel Silva fan and I enjoyed this book, but it was not one of those books that you feel like you can't put down/stay up all night types. His more recent books are better.

</review>
<review>

This book is chronologically the first in the Gabriel Allon series.

Chronological Order:
1. The Kill Artist
2. The English Assassin
3. The Confessor
4. Death in Venice
5. Prince of Fire
6. The Messenger

In this book, Gabriel, a former assassin for Israel's foreign intelligence service, the Mossad (which translates into English as "The Institution") retired after the murders of his wife and son to lead a quiet life as an art restorer, one who fixes the wounded past. Gabriel's ex-boss, Ari Shamron, an Israeli spymaster a la George Smiley but more treacherous, convinces Gabriel to leave his sheltered hermitage to hunt down Tariq, the assassin who killed Gabriel's family, before he can kill again. In an exquisitely wrought plot of treachery and counter-treachery, Silva explores the Palestinian-Israeli conflict from many, many angles.

I don't read spy fiction as a genre. I don't read anything as a genre. I read great writers, pretty much no matter what they write. I've read a lot of John Le Carre, and one of the few criticisms that I have of his work is that his spies play a gentleman's game. However, Le Carre's spies are deeply human and British.

Silva's spies are not gentlemen, and this is no gentlemen's game. This is hard and dirty intelligence work by one of the hardest and dirtiest intelligence services on the planet. The Mossad is charged with keeping tiny Israel's formidable opponents at bay, and you don't do that by playing fair. Gabriel's Mossad plays entirely unfairly, as it must, as it does in real life. In this book, Jacqueline/Sarah is used as a "honey trap," and Silva lightly explores what it does to a woman to prostitute oneself for a good cause. Silva does exaggerate some of the Mossad's successes, which he does not need to do because the Mossad is very successful without Silva's burnishing.

Silva's plotting is as intricate as a chess game, albeit a game where each of the chess pieces has a deeply felt personality, background, and damaged psyche such that they refuse to move where the gamester wants them to and take on a life of their own. Another thing that I like about Silva's work is that, while Gabriel is the central character and our guide, each of Silva's characters has his/her own agenda and life and is capable of growing, changing direction, and surprising the reader. One feels when reading Silva's books that the book is built to elucidate several characters, not merely one central character.

TK Kenyon
RABID, coming in 2007 from Kunati Book

</review>
<review>

I knew nothing about Daniel Silva when I bought this.  He happened to be one of the featured authors at my local Borders location so I figured I'd give it a try.  Wow was I surprised.  Gabriel Allon is a great character and he's not made into a superman of sorts...he's very human.  I'm glad I stumbled onto this series and plan on reading all of them

</review>
<review>

Latest in the series about Gabriel Alon.
Problem is, now we have to wait for the next one

</review>
<review>

The first book in the Gabriel Allon series is right on the mark.  Daniel Silva maintains a good balance of character background building with fast paced action.

Allon must come out of retirement to take revenge on his wife's killer; a terrorist who knows Allon is coming, and is waiting for him..

</review>
<review>

This is the first book featuring Gabriel Allon, an Israeli agent who poses as an art restorer. The only reason that I gave this book 4 stars is that the next book in the series, The English Assassin, is even better

</review>
<review>

This is the best book I have ever read about the stock market, selecting stocks and indicating the best times to invest and when to stay out of the market

</review>
<review>

Zweig made his reputation as a market timer, and 2/3 of this book presents a detailed market timing model that incorporates both "money indicators" (e.g. prime rate, fed funds rate, consumer debt) and a basic momentum indicator.  The model is relatively simple and the method is clearly explained.  According to Zweig's data, the system produced remarkable results up through the final revision of this book (in 1996).

But, of course, you have to wonder... The book has been revised four times since its initial publication in 1986...and yet not a single revision in the past ten years.  Hmmmm...wonder why?

Unfortunately, the obvious answer is the correct one.  Zweig's "Super Model", which he touts as "The Only Investment Model You Will Ever Need" (yes, that's an actual chapter title), utterly failed after 1996.  Some other reviewers claim to have followed the model successfully since the last edition of the book.  I don't know what numbers they're working with, but I've done the very tedious work to recreate the signals the model would have given since 1996, using only actual data available as of the date it became available, following Zweig's methodology precisely, and applying it to the Value Line Arithmetic Index (a very close substitute for the proprietary benchmark he uses in the book).  From March 1996 (the last data point in the book) through June 28, 2006, the Value Line Index produced a gain of 222.8% (buy  and  hold, excluding dividends).  Following the Zweig "Super Model" long-only generated a gain of 95.5% (not including interest income while in cash), and following the model long/short produced a gain of only 18.4% (yes, that's total, not annualized...).  So much for the "Super Model".

As for Zweig's stock picking method, it's a pretty straightforward approach blending GARP and momentum and is very capably summarized on AAII's excellent web site.  Save yourself the time and money and just go there if you want a starting point for stock screening ideas

</review>
<review>

Don't focus just on technical analysis to trading.  In fact, Zweig claim his not sure if all those double bottoms and other chart patterns really work.  He takes sound fundemental and realistic approach to Investing and Trading.

This books make you learn a lot about how the market really works (big picture).  You can use a lot of his stock selection criteria to do your own investing.

I'm a big fan of AAII's zweig stock screen.  Don't knock it until you try.  According to AAII, zweig method of stock selection has returned over 1600% since 1998.  Second was O'neil's CAN SLIM.  1000%+.


</review>
<review>

I almost hate to tell you how good this book is, for fear that Zweig's Stock Screen will quit working for me if too many people know about it.  I read the book, and in early 2005 I started using Zweig's stock screen (US stock market).  The S and P500 made less than 5% in 2005, but I made 36% in 2005 on my portfolio using Zweig's screen!  Here's how I did it.

First, I got an account at Scottrade, where each trade costs only $7.  Then I joined the American Association of Individual Investors, which sells a computer program called "Stock Investor Pro".  Stock Investor Pro has Zweig's screen (and a bunch of others) already programmed in, and you can download fresh stock data each week.  Each week, somewhere between 10 and 25 stocks pass the screen.  I base my buy/sell decisions on those results.

AAII also independently rates all those stock screens, and the long term perfomance of the Zweig screen topped all the others for cumulative gain from 1998 through 2005.  In any given year, another screen may top Zweig's performance, but his screen is the overall winner by far.  Even during the tech bubble collapse of 2000, Zweig's annual return was positive.  It's annualized rate of return was over 40% over that 8 year period.  That's an ANNUALIZED rate of return, not the cumulative rate of return.  Don't believe those people who tell you that you can't do better than the S and P500 over the long term because the market is "efficient".  I don't know what they're smoking, but it can't be too healthy.

</review>
<review>

This is one of the best books on the stock market.  I cannot imagine anyone doing a top-down analysis of the market without having first read this book.  Zweig, a Wharton graduate and PhD, looks at the monetary, momentum, and sentiment indicators (among others) that affect the DJIA, S and P 500, and the ValueLine(tm) Unweighted Price Index.  I think it is unfortunate that we have not heard from Dr. Zweig in quite some time (I cannot remember the last time I heard him mentioned on TV, and if I'm not mistaken his newsletter is no longer printed) and the book is somewhat dated (revised in 1997).  Still, Zweig's Winning on Wall Street is still a good read.
Zweig also has a later section of the book where he outlines a method for choosing particular stocks.  I do not have an opinion on that part of the book (I'm a CANSLIM investor) but Zweig's analysis of the broad market is all you really need

</review>
<review>

This is by far the best investing book I have read. I just gave Jim Cramer's book, Real Money, a 3 star rating for lack of usable info on top of his 400 pages of egoistical ramble.

First of all, Dr.Zweig has the financial education and extensive research of the market since 1929 behind him. After all he has earned his bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree in Finance. He has the track records that are particularly amazing in BAD markets. As Zweig says, "anybody can be a hero in a bull market".

The entire book is an introduction of his "Super Model", what he calls it. It is a series of monetary and momentum indicators combined into a one powerful model, which is a perfect fit for the "weekend investor".

Do not get me wrong. His extensive research model is simplified in this book to fit the "weekend investor" complexity, but it is not as simple as it may sound. If you are serious about his approach, then you will have to read his book at least 2 times to get the overall concept and then it will require to actually work out the model in current numbers on a separate Excel worksheet.

If you "get" the book, you will understand that developing the so called "Zweig Screen" is just half the battle. Stock picking is very important to Zweig, of course; however, knowing the direction of the market based on his models is the other 50%. It may just mean your being invested 100% in stocks and sleeping soundly or being invested only 25% in stocks and sleeping soundly again, knowing you are not missing anything.

To sum it up in one sentence, Zweig's approach is a combination of economics and finance. I suggest constructing his models and following the final Super Model. Then create a simulated portfolio on any financial site. Follow some Zweig Screen, for example AAII.com's, and measure the performance of your portfolio for a quarter. You will see results. Remember, there are no shortcuts in Zweig's models!

I wish there were more books from Zweig, but in all, this book is really sufficient.

</review>
<review>

As a matter of fact Martin Zweig is one of the few Phds who's "able" to explain even somewhat complicated subjects in plain words. The same thing can't be said about the contemporary authors of various market, finance or economics books published over the last years.

Hands down, this is one of the best and one of the most (again)  simple books ever written on Wall Street. It provided me with new insights on different aspects of trading and economics in general, like the Four percent model indicator, the Monetary model, the Mutual Funds cash/assets ratio, the three crucial conditions for bear markets. There were also other brief and concise ideas which seem to stand the test of time, like "It's ok to monitor the crowd and go against it, but you only want to do so when the crowd is extremely one-sided", "Recognizing the relationship between trends and the industries that might benefit from them can lead to above normal returns", "If you could just eliminate the worst 10% of all stocks and choose even randomly from the rest, you would certainly beat the market". And the most surprising of them all (at least to me): "There seems to be some inborn reasoning in Wall Street that better profits mean higher stock prices, but this simply is not true in aggregate. The best gains made in bull markets tend to come in the first six months of a fresh bull market, when profits are usually declining".

But when it comes to the brass tacks of his methodology, I think the best part of this book is the one about scanning the financial section. His method of picking the winners by simply checking the latest quarterly figures in company sales and earnings in the daily financial section of The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times and the process he goes through afterwards, until deciding in the end which ones to buy is simple, yet very powerful.

I don't know why, but almost every single page of this book reminded me of the legendary Jesse Livermore and his valuable and immortal lessons. After reading M. Zweig's book you'll never invest the same way as before. "Winning on Wall Street" is an intelligent and insightful investing book, yet simple to understand. Rather than trying to razzle-dazzle the reader, this book explains why it is so important to stick to simple concepts and rules such as " buy strength and sell weakness, stay in gear with the tape, the trend is your friend, etc"; rules you have read and heard about a gazillion times before, but which are so easy to violate! As a trader once said: "The market is the train, so be the caboose".

</review>
<review>

Marty is a genius in his simplicity.  The books shows the clarity of his thought process and deep market experience. The book's highly effective techniques would mostly be relevant in a non-deflationary enivronment.  The book's monetary model timing techniques would work in say 90% of the situations but could cause major financial demage in relatively rare defaltionary situations such as 2001/2002 when the monetary model (and the overall super model)gave a buy signal.  My humble advice to any follower of these models would be to increase the 4-percent model weighting to 50% of the overall super model during uncertain times.  That should ensure that one enters/exits only when the tape mandates it (along with the monetary indicators) and thus limitng any major damage when the monetary model fails as it did in 2001/2002.  Perhaps Mr. Zweig should update this book or even better write a completly new book as the markets have evolved a lot since the early 90's.  He owes it to investing humanity and should further share his god-given talent for the common good.

</review>
<review>

Only one other city is so steaped in architecture history than Chicago and this guide does a commendable job of highlighting the most important Chicago buildings, the synopsis on each building is susinct, the only qualm I have is that there are not more pictures, I also wish the authors had ventured more into the suburbs and commented on some of the great houses in Lake Forest and Highland Park, but that omission does not mar the overall enjoyment of this scholarly guide.  If you are interested in architecture at all, I recommend you pick up this book, Chicago is so steaped in architecture history and this is a good guide to the best examples.

</review>
<review>

Having lived 60% of my life outside the USA in various countries, I've often been surprised at how unhappy many Americans appear to be. In the poor countries where I've lived ("third world"), people generally seem happier, friendlier, more willing to share/give and less stressed--even though they have much less (material goods, that is). Those of you who have travelled, that is, actually gotten off the beaten path, the megaresorts, the disneyfied locations, to places like the Phillipines, Colombia, Honduras, Mexico, Guatemala, Peru, etc., have probably noted the difference.
Why are people in the richest society the World has even seen, generally, so unhappy? The book makes a very strong case that the lifelong advertising barrage Americans endure, has gotten too many people to believe that happiness comes from acquiring stuff, always more stuff, better, newer stuff. However, as Americans have gotten materially richer, their happiness indeces have gone down as a result of trying to acquire more stuff and the damage that producing/marketing/moving/disposing of the stuff has inflicted on the environment. Along with longer work hours to pay for all the stuff, our health, time for leisure, time to be creative, and much more, has been lost.
The book offers genuine, practical solutions to many, if not most of the problems our society(ies) faces.
I found the book's tone to be engagingly honest, fresh, not patronizing or preachy. I also disagree with some reviewers' views that the book falls into the category of "liberal". Such a simplistic tag is virtually useless when it comes to trying to intelligently discuss the complicated issues facing humanity.
I'm buying five more copies to send to people like legislators and university presidents

</review>
<review>

The authors of this book are concerned. Americans aren't doing what they should.  Specifically, to paraphrase former president Bill Clinton, they're not spending their money right.  They value things they shouldn't.  They work too much.  They own too much.  They shop at evil big box stores like Wal-Mart.  So, with paternalistic concern in their hearts, they have written this book to warn us that we're in need of a correction.

The enemies they identify read like a laundry list of the Left's archetypal villians: wealthy merchants, credit card companies, and of course Ronald Reagan.  Along the way they disparage virtually every technological and economic innovation that has occured over the last 25 years.

Particularly sickening is the warm, fuzzy picture they paint of the "good old days" when most Americans bought their goods from locally owned stores.  I grew up in a town identical to the one they idolize in this book.  It sucked.  All of the stores were located around the downtown square.  They closed at six o'clock or earlier.  Wednesdays most didn't open at all; Sunday was dead.  Parking was extremely limited.  Lack of selection forced consumers to go from one shop to another, often in blistering summer heat or freezing winter temperatures.  Prices were high and selection limited.

Especially bitter are the memories I have of trying to find part-time work in these businesses while in high school.  Virtually all the owners had their kids filling what few jobs existed.  Being from a lower-income family I desperately needed to work to help my family out.  But I was unable to find anything in the stagnant local economy.

Then one day a Wal-Mart came to town. My mom took me there on a bright Saturday morning.  She was ecstatic.  Here at last was a wide variety of goods she could afford.  She didn't have to hurry to get there before the store closed at dinner time.  As for me I landed a position with the store which allowed me to contribute to the family income as well as save for college.

Writers of books like this one love to talk about how merchandisers like Wal-Mart "steamroll" over Main Street.  Bulls***.  Stores like Wal-Mart don't put guns to anyone's head to gain them as customers.  Rather the local people look at Main Street with its inflated prices, inconvenient hours and parking and limited selection, and then at the new Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Home Depot or whatever, and freely choose how to best spend their money.  In other words they control the way their community works.  And no one seems to mind except for a handful of elitists living in faraway places who are upset that people would rather spend less of their hard-earned money than live the rest of their lives in a Norman Rockwell painting.

But I've saved the worst for last.  After wringing their hands for a couple hundred pages over the current state of prosperity in this country the authors outline their plan for "recovery."  Guess what it consists of?  Bingo!  Higher taxes and more government control.  They even pull that tired old cliche out of their rectums: "we must protect the children."  Not from sexual predators or terrorists, but from the local mall.

My response to this 300 or so pages of hysteria: get real.  This is the 21st century.  Modern technology and business innovation have given Americans marvelous new options for travel, work, leisure and, yes, consumption.  In other words, our society is evolving.  The local coffeehouse now has a Starbucks sign hanging in it.  Main Street is dead, replaced by a row of 24 hour big box stores.  Spending one's life hanging out with good ol' Bob and Joyce from down the block has been swept away by Internet chat rooms and social mobility.  Most of us are happy with this arrangement.  If you aren't then that's fine, but keep your damn noses out of our business.

I give this book two stars rather than one because they bring out a solitary point worth pondering: how corporations like McDonald's deliberately market to kids, even teaching them how to bilk money out of their parents.  Bravo for pointing this out!  But rather than Big Brother tackling this problem, how about parents grow spines, learn to say "no" and tell the companies they won't get another bloody dime until they amend their marketing practices?  That's a solution that goes unmentioned in this preachy, whiny, paternalistic volume.  In the end it's the individual, not the collective, that guides society.  Let's have more celebration of individualism and less of the socialistic nonsense our oh-so-concerned authors seek to impose on us - for our own good of course.

</review>
<review>

Basically an interesting, revealing if not alarming book, with loads of data, some striking graphs, and several silly cartoons. The authors have a "bullet point" approach to the topic, with short chapters (30 chapters in 247 pages) and multiple headings within each chapter. The data themselves are quite compelling, even if the writing style is not.

And there are three non-trivial significant problems in the analysis.

In their fifty-item affluenza self-diagnosis test, they perhaps inadvertently mix in wealth creation and savings priorities and activities with consumption, when they cite concern over one's financial investments (#17) and goals (#43) as signs of consumption. That's just wrong. The book would benefit from more attention to the creation of wealth and its effective use instead of a heavy-handed, almost singular chastisement of consumption. At least the authors acknowledge that time, comfort and happiness are forms of wealth, that wealth is not just all of a person's accumulated, tangible stuff. And they don't write much, as I recall, about spiritual wealth. But saving for financial goals by monitoring one's investments are counter-consumption.

The use a misleading graph (Chapter 20, p. 167), where they use 280 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide as the baseline or horizontal axis, greatly overstates the climb of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from 280 to 380 ppm in the past 200 years. Worse, they use the year 1000 as the vertical axis, cutting off a not insignificant portion of the baseline. This is the same deceptive, biased practice the authors accuse the advertising industry of using. There was no need to exaggerate and there are significant points lost for doing so.

The "answers" devolve into traditional liberal solutions: more maternity leave, more sick days, more vacation, more day care, higher taxes on wealth creation, and universal health care. A carbon tax is not a bad idea, but why stop there? Why not tax all forms of foolish consumption? And why tax people for making money? In fact, American spends almost as much of its GDP on public health as do the countries with "free" public health. In fact, America's obsession with and expenditure on health care is a sign of attention to the things the authors laud: person well being and comfort. And, as introduced above, we need to improve our wealth creation and, contrary to what the authors recommend, the use of "uncommercials" is not much of a solution. Let's not leave the solution to the same medium that accelerated us down this path

</review>
<review>

I was very much looking forward to recieving this title from Amazon.com after reading the first few pages online. And, admittedly, I did like the first few chapters; however, the tone and style of presentation changed very quickly, and became almost smug and self-aggrandizing. The authors seemed far too pleased with themselves, and, by approximately the halfway point I felt as if I were reading some kind of bizzare Conservationist Manifesto. I like to think - as a self-appointed conservationist and vegan - that I try to mind Mother Nature and all living creatures, but after I finished reading this repetitive, pedantic bore, I lost the will to care. Maybe I am being too harsh, but this book seemed to peak in the first chapter; then, it became exasperatingly preachy and redundant. Others liked the book, and that's fine; But I was disappointed

</review>
<review>

OK--I loved the book and agreed with the basic premise that Americans sure need to take a good look at their lifestyles---the whole materialistic overconsumption thing is really disgusting once you recognize it-I have read several books with this similar theme(Kalle Laasen, Naomi Klein,Travels of a t-shirt in a global society, etc) and the more I read the more "stuff" I eliminate from my life- I do not think that all the kids are as bad as some of those out there think- and not everyone is so pathetic and greedy as the book points out--it is just better imagery to paint a portrait of an America that has lost itself in a self-centered materialistic mire- I have 4 kids who do not get everything they want--they do chores--they learn to behave and show respect and they work hard. I know so many parents just like me and there are many very close neighbors in my neighborhood and others in my town. There are block parties, people help eachother out (not only after disasters either) and life goes on--no--we do not live in some imaginary Eutopia--we live 0n the East Coast- we work jobs and save money for our childrens college etc-- I say all this because although I agree with the book that American culture as a whole is going down the tubes,I think there are many people who are living in America that are resisting this cultural downfall--I do wish that this book could be required reading in schools !!! Sometimes it is difficult to get my teenagers to understand my rantings!! It is worth the effort and if each of my kids and all those other great kids out there can recongnize the   games advertisers play and can resist the temptations toward overconsumption that is pushed on them-then they will lead us into a fine future. Lets encourage the "counter-materialistic-culture" and pass the reading along!!

</review>
<review>

I agree wholeheartedly with the excess and the overconsumption that is the main theme of this book. I also agree with the lack of free time and the toll that working longer is having on our mental and physical health. I am sick of the suburban sprawl around me and the rapid rate that every piece of green open space is getting concreted over. Overconsumption is killing us.

This book is a must read for every parent, for it is hard to raise non-materialistic children in this era. It should be required reading in schools and I reccommend this book to every adult I run into. Many were offended that I gave them this book, but I am trying to save their lives!

However, there are a few parts of this book that I do not agree with. First, the idea that somehow Jimmy Carter was a great president for suggesting a slowdown on overconsumption. I think the inflation rate in the late 70s, high interest rates, the Iran hostage crisis and Carter's cozying up to murderous dictators like Castro and Pinochet overshadow his cry for less consumption...sorry!

Also, I find the many quotes from the writings of Karl Marx very disturbing. Communism simply does not work and produces nothing but a society of oppressed people that are equally miserable. We have many examples of this throughout history.

Can we consume less, focus less on materialism, be more connected to our community, work less hours and help the environment without becoming communists? I sure hope so.

Not everyone in this movement is a card-carrying leftist

</review>
<review>

This book is a fantastic collection of the effects and symptoms of greed and materialism.  It fails to address why these elements exist in the first place, it fails to address how the liberal ideology of the Left in America are hypocrites by promoting this rampant materialism, and hypocritically denouncing it.

Another coined the term "leer jet environmentalists" to illustrate the absolutely criminal hypocricy of John Kerry, and most of the so called hollywood "concerned".

I agree with everything this book says.  Except it forgot to address the two root causes - self centered greed, and our own media.

Think about a society that has people who can denounce materialism and rain forest destruction and out of the same mouth advocate killing an unborn child if they pose a personal inconvenience.  It is simply astounding.

Read this book, and contrary to what some blind reviewers here are saying, pay special attention to those supposedly "against" materialism and greed from their mansions, and millions made by promoting the very same attitudes that give rise to this in the first place.

Want to help limit the damage of greed?  Boycott Hollywood and everyone associated with it.  Denounce "special interest" groups, and other "perpetual victims", and everything to do with the political Left and what used to be the Democratic Party.  There is more danger from within than posed from the obvious corporate issues.


</review>
<review>

Every once in awhile, you come across a book that manages to strike a core and stick with you long after you're finished reading it. It really made me stop and think at how wasteful and materialistic my own life and habits have become. I don't entirely blame myself however, for I am simply another victim of this plague, a sickness that has completely taken over America and is far worse than the flu or common cold...

All one needs to do is look around them and see how far this once mighty and proud nation has fallen. There's something about the Christmas season that changes people's entire personalities-and not for the better. Witness the spectacle of those two guys battling it out at Wal-Mart shortly after the holiday shopping season started... Take a look at how lazy and spoiled rotten this generation is, and yet they still complain and want more and MORE. Witness how materialistic our own adult lives have become, as we move into bigger and bigger homes and drive vehicles large enough to hold an elephant! Look at the amount of waste and trash that we're sending to our landfills and dumps every single day. Read about the girl who simply ran out of closet space to store all her clothes. See how this throw-away society has made us rely on shoddy products and cheap goods that are manufactured in China from slave labor. Think about that the next time you fill your cart up at Wal-Mart! I read this book and came away with a profound awakening of the world around me, and how much our lives and behavior are influenced by society, our fellow Americans, and the media. I now see things a little differently, and have come to understand why America is the way it is today. We have made a god out of consumerism, materialism, and credit. The unholy trinity of capitalism. I remember someone once saying that if you took the credit cards away from everyone, then stores would cease to exist. How true that is!

As another poster just mentioned, the holidays have now come and gone, and the onslaught of credit card debt has reached record proportions. I read somewhere awhile ago that most Americans are only two paychecks away from financial disaster. More people file for bankruptcy each year in America than graduate from college! Our kids have been dumbed down to the point that they are completely unable to function when they go off into the "real world" and look for gainful employment... We are swamped with commercials and ads everywhere we turn. From TV and magazines, to subway ads and radio broadcasts, we are repeatedly reminded to BUY BUY BUY and CHARGE CHARGE CHARGE! Bigger, better, faster, fancier. Newer is not always better. We keep pursuing more and more, yet we fail to realize that the majority of what we have already is mostly useless junk that serves no practical purpose except to take up valuable space in our attics or garage!

As I finished the book, I came to the conclusion that we're all pretty much screwed, financially, environmentally and emotionally, UNLESS we can stop this stupidity and reverse this suicidal trend before it's too late. Good luck to everyone as we enter the second half of this decade. We're all going to need it.

</review>
<review>

This book is LOADED with wisdom. The lessons you will learn here can help you to take your life to the next level and then the level beyond that one. Study this book and its Laws, and do not be afraid or too timid to adopt their teachings into your everyday experiences -- they will help you to get ahead, to get what you want, and to reach your goals

</review>
<review>

If you are looking for a feel good book, this is not it. But if you are looking to understand how powerful people think and work, this will give you a glimpse into how they use others. Without moral judgements and prejudice, Robert Greene disects historical and literary examples of how people use other people for good or ill. Whether you are looking to use others or just avoid being used, this is good place to start. The game of power unvarnished in all its ugliness.

I've learned from this book to look at everything from geopolitics and the legislative sausage-making machinery, to the power games within the circles of business and friends, in a whole new way. And now it all makes some sense

</review>
<review>



Greene is a conman, you dopes! You're being set up to buy this watered down Machiavellian compost, using the 50% of his "laws" that don't contradict the other 50%.

He gets you to believe that your selfishness and aspirations to megalomania you possess are justified, desirable, and trustworthy. You're all going to die, sorry. Try to imagine what they'll be saying at your funeral, no matter how rich and powerful you (in your dreams) become by using the self-contradicting nonsense in this book. "Man, what a selfish prick" would certainly be among the most commonly heard expressions of sentiment.

</review>
<review>

My son (34) is currently incarcerated.  He asked for this book so I had it sent to him.  He holds on to it for dear life and swears, had he read this years ago, it would have changed his life for the better and he wouldn't be where he's at.  He raved so much, he insisted I order one for myself.  I did.  In summary, what I derived from the reading was one must be callous in this life and put yourself first.  Otherwise, you'll be no more than a stepping stone for others.  It's a good book but I oftentimes got lost in all its references to those that preceded us by 500-600 years.  Fellow inmates that have the book feel the same as my son.  It's a Bible to them and they refuse to part with it for others to read for fear it will never be returned to them

</review>
<review>

I thought this was an excellent book and it certainly describes how to achieve power but only to a limited extent.  In the final analysis you must ACTUALLY know what you are doing and you must have the support of others.  Every star sets just as it rises and anyone who thinks that they will never suffer reverses or need the support of others lives in the dream world described in this book.  All of these techniques are real and based on my experience and observation they work, but what is missing from this book is any word of caution.  At least Machiavellie gives you some of the downsides, which this book lacks. This is the "law of the west" and just like the old west, there is ALWAYS a faster gun and the person who has practiced these techniques will find himself in real trouble when he meets that faster gun.  With over 30 years in the corporate world I know first hand that ruthless people get ruthless treatment and in the end all you have is your reputation and the support of those who believe in you.  If you use these techniques without regard for others or your reputation in the end it will cost you.  However, these techniques are real and they do work, but I think they should be applied sparingly

</review>
<review>

I found this book to be extremely entertaining, as well it offered little hints on how to operate more effectively in the concrete jungle of modern society.  Some might view this book as some sort of evil manual on how to manipulate or control people, and they are right to a certain extent if that is how you choose to view this book.  On the other hand you can look at it as a book that can help you prepare for the inevitable challenges which you are going to be faced with, that is how I choose to view it.  In my opinion this book is like chemistry.  Knowledge of chemistry can be used to make bombs and other horrible things or it can be used to help create many wonderful things which are too numerous to list here.  In the end it really depends what you do with this knowledge.  To sum it up I enjoyed this book and thought it was worth my time to purchase and read

</review>
<review>

This book is a no holds barred open discussion of raw power, entertainingly presented.  It took me a little while to get over the almost completely amoral tone of the book, but I eventually got the sense that the amoral tone is there for a purpose: to clue you in to the fact that people who practice power at this level can often be completely amoral themselves.  In that sense, the book truly gives the reader a sense of the mindset of those who will do anything to stay in power.   There is a sense as one reviewer pointed out, that the book could have been written without this amoral tone, but then one would miss out on the opportunity of being immersed in its sense of amorality, which is an education in itself.  Experiencing the amorality is a wakeup call that offers insight into how some of the world's ills have come to pass, though you may find yourself wanting to shower afterward.  After reading it, you will definitely be more aware of the laws being played out on the world stage, and you will begin to recognize people in government who seem to be using it as a playbook.  Some laws are even applicable in personal relationships...a scary thought.

By reading this, you will get an overview of the major philosophical writings on power, who as sources likely include at the very least Machiavelli, Han Fei Tzu, and Sun Tzu, though the authors do not identify the sources of the material for each law.   This is one thing I wish they had done.  That would have made it more useful to those wishing to put these laws and their development into some kind of historical framework.  The authors have done a nice job however of blending together into one seamless volume the writings of these philosophers, whose works are also written in this amoral tone.

One of the most intriguing and worthwhile aspects of the book, are the many historical vignettes that the authors paint of how each law of power has been implemented, along with how failure to follow the law can be one's undoing.  It is like two books in one in that sense.  Not only do you get an understanding of raw power, but you get a very entertaining history lesson as well.  The authors are also very careful to point out exceptions to the laws, and how they may backfire, making it read like a very thorough treatment of the subject for general readership.

One particularly interesting vignette has vivid application for our current situation in the war on terror, wherein we find ourselves exposed by going it alone without a substantial alliance while the rest of the world looks on.   The vignette concerns a law which states that in seeking to increase power, let your rival do your fighting for you.  The authors discuss how Mao Tse Tung suggested he and his rival Chiang Kai Shek set aside their differences and form an alliance in order to defeat the Japanese in World War II.  Chiang Kai Shek agreed.  Mao then suggested Chiang send his army in first, promising that he would follow Chiang into action by sending his army in as replacements.  Once Chiang Kai Shek's army was committed, Mao held his army in abeyance and let Chiang Kai Shek take a beating.  Then when Chiang's army was weakened, Mao's army was able to defeat him and exile him to Taiwan.

The warning for our own national campaign in the war on terror is that hopefully we will not allow ourselves to dissipate our national resources and become foolishly weakened by going it alone at the same time as other rival countries are growing stronger at our expense.   The grandiosity of thinking we can go it alone makes us vulnerable to even more severe threats by potentially predatory nations who pretend to be sympathetic now, but who secretly revel in watching us deplete our national will, our troops and our treasury.

"The 48 Laws of Power" is a fascinating read, though except for a few of the laws, I can't imagine how it could actually help the average person's career unless you were a political operative or someone who had already accumulated a lot of political power and were predisposed to bend towards the amoral.   But to build background knowledge and be able to recognize shadowy abuses of power while learning a little interesting history, I heartily recommend it

</review>
<review>

I'm writing to refute a long, angry review I just read of this book. The reviewer points out the evil of following these laws, and is angry that the book advocates them. The book does not advocate these laws, it teaches them. It's a history lesson. It's not Greene's fault that these laws have been effectively put into effect for centuries by powerful people. The book is an analysis of human behavior and social relations, not a book on ethics. If it makes you angry, then it means you are literal-minded, anti-history, live in a dream world, and are completely wrapped up in yourself.  This book teaches you to be attentive to the social atmosphere that you  live in. If you can't do that, then you are anti-social, anti-powerful, anti-seductive, anti-intellectual, and a big  BOZO

</review>
<review>

This extraordinary book by Frank Rivers deserves more stars than would fit  on this page.  Frank Rivers deals with ideas formerly reserved for mysticm  and the most esoteric disciplines in a charmingly down to earth manner.  He  gets a lot of mileage out of the Owl analogy, and it works.  The reader,  male or female, can easily identify with both the fledgling and the wise  old owl of Frank River's examples. This fascinating treatise on conflict,  paradox and martial principle has so much more substance and clarity than  one would expect from such a relatively unknown work.  I especially  recommend it to readers who don't normally enjoy warm and fuzzies, or  self-help conflict-resolution type books.  I also recommend it to those  struggling with the inconsistencies and injustices of life. Again and again  Frank Rivers makes the principles of life, of reality and conflict, as  concrete and usable as an idea or words on paper can get. I plan to read  this book several times in the next few years. I put Frank Rivers  and quot;The  Way of The Owl and quot; right up there with James Carse's  and quot;Finite and  Infinite Games and quot; and consider it much more accessible to the person  with an average interest in this type of subject. Although I found the book  deeply spiritual in nature, I also found it well in line with fundamental  beliefs.  A Baptist minister and a Buddhist monk would both enjoy the  insights Frank Rivers presents to the reader. A great book for carrying  around and reading at those odd moments

</review>
<review>

Once I opened my first book by Tan (The Opposite of Fate), I could not stop reading. Joy Luck club is a fascinating work: it is full of humor and deep philosophic thoughts that reach in the middle of your heart, it is a great source of information about Chinese culture, Chinese immigration and what it is like to be born on the edge created by two cultures. It makes you realize that the phenomenon of motherhood and "daughterhood" is international and yet every single couple of mother-and-daughter in the world is very special and different. The book offers so much to the reader that it is hard to put a finger on what makes it rich: its easy-flowing and humorous style, its incredible depth, or the content that is full of adventures that are almost mistical

</review>
<review>

I loved this Amy Tan book, it's an easy read and will have you drawn in right away to the story.  This series written by Amy Tan is easily digestable and enjoyable to read, sometimes it's hard for me to engage a book but the books written by Amy Tan are so colorful and descriptive, it just draws me in and I can't stop reading.  This series is probably the best of it's series, diasecting the mother daughter relationship on such a delicate and complicated subject, a Chinese mother and an American born daughter who unknowingly lets the opportunity escape her to truly understand the intents and passions of her mother.  Bridged by communication gaps and difference in language styles and a mother who might be troubled with dimentia, this mother-daughter journey is plagued with mishaps and turmoil.  When June, the daughter, accepts new reason for her mother's off key personality, June offers too little too late and soon she has too many loose strings of her mother's past that she earlier dismissed as nonsense or retoric, to tie together to make sense.  June traces the pieces back to gain what her mother generously offered her in knowledge, but what becomes clear is the spirit of her mother lives inside of her as she comes to grips with who she is as a person and what her purpose in life is. I loved this book and have read almost the entire Amy Tan series. This book is the HINGE of all Amy Tan books, read this and you'll understand the others with new clarity!  LOVED IT!  WILL READ IT AGAIN!

</review>
<review>

My mother was brought up very traditionally by my grandfather (who was from China), whereas I had a Western education and am currently living in the UK.  This book speaks to me - almost every clash of culture written in the book between mother and daughter happened with me; the language barriers, the difference in thinking.  I cried throughout the book and the movie because Amy Tan had managed to put all of it down so accurately

</review>
<review>

Amy Tan creates a small short plot that takes up about 10-20 pages.  The rest of the book is getting the reader very intimate with the characters and the situation of adapting to American life.

The characters of this book are real.  The situations are also real.  Anyone close to an Asian-American can attest to these types of stories.  Tan does a great job of showing how the children grow up American and are unable/unwilling to relate to their parents.  Teenage rebellion takes on new meaning when you are also rebelling against your parents culture.    Tan does not paint china with elaborate imagery, but paints it in the readers mind with characters and actions that are foreign to western minds.  The story is told in a non-linear method that adds to this foreign feel.

I would recommend this book to everyone.  There is very little suggestive or violent content.  Amy Tan deserves the praise that she has received for this book

</review>
<review>

If you are a man, you will not like this collection of feminist essays.  This book is worse than bad.  It is an abomination

</review>
<review>

I hardly ever cry when I read a book, but I did a couple of times when I read this one, just from the tender feelings and differences between mothers and daughters.  Not only did these families have the usual difficulties due to age disparity between young and old, but there was also the cultural differences between war-time China and the modern USA.  Sometimes it was very funny, and it was always spellbinding to me.  It made me feel closer both to Chinese people and to my mother and also my daughter, who's the same age as the daughters in this book

</review>
<review>

I found this book to be highly readable and to stand as an important example of immigrant and post-immigrant fiction. The Chinese-American experience is different from the Jewish-American experience or the Irish-American experience, but they also have a great deal in common. Tan successfully portrays the younger generation's desire to conform to American ideals and the older generation's often stubborn resistance to acculturation. Somewhere in between lies a happy medium that is often not attained until a third or fourth generation.

My only gripe is not with the book itself but with the notion that this is a profound work of literature that needs to be taught in high school or even college classes. I see it as excellent popular fiction, which is a major achievement, but not as a book for the ages

</review>
<review>


The book came quickly and in great condition.  Would use this seller again

</review>
<review>

This book has quite deservedly collected very favorable reviews and I will not belabor the point. I would like to add that I read this book shortly before a visit to Burma nearly 2 years ago. The insights gained, both political and cultural, were extremely helpful to me during the visit.

One of our guides, herself a Shan, was well educated but unaware of this book and expressed a great interest in reading it but I had not carried it with me. Any of you planning to visit  might consider taking this along - less obvious than writings of Sang An Su Qui - and leaving it as a gift. I believe many in Burma would appreciate access to this book

</review>
<review>

I liked this book immensely on several levels.  As an anthropologist, I found it very interesting to get a Padaung's eye view, written in literate English, of his own background, his childhood in the remote, forested mountains of eastern Burma.  The author tells of everything---from the strictures of Roman Catholic missionaries in far parts of Asia, to eating dogs, baby wasps, and snakes (with relish), his grandmother's stories, guardian spirits, a Padaung funeral.  The Burmese political climate of the 1960s and `70s merely lurks in the background until the author drops out of a seminary and heads to Mandalay to attend university.  While information about various remote peoples is not uncommon, it is usually processed by foreign writers who have visited them.  FLGG gives it to you from the horse's mouth.

On a second level I admired Pascal Khoo Thwe because I'm an American, grandson of immigrants who left traditional villages in Russia for a new life, a freer life, in America.  Odysseys like Khoo Thwe's form the essence of the American experience, but perhaps few are so dramatic---from university student, to jungle fighter to student at Cambridge University to published author.  I can easily see the difficulties of becoming a new man (my family took the last name "Newman", but the real story is long) in a new country.  I recalled Sir Albert Maori Kiki, a Papua New Guinean born into a Stone Age village, but who became a pathologist and high ranking Minister in his newly-independent country.  I once had read his book, "Kiki: Ten Thousand Years in a Lifetime" and had been inspired by it.

This leads me to admire the book on a third level.  We who live in modern countries, whether East or West, tend to denigrate those who live in poorer, less fortunate nations often suffering under tyrannical regimes.  We feel that they may not have the sensibilities that we pride ourselves on.  FLGG is a book that will shatter any such belief.  The human spirit flies into the heavens from every corner of the globe, in all epochs.  We--as Man---are universally capable of the greatest transformations and adjustments, able to surmount suffering.  Pascal Khoo Thwe's thoughts and feelings, as expressed in his book, are eloquent proof of this.  From a brutal regime which suppressed all independent thought, from a jungle war with no mercy, emerged a thinking, feeling man.  I felt proud to be a human being when I finished.  I admit that his book even moved me to tears.

A fourth reason why I liked FLGG is that it provides echoes of the same topic found in "Reading Lolita in Tehran" and "Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress"---the transformative power of literature and its ability to change human nature.  As a student of English Literature, no matter how constricted, Khoo Thwe could respond to different ideas, imagine a different world.  The theme is not the dominant one as it is in the above named works, but it is there.  But now, Pascal Khoo Thwe, a Padaung, has produced a work to stand in company of the works of mankind.  Read it.

</review>
<review>

This is an engrossing memoir. Detailed. Synchs with other things I have read of Burma. I kind of think some of it is a bit, um, self-serving or fictional. A story on steroids. But, with that caveat, enjoy this book and keep it in your Burma collection

</review>
<review>

This personal account of Pascal Khoo Thwe's life works for me on many levels. I feel as if I understand what it is like to belong to a culture so different from my own. His writing was deeply moving and so descriptive that I do believe I can feel and experience how his culture lived.

I wonder at the cruelty of human beings and I ponder this horror, especially in the aftermath of the disclosure of American torture of prisoners.

I think about how the author struggled with the ability to make judgements during his time at Cambridge because of living his life under an authoritnarian regime. He had no experience of forming opinions and I understand now how Russians are having difficulty with a democratic constitution and are regressing to authoritariasm. So goes Iraq?

I wonder at a jungle and climate and the paradise he describes.

I think that the reader,myself was not up to the job when I skipped quite a bit of the jungle fighting toward the end.

I would have liked to know more of how he was able to make friends at Cambridge which he only hinted at.Maybe another book

</review>
<review>

Culture and tradition, funny or deadly serious anecdote followed by a harrowing confrontation with Burma's brutal military regime characterize "From the Land of the Green Ghosts." Yet the story is told so gracefully that one feels eased into a life and death struggle rather than abruptly confronted by it (as one might find with a Western writer.) The advantage is that the author, the gifted Pascal Khoo Thwe, can punctuate his narrative with a precise, violent detail. Heart-stopping scenes appear neither moral nor immoral, only horrifying, a postcard from one of the most repressed countries in the world.

Thwe is unpretentious and perceptive. He has a gift for language few possess (indeed, English is not his first, second or even third language.) Still, the author fears that none of these assets exist in him. He is mistaken

Yet while it may sound like self-deception -- escaping jungle warfare to attend an elite college in order to "help"  his people -- the book undoes this assumption.  Admittedly, it is easier to write flowing prose in England as opposed to dodging mortars (or succumbing to malaria) along the Thai-Burmese border; but it is hard to imagine that any rebel fighter could have better informed the world about Burma's plight than is offered here by Pascal Khoo Thwe

</review>
<review>

Extraordinary memoir by a gifted writer with an extremely unusual story to tell

</review>
<review>

I live in Thailand and have traveled to Burma (sometimes called  and quot;Myanmar and quot;).  I was prepared to like this book and I was expecting the heroic life story that I got.  I was not, however, prepared for the beauty of the writing and the depth of the tragedy so simply, but touchingly, told.  It is simply amazing to me that anyone can write so beautifully in a second language; Thwe is very talented.  I hope that he keeps writing.  I also hope that in his next book, he drops some of the reserve that characterizes his cultural upbringing and lets us into his inner life a little more

</review>
<review>

This is a book that should be read by anyone interested in knowledge and its role in economic growth.  "The Gifts of Athena: Historical Origins of the Knowledge Economy," is a sweeping and comprehensive account of the period from 1760 (in what Mokyr calls the "Industrial Enlightenment") through the Industrial Revolution beginning roughly in 1820 and then continuing through the end of the 19th century.  The book (and related expansions by Mokyr available as separate PDFs on the Internet) should be considered as the definitive reference on this topic to date.  The book contains 40 pages of references to all of the leading papers and writers on diverse technologies from mining to manufacturing to health and the household.  The scope of subject coverage, granted mostly focused on western Europe and America, is truly impressive.

Mokyr deals with `useful knowledge,' as he acknowledges Simon Kuznets` phrase.  Mokyr argues that the growth of recent centuries was driven by the accumulation of knowledge and the declining costs of access to it.  Mokyr helps to break past logjams that have attempted to link single factors such as the growth in science or the growth in certain technologies (such as the steam engine or electricity) as the key drivers of the massive increases in economic growth that coincided with the era now known as the Industrial Revolution.

Mokyr cracks some of these prior impasses by picking up on ideas first articulated through Michael Polanyi's "tacit knowing" (among other recent philosophers interested in the nature and definition of knowledge).  Mokyr's own schema posits propositional knowledge, which he defines as the science, beliefs or the epistemic base of knowledge, which he labels omega, in combination with prescriptive knowledge, which are the techniques ("recipes"), and which he also labels lambda.  Mokyr notes that an addition to omega is a discovery; an addition to lambda is an invention.

One of Mokyr's key points is that both knowledge types reinforce one another and, of course, the Industrial Revolution was a period of unprecedented growth in such knowledge.  Another key point, easily overlooked when "discoveries" are seemingly more noteworthy, is that techniques and practical applications of knowledge can provide a multiplier effect and are equivalently important.  For example, in addition to his main case studies of the factory, health and the household, he says:  "The inventions of writing, paper, and printing not only greatly reduced access costs but also materially affected human cognition, including the way people thought about their environment."

Mokyr also correctly notes how the accumulation of knowledge in science and the epistemic base promotes productivity and still-more efficient discovery mechanisms:  "The range of experimentation possibilities that needs to be searched over is far larger if the searcher knows nothing about the natural principles at work.  To paraphrase Pasteur's famous aphorism once more, fortune may sometimes favor unprepared minds, but only for a short while.  It is in this respect that the width of the epistemic base makes the big difference."

In my own opinion, I think Mokyr starts to get closer to the mark when he discusses knowledge "storage", access costs and multiplier effects from basic knowledge-based technologies or techniques.  Like some other recent writers, he also tries to find analogies with evolutionary biology.

One of the real advantages of this book is to move forward a re-think of the "great man" or "great event" approach to history.  There are indeed complicated forces at work.  I think Mokyr summarizes well this transition when he states:  "A century ago, historians of technology felt that individual inventors were the main actors that brought about the Industrial Revolution.  Such heroic interpretations were discarded in favor of views that emphasized deeper economic and social factors such as institutions, incentives, demand, and factor prices.  It seems, however, that the crucial elements were neither brilliant individuals nor the impersonal forces governing the masses, but a small group of at most a few thousand peopled who formed a creative community based on the exchange of knowledge.  Engineers, mechanics, chemists, physicians, and natural philosophers formed circles in which access to knowledge was the primary objective.  Paired with the appreciation that such knowledge could be the base of ever-expanding prosperity, these elite networks were indispensible, even if individual members were not.  Theories that link education and human capital of technological progress need to stress the importance of these small creative communities jointly with wider phenomena such as literacy rates and universal schooling."

There is so much to like and to be impressed with this book and even later Mokyr writings.  My two criticisms are that, first, I found the pseudo-science of his knowledge labels confusing (I kept having to mentally translate the omega symbol) and I disliked the naming distinctions between propositional and prescriptive, even though I think the concepts are spot on.

My second criticism, a more major one, is that Mokyr notes, but does not adequately pursue, "In the decades after 1815, a veritable explosion of technical literature took place.  Comprehensive technical compendia appeared in every industrial field."  Statements such as these, and there are many in the book, hint at perhaps some fundamental drivers.  Mokyr has provided the raw grist for answering his starting question of why such massive economic growth occurred in conjunction with the era of the Industrial Revolution.  He has made many insights and posited new factors to explain this salutory discontinuity from all prior human history.  But, in this reviewer's opinion, he still leaves the why tantalizingly close but still unanswered. The fixity of information and growing storehouses because of declining production and access costs remain too poorly explored

</review>
<review>

This is an interesting book devoted to the importance of knowledge in the formation of modern industrial economies.  Mokyr has several goals.  The first and most important is to illuminate the origins of the modern industrial economy.  Others are to illustrate the impact of modern economy, particularly its knowledge based elements, on modern life, to discuss barriers to the acquisition and dissemination of knew and useful knowledge, and to discuss differences in economic behavior between firms and households.  The quality of the book is somewhat uneven, possibly because this book is based on prior essays and lectures that Mokyr has prepared in the last decade.  While the book certainly has a strong theme, the individual chapters don't allows cohere.
The initial part of the book is devoted to the thesis that a key, perhaps the key, feature leading to the genesis of the Industrial Revolution, was the birth in Western Europe of interest in "useful knowledge."  This is not science per se, or engineering per se, but an amalgam of both driven by a desire to use knowledge of the natural world in ways that manipulate the natural world to human advantage.  For Mokyr, the scientific revolution of the 17th century is a necessary precursor to the Industrial Revolution but the foundation of the Industrial Revolution is the Enlightenment's dedication to science, rationalism, its insistence that human activity can improve the lot of humanity, and its insistence on public dissemination of useful knowledge through publishing and education.  The quintessential example of this crucial aspect of the Enlightenment is the Great Encyclopedia, dedicated to disseminating the best practices in virtually all areas of human activity.  Mokyr makes a very good case that this basic attitude permeated much of Europe, from famous intellectuals to craftsman and business seeking to produce incremental improvements in production technologies.  Implicit in Mokyr's discussion is that this attitude, set in the expanding societies of Western Europe, and coupled, particularly in Britain, with a society that encouraged capitalism, caused the Industrial Revolution.  He argues, for example, that the development of the factory was driven in large part by the advantages of bringing expertise about most efficiect production practices under one roof.
Later sections of the book are devoted to the impact on households of emphasizing rational and useful knowledge.  These sections stress the public health impacts of this aspect of industrialization.  Mokyr has an interesting section on the differences between households and firms.  He also discusses barriers to innovation with varying success.  Parts of this discussion are good, parts are tendentious.  A criticism of some parts of the book are that Mokyr resorts to the practice, common among economists, of using equations and graphs to make points, essentially using these tools as metaphors for his verbal descriptions.  Since he is not actually analyzing data, this practice is at best redundant, and sometimes actually confusing.
Mokyr is at his best in making a strong argument for the role of knowledge in the genesis of the Industrial Revolution, and by implication, its role in our contemporary economies.  He is gently but strongly critical of other views of birth of the Industrial Revolution, notably the idea that it was a direct result of European commerical capitalism.  In this, he joins a number of other recent scholars who have been critical of this simple idea.

</review>
<review>

"Gifts of Athena" is an outstanding piece of work with profound consequences for research and policy. Its intellectual radiance will finally make the remaining shadows of conventional economic history fade into oblivion. It guides the perplexed, reassures the convinced and guides the uninitiated

</review>
<review>

Short, simple, and totally engaging.  Just the thing to have with you on a trip, or to sit down with for a pleasant afternoon

</review>
<review>

I picked up this book after watching the movie A Beautiful Mind -- it's a delightful, easy-to-read novel about an aspiring mathemetician who tries to get to know the truth about his eccentric mathemetician uncle.  The book details the uncle's life-long struggle to solve Goldbach's Conjecture, which (for you non-mathemeticians, like me) posits that every even number greater than two is the sum of two primes.  I felt like the novel showed a somewhat realistic perspective of a driven, obsessed scientist, and showed how the scientist's activities and behaviors affected and even alienated those around him.  The protagonist is the only member of the mathemetician's family who bothers to get to know and appreciate him -- and that is a struggle, as the mathemetician often does things to alienate his nephew.  Don't be put off by the math; it's actuallyq quite easy to read

</review>
<review>

One of the best books on the mathematical culture and the mathematical "passion".
Written as a novel makes it easy to read

</review>
<review>

I couldn't put this book down and neither could my husband when he read it.  Doxiadis' narrative style is strong.  The book unfolds much as a solving a mathematical problem would.  Uncle Petros emerges as a tragic figure, victim of classical hubris but earning our sympathy.   An excellent read by a talented writer

</review>
<review>

Written by Susan Tabak, a $1,500 a day personal shopper, CHIC IN PARIS is a stylish book that offers readers insidery information about the fashion philosophies of eight affluent, glamorous French women.

Far from a recipe for great style, CHIC IN PARIS does not offer precise advice for dressing well-- as the popular What Not To Wear series does. Instead in each of the eight chapters, the author poses general questions to each style icon.  And the answers are timeless or vague -- depending upon your expectations.

Here you will not be told to wear skinny, bootleg or bell-bottomed jeans, but instead you will be encouraged to disregard trends entirely and wear the fabrics, colors and styles that make you feel good, in a sensual way.

Recommended for both Francophiles and fashionistas. CHIC IN PARIS is the classic gift book.  With its ruby red, faux crocodile cover, lush design and dozens of full-color photographs, this is a coffeetable-style book -- meant to be touched and looked at with quick glances, rather than read cover to cover.  Consequently the words are few and the printing quality deluxe.

Having sufficiently praised this book (because in truth I like it and think it offers value), I must say that the more I look at it, the more I wonder about its path to printing and the integrity of the information.  For starters there is no traditional credit page here.  The publisher is not clearly identified.  And the price/bar code is noted with an adhesive sticker on the cover, that makes me wonder if CHIC IN PARIS is a self-published book that was marketed to the public after its production.

Then, as I investigate this further, I note that all of the traditional contact information contained here, relates to the author's company, Paris Personal Shopper, including a Manhattan phone number and a website address.  Yikes!  Is this a brochure?

This, of course, doesn't reveal the book's lack of integrity. But then I begin to google the eight style icons and note that most hype the designers/companies they are most closely associated with.

Ultimately I don't think that any of this matters. After all art gallery brochures are always self-published and are always for sale -- until they sell-out, of course.  So because CHIC IN PARIS is a nice looking book that definitely offers valuable fashion perspectives, I recommend it to those who are interested in:

Georgina Brandolini (Valentino's unpaid muse of 22 years);
Loulou de la Falaise ( designer and 30 year Yves Saint Laurent muse);
In�s de la Fressange (clothing designer  and  former Chanel model);
Mina d'Ornano (boutique owner  and  accessories designer);
Marie-H�l�ne de Taillac (jewelry designer);
Spela Lenarcic (fashion stylist);
Carole Rochas (jewelry designer); and
Nathalie Rykiel (Sonia's daughter  and  CEO of Rykiel Woman).

-- Regina McMenami

</review>
<review>

A simple, predictable, yet powerful story of an old-school pitcher, Shaara's novel is a classic baseball tale.  Billy Chapel, a future Hall-of-Famer who has just learned of his trade after 17 years with the same club, decides to hang up his cleats rather than leave the team he loves.  He is not interested in money (yes, this is an obvious work of fiction), and pitches primarily for his "love of the game."

Shaara provides a unique formula for story-telling, as he interweaves flashbacks of Billy's life into his final game on the mound.  In it, Shaara shows the total concentration and focused mind of an all-time great pitcher as he progresses through his last effort as a ballplayer.  Through flashbacks, we learn of Billy's past relationships with his parents and his girl, Carol.  And during the game, Shaara provides simple, direct descriptions of the events, in an nearly non-emotional, detached tone.  Indeed, Shaara allows us to delve into the mind of a pitcher as he pitches a perfect game (although he doesn't even realize this until the 8th inning).  And, yet, the primary focus is not baseball, but his retrospect on his life and his place in the world.

Although this book may have been more polished if Shaara hadn't died suddenly, this is still a superb book and a classic "old-school" baseball tale.  For baseball purists and baseball lovers alike, this should be on the short-list of any reading list.  And even for non-baseball fans, this is still a compelling story

</review>
<review>

I read this short novel because I greatly admired Shaara's Pulitzer Prize winning "Killer Angels," and because I'm a baseball fan.  The novel feels more like an outline or first draft than a completed work about an aging pitcher.  It's a bit shallow and predictable in its plot.  The characters are what one expects in all too many sports novels and short stories.  The feel or atmosphere just isn't quite there.

Any baseball fan will see flaws in the book right away, flaws that distract and damage the work.  Shaara sets most of the novel in Yankee Stadium with the Hawks playing the Yankees.  Why the author chose to have one real team against a fictional team is unclear.  The Hawks apparently are from Atlanta, but an Atlanta team, Braves or Hawks, whichever, would not be playing the Yankees interleague on the next to last day of the season.  Finally, when a visiting pitcher goes out to warm up before the game, he does so in the semi-hidden bull pen down the left field line in Yankee Stadium--not on the mound on the field.

This book was published posthumously and Mr. Shaara perhaps never had a chance to polish his prose--prose that was excellent in "Killer Angels."  It's unfortunate.

There are glimmers of interest in the book, but not enough to recommend it to baseball fans or fans of the author's other book

</review>
<review>

Heard FOR LOVE OF THE GAME by Michael Sahara,
a posthumously published baseball novel by the Pulitzer Prize
winning author of THE KILLING ANGELS . . . you might have
to dig some to find it, but your search will be worth the
effort.

This is a short, surprisingly moving tale of an aging baseball
superstar who is pitching the last game of the season . . . through
a series of flashbacks, you learn about his career and the
one woman he loves (but who is leaving him).

The writing is compelling, and it makes you feel that you
really get to know the guy . . . plus, it has you rooting for
his every pitch and caring about what happens to him.

There's a great ending, too.

</review>
<review>

Don't get me wrong this was a really good book.  And I am so close to giving it 5 stars.  It was just a little too short for me.  The story invloving the ball game was great and showed why baseball is so pure at its core.  The only thing that was lacking in the story was the story outside of the game.  You will fly through this book, it is a good story and you will feel satisfied after reading it, even after that mild short coming I mentioned.  Just my opnion, I could be wrong

</review>
<review>

I can't review something you keep sending me when it's the wrong bible. you don't have the one I ordered. you don't have the one that you have on your sight. so you send me a diffront one the one I ordered was printed 2/3/1994 and you send a book printed in 2003.

</review>
<review>

I've had personal experience with Bibles from numerous American publishers, and can attest to the fact that there is nothing AMG, Holman, Nelson, Zondervan, or Tyndale can put out to equal the worksmanship of this edition. Those mass-produced editions are made out of inferior materials, slapped together with glue that breaks down after exposure to moisture, and more often than not are impossible to read from any distance. The only American Bible I've seen that compares to this is the Thompson as published by B.B. Kirkbride.

The Thompson is great, mind you, but it has two big problems. First, it's expensive (though I don't think one should skimp on a Bible, especially if you're going to be reading it as much as you should be) and second, it's very big and clumsy. After my second Nelson Compact Reference Bible fell apart (I received the second as a gift- I'd never have bought another) I was in the market for a new travel-size one. It had to be lightweight and relatively small, and it had to have a concordance since I can't remember numbers to save my life.

Fortunately, I stumbled by this Cambridge University Press edition. Being a conservative Christian, I don't believe in luck, so it must have been God's guidance. This is the perfect travel edition for me- it measures 7.25x5.25x1.25 inches (Amazon's dimensions apparently include the box), is barely heavier than my doomed Nelson despite being significantly larger, and has an excellent concordance. The typeface is easy to read even from my lap (I'm nearsighted- about 3 diopter prescription) and the binding is of superfluous quality. There's an added dictionary and a set of detailed maps as well, and center column references. Topic summaries are noted at the header of each page. Unlike many other Bibles I've seen, the pages turn easily straight out of the box, and are of exquisite quality.

The printing in the concordance is significantly smaller than the rest of the Bible text, but this is forgivable. I'd rather have more references than have it perfectly legible. In all, I'm pleasantly surprised by the amount of helps in this Bible- it is much more than one would expect from an edition of this size.

I still use my Thompson for desktop study, but I have a new companion when traveling and witnessing. It's clear to me now that Cambridge deserves its reputation as a producer of top-quality Bibles. Especially for its price, the Cameo Reference Edition comes highly recommended. It is now my gift of choice for loved ones.

</review>
<review>

Some things you should know about the red-letter Cambridge KJV Cameo Bible:

1) It has art-gilt edging instead of standard gilt edging. This means the page edges have been dyed red first, then gilt in gold. This results in a very beautiful effect, almost a pinkish gold hue. And when the gold wears off (from reading it too much - wink wink), you'll be left with a nice red edging all around. The zippered version of the Cameo currently doesn't have the art-gilt edging.

2) It no longer comes in the Kings College double slipcase, as shown in the photos above. It comes in a less desirable cheaper white flip-case with a blue cross on it. :-( However, Cambridge will sell you one of the older Kings College cases for 10 pounds plus shipping.

3) It has one black ribbon, which is longer than the ribbon in the zippered version.

4) The words of Christ in Revelation are not in red. Pity.

5) The black calfskin leather is of exceptional quality.

6) The gold stamping on the spine is poor, it looks as though they used too much gold.

7) I also own the wide-margin Cameo Bible, which I bought in the mid-90's, and it didn't have the Dictionary. Not sure if the latest wide-margin has the Dictionary or not. This Bible is a much easier size to hold than the wide-margin version, and the Dictionary is very good.

8) I bought both this version and the zippered version to compare the two. I'm returning the zippered version as this one opens better, and the art-gilt edging is simply stunning. That's not to say the zippered version is bad, just not as good.

9) The first one I ordered had lighter text on the inside in places, and the edging was marred, as though it were a used Bible. If yours is this way, I suggest returning it for one with darker text.

10) I've been looking for the perfect Bible for over 16 years, and currently own over 10 different Bibles from Cambridge to Oxford to Holman and Thomas Nelson...etc. etc. This is hands-down the best Bible I have found yet. It is easy to read, of the highest quality, fully-featured, and in short, the closest to perfection you can get today. The only negative I'd give it is that the paper is a bit on the thin side.

Don't waste your money like I did. Buy this Bible first!

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!


</review>
<review>

This Cameo Bible is one fantastic Bible, made by a manufacturer that produces fine work. The print is legible, the features are outstanding, especially the Dictionary in the back, and the excellent Concordance. I also have the top-of-the-line edition from Allan's of Glasgow, which very much surpasses this calfskin edition. Cambridge leather Bibles, in my opinion, are not of the same quality as they were 10 years ago. They now tend to be stiff as the proverbial board. It will last a lifetime. No glue-bound, cheap American mass-produced garbage here. This is a Bible to carry wherever you go. Well worth the extra dollars you spend.

</review>
<review>

2 more new copys on the way buy buy buy bu

</review>
<review>

This Bible takes my breath away. I've searched and searched for this Bible. Finally, FINALLY, I found it. It's perfect in every way. The size is just what I wanted. It's easy on the eyes. Oh, and the smell . . . intoxicating. Everytime I open my Bible to read it, I can smell the leather. The pages are soft  and amp; are not hard to break in at all. I have many bibles and the pages are either torn or creased. But, these pages are one of a kind. I have the burgundy red letter edition  and amp; it's beautiful. If you're thinking about purchasing this bible, you won't be sorry. I would have paid a lot more for a bible of this quality. The best

</review>
<review>

I finally got my hands on the KJV Cameo Reference Edition with Concordance and Dictionary Black calfskin with zip thanks to the great people at Amazon the only company I trust when buying on-line...they give great customer service.   Bookshops here in the Philippines don't carry Cambridge bibles so we have to order them abroad.  One of the first things you notice about the cameo cambrdige bible is the craftsmanship that went into its production.  The Calfskin leather binding is indeed a joy to hold, supple but strong. The type is so readable they seem to jump out of the pages.  Of course nothing beats the cadence of the King James version of the Holy Bible, it is unsurpassed for devotional reading and inspiration.  Mine has the zipper closure that will protect the gold edged  pages for a very very long time. The references, dictionary, concordance and maps make this handy sized bible a veritable treasure of bible helps.  As a Pastor I own several bibles and versions, but none can compare with the quality of the Cameo reference King James Bible. It may cost more than the regular bibles available here but hey they don't make bibles like these anymore.   If the Bible is the eternal word of God, doesn't it make sense to purchase one that will last a lifetime

</review>
<review>

Fantastic; a book I would recommend to just about anyone.  To address some of the critics mentioned in the other reviews: RE: "Dewey Dogma" (1) There is absolutely no pretense of an application of the scientific method, hence there can be no mis-application; (2) This book strikes me personally as one of the least dogmatic things I've ever read in my life.  The ideas are fresh, original, and beautiful crafted and ordered; (3) "Education is Socialization" - an equation of broadly construed "-tions" that results in a statement that one can neither agree nor disagree with.

I could be wrong, but nowhere did I read these ideas as explicit recommendations to be implemented, rather I read this book as a general exploration of educational aims and processes.  Dewey (justifiably in my opinion) explores closely connected concepts which I imagine are left out of other educational texts, which is why some with pre-professional backgrounds in education count the length and depth of this book as a negative.

His writing, in my opinion, is clear and concise (at least in comparison with other great philosophers) - writing that I would personally aspire to.  His ideas, and I can't say this enough, are some of the most original I've come across.  We didn't really cover the pragmatists in any of my philosophy classes.  Reading this makes me wish we had.

</review>
<review>

This book is one of the great milestones of American history and philosophy and particularly education. It's as relevant today as the day it was written a century ago

</review>
<review>

Captivating illustrations celebrate the first year of baby's life. Moments after birth, smiles and all the joyous experiences of discovery and accomplishment are revealed in sweet prose and illustrations on each  breathtaking page.  This book will gently tug at the heartstrings of anyone  who has ever loved a baby

</review>
<review>

A new approach which in fact is so easy but psychologically so difficult to accept. We have tried it out and and observed companies doing it since 16 years: to design and market low end products for the "Bottom of the Pyramid" (BOP) with high profit margins at low cost. We have developed a tool which we call MMP or Multiple Market Positioning which shows step by step how to implement this BOP idea successfully. Regards, Dr. Peter Oertli, OEC Oertli Consulting, CH-8142 Uitikon-Zurich, Switzerland

</review>
<review>

Tons of information backed by practical means. There is a ton of contemporary and useful information, statistics, charts, and analysis in this book.  Equally important are the lists
of specific steps and methods to implement these practical ideas.

In "Bottom of the Pyramid," C.K. Prahalid details the critical
realities that are witnessed and experienced in our radically
changing world today.  Especially for those that are living in LDC nations, or those on the lower end of the Per Capita Income scale, and/or those that are not experiencing sufficient economic growth. "BOP" is also quite relevant to high economic growth nations such as China and others, as these countries evolve (or is that devolve)?

Several concepts are examined and advocated in "Bottom of the Pyramid by Prahalad.  MFIs, and Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) at the Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) are relevant examples of purchasing parity.  The author's concept of these populations being "value conscious by necessity" is real.

As practical as the means to implement these concepts are in this
book, often aided with specific models, examples, and instruction - it also takes - local people to accept it and do it.  Many of the means and methods proposed for these areas at the BOP at times seem visionary and over-idealistic and also, too consumer-oriented. Prahalid does note the impediments, and is realistic about them.

Supplying market needs is helpful to people by providing them access and affordability to the products they need.  Beyond this, what can be achieved once these market niches are filled?  Again, Prahalid uses a lot of charts, graphs, and stats to outline current challenges, and also the specific ways to address them.  Prahalid lists logistics, payment methods, transportation, etc.

One concept advocated is "creating the capacity to consume" in these poor countries, facilitated by the "single serving revolution."  This single serving marketing approach is for sales of smaller packages of products instead of larger ones because lower income people in BOPs can't afford to buy larger packages and quantities and put them on the shelf at home for later use.  Good value for a good product, with a good portion-to-cost ratio. Some small packaged single servings specifically listed by Prahalad are: "ketchup, tea, shampoo, coffee,
and aspirin."  Trivial products, many of us in the world use.  Going farther and beyond these items would help, however: and, Prahalid does.  In addition, his concept of the "Three As" is realistic in this approach to marketing: Affordability, Access, Availability.

Some of the bureaucratic policies and private industries noted:
citizen-centric governance, e-governance, the salt industry in India, landmines and prosthetics, eye care, rural kiosks, training, deliveries, and supply-chains, etc.

Prahahlid noted the challenges to implementation.  Ideas and words are quite different from implementation. (The doing.)  This book's ideas can be helpful in certain circumstances and in many areas of the world.  There is opportunity to implement these concepts, There are however, many hurdles to implementing them and achieving success.  Will people at the BOP make the behavioral changes needed?  Changing mentalities is where it starts.  Are these recommendations, a form of cultural imperialism to some degree?  One obstacle is corruption;
it's rampant in many of these BOP countries.  A high percentage of aid and investments are stolen throughout the world.  Multi-national companies (MNCs) are often squeezed.  Theft, corruption, and judiciary systems are built to work against foreigners and obstruct them, while these BOP nations depend upon them. NGOs acquire and spend a lot of money.  What do they actually do?  Not much, as a whole.  NGO corruption and embezzlement is endemic.  Aid is used by governments of the "developed world" to push forward its own agenda
in these nations.  Aid, is a carrot and a stick at the same time.

In these nations there is no concern for individuals.  Governments of BOP nations care about large corporations that dump millions of dollars of FDI into these countries. These MNCs often flush millions down the drain to get into these nations to get market share, reduced labour-costs, and to often export what they produce in BOPs nations to consumers in highly developed countries. Outsourcing is the latest motivator for the globalized competitive world where MNCs wield enormous power.  Where do the 4 billion people Prahalad mentions as living on $2 USD per day fit into this?  at the BOC (Bottom of the
Company).   Author Prahalid states: "The process must start with
respect for Bottom of Pyramid consumers as individuals."  Consumers? Target marketing aspirin, coffee, and shampoo.

If foreigners can be the saviour, how long will they have to stay? This sounds like a business oriented financial quid-pro-quo with the time-consuming and often ineffective Peace Corps approach: "We can do things better than you can.  So let us come.  Let us in.  We're doing you a favor, while we're furthering our interests at the same time. Mutual benefits to some degree, but what is the ratio?  Different parties want access to the pie. If the entire pie grows and greater
pieces and access of it are available to those who have less, those who have nothing or little, will in theory get a larger piece of the bigger pie.  An element of Game Theory, perhaps.

There are 6.3+ billion people on this planet, and the population is contueing to rise rapidly.  Water and food will take prevalence over economic growth if something is not done about it. Lack of these basic necessities needed for basic survival will obstruct the prospect for economic growth and better quality of life.  And, developed nations plunder world's the environment and harm the lives of those with less political and economic power. We live in one world, not three.  What we do, more than ever, affects the entire population.  This is a very positive book, with realistic means to achieve its aims.

Ideas, facts, and realistic methods are superbly tied together in
"Bottom of the Pyramid."  The biographies at the back of the book add depth to the people involved.  A Highly recommend book for everyone, and in particular those in Internationally Development, Intl. business, MNCs, and government.  Great book.


</review>
<review>

On the one hand this book is endorsed by Microsoft's Bill Gates and Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.  That ought give the prospective reader some idea of its value.  On the other hand, it might be asked, what kind of book is this that purports to tell businessmen how to make money by selling goods and services to the poorest people on earth?  After all, the poorest people that have any disposable income at all make something like two dollars a day.

First question then is, how big is the market at the bottom of the pyramid (BOP)?  Prahalad writes that China's per capita gross domestic product of $1000 really represents a dollar purchasing power parity (PPP) several times that, resulting in a $5-trillion dollar economy.  He sees the Indian economy as being worth about $3-trillion in PPP terms. (p. 10)  It's easy to see that even the apocryphal "two dollars a day" multiplied by two, three or four billion or so results in a whole lot of money.

The second thing that might be asked is, is it really moral for the business world to turn its considerable powers of inducement and persuasion on people who have so little to begin with?  What kind of person would aim to exploit those least able to afford the exploitation?  The answer given persuasively by Prahalad is that by making products and services available to the poor, two good things will happen.  First is the fact that goods and services hitherto unavailable to the poor will actually become available.  Second, these products and services will increase their standard of living and allow them to "acquire the dignity of attention and choices from the private sector that were previously reserved for the middle-class and rich." (p. 20)

How might this work?  Presently people in the poorest neighborhoods in the world ironically often pay a premium for what little goods and services they get.  Prahalad points out that this is because they are paying a "poverty penalty" which is the "result of inefficiencies in access to distribution and [because of] the role [played by]...local intermediaries."  By "local intermediaries" he means the line of middlemen--some traditional, some corrupt, some both--that presently stand between the poor and their products and services.  These middlemen add no value but have their hands out and therefore artificially increase prices for the people at the BOP.  Products using modern distribution methods will undersell the old ways.

Prahalad emphasizes targeting products precisely to the needs of the poor.  BOP people are "value-conscious by necessity," he argues, and contrary to what might be assumed are "very brand-conscious."  They are interested in "aspiration products"--brand names--since these products symbolize a higher standard of living and a better way of life.  We can see this in our own poor neighborhoods where brand icons like Nike and Sony are almost worshiped.  Prahalad notes that the "poor have unpredictable income streams.  Many subsist on daily wages and...tend to make purchases only when they have cash and buy only what they need for that day."  Consequently a good marketing strategy is to offer "single-service packaging--be it shampoo, ketchup, tea and coffee, or aspirin..."

This may work I believe if, and only if, the products that big business makes available to the people at the BOP really do improve the quality of their lives.  If they are persuaded to buy, say, cigarettes which they would not otherwise buy, clearly this will not improve the quality of their lives.  If they are persuaded to buy soft drinks and other artificial "foods" consisting of empty calories, it's doubtful that they will benefit.

But is all of this more "globalization trickle down"?--that is, the rich get richer and the poor get--well, somewhat less poor?  Prahalad believes that turning the people at the BOP into consumers will raise their standard of living and in the long run eradicate poverty.  He uses the phrase "creating the capacity to consume" as a means to this end.

The unstated assumption behind Prahalad's idea (and the consumptive economy in general) is that there is great wealth in the world that only needs to be created by human ingenuity, and then efficiently distributed by the capabilities of the modern corporation.  If we can find an energy source as cheap as oil and make a smooth transition to an oil-less economy, I think there is a good chance that Prahalad's vision will be realized.  However, if we don't solve the coming energy problem, Prahalad's idea will gather dust and decay like so many abandoned SUVs alongside roads that we can't afford to repair.

In a sense then, this could be a visionary book well ahead of its time

</review>
<review>

As Prahalad explains in his Preface, he wrote this book to suggest and explain a new approach by which to solve the social and economic problems of 80% of humanity. His approach would mobilize the resources, scale, and scope of multinational corporations  (MNCs) -- their investment capacity -- in a co-creative partnership with localized nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in order to formulate and then implement "unique" solutions to the problems of 4 billion people who live on less than $2 a day at the bottom of the "pyramid" to which the book's title refers. "The process must start with respect for Bottom of Pyramid consumers as individuals. The process of co-creation assumes that consumers are equally important joint problem-solvers....New and creative approaches are needed to convert poverty into an opportunity for all concerned. That is a challenge."

Prahalad carefully organizes his material within three Parts. First, he provides a framework for the active engagement of the private sector and suggests  a basis for a profitable win-win engagement. He identifies all manner of adjustments, accommodations,  and (yes) sacrifices each of the "players" - MNCs, NGOs, and the poor themselves -- must be willing to make to ensure the success of the process. Next, he carefully and eloquently examines 12 case studies which involve a wide variety of businesses,  each an exemplar of innovative practices, "where the BOP is becoming an active market and bringing benefits far beyond just products to consumers." All of the companies share the same concern: "They want to change the face of poverty by bringing to bear a combination of high-technology solutions, private enterprise, market-based solutions, and involvement of multiple organizations." As for Part III, it is provided as a CD which consists of 35 minutes of video success stories filmed on location in the BOP in India, Peru, Mexico, Brazil, and Venezuela.

Of special note is the fact that the various stories are told almost entirely from the perspective of BOP consumers, the so-called  poor. As Prahalad points out, they get products and services at an affordable price, "but more important, they get recognition, respect, and fair treament.  Building self-esteem and entrepreneurial drive at the BOP is probably the most enduring contribution that the private sector can make." As this book's subtitle correctly suggests,  the ultimate objective is to eradicate poverty through profits...initiating and then sustaining what will be in fact, a win-win-win engagement of MNCs, NGOs, and the poor themselves.

Of special interest to me is what Prahalad has to say about innovation for BOP markets which must become "value-centered" from the consumer's perspective. He  identifies and then rigorously examines  12 principles for innovation in those markets such as "creating a new price performance envelope" and "education of customers on product usage."  The BOP focuses attention on both the objective and subjective performances of the given product or service. Moreover, it must "also focus on the need for 30 to 100 times improvements in price performance. Even if the need is only for 10 to 20 times improvement, the challenge is formidable."

Although Prahalad has a compelling vision, he has neither illusions nor delusions about the difficulty of fulfilling that vision when undertaking the "new approach" he recommends in this book. His vision is bold, indeed of global proportions. However, his feet are planted firmly on the ground at the bottom of an enormous pyramid, one whose complexities are exceeded only by the unprecedented entrepreneurial opportunities it offers to help solve the social and economic problems of 80% of humanity. Given the importance and the urgency of the various issues which Prahalad explores so brilliantly in this book, there seem to be no acceptable alternatives to the approach he proposes.

Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out Vijay Mahajan and Kamini Banga's  The 86 Percent Solution: How to Succeed in the Biggest Market Opportunity of the Next 50 Years and Kenichi Ohmae's  The Next Global Stage: The Challenges and Opportunities in Our Borderless World.

</review>
<review>

What is really good about this book is that it proposes a framework and then illustrates it with case studies. Aside from the thesis that a profit motive can be the driver for economic growth, improving the capabilities and lives of the poorest it also shows that developing economies does not equal low technological maturity or lack of opportunities to innovate with business models, distribution channels, product development or business processes.Having grown up and worked in India in the mid 90s it was clear that this kind of thinking and business models were not actively pursued.

However, the case studies suggest this has changed and in many ways as far as India is concerned this is visible by strong anecdotal evidence. Also in many ways there is anecdotal evidence to suggest that people have realised that the government will not solve all that makes doing business difficult and have been using this kind of thinking as a driver for entrepreneurial business which also have a positive impact on the people at the bottom of the pyramid.

Will The framework and ideas apply in all developing economies , specially with smaller populations ? This question is harder to answer and no doubt time will tell

</review>
<review>

This is a well researched book in which Prahalad explores how disruptive innovation if harnessed properly can lead to huge profits for the corporations involved and high impact social well being. The key however is to get the ground breaking idea there is no set approach to getting the same, but he has  done a good job of explaining how the idea can be scaled.
The book will be phenomenonal if it could have concrete numbers and a comparative analysis of what the value add was by each idea. Certain approaches for decreasing costs etc. are explained but the lack of numbers hurts.
All in all a great read.

Mayank

</review>
<review>

This is a fantastic book! 112 pages of theory and advice that really makes sense. You easily internalize the message! This is then followed by 5 VERY thorough and down to the detailed examples of how the theory has been practised by fore running companies in the field of 3rd world integration. It is very illustrative and initiate thoughts on how this could be followed up in your own compan

</review>
<review>

I have read every book in the Tempe Brennan series; this is another excellent novel. This is one of my favorite suspense series...I eagerly await each new installment.

If you like this book, check out a new author I've recently discovered. I highly recommend Thirst by Dania Deschamps.

</review>
<review>

Break no bones is a fast paced exciting novel that will keep you up at night to finish it! Murder, greed, love, relationships - it has it all!   Forensic descriptions are very graphic, so not for the squeemish but you will gain knowledge of this field from a true professional - Kathy Reichs

</review>
<review>

A great novel. However Ms. Reichs should get someone to check her botany. Being very familar with Francis Marion Natl. Forset and a biologist there is no way that one would find cool loving hemlock. Instaed ther are cypress, tupelo, pine, oaks, pines etc but no hemlocks in Francis Marion NF. It would be found in the mountains.

</review>
<review>

Kathy's books are my favorites, and I will always rush out to buy anything she writes.
This was a fast read, and it kept you guessing thru the entire book. She brings her ex-husband into this one. She is the real deal!

</review>
<review>

The only complaint I have is the main character always seems in pain! It is tiring! And confusing, the reader is to be drawn by her strength but she is always in a constant romantic quandry and nursing wounds. Otherwise the storyline was strong and interesting. Authors description of Charleston was vivid and I loved it

</review>
<review>

When Temperance takes over on an archeological dig on a small island off the Carolina's, her thoughts center on her relationships, her nearly divorced husband and her tentative relationship with her boyfriend.  As confusion reigns supreme in her personal life, professionally she is about to face another challenge involving what appears to be a series of similar murders.  Is there a serial murderer loose on the island? As she gets closer to the truth, her life and those around her are in imminent danger.  Can she protect those she loves and will the resulting circumstances change everything she feels to be right.
To compare Kathy Reichs to other authors is a disservice to her.  She is a talented, creative author with an intimate knowledge and a wealth of experiences to draw from.

</review>
<review>

An official Library Weekly book review.

EXCERPT:
Pre-foreclosure refers to the period of time during the foreclosure process between when a lender files a
foreclosure lawsuit...and the date the property is scheduled to be sold at a public foreclosure auction...

RATING:
5 of 5

REVIEW:
In a buyer's market, foreclosures start increasing almost immediately, either due to higher interest rates
or slower economical growth.  This is a prime time for investors, sweeping in and taking in deals that
could be profitable and rewarding, as you help others from a failing mortgage.  Lucier's experience,
research, and due diligence in writing this book clearly shows through, with numerous tactics,
strategies, and external references that guide the reader to success.

OTHER RECOMMENDATIONS:
1. The Beginner's Guide to Real Estate Tax Lien and Tax Deed Auctions [ISBN 0978834607]
2. The Beginner's Guide to Real Estate Investing [ISBN 047164711X

</review>
<review>

This book, was very well organized. easy to understand and apply,  I ordered three books and this was the best of all three

</review>
<review>

Thomas J. Lucier managed to put together an amazing and resourceful book. I bought it, read it and loved it and now want to read it again.
Buy with the confidence you will learn from his experience.

Jo

</review>
<review>

Great book of Wisdom. Most importantly USABLE. Well written, no details left out on EXACTLY HOW to do each step.You can tell Thomas has "been there, done that". Unimagineable amount of professional resources that comes with the book

</review>
<review>

I purchased this book some 6-8 months ago and I have used it and the resourses provided by Thomas on a daily basis.  I am a nurse and I am looking to retire int he nxt couple of years.  You cannot buy another book on the market that provide the informaiton and resources that this book provides. I give it a 5+rating

</review>
<review>

I opened my new real estate investment business from home, the week after I finished reading this book. I honestly feel 100% confident in pursuing pre-foreclosure deals, because of Mr. Lucier's book. Now, when I go to the county records department in my pre-foreclosure's county and confirm my online research findings to this particular pre-foreclosure I'm pursuing, I have actual forms to fill in with very important data that I need to make a good final decision, about the foreclosure, thanks to Mr. Lucier's book. After thoroughly reading this book, I feel like I know the secret codes to buried treasure and no one else does. People are going to ask me,"how did you get so knowledgeable and successful in Pre-foreclosures?" This book is my answer and I'm keeping it all to myself. Thank you Mr. Lacier for writing this book, I look forward to the next one.

</review>
<review>

This is a concise no bullspit book on pre-foreclosers. If you are curious to find out whether or not real estate is for you, or a serious investor, this book will seriously assist you in making decisions. It is a complete kit for the serious investor, yet a reality check for those who are not to sure about investing into real estate. For the amount that it cost to find out, it is worth the time to read it and the cash lay out to buy it

</review>
<review>

After reading this book, I felt like I had a better grasp about foreclosures and the real estate market as a whole.

Some comments on your book:

Very robust with information (actually took me some time to read and digest everything)
Detailed with process recommendations
You can tell how experienced you are because it was very practical and not only theoretical
Easy to read and very straightforward
Includes many useful due diligence research sites

</review>
<review>

Foreclosure investing is all the rage nowadays, but Thomas Lucier tells you why you must get in during the PRE-FORECLOSURE phase to really make the big bucks.  There's just too much competition for properties once they reach foreclosure.

The author suggests that you get to the properties before they reach foreclosure by doing your homework and locating the properties early.  A letter writing campaign is his preferred method of contacting the foreclosees (is that a word???) and will follow up with subsequent letters should he not hear back from the homeowner.

In addition to step by step instructions for locating properties and acquiring them, Lucier gives a treasure trove of information which you can use along the way to help make your job easier.  He includes literally hundreds of websites and even provides his email address to provide help to those who need it.

The book covers all the bases, however,  it didn't leave me motivated.  The author mentions all of the pitfalls and hard work required in this business and clearly doesn't try to mislead the reader into thinking it will be easy money.  I appreciate the honesty, but must admit I won't be pursuing pre-foreclosures at this time.  However, I haven't ruled it out for the future, and should I choose to do so, the book will serve as a great instructional manual in my quest

</review>
<review>

This book is great... I read the reviews and they were all true!!! The author's language is clear and simple.  The books gives you all the forms, checklist, pros and cons on the foreclosing homes, dos and dont's.  and for the price, you can't go wrong, even if you just get it for the forms and list of websites and reference he gives in the books, it is worth it

</review>
<review>

In 1903 Charles Ponzi arrived in the USA with the aim of becoming as wealthy as Rockefeller. His modus operandi was based on the principle of robbing Peter to Pay Paul.

James Walsh, in his informative book, You Can`t Cheat An Honest Man: How Ponzi Schemes and Pyramid Frauds Work..and Why They`re More Common Than Ever, traces the origins of the Ponzi Scheme, and explores how and why the scheme works with its different modern day variations.

The first part of the book narrates how, after spending some time in prison for cheque forgery, Ponzi found a creative way to shaft people, that was even legal and possibly sound.
What Ponzi would do was to take advantage of the disparities in the foreign exchange rates pertaining to the postal currency of International Reply coupons.  If these coupons could be purchased in countries where they were still hit hard by the after-effects of World War I, he could then redeem them for stamps or cash in the USA, where there value would be as much as 50% higher.
Presto! He was onto a brilliant scheme, however, he needed money to expand his enterprise.

In order to raise the needed cash, he promised investors that he would pay them high rates of interest with the profits from his scheme. As is the case today, people were gullible and greedy, and Ponzi had little difficulty in attracting huge sums of money.
However, Ponzi found it difficult to keep meeting his obligations of paying his investors.

He resorted to using fresh money to keep his original investors satisfied. And thus began the Ponzi Scheme, that is alive and well today with multiple variations on the original theme.

One such variation is the very popular pyramid sales scheme, where individuals are seduced to become part of a plan for the sale or distribution of goods, services or other property, and wherein they acquire the opportunity to receive monetary compensation, which has little to do with the volume or quantity of goods or services sold but rather on the number of additional persons that could be recruited to join the plan.

The author devotes considerable print to these schemes, as well as making reference to the abundance of jurisprudence that defines and outlaws these plans.

Anyone wishing to protect himself or herself, would do well in thoroughly reading the concluding chapter. It is here where we are given some very sound advice- to be wary of get rich schemes, watch out for deals that offer high yields, if you do not understand the investment, stay away from it, seek professional advice before investing in anything and check out who are the promoters.

Walsh has a sharp eye as to important details, and with his wide use of informative examples, readers receive a comprehensive understanding as to just how wide spread these fraudulent schemes are and how not to be seduced by them.

Norm Goldman, Editor Bookpleasures.co

</review>
<review>

Some books may not be particularly recent publications but deserve renewed attention and ongoing recommendation in light of modern events or contemporary concerns: James Walsh's You Can't Cheat An Honest Man: How Ponzi Schemes And Pyramid Frauds Work...And Why They're More Common Than Ever is one of them, focusing on how pyramid frauds work, why they're common, and how to avoid scams and cons. The scheme name may change but the scheme is the same: it involves case studies in greed and exploitation, outlined in You Can't Cheat An Honest Man so that investors may learn from the woes of the 'taken'. As relevant today as it was in 1998.

</review>
<review>

If you've ever wondered how pyramid schemes get started and how they unravel, this book makes an interesting read.  You will be both amazed and appalled at the mass stupidity involved in getting these schemes off the ground.  However, you might feel a little foolish yourself when the author points out that our very own Social Security System is a textbook Ponzi scheme

</review>
<review>

Insightful, well documented, and very powerful!  This book is a wonderful primer on the type of society the Nazis created, the lengths that they went to control their people, and the measures used to create the 3rd Reich

</review>
<review>

Do you like your history light or full-strength with nothing taken out? If you want to skim through yet another book about the Nazis that tells you something you probably already knew but in a different way then don't bother with this book. However, if you want to read first class, detailed historical writing then this is certainly the book for you. Evans makes 1930s Germany come alive. How does he do it? By using historical records and documents to recount incidents involving `ordinary' people. He recalls appalling things that happened to people no different to his readers. He recounts cases of `ordinary' people doing unspeakable things to their fellow Germans. The reader is brought back 70 years and is really made to feel (as much as is possible now) what it must have been like to live in an all-embracing dictatorship. The author forces you to ask yourself the uncomfortable question, "Would I have behaved differently"? You'll have guessed by now that this book does not make for easy reading. This is exactly the way it should be. You probably won't pack this book the next time you're going on a sun holiday. However, if you want to read a book that actually tells you something new then this is the book for you. Evans makes no concessions to readers who don't like too much, `boring' details and who are only interested in the `big picture'. This book describes in detail how the Nazis mercilessly quashed all opposition, controlled every element of German society, remilitarised at breakneck speed and remorsely drove Germany into a second world war. This is full-strength, full-fat, nothing taken out history. Thank God for that

</review>
<review>

Most people with an interest in history probably  think they know quite a bit about Hitler's Germany. This book reveals quite a bit of new information and fills in the details in a picture more often described in broad brush strokes. The writing can be quite dry, and may contain too much detail (figures) for some readers but it is generally a readable yet credible book

</review>
<review>

This book is the second in a planned three book series about the Nazis, and it covers the time period from Hitler's ascension to office and the invasion of Poland. In a very lucid fashion, the author explains how the Nazis in power changed the face of Germany. We are given culture, arts, politics, religion, the family, and other subjects, and can readily observe how Germany was transformed, for the worse, by the Nazi party. It is a chilling tale of a people that allowed themselves to be seduced by propaganda, and even though the book shows that not eveyone was happy with the government, things just went along because Hitler appeared to be able to accomplish almost anything he wished. Once again, we see how the reluctance of the Western countries enabled him to accomplish what should not have been possible. It's a morality tale for our time, because it seems that now most of the world justs sits by while Iran works on a nuclear option, and hopes that things will just turn out all right in the end. Reluctance to confront evil is no option any more, as this book very well shows.

</review>
<review>

Professor Evans is writing a comprehensive three-volume history of Hitler's Germany, with this the middle book. The scope of the undertaking is daunting to the casual reader, with many topics taken to extreme lengths. For example, how average German citizens were organized for holidays and relaxation in the 1930s takes up many pages. However, a good book for the person with keen interest in the political, economic and social life of Germany in the critical years preceding WW II.

While the author is sympathetic to the average German of the period, I still think responsibility lies with all those millions who blindly--or with eyes wide open--followed

</review>
<review>

still a highly readable, fact filled work on the Nazi's in power from 1933-39.  The book is not chronological; rather, Evans breaks up the chapters to deal with individual topics.  At times, this was frustrating because you may lose what else was going on at that time until 200 pages later.  On the other hand, it was also good because it allowed the reader to focus on individual topics and learn more and more about them.  The best details were the mini-biographies that Evans wrote about several key figures during this time.  These were very informative and easy to read.  Another great part was the details on the Strength Through Joy program.  This write up was very fascinating.  The last chapters on Hitler's attempts to prepare for war and acquire areas such as Austria was very well written and interesting as well.  I would have given this book 5 stars based on sheer information, but I only give it 4 because some chapters were not all that interesting and the non-chronological aspect got in the way at times.  Still, despite any negatives, the readability, research, and information is well worth the price and the time it takes to read a book this massive.  Even the most well read student of WWII and/or Nazi Germany will find some interesting information in this book.

</review>
<review>

Evan's "Third Reich in Power" falls just short of being a great book.  I would rate it a "9" if Amazon had a ten-point rating system.  Evans concentrates on the period between the elevation of Hitler to the chancellorship and the German invasion of Poland in 1939.  Evans uses what might be called the "mosiac" method.  He examines most of the essential features in which Nazism attempted to regulate and direct the lives of the German people, and does so in succcessive chapters.  This is an interesting approach -- rather unusual for contemporary history --, and is reminiscent of that taken in, say, Cambridge's Ancient History and Medieval History series.  No "grant theses" emerge, but several themes suggest themselves.

First, Evans demonstrates that the German people were extremely ambivalent about the Nazi regime.  On the one hand, most Germans genuinely idolized Hitler.  On the other hand, they were deeply distrustful of his underlings, and of many things the government was doing to the economy and to national welfare.  The picture that emerges is of a people disturbed by the quotidien aspects of Nazi rule -- censorship, police surveillance, low wage rates, labor restrictions, etc. -- but sufficiently sympathetic with the broader aims of the regime to make tolerance for the disagreeable aspects possible.  The picture of the German people which emerges is rather unflattering:  it was distrustful of the disorder occasioned by the regime's extreme anti-semitism, but disliked Jews and was more than happy to profit from their suppression. It was suspicious of militarism and the march toward war, but happy about the economic recovery rearmament enabled (as long was the eventual war was fought by somebody else). It was unhappy about the restrictions on art, culture and education, but shared the prejudices against modernist tendencies and agaisnt the educated elite which caused most people to shed few tears when the Nazis systematically dismantled Germany's high culture.  Above all, Evans paints a picture of a people very queasy about what was happening, but unwilling to do much to save anybody else from the clutches of the Nazis.  The Germans were not so much Hitler's willing executioners as Htiler's self-absorbed bystanders.

Second, Evans attempts to paint a picture of the Nazi regime as an attempt to completely mobilize and structure the way society thought and behaved.  Evans emphasizes the role of terror and coercion, implicitly disagreeing with other historians who emphasize the small size of the Nazi policing appartus when compared with, e.g., the Soviet Union.  He also focuses on something which has received relatively little attention -- the "dumming down" of German society.  While Evans notes that the Nazi efforts to change the nature of the German educational system -- particularly its system of higher education -- met with mixed results, his claim that the quallity of the product of that system had dropped considerably by 1939 is compelling.  One wonders how the Germans managed to be as successful in World War II as they were; it probably did as well as it did principally to the extent that its efforts to totally transform society were unsuccessful.

Finally, Evans confronts and sheds light on a very important issue.  Nazi "philosophy" was, in important way, incoherent.  It idealized men who were at once, aggressive, bullying, Darwinian, anti-intellectual, athletic, competitive and warlike, while at the same time obedient, self-sacrificing, other-directed, altruistic, idealistic and dedicated completely to the common "good" (as defined by the Nazis).  It is very difficult to create a docile thug.  The Nazis were as successful as they were in this endeavor by separating the thugs (who were allowed to do just about anything, as long as they did not threaten the regime) from the sheep (who, if obdient -- and Aryan-- were largley immune from thuggery by a sort of protection racket).

Evans paints a compelling picture of a society whose contradictions were bound to result in fatal instabilities in the absence of an every-victorious state of war.  It is also a picture of a regime whose very commitment to physical and intellectual brutality would eventually make it impossible to quit while it was ahead

</review>
<review>

This is the second volume of a 3 volume history of the Third Reich.  As with the first volume, this is a substantial work of synthesis of the enormous literature about the Third Reich.  Evans has aimed at producing a work that can be read usefully by scholars and by the general reading public.  Evans has largely succeeded by producing a massively documented and very well written book.  Evans has also made the book more accessible by avoiding a strictly chronological approach.  He covers a series of topics related to the social and economic history of the Reich and concludes with foreign policy and the outbreak of war.  Reflecting his prior research interests, the sections on the social history and structure of the Third Reich are excellent.  The final section, covering foreign policy and diplomacy, is less thorough, though this is a twice told tale.  Several unifying features emerge.  One is the Nazi intent to reshape German, indeed European, society along the lines envisioned by their peculiar Social Darwinist ideals.  The second is the success of the Nazi state in 'coordinating' almost all the institutions of German life with their ideology.  A third is the primacy of Hitler's decisions.  A final is the obsessive goal of an aggressive war to conquer Eastern Europe, which often distorted other Nazi social and economic policies.  On completion, this trilogy will be a standard reference work for this period.

</review>
<review>

A highly detailed coverage of the Third Reich as it rose to and consolidated its power in Germany during the 1930 decade. Overall I would recommend this book to anyone interested in analysing events leading up to World War II.

The Devil however is in the details. The author makes sweeping statements about the Versaille treaty that are neither logical or reasonable. He fails to place the beginnings of the practice of racial hygiene in Germany within the larger context of the worldwide movement in that area. When he mentions the Spanish civil war he quotes from some sources that are known to be inaccurate.

These are just a few areas where the author has been less than thorough. Despite the foregoing I would gladly urge people interested in the history of the Twentieth century to read this book; always bearing in mind that this obviously vast subject is covered incompletely here.

</review>
<review>

Eric Schlosser performs a great service with his well composed description of the industrial food system that feeds most Americans.

Schlosser starts with a history of the founding of many of the famous fast food chains in the U.S.

Carl Karcher (Carl's Jr.), Richard and Maurice McDonald (McDonald's), Dave Thomas (Wendy's), and Harland Sanders (Kentucky Fried Chicken)all have remarkable tales of hard work and enterprise in the founding of their restaurants.

Schlosser then goes on to describe the working conditions for the modern employees of these restaurants and how the major fast-food chains prey on the uneducated workforce as a source of disposible cheap labor.

The author also covers the conditions under which the cattle are raised to provide beef for this vast agro-industrial complex. He also outlines dangers of modern industrial beef - antibiotics, toxic bacteria, high fat content, etc.

Continuing in his inquiry into our food chain, Schlosser covers the working conditions of slaughterhouse and meatpacking workers.

Throughout the book, the facts are well presented and well referenced. The endnotes and index are both thorough and useful. On the whole, I enjoyed the book and learned much

</review>
<review>

I bought this book for a book club (and cursed the woman that chose this as her "favorite book"), and from the moment I started reading, I couldn't put it down.  It's fascinating, well written, and makes you feel a little bit smarter for having read it.

</review>
<review>

It doesn't matter what your diet is, you should still know how food stuff gets made in America.  I have intentionally not eaten hamburgers or hot dogs made outside of the home before this book and don't intend to have anything with ground beef that I haven't ground up myself.  This book wasn't as graphic as I expected (yes, I am disappointed.)  I have heard stories about cereal factories and tomato sauce plants so I know that basically rats are everywhere and UNWRAPPED on The Food Network won't be showing you that stuff.

I didn't really zip through it and the writing style didn't charm me so my recommendation is about the information - if you know all about meat processing in America and already are turned off and wary, then you do not need to spend money on this book.


I recommend this book because everyone needs to know but I thought this book would have been better with more details.  The best thing I got out of this book was the Lasater Grassfed Beef recommendation

</review>
<review>

There is a movie set to release for this wonderful book. I have no clue about the movie, but books are always better.  This is a very easy read for non ficton.  Learn the history of the french fry and not in a good way.  Learn about how things have changed in food sizes in fast food and how it has contributed to obesity of America.  This goes into details about someother issues of corporations like Walt Disney and the destruction of public transportation for cars.  It all fits together.  If you want to know about corporations and the history of how things got to be the way that they now read this.

This is a non ficton must read and it is interesting to meat eaters and vegatarians alike.  At least you will know who you are supporting when you buy certain things and how coroportations got to be the powerful level they are today.

Of another note:
This is just an interesting side to the Simplot story.
Interesting enough Simplot is focused on a small bit on a cable show about Ballet Idaho.  This is just a side, but the Idaho area where the simplots are from now is getting into organic farming area.  They play it on A and E Cable TV station periodically.  Not much about the potato, but more about the Simplot family

</review>
<review>

If you like fact reading, you'll like this.  I thought he was to discriptive and went on and on and on about nonsense. Some of the info was really good, but it was hard to stay focused and really take it all in.  I found my mind wondering and thinking about other things.

</review>
<review>

Eric Schlosser's "Fast Food Nation" is a thorough if somewhat slanted analysis of the fast food industry.  The author hooks the reader early with sweeping invectives against the titans of fast food.  Before you can say "Supersize Me," you've learned that Ray Kroc and his cronies are responsible for the homogenization of global culture, the spread of E. coli and other deadly pathogens, the obesity of America's children, and the exploitation of the unskilled masses.  Take a deep breath - that's just the intro.

To be fair, Schlosser dials back the hyperbole in the meat of the book.  Although it's clear that he harbors an acute dislike for the fast food industry and all that it represents, Schlosser is careful to present an objective veneer as he walks his readers through the history and inner workings of this all-American industry.  His descriptions of the meat-packing industry and its cozy ties on Capitol Hill are meticulously researched.  And his comments on fries, McNuggets and other tasty morsels are backed up with helpful portions of first-hand interviews and third-party data.

Reading "Fast Food Nation" is a guilty pleasure.  Chapter after scathing chapter feel oh-so-good to consume.  But after finishing this book, you may want some balance in your life to help keep things in perspective

</review>
<review>

The author brings a high level of professionalism to his story about the growth of the fast food industry and the consequences of its ruthless pursuit of profits.

As interesting as all this history and inside information is, predatory marketing to children and exploiting the ready supply of low-paid workers are not unique to this industry. Likewise, the chapters on slaughterhouses, or how flavors are added chemically like so much perfume, apply to all foods nowadays.

So the real impact of the growth of this industry is its long-term health effects--obesity, heart disease, and so on--which is a book by itself, and one which has to take into account the willing participation of its hungry customers.

Judging by the updates added for the paperback version, it's been a powerful force for legal reform. Not surprising given the thoroughness of the author's research.

</review>
<review>

Even a few years after it's release, Eric Schlosser's "Fast Food Nation" still sends a strong message to the reader and exposes the fast food industry for what it really is... a group of very large and very powerful marketing companies... not a purveyor of good food--or nutritious food for that matter.

For many years, food additives and techniques have been the dirty little secret of the industry, but not these things are starting to surface.

The book takes you through the processing warehouses and chemical plants that the industry uses to "make" the foods served at these restaurants.  It opens your eyes to practices done to cut costs and sacrifice your health in the process.

I've recommended this book to many of my clients and many are reluctant to read it at all, probably because of the emotional attachment they have to their favorite fast food.

Since this book came out, there are so many more studies and reports on what is in the fast foods then there ever were before.  Reports including additives, trans-fats and other inflammation causing ingredients are helping the industry clean up it's act.

This doesn't mean that fast food is good for you, it just means that Schlosser has done an excellent job at bringing attention to an industry that wasn't challenged as strongly as it should have been.

I personally haven't had fast food for over 5 years, but--even that far removed--as I was reading this I felt sick to my stomach.

Read this book and you'll never step foot in McDonalds again.

Kevin Gianni, NCSF-CPT
Author and Personal Traine

</review>
<review>

Why are Americans so fat? According to this clown, it's because of fast food. Which is an easy way to shift the blame from ourselves, our laziness, and our lac of discipline and blame those mean corporations for offering us all sorts of alternatives that we can accept or decline. Gee, I wish Mommy Government would outlaw unhealthy foods and unhealthy portions! Then everything would be right with the world; after all, no government has ever consolidated power over its people and then abused them. Right? People shouldn't have to make decisions for themselves! It's not fair to ask us to use our brains and decide what's best for ourselves. Someone else should take responsibility so we can just sit around watching television shows and playing on the Internet

</review>
<review>

Even if you don't purchase or eat fast food, the buying power of the industry still influences what you purchase at your local supermarket.  Agribusiness is a multi-billion dollar industry, more soulless and corporatized than ever before.  Money is the name of the game, from soda makers to additive manufacturers, and the price we are paying is our health.

With slaughterhouses running at dangerous speeds and cattle in feedlots being fed the remains of other cattle in a gruesomely cannibalistic fashion, you never know what is in your USDA Choice beef.  Chances are, the USDA never inspected your beef, and there's a good probability of finding fecal matter in it.  Supreme Beef argued in court that Salmonella was a "natural organism, not an additive" and therefore shouldn't be tested for by the USDA inspectors.

Eric Schlosser takes an in-depth look at the meat industry, but for a more detailed and graphic picture, you can pick up Gail A. Eisnitz's 'Slaughterhouse' to supplement Schlosser's well-researched findings.  Exposed in 'Fast Food Nation' is not just what goes into your meats, but the cruel and inhuman treatment of ... PEOPLE.  Discover how deregulation led to replacing a skilled labor force with a system that prays on untrained minimum-wage workers and immigrants (both legal and illegal).

'Fast Food Nation' is a complete text that covers not just the food industry, but what has been happening in the last few decades to our jobs, our government, corporate irresponsibility and greed, changes in laws and regulations for both food and employment, and the cost to us in terms of our humanity.  Schlosser writes all this information up in a captivating manner, giving in-depth accounts of the people behind the craze like Ray Kroc, Carl Karcher, Walt Disney, J.R. Simplot, and other industry innovators.

One of Schlosser's most powerful statements comes in his summarizations.  On page 261, regarding the American free market system, Schlosser writes, "The market is a tool, and a useful one.  But the worship of this tool is a hollow faith.  Far more important than any tool is what you make with it.  Many of America's greatest accomplishments stand in complete defiance of the free market ... if all that mattered were the unfettered right to buy and sell, tainted food could not be kept off supermarket shelves, toxic waste could be dumped next door to elementary schools, and every American family could import an indentured servant..."

'Fast Food Nation' is more than just food for thought; it is a call to the American people to take back control of our lives, from inept government and greedy corporations.  Remember, its OUR country, not just theirs.  Included at the back of the book is an extensive Notes section, a bibliography, and an index.  I can't recommend this book highly enough.  Enjoy!

</review>
<review>

I am a Ph.D. student working on my dissertation in case study research.  This book is right on target for academic researchers using a case study approach.  If you don't know anything about the process, you need this book.  If you think you already know this process, you need this book

</review>
<review>

This book is so interesting on so many different levels. It talks about people who are autistic and the way their brains work differently from non-autistic people and it talks about the similarities in the ways that autistic people and animals brains work and process information. Written by an autistic woman who fills the text with lots of first hand experience she really helped me to understand animals on a whole new level. I'm not much of a reader of non-fiction, but this book is so interesting. You'll learn a lot. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in trying something new. Very good and worth the money

</review>
<review>

Outstanding!  Easy to read and full of valuable information on how your pet (or other animal) actually thinks and sees the world around it.  It is also full of valuable, real-world examples of how to handle this and also full of valuable insight into people and how we think.  Temple Grandin, the author, is autistic (although relatively high-level functioning) and she sees the world differently than you and I see it.  She also believes that is how animals see the world.  I don't agree with the extremes she believes, but I think she is on to something and there is a lot to be learned from her.  She certainly has plenty of examples of instances where her point of view produced the results the animal handlers were looking for in any case.

It is also interesting from a self-examination point of view.  For instance, I am definitely a very visual person as Temple would say .  By page 26 I was very hooked.  I highly recommend this book to anyone.  It is easy to read, and full of interesting insight about people and animals

</review>
<review>

About a year and a half ago, one of our two small dogs rejected her crate.  The crate was a small metal cage that she would sleep in at night.  For the first five years of her life she had been happy, even eager, to get in at night.  But suddenly, it seemed that the very thought of the cage terrified her.  She would spend the entire night throwing herself against the sides, hitting the door with her paw, and scratching the plastic tray that was the bottom piece in an attempt to dig her way out.  About this time my wife very wisely left for Sweden for several weeks, and after ten days without sleep I capitulated and let the dog stay out of the cage at night.

I once enjoyed a blissfully dog-free bed.  Today I sometimes wake up with a wet nose touching mine.  If only I had read this book before that happened.  Temple Grandin is an autistic and an expert on animal behavior, and she is convinced that the two go together.  Whether or not her theory that some of the changes in the brains of autistic people mirror the natural condition of many animals is correct or not, the power of her insights are undeniable.

She skillfully leads the reader through the mental life of animals, emphasizing the areas where the way our brains process information is so different from those of animals that we often don't even consider that there might be alternatives.  For instance, in one section she suggests that animals experience pain much less keenly than humans do, noting that often they will show no signs of discomfort even when they are clearly injured.  On the other hand, she says, fear may be as debilitating for animals as severe pain is for humans.  Both humans and animals experience both pain and fear, but animals experience fear as the ultimate unpleasantness, just as humans experience pain.

Other sections expose other facets of animals behavior that seem nonsensical at first, but seem perfectly logical when placed in the correct context.  Many of her lessons involve putting herself in the place of the animals involved, on the theory that her autistic brain will let her naturally see their motivations.  The amazing thing is how often it seems to work, producing not just an enthralling book but concrete advances in animal handling systems for meat packing plants and horse trainers.  After reading this book I'm convinced that I could have solved the problem with my dog by finding what small detail was causing her to panic and changing it - examples in the book show that it could have been something as simple as painting the cage or moving it from one corner to another.

I can't recommend this book highly enough, especially if you want to keep your dog on the floor and the bed to yourself

</review>
<review>

This book was someone else's bookclub selection, and I think having no expectations when I picked it up really helped in my having that WOW experience that some folks report with this book and others miss. Yes, the prose needed much better editing: overuse of repetition, "stock" phrases, and "hanging" assertions that should have been cleaned up.  However, I found the discussions of brain development/evolution, similarities between certain animal behaviors and human behaviors, development of language in different animals, and the coevolution of humans and dogs to be facinating (oops, just gave away the ending!).  I found the side discussion of outcome-based audits interesting and enlightening.  I also liked Dr. Temple's recommendation that people with autism be hired for baggage checking positions.  Great idea! Although the book really goes all over the place, I found it a wonderful opportunity to engage my "seeking/hunting" motivation (you'll have to read the book for that one), and worth wading through the flaws to pick up the nuggets of gold

</review>
<review>

People that recommended this book said I would be "wowwed" after reading each page, but I haven't been to date.  I'm only about 1/4 of the way into the book and find it very interesting and easy to read.  Temple Grandin explains infromation in a common language so there's no hard thinking to do...great for my lazy days at the beach

</review>
<review>

The first sentence in the book is "People who aren't autistic always ask me about the moment I realized I could understand the way animals think."

It should have been "People who aren't autistic always ask me about the moment I SOMEHOW GOT THE NOTON THAT I could understand the way animals think." There's no proof in this book, no good evidence, just Ms. Grandin's anecdotes and speculations.

Noticing a lot of detail because you have autism and being able to use this ability to design humane slaughterhouses does not translate into thinking like animals think.

The book does offer many clear, simple descriptions of scientists' research. So if you don't know anything about animal research, these descriptions could be a good place to start.

</review>
<review>

Honestly, I thought the book was just plain boring and repetitive.  The author's main point, although interesting, seems to me like it would fit into an essay.  Also, the particular print of the book that I purchased, has a dog on the cover, I was very much expecting the book to center around dog behavior.  Instead, I felt I little duped. Most insight into dog behavior came from previous third person experiments/theories or anedoctal accounts of "My Friend's dog Fido, one day did this..."  I hardly think that what one dog did can be generalized to the whole dog population.  I mean, the author doesn't even have a dog!!  I suspect that I, who have had a lifelong history with dogs, have more first hand experience with dog behavior than the author.

I don't recommend this book to all the dog lovers out there.  Now, if your "thing" is cows....  Get this book!



</review>
<review>

This little book written to provide insight into the myriad of Pynchon's obscure references and symbolic appellations in The Crying of Lot 49 is a worthwhile source of help if used with discretion and common sense. Although many of Grant's entries are useful to untangle some of Pynchon's more obscure references, others will simply lead you further down the path of confusion. The problem lies in the fact that while many of Grant's suggestions are useful, others simply bring about the same type of confusion that he is trying to address, since he often gives more than one possible explanation for each passage discussed. That is not to say that the book is not useful, it is, only that The Crying of Lot 49 by its very nature resists such means of explanation. But as reader of Pynchon already know, any help is welcome. As long as the reader keeps in mind that this book is meant only to introduce  and quot;possible meanings and quot; and  and quot;complimentary facts and quot;, which may or may not correspond to what Pynchon actually has hidden in his words. Nonetheless a good source of info and a help to anyone exasperated by the twisting and turning of Pynchon's view of the postmodern world

</review>
<review>

Here's the key to uncracking The Crying of Lot 49.  I used the book while I was reading Pynchon's novel while in a high school leterary club.  With the novel's complexities, I never would have been able to understand the book with out this helpful companion. The book follows the novel in chapters pointing out everything that you may have missed.  Much of what was pointed out I did infact miss never thinking Pynchon might have been using an illusion or just not understanding what the illusion was.  This book is a must

</review>
<review>

I conduct the Berkeley Pynchon reading-group, Berkeley Pynheads. I can say, without reservation, that Kerry's book is absolutely essential for gaining access to The Crying of Lot 49. As a bonus, it is an endlessly  fascinating read in itself. It is like an encyclopedia of American arcana.  Buy it

</review>
<review>

This book is a must for anyone who has read or is reading The Crying of Lot 49 and is somewhat confused by the allusions and references Pynchon makes throughout the book.  From facts about Thurn and Taxis to an entry explaining who Ringo Star is (just in case you didn't know already),  it is a wonderful reader to put amongst the Pynchon section of your bookshelf

</review>
<review>

As others have stated, it definitely lives up to it's title, and I passed on the first try. Not by a wide margin, mind you, but it's title is not "How to pass by a landslide on the first try", is it?

My criticims are like most other reviews. The questions and excercises, while very good in early study, become old and repetitive. A 3rd party test application would be suggested to compliment this book. Also, I did encounter some never-before-seen material, but obviously not enough to hurt me too badly.

I went in thinking I'd do better than I did, but I did pass. Overall I was satisfied with this as my only source of study, plus the PMBOK. One final suggestion -- unless the author explicitly says, "you will not need to calculate this...", learn the formulas! You'll be glad you did

</review>
<review>

Fresh off passing my PMP on the first try by reading only this book and the PMBOK.

First, this book is not enough enough by itself.  Altough Andy tells you to read the PMBOK in certain sections, you pretty much have to read the PMBOK from cover to cover, understand it, and then refer to this book for certain clarificaion.  I did not do that, and there were questions on the exam that I never even seen being mentioned by Andy.

Second, the online materials that come with the book are really of no value.  There are questions and then there is a slide presentation of the material in the book - word for word.  Since the site only has I think 200 different questions (you can take either 50,100, or full test - I took first 50, then full and pretty sure that all of the 50 questions were on the full test) you really do not get to practice what you learn.  The score report gives you an ability to zoom into the area of knowledge that you missed, but again, it is word for word duplication of the book.

Third is questions.  For whatever reason, the questions presented in the book were much easier then the questions of the exam.  Exam questions were more underhanded, required at least some analysis, and not a straight answer.  For example, I got 0 on Managing Project Charter.  To be honest, I do not remember a question that related to that, and I thought that project charter was one of my strongest areas.

Overall, I developed 102 fever the evening before the test, still chose to take it, and passed mainly relying on this book.  My guess is that you have to have significant amount of PM experience to do that.  Anyone who is new to PM will have difficulty doing it with this book

</review>
<review>

I would recommend this book to anyone who is serious about passing the PMP exam. It is written in simple plain English and covers topics in detail. I gained lot of value by reading this book and it helped me pass PMP at first attempt

</review>
<review>

I have more than 15 years of project management experience. I've read this and quite a few other PMP books from cover to cover. Most of the reviews on this page sound like a propaganda to me. This book gives you the impression that it's a big book and must be covering lots of material. But this, in my opinion, is not true. It's big due to the large font and because most of the space on each page is empty.

Furthermore, the book is mostly a re-hash of the PMBOK Guide but only with less information, and without any apparent consideration to and description of the exam objectives or specifications. (I found that this is the problem with most of the PMP books except the one by Sanghera). Most of the topics in this book are not covered to adequate depth. For example, Pareto chart is presented without much explanation: just one example of an approach that permeates throughout the whole book. Using simple language is good  property of this book, but at places the concepts are oversimplified so that the accuracy can be questioned.

Most of the review and exam questions are too simplistic. They may be ok for the CAPM exam but NOT for the PMP exam.

To me, it's does not seem like a professionally prepared book. For example, binding is weak, most of the tables and figures are not numbered, and index is very poorly prepared and is not very useful.

Just considering the shallow coverage of the topics, I would not count on this book solely for the exam. We are lucky that there are quite a few PMP books out there to choose from. Here is my recommendation of PMP books in descending order:

1. PMP Exam Prep by Rita Mulcahy. Quite a bit of exercises and explanations. At least refers to PMBOK Guide when does not explain something.

2. PMP In Depth by Paul Sanghera. Pretty much self contained and adequately covers almost all the exam topics. In the beginning of each chapter, describes the PMP exam objectives covered in the chapter.

3. PMP Study Guide by Joseph Phillips. Quite a few topics are covered in much detail. However, at places not very compatible with PMBOK Guide.

4. The PMP Exam by Andy Crowe (this book). A good additional resource. But not comprehensive enough.





</review>
<review>

I used this book along with two others. I took the exam before purchasing this book, and I did not pass, but after using this book, I passed with flying colors. The author organizes the material clearly and explains things very well. I wish I had purchased this book the first time!

One piece of advice - the online training that comes with the book was extremely helpful, but it expires fairly quickly. I recommend taking the time to go through that first and then read the book.

</review>
<review>

The book is very clear and helps the end user understand all the terms.  The online tutorial is good too. However it needed more "situational" examples

</review>
<review>

The book is very well organized, very useful, and good exercises.  The best in this area. Strongly recommend it.


</review>
<review>

I passed the PMP test on my first try on September 25th 2006. My preparation material:

1. The PMP Exam: How to Pass On Your First Try(Andy Crowe)
2. PMP Exam Prep, Fifth Edition: Rita's Course in a Book for Passing the PMP Exam(Rita Mulcahy)
3. PM FASTrack: PMP Exam Simulation Software, Version 5 (CD-ROM)(Rita Mulcahy)
4. PMBOK

I read Andy Crowe's book twice. I felt that it has a lot of information in a very easy to read format. I actually liked it better than Rita's book since Andy explained certain confusing concepts VERY clearly. His writing style is very easy to read without putting you to sleep. He covered all the material from PMBOK and more. On the other side, the sample questions in his book are too easy. I used Rita's book more as a supplement, but it's a good book to study as well. I used Rita's CD for practice tests and questions.
I read the PMBOK 2 days before the exam just to see if there's anything the other books missed and there was none.

</review>
<review>

I took no PMP exam study classes at all.  Using only this book, one commercial practice test, and about two months of evening study, I took the PMP exam and passed it handily on my first try.  If you've looked at PMBOK 3rd Ed, you know that it's designed as a reference, not a learning tool.  Crowe's book provides the same information in a study format.  In addition, it covers the numerous topics that are on the PMP exam, but are not in PMBOK.  The real test had its hard questions, but none that were a total surprise after reading this book.  Thanks, Mr. Crowe

</review>
<review>

I purchased this book after reading lot of good reviews on Amazon. My study plan was to read this book and PMBOK thoroughly and take the test. Three weeks before taking the exam, I took the 200 questions @4hrs at the end of book and got 92%. The same day I read some comments about false sense of security one may have after reading this book. I read some reviews where candidates recommended the Rita's book. I immediately purchase Rita's book and read it thoroughly. So my primary book was Andy's and secondary book was Rita's. This strategy paid off very well. In almost 80% questions on exam day, I found myself referring to the Andy's book. Rita helped me in other 20%. This 20% is a lot and can be a deciding factor in your success. Bottom line is GET THE BOTH books. I can never stress enough on this. Read Andy'd first; make it primary and then Rita's. You will feel confident and hopefully do well in exam. I never touched the PMBOK except during the training for 35 contact hrs.

A

</review>
<review>

Really tried to like this book. Premise was grand; story bobbed and weaved; conclusion was flimsy. Discursive scientific literalizations distract  and  disorient. Crichton breaks the rule to never stanch the flow. I dislike the quartet of scientists who investigate the outbreak; they don't come across to the reader as likeable

</review>
<review>

it wasn't my favorite Crichton story, but it was definately entertaining and suspensful! plus, the sneak peek of "State of Fear" in the back of the book was a good bonus too

</review>
<review>

"The Andromeda Strain" may be an antique in science fiction, having been published in 1969, but that hardly diminishes its excellence.  The caliber of Michael Crichton's research is such that I still found the technology and science in the book impressive (though the computers were obviously dated) despite the book's age.  The plotline is thrilling, and though some of the scientific and philosophic asides are lengthy, most are equally fascinating.  I was slightly disappointed by the ending; however, the rest of the book was amazing and made the reading worth it

</review>
<review>

The Andromeda Strain tells the story of a bacteria growth in Piedmont, Arizona. This bacteria kills people in a matter of seconds and killed everyone in the town except for a 69 year old man and a baby. A top secret commission is formed to see how these bacteria kill people and to see how they can be stopped.

This book has the makings of a real thriller. I couldn't put the book down through the first 250 pages. However, this book had a dissipointing ending.

This book involves a lot of "cool" technology. This book could have taken place today (instead of 1969) because I could visualize a lot of the book. I found myself thinking "Awesome technology" more then I was thinking that Crichton is sure a great author. He seemed to involve a little too much foreshadowing.

This book does involve a lot of research and "up-to-date theories" for 1969, but is a little dated today. This does not take anything out of the story.

I would recommend this book because it is really interesting. Lots of research went into this book. The book is fast paced and has many modern aspects of a Crichton novel

</review>
<review>

The Andromeda Strain is a story about a virus that was exposed to a small town in Arizona, Piedmont.  Piedmont was a desolate ton to begin with, and only got worse after a strange and unknown virus took the lives of all the citizens, save two.  This is when the story begins to get juicy.  These two survivors, a small child and an old man, are then transferred to a maximum security laboratory in Nevada.  From here a team of scientists work toward investigating the virus.
As I was reading I often became confused and sidetracked, in particular in the beginning, when Michael Crichton explained the background information on the team of scientists.  That section was not especially necessary and somewhat useless.  However, quickly I came to find that the book would take a turn for the best when the plot became exciting and interesting.  The story in roughly the fifth and sixth chapters became interesting when the team of scientists were sent to work on the case in Nevada.  If I were to recommend this novel, I would recommend this book to science fiction fanatics and people interested in a virology or bacteriology field.   I, personally am not much of a science person but I too was entertained and enthralled all the way throughout.  I wouldn't change much except the scientific terminology.  Overall, I felt the book was very good and it maintained my attention throughout the entire book.

</review>
<review>

even though i disagree with allison's interpretation of kant, he spells everything out clearly. this book was a help to an undergraduate course i took on kant

</review>
<review>

Henry Allison is quite rightly regarded as a legendary Kant scholar, and his service in countering the dominant Anglo-American criticisms of Kant is noble indeed. This remains a very important book after so many years. I am only sorry that he spent so much time dealing with arguments that are often unworthy of consideration. For students wending their way through the thickets of the Kant literature, this book simply must be studied with care

</review>
<review>

Allison announces in his first sentence of his Preface that this, the 2nd edition of a book originally published in 1983 is "substantially revised," and so it is, especially the last half of it. It was an important work of scholarship 23 years ago, and a revision after so much time during which he has remained a teacher and scholar specializing in Kant, was bound to excite  broad interest.  It must have gone far toward gaining for him the prestigious prize of $30,000 he was awarded last year (2005) for outstanding Kantian scholarship.

In the preface Allison cites Michelle Grier as having awakened him from his dogmatic slumbers.  In the body of the text he mentions her name only once, but given the compliment to her, my curiosity was aroused.  First I looked at the endnotes in which her work was mentioned by Allison, and then, a little puzzled, I looked carefully over her book, Kant's Doctrine of Transcendental Illusion, published in 2001.  I found many citations of her work in the endnotes.  Adding them up, I found that there were 28 endnotes, these referred, by explicit citation, to 200 pages of her 305 page book.  What one finds in comparing the two books, his and hers, is that every idea or argument that Allison advances and almost every reference, citation to Kant or to other philosophers, supposition, hypothesis, or development is to be found explicitly in Grier.  It is impossible to compare the two books and not conclude that Allison had no new ideas of his own at all, at least for the last half of his book, the half that he claims developments in Kantian scholarship had compelled him to fully and carefully rethink and therefore to have most fully revised.  If one were to remove from Allison's book, however, the ideas, arguments, and so forth that he derived directly and unambiguously from Grier, there would be nothing but minor and for the most part exceedingly trivial asides. It would, to put it simply, not have been publishable.

It is apparent that rather than generously recognizing Michelle Grier by his compliments and endnotes, he was stabbing her in the back.  His "generous" remarks have the effect of diminishing her role in his accomplishment.  He makes it seem as though she inspired him or set him on the right track rather than to have fashioned the final intellectual product that he merely, but arrogantly, rephrased.  Nowhere does he acknowledge the incontestable truth, as of course he cannot, that he was himself entirely empty, and given a choice between remaining silent or stealing from the younger, creative scholar, Michelle Grier, the work he wished he had produced himself, he chose the shabbier but more profitable course.

</review>
<review>

Allison's masterful and now classic work brings back the long ignored importance of the notion of intuition into Kant scholarship. Allison sees that only by beginning with intuition can the totality of Kant's epistemology be properly framed. Allison's work is a colossal advancement in the literature. (See also Allison's earlier _The Kant-Eberhard Controvery_.

</review>
<review>

Henry Allison has become one of the world's best living Kant Scholars, and KTI is his best work. With Kantian epistemology becoming more and more important, not to mention controversial, many of Kant's critics have got in the habit of smashing down straw-man versions of Kant (often without even realizing it). Here however, Allison weaves together a stunning interpretation and defense of Kant's Transcendental Idealism that leaves little room for those wanting to flail away at poorer constructions. For anyone who loves Kant this is the book for you, and for those who don't this is one of the most important books you'll ever read because it really lets you know what you're up against

</review>
<review>

Henry Allison uses his book as a companion to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason in his courses on that work at Boston University, and well he should.  The book is dense and written for the serious student or scholar  of Kant, but it is very accessible and useful to both.  Each chapter deals  with a specific problem of Kantian idealism, moving from analysis of Kant's  presentation, through the interpretations that populate the literature on  the first critique, and finishing with Allison's own defense of Kant's  argument (or, in some cases, what he takes Kant's argument to be).  Perhaps  the most important contribution Allison makes to scholarship on the  Critique with this book is his treatment of Kant's work and his idealism as  a whole, and his persistence in keeping that whole in view even while  dissecting the minutiae of Kant's arguments; the treatment of Kantian  idealism as a doctrine lends Allison's defense a plausibility importantly  lacking in such piecemeal accounts of the Critique's immense,  sophisticated, and intricate argument as the almost useless Cambridge  Companion to Kant.  The discriminating reader will find that Allison's  defense is not always on target-he sometimes disappointingly defends Kant  from himself beyond our own ability to sympathize-but Kant's Transcendental  Idealism succeeds despite this sentimentality

</review>
<review>

The "Honest Truth" (or, more accurately, Reactionary Bias) does not sound as much against homosexuality as he does unsafe sexual behavior, which many, many gay men do not engage in. Heterosexuals do a lot of stupid stuff too, but we do not blame heterosexuality, we blame the self-destructive behavior. What HT fails to explain in his review is this: How do you account for all the gay men out there (myself included, HELLO) who are not promiscuous and risk-taking in their personal lives? I'd like to here the "honest truth" about that! Oh, and by the way, what makes straight people always think they're such authorities on gays and lesbians? If you want to find a real expert, look no further than an actual gay person. What a concept

</review>
<review>

I got this book for my birthday one year after finding it on the shelf at a bookstore. Being a part of the minority group of gay Christians, I was intrigued. The "target audience" for the book is for homosexuals and their loved ones, but it really could be read by anyone, and I think it should be. McNeill offers theology on living in fear, guilt, shame, anger, and living with pathological faith and the importance of maturing spiritually. I think any Christian can relate to any (if not all) of these topics, and not just struggling gay Christians. It's the kind of book that you may want to read with a pencil or pen in your hand so you can underline parts that are important to you. (That's what I did.) This is a caring, humble, and comforting book, and one that I highly recommend and cherish

</review>
<review>

Richard I of England's charisma reaches out and grabs us 800 years later.  He is the epitome of the chivalrous medieval knight.  But Richard's behavior toward his wife, Queen Berengaria, reveals a cold, callus aspect of his personality.

From casual reading I have noticed that many accounts of Richard's life mention that he married Berengaria, daughter of King Sancho VI of Navarre on May 12, 1191 in Cyprus.  However, some biographers do not mention the marriage at all!  Many state that the marriage was never consummated.  Aside from the marriage, Berengaria is rarely mentioned in connection with Richard.

With this meager knowledge, I was eager to read Queen Without a County.  Who was this woman?  Why did she have such a weird name?  What became of her after her marriage?

Rachel Bard has done a masterful job with this difficult subject.  Facts are scarce.  But she sticks to those at her disposal.  There is a love interest Bard admits may not have occurred.  But she believes the little evidence available indicates that it might have happened.

Because of the lack of information, to do justice to the subject, Bard was compelled to write a novel, not a history.  Using her imagination in conjunction with the facts, she creates a warm, injured, patient woman who overcomes incredible obstacles.  Bard's Berengaria is not a 21st century woman wearing long dresses and strange headgear.  Berengaria is woman of the Middle Ages.  She has medieval interests: doing embroidery; copying manuscripts from Arabic into Latin; building a monastery.  Berengaria has medieval morals (e.g., she worries about when to cover her hair) and a medieval concept of herself as a woman.

A 21st century woman would not put up with kind of abuse to which Berengaria was subjected.  Berengaria patiently put up with it for years and blamed herself as much as Richard.

Most historians seem to agree that Richard was at fault for Berengaria's problems.  Some believe Richard was a womanizer and that no single woman could hold his interest.  Most writers, however, seem to believe that Richard was gay.  He was simply not sexually interested in his beautiful wife.  Because Richard was not interested in her, it seems that the rest of his world scarcely gave her a glance.  Because of that, history is not interested in her. The different perspective on Richard Lionheart will intrigue those interested in this period

</review>
<review>

I am a huge fan of historical novels. Unfortunately I am often disappointed by writers who drone on and on about historical facts, and don't exhibit one ounce of creative talent. Rachel Bard's Queen Without A Country was captivating. I absolutely could not put it down until I read through the entire book in one sitting. For me, Bard has redefined historical fiction and I will forever use her book as a guide to judge the rest by

</review>
<review>

Kings and queens of past times usually seem so remote, but Berengaria comes across as a genuine person that I felt I might have known. I could feel her joy and her trepidation, and sympathize with her heartbreaking rejections. The book convincingly portrays life in medieval France among those of high degree.  and quot;Queen Without a Country and quot; held my interest from beginning to end

</review>
<review>

Ibn Fadlan is a diplomat, not a warrior. His mission was to represent his people and make contact with other civilizations on their behalf. But it became so much more.
Fadlan finds himself among the Northmen (aka, the Vikings), a rustic group of behemoths whose customs and way of life are as repulsive as they are odd. But, far away, their people have become plagued by a violent horde of barbarians whose behavior transcends humanity. So, twelve of the brave Northmen warriors are selected to journey to the besieged village and relieve them of this demonic threat. To Fadlan's surprise, he is also chosen. He becomes the 13th warrior and, despite his objections, joins the men on their journey.

When they arrive, the greeting is robust even though some look at them with suspicion and this plays out as an inner conflict amidst the villagers and their leaders despite the looming threat from the barbarians. Then, the mist arrives, and so does the first attack. Most of the warriors survive, some with physical scars, others with mental ones. They endure a second attack and when their numbers continue to dwindle it becomes clear that an offensive strike is necessary. Fadlan's own words describe the showdown in a way that would challenge today's most proficient adventure writers.

I can't deny the historical intrigue of this book, taken from the actual journal writings of Fadlan himself. Michael Crichton's best talents are his in-depth research of his topic and his ability to know when to step back and allow the story to tell itself. This book is where both talents shine. This is Fadlan's story in his own words and Crichton does a masterful job of guiding the reader by interjecting timely footnotes along the way. In fact, the story was so good it became a major motion picture that, in all honesty, didn't do the book justice. Even though violent conflict played a major role in the tale, the narrative was not dominated with its descriptions. Instead, more time was devoted to the mystique of the Northmen, the vast cultural differences between them and the narrator and the underlying dynamic that drove the conflict in which they found themselves immersed. It was a refreshing reprieve from today's typical explosions-and-death action/adventure tale.

Crichton is one of this generation's best, and Eaters of the Dead is one of his top-shelf works.

</review>
<review>

If you've ever seen the great movie (Thirteenth Warrior) that was based on this book, "Eaters of the Dead" will just not measure up. Maybe the structure of the book was the problem. Crichton wrote it in the style of an medieval manuscript to try to convey the authenticity of an actual 1000 year old document. Maybe he was too successful with that conceit. It was usually the aim of medieval chroniclers to present the dry facts of an event rather than to strive for dramatic tension, character development or an elevated literary style. Unfortunately, those qualities are necessary in a novel.  This was mostly a bore. Don't bother

</review>
<review>

So I've got a bookstore, and it seems like everyone who ever attempts this book calls it tedious and gives up. So why is it that I see so many positive reviews here? Myself, I thought the authentic feel was a definite plus, (much of the time I did feel that I was reading an ancient memoir) but as for being "a page turner," as somebody else called it, you've got to be joking. This book is one of the slowest novels I've ever read. I did it on audio book and I kept falling asleep. It was a lot like sitting in Driver's Ed. after lunch and trying to keep my eyes from going out of focus. Creighton has written some pretty fun stuff, some of it even mildly thought provoking, but his is neither. Timeline and the two Jurassic Park books fit well into the whole "roller coaster of a book" thing, and personally I thought Sphere was great.
I realize that there isn't too much in the way of popular Viking fiction out there and so I suppose if you've got to have a Valhalla fix you could check this out, but I'd still recommend the Kirk Douglas movie "Vikings" over this book. Or maybe the book "Grendel" by John Gardener, which is based on the same epic poem. But this book just feels to much like a boring history lesson.

</review>
<review>

I stumbled upon "The 13th Warrior"/"Eaters of the Dead" while browsing in a seaside used bookstore.  I was quickly immersed in the narrative.  It's very different from the typical Crichton - more historical fiction/fantasy than sci-fi - and even his style is different, mimicking the choppy cadences of translated Arabic.  The story, in which a Islamic ambassador from Baghdad finds himself traveling with a Viking crew to rescue its people from an ancient menace, is enthralling.  Crichton, with typical attention to detail, embellishes his tale with academic footnotes, blurring the line between fact and fiction for even the most attentive reader (yours truly included).  I was tickled to find at the end that Crichton's story is based upon "Beowulf" (which I have to read for school this summer) - Buliwyf is Beowulf, Rothgar is Hrothgar, etc.  I loved the story, but loved the ideas behind it even more.  Through fiction, Crichton attempts to imagine a historic basis for the Beowulf saga, much as Heinrich Schliemann found a real Troy in his search for the truth in the "Iliad".  Fascinating and thought-provoking - the hallmarks of a Crichton story

</review>
<review>

Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton is a very entertaining read. This book has the page-turning ability of all of Crichton's other books. However, this book does not have the scientific background that some of his other books do.

This book tells the story of Ibn Fadlan. He is the ambassidor of Baghdad, "the city of peace" (ironic?), to Bulgars. For Fadlan to reach Fadlan, he must cross Viking territory. When Fadlan meets Buliwyf's tribe, he finds that he can not reach Bulgars. The Vikings require a 13th warrior for a journey of theirs. In Viking tradition, the 13th warrior must be differant from the others. The rest of the story tells of Ibn Fadlan's adventures with the Vikings.

I found out that this is based on the story of Beowolf. Crichton took on a bet with a friend of his who was teaching "the bores of history" (their first book would be Beowolf) that he could make Beowolf exciting and came up with this book. He obviously won the bet.

The main character Ibn Fadlan was a real person, but lived 150 years after Beowolf. So this book is fiction. The first three chapters of this book are pretty much the manuscript of Ibn Fadlan. After that Crichton makes the story more interesting.

I would recommend this book to other because it is very interesting and includes the elements that make Crichton's novels so readable

</review>
<review>

When I saw "The 13th Warrior" is the theater, I was struck by the number of similarities it had to Beowulf. I didn't realize until a few years later that was the point of the movie. Nor did I realize then it was based on a novel by Michael Crichton.

The movie and the story work well together in a simple format. An Arab courtier, after a dalliance with a married woman, is "promoted" to ambassador and sent on a doomed mission. On the way, his band encounters a band of Viking warriors. He is conscripted to journey to their homeland to fight an ancient evil, monsters in the mists. Along the way he notices the great cultural differences between himself and the Northmen. His records of the sexual prowress and daily hygine definitely stay with the reader.

Despite the artful telling of the story and the true writings of Ibn Fadlan that are used as a foundation, it still can't compare to the rustic beauty of the original Beowulf poem. Nothing against a great writer like Crichton, but there are some things just best left as they are

</review>
<review>

When I started reading this I only had the vaguest inclination of what the Beowulf story really was. It had everything I'd want in a story, strange characters, interesting plot, and it evoked such emotions as excitement, dread, and repulsion. I found this translation particularly interesting though because of the footnotes. The entire thing is riddled with footnotes explaining possible variations of words, different explanations and theories, etc.

I think the best part of the entire story was the most unintentional aspect of it, the fact the last sentence ends after three words leaving the reader to wonder. That all being said I'd only recommend it to people with the iron stomachs needed to deal with the brutality of the ancient world as well as an inquisitive mind.

</review>
<review>

First released in 1976, 'Eaters Of The Dead' was one of my first Michael Crichton books.  I have been an avid Crichton fan since that time.  Later, in the 1990's, a film was made called 'The 13th Warrior', which remained true to the book and yet added some wonderful flavor and fantastic visuals to a novel I still remembered as terrific.  Though based heavily on the rediscovered manuscripts and references of the real Ibn Fadlan, Crichton clearly tells us the book is considered as fiction and was/is marketed as fiction.

Ibn Fadlan was sent away from Bagdad by the Caliph, on the word of a jealous husband who's wife Fadlan had tampered with, to become Ambassador to the King of the Bulgars far to the north.  On his journey, he is waylaid by a band of Norsemen and selected to join them on a journey to aid King Rothgar against an unspeakable evil that appears in the cold northern mists.

Traveling with Buliwyf, a man soon to become king of his own court, and a group of twelve hearty Norsemen including the light-hearted Herger who speaks enough Latin to act as translator, Fadlan is taken further north with a band of men the fastidious Arab considers to be unclean barbarians.  Fadlan becomes immersed in their savage lifestyles, killing for sport and rutting in public, even gaining some respect for their superstitious ways and bawdy, rugged beliefs.

King Rothgar's lands are being attacked by the Wendol, a Neanderthal-type, cave-dwelling clan who takes the heads of their enemies and eats their flesh.  It is up to the thirteen warriors to rid King Rothgar of his dangerous enemies.

'Eaters Of The Dead' is a riveting tale, with enough footnotes and factual base to make it a realistic peek at the ancient Norsemen and a quick, exciting read.  When the book was re-released, Crichton added (in 1992) some interesting, factual notes on the Wendol, possible origins of the people described by Ibn Fadlan back in 921 AD.

Buy the book.  Buy the movie.  'Eaters Of The Dead' (AKA The 13th Warrior) is the best Viking tale you can find anywhere, in my humble opinion.  Enjoy!


</review>
<review>

This novel is actually one of Crichton's better creations. Crichton tries to write the events of the epic poem Beowulf in a believeable manner. And for a man who has made the eventual rise of dinosaurs believable to we skeptics (no tropical savanna locked in glacial ice necessary), he pulls this stunt off as well. He presents the information from the perspective of Ibn Fadlan, an emmissary from Babylon. With footnotes and such (and the fact that Ibn Fadlan was a real travel historian), the book is confusing until you realize that almost all of it is entirely made up.

It is a fascinating view of the Norsemen and times. So what makes this novel science fiction rather than historical fiction? Crichton's  basis for "Grendel." I won't ruin the surprise, but, again, its highly plausible and entertaining. Posits some possible and believable origins for the Beowulf epic

</review>
<review>

I didn't read this book for the "truth, or the lie", but just TO READ IT! It was an amazing story, whether or not it's true was irrevelant in my eyes. James Frey is an amazing author. Putting all the "drama" aside about everything that went on, I really and truly enjoyed this book

</review>
<review>

I think if you've lived life under a rock, watched a lot of soap operas, and enjoyed life playing out in neat formulas, this book will appeal to you.

It makes me angry to read this book; not because it's fiction (and I'll call it completely fictitious garbage), but because James Frey tried to pass it off as nonfiction!  He writes this book with an underlying tone "I'm better than all of you."  Not because he thinks AA is BS, but because this theme runs throughout his book, in so many situations, that after awhile it becomes laughable!  He prances around feeling vindicated for all of his actions and everyone else is just a plain a-hole, except his tough guy "friends."  I ask you, if Leonard has such a reputation... where's his protection?  People would be after him in such a vulnerable (read: no security) place like rehab.

I think if you sat back and read this book you as the reader could discern its BS by feeling its predictability.  It reminds me of a comic book where the tough guy is actually the hero who comes in to save the little people, yeah, he's got problems, but he'll prevail because he's James Frey!

No thank you.  I absolutely hated this book, but I read it so I at least deserve credit for trying.

</review>
<review>

I've done some investigating on this book and James Frey as an author. When he first started looking for a publisher to publish A Million Little Pieces, we titled it as a non-fiction work, and was turned down for years. He finally put the title of Biography on his book and it immediately was picked up by a publisher.

All that aside whether he was right or wrong..the book is very well written. One of the best books I have read in a while. Frey is an amazing sensory writer and really lets the reader imagine the scenarios described. You can't help but feel sad for James at his lows and rejoice with him at his highs.

Overall..I would recommend this book to anyone with enough time, and the stomach for some graphic stuff :

</review>
<review>

This is a book written from the heart; filled with deep soul searching and honesty. I'm familiar with alcohol and drug addiction. I'm familiar with treatment centers. For those of you who know this road - this book touches home. For those of you who don't - don't be the first to throw that proverbial 'stone'. I've heard the reports of the 'untruths' regarding this publication. I read it anyway. Pain is an immense ocean. The depth of that ocean is different for each of us. This 'message' could be a gift for many; a starting point, a different way of looking at life and it's unkind lessons. This book offers an open hand to start you on a journey towards reality; toward clarity. For those of you who belittled this book - be it truth or sensationalism - be cautious! You never know what life holds for you or yours around the next bend. The information offered here, the idea of taking that 'first step towards recovery', the process of becoming HONEST with yourself and others, could well be the salvation for someone you love. Yep, it's got some rough language. Did you really expect anything else from a drug addict? Common! Gimme' a break! Get real with yourself! Keep an open mind and dig into this book! It's a good read!
You might just learn something you didn't know in the process.

</review>
<review>

I have always wondered what happens in a Treatment center. How do people stop being an addict? What do they do all day? What kind of people are in a treatment center? This book answers those questions and shows that there's hope for every addict. I think it's an excellent read. A gift to all addicts.  It's exiting, I couldn't put it down and I thought about it quit a lot.

</review>
<review>

I'd heard the buzz (both pro and con) and thought I'd take an independent read. I was dismayed with this book.
James Frey has insulted anyone who has gone through a real experience with substance addiction by trivializing the truth of whatever experience he really had. One of the hardest things an addict has to grasp is the TRUTH so that he can take ownership of his actions and take the 12 steps or whatever is necessary to save his life and often the lives of loved ones tangled up in the mess with him. Lies are what enable "slips" and "enabling" and "denial" and those other catch words that describe continued misery and failure. Recovery is nearly impossible without honesty. So, can we look at this man's "memoir" and expect it to offer anything of value? It's poorly constructed, repetitive, and narcisitic. Even if Oprah hadn't exposed him, the writing takes the tone of "whoppers" like Frey's account of the drug house visit in which he "rescues" Lilly. Other reviewers and Smoking Gun have written about the fantastic episodes one by one, and I can't improve on that.
Suffice to say this mockery of misery and hope is no more real than a daytime soap opera.  Story lines in a soap may look like real life to one who is isolated from real life, the same way A Million Little Pieces might look to someone who has not been touched by real addiction. A real addict with typical delusion could be misdirected from a true course of treatment with tragic result.
I was left with the impression he thinks institutions and people who help others with substance recovery are pitifully misdirected or inept. Like a joke of some kind. I'm not laughing.

</review>
<review>

it would be a very irritating and unbelieveable read.  I read this book after knowing it is mostly fiction to see what all the hype was about.  The writing style of this book is annoying and difficult to read.  I ended up skipping over much of the content because it was repeated over and over.  I know this is supposed to be for emphasis, but I just found it indulgent.  The lack of correct punctuation was distracting, too.  Had I read this when the book first came out, before everyone knew he lied, I would have found it hard to believe that most everyone in the book relapsed but he was completely fine without the help of AA.  Although I have not attended AA or any similar support groups, I feel that this book sends a poor message to people with addictions, that they are perfectly capable to handle their recovery on their own, which in most cases I am sure they are not.  I found the other characters in the book to be much more interesting than James Frey, and I can't say that I felt any amount of sympathy or connection to him as a character.  Maybe that is what he wanted since he supposedly feels so horrible about himself....but I am sure that now he has made a pretty penny pimping a fake story he isn't feeling so badly anymore

</review>
<review>

If you can get past the scandal that revolves around this book and actually read it, you will not be disappointed.  This is a MUST-READ for anyone who has been touched one way or another by a drug or alcohol addiction.

</review>
<review>

My mother has introduced numerous authors to me, and I am glad that she has. She has introduced to me to classics, to modern day litature, and some crud books. I learned what to pick from her. I know what to read. When she introduced this book to me, I had no prior knowledge about the author, James Frey. For all I knew, it was a "drug" book. After my mother had finished it, She gave it to me to read. I was skeptical about it. I felt that I could not read it, because it didn't sound intresting. It was a story of a man that defines rock bottom. He wakes up on a plane, covered in body fluids, and has a hole in his cheek which he has no recollection of getting it. He is then taken to a rehababilitation facility, where he detoxs and thinks about life. He then meets love and finds himself there. It is a uplifting story.

Prior to finishing or during the course of my reading it. I found that there were accusations of lying in the story. I was flabbergasted by it. I didn't understand why he would make up stuff in the book, but I got over it and understood that it was a solid story and had solid writing. I felt that the people that blasted it for being fabricated probably read some or none at all of the story. They were probably understandbly upset at his success with the book. I am not blasting them, but they need to open their eyes and read what is in front of them.

Frey's writing stylye is highly unorodox for a writer. He doesn't write in paragraphs or is highly detailed. He just is honest and to the point. He doesn't hold back when he writes. Some people might find the story annoying, but I find it original and it helps showcase the conversations which usually are in "" but not the case in this book. It kind of reminds me of ee cummings and his poetry, but Frey doesn't do the random placement of punctuation. He does get his point, his mood, and his feelings across though.


The conteversy of the book has severly damaged Frey's reputation as a Author. He probably is spit on by the other authors for the fabrications. This society is totally obessed with bringing out ONE key aspect of a person or thing and blowing the whole thing out of poportion. Frey is a solid author that deserves another chance. He possibly has helped millons of people with his book get through whatever they were struggling through. It is a inspiring book, that is, if you take off the goggles thrown on by the conteversy and read the book.

</review>
<review>

The reviews all sounded so good I couldn't resist. I was hoping for another "Memoirs of a Geisha" but boy, was I disappointed. The story bounces all over the place, never seems to have a consistent theme and finally, turns out to be just plain boring. I'll give the author some credit; the imagery is nice and having traveled to many of the same locations in Asia myself, I enjoyed her descriptions of those places set in a bygone era. Unfortunately, the budding story of a war hero's longing for a very young girl (he refers to her as the "Changeling") made the guy come off looking like a pedophile. Seriously, pretentious readers will love this drivel; too bad I can't recover the hours I wasted on this schlock.  With any luck, it'll be another 20 years before 'ol Shirley picks up her pen again.

</review>
<review>

Read this novel for the exquisitely crafted prose.  The sentences are understated, spare, austere, yet luscious.  Unfortunately, the story itself is skeletal and the main characters with the exception of Aldred Leith thinly sketched.  Also, all the characters think and speak in the same spare, luscious voice - which is perhaps believable for a war veteran of 33, but hardly for a 17 year old girl and her teenage brother.  No matter how precocious they may be, teenagers don't have enough life experience to utter the wise sayings these munchkins do.

I would've liked to see more historical context - though the war looms huge, we see only its aftereffects on the emotions and psyches of the characters.  Not much about the devastation of Hiroshima is delved into, although this is Leith's purpose for being in Japan.  I guess the book is what it is.  Maybe Hazzard excludes historical context from her repertoire.

It's a bummer how women are treated here; with one exception, they either endure lives of loneliness and quiet desperation, or are lovely exotic flowers destined to shrivel and die in their arid surroundings, or have learned from experience or the lack of desirable men to suppress their longings and hopes for the future.

</review>
<review>

This book was so boring I could barely stand it. In fact, I had to abandon ship halfway through. The main character is kind of interesting, as are the two kids, but the story itself is so slow-paced that the characters can't carry the book. I am a huge reader and I can count on one hand the times I've had to quit a book midway, but this one just couldn't hold my interest. I found myself daydreaming everytime I tried to read it. The writing was over the top...the author sounds as if she's writing to try to get an award rather than tell a story. Pretentious readers may try to act like they enjoyed this mess, but don't believe them. One of the worst books I've ever read

</review>
<review>

No, this is not the Da Vinci Code. Or John Grisham's The Firm. But here's the good news: I enjoyed both the Da Vinci Code and The Firm, and I loved The Great Fire. You don't need to be a snob to enjoy this book. It's a great story with great characters. But you're more likely to enjoy it if you really love writing (not just a good story, but also how language is used to get the story across). It is true that you will be challenged at times. When I started reading the book, I had the feeling that I didn't really know what was going on or who was who--Hazzard's style is not very linear. But in time everything starts making perfect sense, and you can't help being fascinated by the extraordinary command of the English prose that Hazzard has. With one sentence she can convey a place, a time, a feeling, an emotion in a way that you'll think you're there and it's happening to you. I believe she's one of the most talented writers I have ever encountered, and I've read a lot. I recommend this book to anyone who truly loves both great fiction and the English language

</review>
<review>

Some books, in my opinion, are just plain overrated.  The characters in this novel are dull and uninteresting.  Likewise the tale.  The reader takes nothing from it. Put this in a list with Franzen's The Corrections and Frazier's Cold Mountain of award winning novels that did not deserve the accolades

</review>
<review>

The only great thing about "The Great Fire" is its name.
This is one of those books that as you read it, you find yourself lost in thoughts about the morning commute, the long ago expired and still unpaid decal on your front windshield, about the dog, that you forgot to feed and you now know it repaid you by doing its business on the one spot of the carpet, which you fiercely guarded and hoped to protect before the weekend party with your boss and his pricy wife who for some time now has been...but then you collect your thoughts and try again to refocus your attention on this story of post war Japan and the Australian soldier who fell in love with a teenager, or was the chap British...and the she, the bosses wife, who strangely winked at you during the last Christmas party and you felt like choking...he must have been Australian since in the end he decided to stay with the girl in Australia...but now you know that the spot in the carpet would forever remain brownish with its if not putrid then at least nagging reminder of the day you forgot to feed the damn dog because the book you were tying to read...but who really cares whether the Australian and the teenager remained faithful to each other, after all the world really changed since 1947...and so you hope that the next paycheck would be enough for you to make a call to `Stanley Steamer' and have them fix the memory of your immoral transgression...But back to the book! If you love British style novels of the kind where old ladies and younger chaps (with names like Bertram and Aldred) get together to have some tea, then in their spare time write long romantic letters, and from time to time remind each other of the horrid world war 2, this is the book for you. If you are like me, meaning you have so much on your mind that it'd take a much stronger novel to keep your attention pinned to its pages, then I highly recommend you withhold the urge to read this one.

- by Simon Cleveland

</review>
<review>

This is such a waste of talent.  It was only published because Shiley Hazzard has written a better book.  The story was dull, the unkindness of the parents most unreasonable. What kind of people would ignore their children this way?  Depressing and a waste of time

</review>
<review>

Shirley Hazzard writes beautifully choreographed stories that gently and carefully blossom like a flower. It isn't a book for everyone because it is definitely controlled in how it reveals itself and for some it initially may feel slow. If you do stick with it Hazzard will present some pearls of writing. She writes what might be on the surface very simple stories but her real knack lays in creating some of the most lush and acute metaphors and analogies about the human condition I have ever run across. I found myself writing down sentences and turns of phrases that were tossed off a bit lightly but hit the spot. I came across her work when reading an interview that had been done with her and it gave a keen glimpse into her writing as I was reading the book. This book in particular made me think of Carson McCullers and Truman Capote in the sense that they too wrote calculated stories that only the reader in as much as they thought was reasonable at a given time. Not everything is given away on the page but you can always feel how complex the emotions of the characters are. Fantastic book

</review>
<review>

Shirley Hazzard must have considered every word in every sentence; each possible meaning for every one.  Some of the lines are absolute gems with a myriad of meanings depending on how you focus on possible significances.  She writes with such beauty it takes your breath away.  So much is unsaid yet understood.   Finally, you need a good plot to have a good book, and this one is a satisfying in every way.  The characters grow and change then fulfill the roles they have adopted for themselves in a believable manner.  Gorgeous book

</review>
<review>

The principles in this book have been very helpful. What it says is true in my experiecne too - unless we work to change from the inside and recognize our true potential we will bnever reach that potential. What we think and imagine is what we create. A great, easy read in spite of some really deep principles. Joe has a great writing style.

I've followed Dr. Peale for yers and if you like his writings you'll like Joe's

</review>
<review>

I just recently picked up this book and cannot put it down! If you want to go about manifesting the life of your dreams, in all areas, then pick this book up.

Joe gives you a great simple 5 step process for manifesting whatever it is you like. He also gives you great exercises you can use for getting crystal clear about what it is you want (most people do not know) and also for clearing any negativity that might stop you from reaching it.

This is one of the best investments I have made into my personal future. I have read TONS of things about spirituality, manifesting, and this really breaks it down into a simple easy to use method that makes sense and most all, WORKS!!!!!

Try it out for yourself, you will be glad you did

</review>
<review>

It has been effortlessly easy to share and refer Joe Vitale's book to everyone.  Very personal and enjoyable read with key points on how to
change the direction and effortlessly bring it all forward to you. Reading it over and over is a pleasure.  Warmly Christina Thompso

</review>
<review>

Although there are a lot of similarities between this book and other self help books out there, like setting goals, knowing what you want, etc, this book goes over the spiritual side to getting what you want.  It gives an alternative approach to other success type books which I thought was interesting and enjoyable to read.

The only thing I didn't like about his book is that he put way too much testimonials in one of his chapter.  But besides that, it was a fresh new aspect to me in personal development.

My sister told me that she supposedly read this book, and manifested herself $3000 by being chosen to be in some commercial.  All she could say that it was the "Attractor Factor" at work

</review>
<review>

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! Although there is nothing new in it, especially if you have read books on similar topics, Joe organizes the material in a systematic and usable way that is easy to follow. Just read the book and follow the steps! I did and within 2 weeks I had a new car! Everything he says in this book is true. Just open your mind to the possibilities and see what happens.

</review>
<review>

This book should be read by everyone on the planet - it is the tool to assist in bringing about the "mind-shift" for our next leap in evolution.
Justine

</review>
<review>

Joe got it across to me in one sentence: "I believe our planet is what was described in an original Star Trek episode called "Shore Leave."..."they [Kirk, Spock et al] are on a planet that reads their thoughts and creates what they think about." Now, if you're not familiar with the concept that your internal world creates your external world, that's an 'out there' idea... Yes, parts of the book are redundant... and I'm not into all the spiritual stuff... but that's okay, because the concepts are simple and simply explained. Not to mention uplifting and inspiring. I love it. I've read it twice in a year now, and enjoyed it both times. Thanks Joe

</review>
<review>

The Attractor Factor gives you much more than just a simple formula for acheiving success in your life.  Whatever you want out of life, whether it is love, wealth or fame, it requires an effort on your part and a paradigm shift in your thoughts and beliefs.  Because so many people have negative beliefs (whether they realize it or not) they "attract" negative manifestations into their lives.  By changing your thoughts and beliefs, your actions - and the resulting manifestations - will follow.

I have personally read this book seven (7) times, and each time I gain a new insight into my life.  I highly recommend The Attractor Factor to everybody I meet.  Whether you are in business for yourself, or you work for somebody else, applying the principles in this book will change your life for the better.

Let me share with you just how this book has changed my life:

After reading this book I made some shifts in my own personal thinking.  My own personal experiences haven't been negative, but I knew I could always use some help improving my "attractor factor".  I have been working on writing a book for over 10 years and didn't know how to take it to the next level.  Then one evening, after I had read "The Attractor Factor", I met an elderly lady at a meeting who put me in touch with her son who worked for a major publisher.  I now have a publisher who is working with me to bring my book to market.  Not only that, but I have also begun work on two more books; one, a training manual and another one for an inspirational "self help" book.

I have personally spoken to the author, Dr. Joe Vitale, on the phone on one occasion and have been corresponding with his Executive Assistant.  I have also attended several teleconferences where Dr. Vitale was a keynote speaker.

The author is a phenomenal person and his books exude his great personality.  I have asked him to be my guest speaker at an upcoming event in November of 2006 and he has agreed to be my keynote speaker.  That was just one of my dreams and wishes: actually meeting the man who became the internationally acclaimed author of this book.

Get this book!  The Attractor Factor should be required reading in whatever endeavor you pursue!

Sincerely,
Ernest O'Dell
The 100 Grand A Month Club
Blanco, TX - USA
P.S. Yes, this book is definitely a "5 Star" rating.  This review comes "straight from the heart" and you should get your hands on this book ASAP

</review>
<review>

I am happy with the speedy mailing of the book as I got it much earlier than anticipate

</review>
<review>

Moran's way-path through phenomenology is truly phenomenal!  I say that it is a way-path and not a work because it is not an end in itself, but truly the beginning of an ever continuing/renewing end.  It has been extremely helpful as I work my way through phenomenology.

Phenomenology is one of the studies where very few of us have the time and money to work our way through it in its entirety.  It is an area of study that invites the scholar to plant his feet in one vantage point, one moment.

The moment in phenomenology that I've chosen is Heidegger, which is, of course, a lifetime of achievement in itself.  Part of the difficulty in understanding Heidegger is understanding him in relation others to his teacher (i.e. Husserl), his students (i.e. Gadamer), and, more illicitly, his extramarital lover Hannah Arendt.  Obviously, I do not have the time nor funding to study/afford all of these books, let alone give a systematic analysis of these works.  So in its place (tentatively), I have picked up Moran's book to help me along my own way-path, specifically Heidegger.  What it has enabled me to do, is understand Heidegger in relation to early and late phenomenology.  Moran provide a diachronic analysis rather than a synchronic summary, which is surely the preferred method to be consistent with the practice of phenomenology. His book is a wonderful tour guide through this fun themepark known as phenomenology.

Now, I plan to review and read some of these works in relation to Heidegger, but right now my focus and main attention is directed to Heidegger himself.  It is for this reason I find this book a helpful compass as I work my way through the many ambiguities of phenomenology at-large and small (and manifestly as they appear as all embracing constitutions in relation to my transcendental ego as it intentions the subject as it is given in the state of affairs of its appearing.)  I would recommend this book to anyone that is attempting to set out on a similar endeavor like myself.

I give this book four stars because it is a book that is always/continually "on the way" to phenomenology.  It is a book with obvious limitations in that it is a tool towards an end and not an end in itself.  In it the author seems to display a strong, but well defended, bias towards Husserl.  I believe that there are some parts of this book that could be swelled in accordance with Justice, but, if all this is understood by the reader, then its value is not reduced, but induced.

</review>
<review>

The Oxford Dictionary of Allusions is limited in content. I would have preferred something more complete

</review>
<review>

No one likes difficult conversations, but we must have them. This book guides you in dealing positively with these situations and conversations to make the best possible outcome

</review>
<review>

This is a must read for anyone involved in communications - with your boss, your colleagues, your clients, your suppliers, your spouse or partner, your kids, your friends (have I missed anyone out?).
The book describes the 3 different levels of a conversation; the 'what happened' conversation, the 'feelings' conversation, and the 'identity' conversation. The joy is in the simplicity; we talk about 'what happened' but what we really mean is our feelings are hurt, or our identity has been questioned, and once we can sort it all out and speak truthfully about what is going on for us, it enables others to help us and understand us.
Its not an easy band aid and requires patience, tolerance, and a great deal of courage - but I think you'll agree that having truthful and open conversations would save us all a lot of pain and grief in the long term. So hurrah for this book for being easy to grasp, not jargoned, and very helpful.

</review>
<review>

Have you ever had a challenging conversation with a spouse, co-worker, friend, or family member that didn't turn out so well?  Did you ever wonder how to best deal with a significant person in your life without causing stress when needing to approach a topic? The authors give great advise to handle most conversations that might otherwise cause stress.

I love this book. I loved it the first time I read it, the second time, the third, and more.  It's a must for anyone interested in getting more from their relationships.  An absolute must read!!

</review>
<review>

Ever dread having to hold a difficult conversation? I recommend this book for as "basic training" for anyone who has faced the prospect of speaking with bosses, co-workers, employees about negative workplace behaviors, skill deficits, attitude issues, interpersonal conflicts, or blind spots.

"Difficult Conversations" first explores the incompatible perspectives that create every difficult conversation and then explains how to deal with them. The authors show how to move from a destructive and frustrating interchange to what they call a "learning conversation." They offer the steps to help shift your perspective and the direction of your difficult conversations. The book is written from a general perspective, applicable to all communications, and it contains many examples from the workplace. Highly recommended

</review>
<review>

Each time I read Difficult Conversations, I learn something new that is practical.  A must read for anyone looking to improve their understanding of family, friends and others

</review>
<review>

I'm writing this review of the 5-CD audiobook, not the book. The CD is a must-have, whether you've read the book or not. In it, actual examples are acted out of all kinds of conversations before and after the techniques are used. After listening to the CD I can easily recall what to do when I find myself suddenly in a difficult conversation, because i've actually heard it. Also, as you move through the sessions, the authors go just a bit deeper and deeper until one finds oneself admitting some very personal truths. I think the reviewer below who recommends Dale Carnegie instead didn't hear the CDs -- I didn't get the same result from Dale's books, as I have from listening to these CDs. The ultimate result of having listened to the series a few times? I don't get thrown off balance (their term) so often when I suddenly realize the other person is reacting negatively to what I thought was positive, and vice versa. I just switch into a different mode and many times, the person (either me or my companion) has forgotten they were upset at all.

Now for my complaints, which lost them a star: the CDs are extremely low budget. The packaging has no guide and the content within the CDs is not organized very professionally. There is no heading labeling each track, so if one has to stop listening one won't know where they left off. Also, sometimes a section that should be on its own track begins within a track, somewhere in the middle, so if you want to find where it begins, you have to go back and search for a while for the exact beginning of the idea. How they thought that was logical I don't know. And, they don't have a recording at the beginning of each CD so you know where you are, to help you in remembering so you can refer back to which CD has what you want. Finally, the voices used to herald new chapters/key points, are not consistent - so that it's easy to miss them as they go by, if you're doing something else at the same time. This is a major no-no in radio presentation, which I would have thought the experts at Harvard would be on top of

</review>
<review>

i recently spent almost $300 of my own hard-earned cash to buy this book from amazon and mail my friends their own copies. yep, it's that good

</review>
<review>

This is an excellent resource for talking about difficult topics, especially in areas that are highly charged e.g. in family life or in a couple.

While it covers the basics of negotiation, it also breaks down crucial conversations into component parts.  This book really helped me to understand the underlying emotional dynamics of difficult conversations which are often hidden.

Two good books to go along with this are Getting to Yes and Crucial Conversations.  They are all complimentary to each other

</review>
<review>

Despite the overwhelmingly positive reviews here on Amazon, I really cant appreciate the value, usefulness or practicality of this book. The proposed framework, that each difficult conversation is really three (The "What Happened?", The "Feelings" and The "Identity") Conversations, is complicating rather than helping to solve the problem. You may think I am a contrarian or a poor communicator. However, with my very positive experience (and reviews) on books like "How to win friends and influence people?" by Dale Calegie, "Get anyone to do anything and never feel powerless again" by David J. Lieberman , "How to talk to anyone?" by Leil Lowndes and so on, I am obliged to warn potential buyers, in particular regular readers of relevant books, of a big disappointment.

</review>
<review>

Douglas Stone demonstrates great awareness of the subject matter. He states the principles and then illustrates them with powerful examples. He made me think of my own approach in difficult conversations. The person who buys this book will not regret the purchase

</review>
<review>

A beautiful book, excellent for a gift as well as for one's own library.  The illustrations are many, varied, and lovely.  The text is engrossing

</review>
<review>

I've found myself coming back to this book time and time again, just to open at random.  I would recommend this book without hesitation

</review>
<review>

I found this book in the gift shop of the Point Reyes National Seashore visitor center on a recent trip to Inverness and had to own it.

As an artifact it's quite beautiful: the illustrations and text and heft of the volume is sumptuous. This is, as the name says, a bedside book; a substantial hardcover with a creamy, coated-stock dustcover instead of a slick and glossy coffeetable book. The point of it is to open the volume and read.

Many such books are just random tidbits that catch the collector's fancy or have some private meaning to the person pulling the work together but which don't form a larger, coherent work. Somehow, though, this book seems to have an ebb and flow that seems natural, as if Gibson himself it taking ownership of the words, the images, the flavors here.

I bought the book for feel and flavor, but am pleased to note that it is worth owning as a volume in its own right, a perfect bedside companion. Highly recommended

</review>
<review>

Wonderful book - amazing pictures.  What a treasur

</review>
<review>

This is among the most beautiful books I have ever owned.  An exquisite collection of poems, stories, journal entries and reveries about birds that is complemented by extraordinary, rich artwork  throughout.  Graeme Gibson's careful choices bring out the intrigue, the mystery, the beauty and mythical qualities of birds throughout the world.  A lavishly published work of the highest standard, I didn't think books like this were still made.  I've ordered more copies to give to friends because I really haven't seen anything else like it

</review>
<review>

This book is a sumptuous, lusciously illustrated homage to birds of all sorts.. common and exotic. It is printed on rich, delicately tintured stock, which frames the splendid artwork that accompanies each contribution. It is composed of poems, meditations, folklore, sagas, journal notes, involving birds, from people who've been inspired.. or irritated by them. The artwork includes famous Audubon watercolours, oils, aboriginal renditions in sculpture or stone paintings, statuary, mobiles and all sorts of depictions.

Gibson is a lifelong birdwatcher and collector of arcane literary and artistic tomes on birds. Birds have always been providential for man, omens of good or evil tidings. Creation stories are replete with birds, they are clarions of peace, of messianic proclamation or of disaster. They include the dove, clasping the olive branch to the raven, the trickster, the wolfbird, harbinger of bad times. They can be objects of veneration, of beauty, of song.. or they can be pest birds, that could ruin a crop, or spread disease in overcrowded cities.

Modern man's relationship with the bird has always been ambiguous. It is shot for sport, roasted for his plate, it is adopted as symbol for nations, it is a muse for writers and artists. They represent characteristics of fierceness, nobility, piety, beauty, purity.. or connivance with dark forces.

Gibson relates the story of the 19th Century Lutheran Pastor in Dresden who called for the extermination of the sparrow for its incessant chattering and scandalous acts of unchastity during service. Or of the adventurer, who having killed what was likely the last of the Dodos, lamented only that he had not saved the beak and skull for posterity. The book is chock full of the mundane, the profound and the mythical.

The book begins (almost) and ends with the birds of the Western Front. Whose singing always re-sounded  on the destroyed landscapes of Flanders before and after the mechanistic slaughter of battles that engulfed mankind in the First World War. They gave a faint promise of grace to those in the trenches below. Bird lovers and those whose main preoccupation is the racket outside their window or the droppings in their public places will all find solace in this book.

</review>
<review>

By Jeffrey W. Bennett Author of Under the Lontar Palm and founder of LayMentor.
This book reminds me of my most important asset; the people on my team.  In the middle of the book are Management Gems.  The Gems include formula for Top Managers, Leadership Myths, as well as steps for performance oriented mangagement.  These Gems are must reads daily.  Thanks for making something so tough, easier to apply

</review>
<review>

Inane, useless information from a speaker so boring I could hardly get through the 3 CD's (but felt like I had to since I had spent the money on them).   Perhaps he is a great salesperson-but I cannot see it.  I bought this on the strength of the reviews and am now convinced they were his friends or family stuffing the ballot box.  I think this information was aimed at someone in grade school, not a professional sales person.

</review>
<review>

This is a great book.  Most of the stuff that Tony Robbins teaches in his 300$ influence programs has the same exact tenants that Ziglar teaches.  Ziglar is the best teacher for success principles, period.  I have studied in depth brian tracy, anthony robbins, earl nightingale, jim rohn, and anyone else of note in this field.  Ziglar is the best all around.  Earl did start it all with lead the field and that may be the best condensed program out there BUT Zig is the best today.  Tony and Tracy are 5 star speakers also.

With that said, this book is awesome and really teaches you the most important factors in learning sales.  It is all fundamentals.

As for the guy who said, "slow down zig", I find that funny.  A human can only speak at about 250 words per minute, 400 words per minute if they are blazing fast.  As for how fast your mind can think, probably 1,000 words per minute or more.  Good readers read at about 500 wpm or more.  So when  you say that he is moving too fast for you, I have to wonder if you have issues.  That must be a mental block for you because there is no problem at all with the speed of his presentation.  STEP UP and STOP WHINING!  Start selling!

How good of a salesperson can you be if you complain and can't focus on the material.  Everyone is a critic nowadays.  Get out of selling and get into movie criticsm.  GOOD DAY SIR!  lo

</review>
<review>

This book helps to keep your chin up.   Sometimes in sales it can be discouraging.   You can only take so many `no's.  This is a useful tool to help you get on top and stay there.    Ziglar is an incredible teacher.

</review>
<review>

The content is full of valuable information on selling. But this Audio CD is not my favourite.

Ziglar speaks so rapidly and non-stop! I guess nobody speaks in this mannner.  I mean, if you want listeners to enjoy your speech, it is better to  speak in a more natural pace, occassionally there should be a pause.

Ziglar is rushing the scripts when you listen to this CD. Choking the brain of the listeners with no respite whatsoever! Slow down Slow down......... Ziglar!  Give me some space to absorb your message!

I wish I can listen to your CD comfortably, but I can't.  You Read the scripts in such a rapid manner that it does not help your listeners to relax and enjoy your works. Ziglar!

I am sorry, I have to give you 2 stars based on your unsatisfactory presentation in this CD

</review>
<review>

On page 190 Mr. Ziglar shares a  very profound point of view. "Theoretically, the odds are in your favor because very few consumers read books, attend classe, or listen to recordings on how not to buy."  I have been reading his books and listening to his tapes for years and this book, to me, is a history book in sales.  He shares his sales experiences and solutions when he sold with small companies, and gives examples of some of the sharpest salesmen in the country who sold large orders for some of the biggest corporations in America.  One of the main points he brings out throughout the book is A.A.F.T.O. Want to know what it means?  Get the book.

</review>
<review>

I would encourage you to listen and listen again to a wounderful explaination of what being a salesperson is all about.  If you are looking for a sales career or just want to reinforce what you already know, this wonderful CD is what its all about. In fact, it's a dream come ture for most.  This CD is a real look into what it takes to nurture a positive aditude about getting ahead and staying on top, not only in sales but in your life.  Thank you Zig Ziglar

</review>
<review>

This book is an outstanding guide for the art teacher eager to teach not only creative photography, but how to connect, understand, and tell a story through a picture. This book teaches expression through exercises with video and poetry, how to read a photograph, to have children from different cultures learn from each other from self portrait exercises in the shoes of different ethnicities.
Although I found this to be extremely interesting, this book isn't what I had expected. I am not a teacher, but I have a child interested in photography and since I am not a photographer myself I was looking for a guide for us both to learn and enjoy together. This book, although enjoyable, shows examples for different assignments for more of a class room setting, not a parent and child learning together . Also this is a book with only a couple pages of actual images and more text. I do feel this book is a blessing for teachers who may be looking for a creative and meaningful experience for their students to express themselves through art.

</review>
<review>

This book guides you through teaching literacy through photography to children, for which Ms. Ewald is well known. It is a fantastic resource for someone who wants to really teach the heart and soul of photography, as well as visual literacy - a great introduction to photography but even a seasoned photographer can learn something new from this book. Ms. Ewald takes you through her curriculum step by step as she would teach her students and gives you the tools and tips to pass it on. This is not a technical "how to" photo book, there are plenty of those out there, this book is truly a gem. I have used Ms. Ewald's book as the basis for my own workshops with children and I now have adults asking me to take the course!  I can't say enough great things about it..

</review>
<review>

I read this book because of the good reviews. By the end of the book
I wanted to shake Alison and dump her myself.

</review>
<review>

I agree with fuzzy ear's review below. The characters are quite average, so in a positive way a reader could easily relate. While it was a quick read, it was dull at times

</review>
<review>

I read this book in a day.  It was a fun, light book.  Interesting insights into evangelical christians (and the mormons next door with a trampoline - very funny!)  The story was engaging and well written.  The character of Alison seemed very realistic.  The book could have been longer; the writing was so entertaining, I would have loved to continue reading about Alison and her life

</review>
<review>

I think some of the negative reviews here don't get it that you can have a deep, thought-provoking subplot going on, that deals with deep rooted things like religion.  I was raised in Amish country (though I'm not Amish, but I've been scarred by the Evangelicals, too) and I have thought a lot about all the things that the author writes about.  It's a great story that focuses on other areas besides just the ditsy chick-lit normal stuff.  Not that those things are bad.  This just had more substance.  Highly recommended

</review>
<review>

I read this book in a single sitting and wish I could re-read it every day. Reading it for the first time was like putting on a cozy, warm jacket that you forgot you still had.  A gem

</review>
<review>

This is the story of Alison who gets dumped by her boyfriend just before a dinner party to go back to his ex who he's had an affair with for months. This story was so disappointing: it's like Dunn took the same ideas as Jennifer Weiner's Good In Bed, i.e. being dumped, religion, pregnancy, friends, etc, but the end result is disappointing. The heroin is a girl who goes on and on about being an Evangelical Christian (who cares?), how she slept with few men, etc. This story is not realistic, it's not that funny, and the heroin is disappointing. If you want the real thing, read Jennifer Weiner, but not Dunn, sorry

</review>
<review>

This book is not great, really not great.  It is decent, but not nearly what I was expecting.  The cover says that it is a highlight reel from Sex and the City, one of my very favorite shows, but it was so opposite of SaTC, that I can't even understand the comparison.  The main character doesn't live in NYC, and doesn't write a column about sex, but does write a column.  It's about a girl, one who hates her evangelical Christian background, so she has sex with a couple guys, but it isn't about loving the man, it's about wanting not to be a Christian.  I finished it to find out what ends up happening, but I was REALLY dissapointed.  Don't but this if you are looking for a fun read or if you don't hate evangelical Christians

</review>
<review>

As someone who vascilates between reading Rushdie and chick-lit, I really enjoyed this book.  It's definitely a step above Marian Keyes, etc. but still light, easy reading.  Sarah Dunn is insightful and funny, I look forward to reading her next novel

</review>
<review>

This nifty little volume is proof that the English language is not only alive, it's kicking butt and taking names. Language junkies are familiar with the author's several dozen books and probably his website and maillist, too (for which he slips in a couple of plugs, but that's okay). What he's interesting in here is the invention (or the organic rise, perhaps) of new words by all parts of society, from teen slang that mostly lasts two weeks to techie terms that have rooted themselves firmly in the wider culture, like "dot-com" or the verb "to google." He avoids stunt words (deliberate cleverness by some writer) and nonce words (which appear only once and die immediately). None of his examples existed before c.1980, and all have established a track record by appearing in a variety of public media. (He's aware of Sniglets, incidently, but points out that not one of those introduced by Rich Hall has actually entered the language.) Some new words are so obvious and so apt once you've heard them, you can't believe no one ever thought of them before. (He describes S. J. Perelman's delight when a mechanic told him his car had been "totaled.") The chapters are organized by source or context -- modern angst, modern politics and war, activism of all flavors, political correctness (itself an apt and sneering recent invention), advertising, the Internet revolution, pop psychology, baby-boom-ism, privacy and security (not to forget 9/11, now an overused shorthand), and even "Dilbert." He gives examples of usage from the media, too, some of which are a hoot. Still, there are gaps in the language for which no word has yet appeared, like a reasonable term for each other by adults who regularly go on dates ("Boyfriend" and "girlfriend" are a bit silly when you're over forty). This book is a great time-sink (that's in here, too), both fun and informative

</review>
<review>

This is my newest book out and I hope you take a look at it.  Unlike a lot of grooming books, this one is the most conprehensive when it comes to grooming your dog.  Whether it's training your dog to accept grooming, handling bad-hair days, getting your dog ready for the show ring, or dealing with medical conditions or real hair emergencies, this book handles it all in a friendly, fun and conversational tone.

Whether you just want to give your dog a back, clip him back in a pet cut, or do your dog's own "do", this book is definitely for you

</review>
<review>

I learn so much from these books-have about6 different ones. The index in this is the best to look up anything you want to know about taking care-good care of your dog

</review>
<review>

I really enjoyed this book and have purchase the next book in series.  If you are a fan of Dean Koontz you will not be disappointed.  I give it four stars only because it is one of those books where you have to get past a chapter or two before you are hooked in, but well worth the wait.  Whew, what a ride

</review>
<review>

This character is a very unlikely hero...A total Geek, who is absolutley likeable.The story fast paced and well written..This was my first Koontz book and it will not be my last I'm actually reading "forever odd" and that too is very good..Read this book

</review>
<review>

For me, this was one of starters of Dean Koontz's books. I really liked the book. Dean Koontz is my favorite writers, cause of him I am doing my own book. Pick this one up, really good characters, main character, really good story, and plot

</review>
<review>

I didn't know what to expect before reading this book, but after reading it, I recommend it to any and everyone.  One of the best I've read of Koontz, and I've read quite a few

</review>
<review>

This book, even though it is fiction, with true history mixed in for good measure was very inspiring!  Everyone I had listen to it, loved it!  I would like to thank the author and say it was well written, and the narrator read the words beautifully!  Thanks again

</review>
<review>

I tried to read this book twice thinking that the first time I didn't give it a chance. I couldn't read anymore after the second decision. It's poorly written and there is nothing revolutionary about it. It's the same old self-help stuff regurgitated and the storyline is even worse. I feel cheated that I paid $1.29 for it at the thrift store.

</review>
<review>

This book covers all the ingredients for one to be successful. Andy Andrews covers all "things" that have been said before one way or another, but his rendition is both educational and motivating. His unique style makes it a must for anyone seeking harmony within themselves for a happier, more fulfilling life

</review>
<review>

Read THE TRAVELER'S GIFT by Andy Andrews, a self-help
book that effectively uses fiction to hold your interest . . . it is
the story of a typical guy--David Ponder--whose troubles begin
when he loses his job.

When his car crashes, he then begins a journey that will
remind you of the movie, IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE . . . but what
makes this tale different is that along with way, Ponders encounters
various historical figures who each teach him a different rule of success.

The first is "The Buck Stops Here" (Harry Truman), followed by "I Will Seek
Wisdom" (King Solomon), "I Am A Person of Action" (Colonel Chamberlain,
Civil War hero), "I Have A Decided Heart" (Christopher Columbus), "Today I
Will Choose To Be Happy" (Anne Frank), "I Will Greet This Day With A
Forgiving Spirit" (Abraham Lincoln), and "I Will Persist Without Exception"
(Archangel Gabriel).

By the time Ponder is ready to return to the real world, you will have
feel that you will have learned something from his travels . . . and though
you just know that all will turn out well, the ending will still warm
your heart.

There were several memorable passages; among them:
* David put his energy and focus into providing a home and lifestyle
in which his family would prosper. But his work at the plant, while
it did provide a living, never seemed to provide a life. As David
told a friend one day, "I'm working so hard to live where we want
to live that I don't actually get to live there."

* Truman paused. He pulled out his handkerchief and wiped his brow.
David's head was hanging, his chin on his chest. "David, look at me,"
the president said. David's eyes met his. "The words It's not my fault!
should never again come from your mouth. The words It's not my
fault!  Have been symbolically written on the gravestones of
unsuccessful people ever since Eve took her first bite of the apple.
Until a person takes responsibility for where he is, there is no basis
for moving on. The bad news is that the past was in your hands,
but the good news is that the future, my friend, is also in your hands."

* "I do not complain," Anne said. "Papa says complaining is an activity
just as jumping rope or listening to the radio, and one may choose not
to turn on the radio, and one may choose to complain, and one may
choose not to complain. I choose not to complain."


</review>
<review>

After seeing his video, The Seven Decisions, I had to have the book.  It is entirely different, but with the same message.  I then bought three to give as gifts.  Andy is a great story teller, and very entertaining.  I highly recommend this book, and you'll want to get another one to share (keep your own)

</review>
<review>

I bought this book based on the blurbs, and the fact that I enjoy an occasional Steven Covey - type read.

This sure wasn't one of them.

I started the book once and put it down after reaching the third point, thinking that maybe this wasn't simplistic pap written in an incredibly juvenile fashion, but that maybe for whatever reason my head wasn't into it.

I took it on a recent vacation, thinking that with my mind unfettered, etc., perhaps I might be more open to what the book had to say.

Wrong.

This is a terribly written book, with a hokey, herky-jerky style by an author in need of some creative writing classes, spouting the most basic of tenants as if they are something new.

For Pete's sake, basically this fellow took Zig Ziglar and put in a clever twist of the 'Time Bandits' style confrontations with famous characters. I noted with amusement that all of the characters basically had the same sort of dialogue. When Anne Frank has the same speech patterns as Solomon and Harry Truman, I know I'm reading a really bad book.

Comparing this to Og Mandino is an insult to Og.

This book is to motivational literature what 'Bridges of Madison County' was to fiction

</review>
<review>

I really enjoyed The Traveller's Gift which was recommended to me by one of my very successful friends.  I am a huge student/trainer of Personal Development information, and what I liked most about this book was it's freshness.

The lessons in the book were not just your average Personal Development stuff.  They were well thought out, and presented in way that I certainly got alot out them.

You can get a free seminar on The Law of Attraction, which was missing from the book, at wealth-ambition.com/lawofattraction

I think that the book, being a novel and yet being a self-help book at the same time was effective, and this book is much more accessible than Og Mandino's to today's reader.

(I attribute learning the lesson of persistence to Og Mandino's "The Greatest Salesman In The World.")

But even though the book was easy to read and powerful, I felt that the writing was not perfect.  The strength of the book is the message, not the lyricism of the scenes.  And I felt that David Ponder, the main character, was a bit of a crybaby in the beginning of the book.

However, I loved the book, and highlighted several passages that were among the best of any I have read.

This book would be a perfect solution for someone who has trouble reading straightforward self-help books.  And a side benefit, is that I believe the messages sink in more if couched in a story rather than just presented as theories.

Pick up this book today

</review>
<review>

Not normally a fan of self-improvement "stuff", I was referred to Andy Andrews as a way to help coach my staff.  Listening to the book on tape, I found myself drawn into the story and wanting to re-listen to the messages.  The characters resonate with reality and there were many passages that were directly reflective of my own life and experiences.

I highly recommend this easy listen to anyone - my adult children will be receiving a copy and I'm asking each of my direct reports to read or listen to it as well.  It's wonderful and I know that I'll be listening to it again and again

</review>
<review>

This book is an enjoyable story to read. It encompasses imagination, vision and direction to making changes for your life. I felt it was a great way to learn about important lessons we can understand at any age to live successfully! I recommend this book to anyone that is looking for happiness and success in their business and personal lives.

</review>
<review>

If this is one of those books that some physcology teacher "assigns" you to read for a later book report, forget it. Put the book back and drop the class. It's just doesnt fall into that kind of catagory.  This book is an  extension of that old saying "You make you're own bed, so sleep in it". If you're not a deep thinker and don't consider spirituality (I don't neccessarily mean religion, so chill)  anything more than a magic act, then don't bother picking Andys book up. Its not you or for you. Having said all that, I liked it. It had some solid words (the 7 decisions thing) to live by that are not anything more than you already know in your own gut. He just brings it all to the surface a bit so you can digest the meaning and perhaps try it yourself. I cant call it a self help book. I've read several of those and most of them get thrown out with last nites pizza box. This is a simple, short page turner that you could knock out in a couple of evenings. No big words or long speeches. But dont read it that quick. Do a couple of chapters then put it down for a day or two.
He uses the "time travel" vehicle as nothing more than an example for you to hold on to while the message is getting told. Yes, we all know time travel likely doesnt exist. Thanks for the reminder. So many of the early reviewers must have just got through reading The Davinci Code or something. Exactly what were you expecting, a bottle of fix-it pills with each copy??  If you're looking for a little refill of your already learned life lessons and what they should mean to you and others, this book is great. Its not about what you did wrong. Its about what happens now and later. This is not a review of YOU birth-to-presentday.  Its not a textbook, or like I said, a self help book. Its not religious or anything like that. No thee's thou's or thou arts. You're not getting brainwashed and they dont ask you to send money to a P.O. Box in Florida at the end of the book... Its written for those of us living in the western world who can't seem to believe in ANYTHING without seeing it, smelling it or touching it or having an unretouched digital internet image as proof of existence. Its just a little bit of walk-around enlightenment for your every day use. So go deep. You can't lose here. The book only costs 10 bucks and I got mine on sale.

</review>
<review>

I have never encountered a more brilliant historian. Just when I thought life wouldn't brighten up, I found this incredible masterpiece.

</review>
<review>

DRAMA CITY is not your traditional mystery, nor is it exactly noir, although the subject matter is definitely dark. It does have an original lead character, an ex-drug trafficker named Lorenzo Brown who takes a job as an investigator for the Humane Society when he gets out of jail.

The other lead character is Lorenzo's parole agent, Rachel Lopez. She's an alcoholic who spends her nights trolling hotel bars, looking for a man she can dominate.

The minor characters, a half dozen or so gang members, are almost as provocative as Lorenzo and Rachel. The action starts when DeEric Green, one of Nigel Johnson's henchmen, confronts Jujubee, one of Deacon Taylor's pushers, selling drugs on what he thinks is Nigel's corner. It's not Nigel's corner, and this starts a minor drug war. Deacon Taylor sends Melvin Lee and Rico Miller to tail DeEric Green and his partner, Michael Butler. Lorenzo Brown also clashes with Lee and Miller when he is sent to try to salvage some animals at a pit bull fight staged by various gang members.

Rico Miller is a psychopath and he sets out to get revenge when DeEric Green disses his partner Melvin Lee, who is like a father to him. All of this sounds like rather traditional gangland lore, but Pelecanos really shines when he details the back stories of the various characters. Even Miller is sympathetic. His nickname, "Creep," was given to him by his own mother. There's also an anecdote about a Christmas ornament that is especially poignant. Pelecanos uses "bling" as an example of just how dismal these drug dealers' lives are. Rico Miller and the other pushers own/rent fancy cars, but their idea of fun is to play video games and smoke "blunts." Nigel Johnson, a boyhood friend of Lorenzo's, apologizes for getting him involved in the drug trade, when all Lorenzo wanted to do was run track. He admits that his sales pitch about family was a just a sham. We worry about Lorenzo throughout the novel. For one thing, he still has some guns he keeps beneath the floorboards in his apartment. We wonder if redemption is really possible for him or if the poison is all consuming.

Drama City is set in Washington D.C.  Having made a wrong turn into the ghetto district once, I can vouch for the distressing conditions Pelecanos describes. It is certainly an appropriate setting for a novel about poverty and how easy it is for young black men and women to fall prey to The Monster.

</review>
<review>

While the plotline is routine and almost predictable, Pelecanos makes it work.  I love his characters--both Lorenzo, the ex con trying to go straight, and Rachel, the Parole Officer trying to get straight, are very likeable and sympathetic characters.  Their depth carries you through a less-than-moving plotline.  I will be reading more of Pelecanos' work.

</review>
<review>

An ex-felon turned Humane Society worker trying not to get sucked back into the violence around him and parole officer Rachel Lopez who has a dark night life are the compelling characters of the great George Pelicano's new book.When a murderous gang member cuts loose the 2 find themselves caught in the middle.Gripping,surprising and also compassionate full of Pelicano's usual great use of street slang and authentic details about music,cars and animals.If you're a longtime Pelicanos reader you'll notice it doesn't include his usual characters but these new characters are a welcome addition to Pelicanos' urban jungle

</review>
<review>

After loads of success with his earlier series, Pelecanos introduces two new protagonists in this excellent trip down Washington, D.C.'s mean streets. His work on the HBO series "The Wire", shows in the main character of Lorenzo, a drug crew thug recently off an eight-year stretch of jail after a third strike. Now he's trying to put the game behind him and live a square life as an enforcement officer for the city's Humane Society. Part of Lorenzo's routine involves reporting to his parole officer, the young, attractive Rachel Lopez. Given the D.C. area's substantial Latino population, it's taken Pelecanos a while to introduce one as a major character, but with Rachel he not only takes care of that, but has finally written a fully developed female character. She's not without her own issues, as alcoholism and anonymous sex threaten to lead her somewhere dark.

The story basically follows Lorenzo and Rachel around their daily rounds, providing a glimpse at the daily struggles they face simply to get along in the world. Like many of Pelecanos' characters, Lorenzo discovers satisfaction and pride in hard work, as he has to deal with both the nasty people who mistreat animals, and the mockery of the corner boys, who call him soft. He knows he's still as tough as they come, but he's also built the self-respect to realize that he doesn't need to prove anything to anyone. Meanwhile, Rachel has her own hard work, trying to keep her offenders on the straight path and a lid on her self-destructive behavior. Of course, since this is Pelecanos, they also get tangled up in an escalating beef between drug gangs, one of which is led by Lorenzo's old friend Nigel. There are plenty of subplots along the way, including an ugly look at the dog-fighting underworld, the fascinating details of Lorenzo's job, Rachel's Narcotics Anonymous meetings, and Lorenzo's wooing of a single mother.

One of the running themes is how environment shapes behavior, and the mistreatment of animals is used as a metaphor for the those who grow up with no opportunities in life and no options. There's a great part where a young gangster daydreams wistfully about seeing Paris, but his upbringing and environment have hamstrung him so that he has no idea how one goes about buying a plane ticket or getting a passport. Ultimately, like many crime books, the overriding theme is one of redemption, especially Lorenzo's. He's done things in the past he's not proud of, and when confronted with the choice between street ethics and civilian ethics, which path will he take? There are the usual Pelecanos tidbits, music references, car references, a cameo by Derek Strange and one or two other characters recognizable to long time Pelecanos readers. Nothing in this book is a surprise, but all the elements are so assuredly put together that one can't help but be sucked under. Definitely Pelecanos at his best.

</review>
<review>

I have read all of his books and he seems to me to be getting better and better.

Drama City deals with the lives of three protagonists who have their personal demons and are trying to either forget them, live with them or ignore them.

I find that Pelecanos' dialogue is top notch and possibly the best that I know of. He reminds me of Elmore Leonard from the mid-1980's.

Highly recommended

</review>
<review>

I really enjoyed this novel. It was a welcome surprise to see how unusual this is. It's not a standard crime novel. The lead character isn't a cop or detective or private eye. It would probably more approprately be considered urban-noir.

Quite a few pages of have to pass before we get to the criminal element and build toward the overt conflicts of the novel. Before that you're introduced to two characters, Lorenzo Brown and Rachel Lopez, two troubled individuals trying to get on with their lives, each carrying a lot of baggage. We get to know them, see them in quiet moments, see their strengths and failings. Only after this introduction does the criminal side of things kick in. And then it's never a matter of figuring out who did what and/or how they're going to be arrested/killed. It's a matter of watching characters who we've come to care about to see how they'll respond to the dramas thrown at them, to see whether they'll have the strength to emerge positively from it.

I thought this was great. It's a mature novel, like Mystic River, wherein the novelist takes advantage of his stature and fan base to write a work that's essentially literary fiction. Pelecanos, like Dennis Lehane, is pushing that envelope, merging genres. I particularly like the fact that this novel is peopled almost entirely with black or latino characters. I'm not sure how/why Pelecanos can write with such empathetic ease about these characters, but he's got a gift for it. And he knows DC. That's just one reason why Pelecanos' work stands separate from Walter Mosley's. Don't just read one or the other author: read them both. Mosley brings LA to life in most of his works; Pelecanos does the same for the Nation's Capital.

</review>
<review>

This book and some of the other books from the Design Briefs series, have become an integral part of my working resource library. Ellen Lupton's book has been one that I have used over and over again. I often reference it when I am faced with a blank page that I am having a hard time laying out.

The section on typography, the largest section of the book, was a very interesting read. I enjoyed learning about the history of printing and typography. Beginning designers will appreciate the categorizing of typefaces. This leads into the discussion of electronic typesetting and the limitations and challenges that has created for designers.

Lupton's book shed a lot of light on different strategies for organizing type, graphics, and pictures on my own layouts. Unlike many other books on graphic design, Lupton's book was down-to-earth and was easy for a non-designer (like myself) to understand. It used some meaningful practical examples, instead of relying on art school projects that have limited real-life applications.

The section on grids was one of the most easy to understand that I have ever come across. It also gave many examples of grids that can be incorporated for page layout. Lupton also gave a decent low-level overview on the golden section, but she did not give enough of examples of how the golden section can be used as a more flexible grid.

One of my favourite parts of her book is the section on proofreading where she has one of the best proofreader's marking charts that I have ever seen. I have used this resource on complex projects like annual reports with agency graphic designers. No more second-guessing edits, Lupton's list captures it all. In fact, a lot of the designers and account reps who have used it with me consider it to be a time (and money) saver.

This book is probably too basic for seasoned designers, but if you just bought a copy of InDesign, or you're working in a corporate communications department and expected to create some basic layouts, you will take away a lot of good ideas and principles from this book. It covers off on many of the principles of good design without leaving you feeling overwhelmed

</review>
<review>

Please if anyone ever needs a type book, this one is perfect. It is a helpful wonderful book

</review>
<review>

Worth reading if you need to learn more about type, layout grids, and popular fonts of the past decade.

</review>
<review>

This book is possibly the best design education text I've seen. Everything is kept simple, and clear. Ellen Lupton's categorizing of typeface styles, for example, is logical and all inclusive, yet still a simple breakdown of the vast variety of typefaces. She is easier to understand than Robert Bringhurst in "The Elements of Typographic Style," something crucial to any budding designer. This book will serve you well

</review>
<review>

I was inspired by some of the samples of type usage in the book from the first few pages. Ellen Lupton, the author of "Design Culture Now", came up with a book to fill a void where it was much needed. It is hard not to encounter useful elements in it to both, help you enhance existing designs or tackle new territory.

The only downside of the book, and the reason I give it 4.5 and not 5 stars, is that the layout doesn't make it particularly easy to read and follow. Therefore it ends up being a book that you resort to for visual not textual queues of where you are, and for ideas rather than specific content. At least it was that way for me. Still, the number of visual ideas it carries makes it worth your while

</review>
<review>

I bought this book because other customers loved it and because it was not expensive. It was so much better than I expected. I was expecting to pick it up and just visually browse then leave it for later but read all the content the first day I had it -even reread parts incase I missed anything. I plan to use this with 17-18year olds within a design programme - as it is consise yet interesting. So: book is great value for money, practical advise offered is clearly presented and taught to the reader through its design! Visual content and extra information is compelling/quirky/humourous/relevant, overview of typographic evolution intereting and fonts useful. Loved the material used for the tables!....check it out.

</review>
<review>

Thinking With Type is a must have for graphic designers and typography lovers. Even if you think you know everything there is to know about type, you'll learn something- or at the very least be entertained by the witty prose and examples

</review>
<review>

This book is well presented, reads well and is an elegant and useful tool for anyone who has anything to do with type. As a professional designer, I enjoyed reviewing what I knew and found a number of things that were helpful in my everyday work. I count this among my favorite references

</review>
<review>

The book was brand new, and arrived in a very timely manner thanks

</review>
<review>

This book is useful and straight forward. It is an excellent book for students

</review>
<review>

In this collection of essays, Nancy Fraser makes equally strong political and scholarly contributions.  Arguing that  and quot;postsocialism and quot;  leaves the left lacking in utopian vision, she begins by attempting to  formulate such a vision.  Rather than choosing to focus on the goal of  recognition or that of redistribution (put another way, on cultural or  social issues), she argues that any effective leftist politics must work  for both simultaneously.  Throughout the book she maintains this balance  between cultural and social concerns and strategies for change.  The result  is both politically inspiring and intellectually stimulating

</review>
<review>

I was reccommended to read Planet of The Blind due to my interest in writing stories about people who had disabilities and about by own disablility for I'm visually impaired myself and I have an interest in writing. So I read Steven Kuusisto's book Planet of the Blind and found it very facinating and inspiring! I highly reccomend it! I'd love to know what is he doing now and is he still writing and speaking of the book

</review>
<review>

I read Stephen's book late into the night and then got up and read more in the morning. The book not only brought me new understanding of the world of blindness, it spoke intimately of the journey of self-acceptance. Stephen's story is threaded through with grace, and his language is musical. A deeply spiritual memoir; you will finish it changed

</review>
<review>

This is one of the best books I have ever read that captures the experience of visual impairment.  It is beautifully written and very evocative.  It will move those who are not visually impaired as well

</review>
<review>

Steve Kuusisto gives a moving description of growing up with visual impairments and how he learned both to live with his disability and turn it from any kind of hindrance into motivation.  His writing is poetic and  realistic.  While a little hard to read at the outset, in part because the  story is sometimes painful, following Steve as he learns to accept the help  of others and then establish personal independance is a lesson in  perseverance and self growth.  I strongly recommend it as an inspirational,  educational and literary work

</review>
<review>

This book has so many great accounting best practices it should serve as a goal for every company.  It is an invaluable reference guide to anyone who is just starting a business, or needing to improve the efficiency of their accounting functions.
I most liked the fact that the book is so easy to read.  You won't have to be a CPA to understand this book.
My only suggestion is that the book should have a companion CD or web site with all of the best practices already in an electronic format

</review>
<review>

The historic quaintness of its grammar informs me and often makes me titter while reminding me of my birthright. No home should be without a copy no matter who the reader or their diction

</review>
<review>

The idiomatic use of the English language needs a referee, and some referees are simply better than others. The  and quot;anything goes and quot; motto of our times gives us uneven, illiterate, and occasionally brutal prose. This book helps block this inevitable slide into the lack of clarity and coherence. This second edition (cf., Third Edition) of  and quot;Modern English Usage and quot; may strike some readers as arcane and archaic, because it is so restrictive in its prescriptions. Given the laxity of many our writers, the use of a strict disciplinarian in philology is a welcome resource

</review>
<review>

Fowler's should be on the desk of everyone who writes.  Not only are his explanations clear, many are so witty that the reader laughs out loud.  This important book should be more than a resource.  It should be picked up, flipped through, and read at random for the sheer enjoyment of Fowler's infectious love and knowledge of language.  There is always something new to be learned, and you may come under the spell of the beauty and precision of the English language when used deftly

</review>
<review>

As all the other reviews are positive, I will add a much needed critical perspective.

The central argument of this book is that:

"The combination of Indian predation and environmental change decimated the bison" (Isenberg, p.3).

As such, this book contradicts massive amounts of primary historical sources that show, un-arguably, that the destruction and near extinction of the Bison herds was a direct result of Anglo predation in a direct attempt to destroy the resource base of the Plains Tribes in order to force them onto reservations.

As the other reviewers have pointed out, it is true that the Plains Tribes were not nomadic hunters for all of their history. It is true that the Tribes adopted nomadic hunting as a primary subsistence strategy only after being forced to do so by Anglo aggression and encroachment.

But from that truth, Isenberg moves on to a series of unproven theories based on questionable ecological assumptions that are rooted in the "new ecology" - an ecological theory that describes nature as a disordered, chaotic and individualistic struggle for survival (For info on the "new ecology" see my review of "Discordant Harmonies:  A new ecology for the 21st century).

For example, Isenberg bases one of his arguments on the un-proven theory that early Tribal Peoples, thousands of years ago, hunted to extinction many species of large land mammals.

But the story of the Bison is not a pre-historic story.  It is a story of modern history and Isenberg presents no historical proof that the Tribes were responsible for the near extinction of the Bison.

Rather, he makes subjective philosophical arguments against "romanticizing" wilderness and Native American cultures.

From there Iverson uses these arguments as a backdrop to a series of environmental statistical analyses.

Basically, Iverson lays out an exponential statistical model where by he argues that, given the estimated number of Bison deaths necessary to sustain the Plains Tribes, eventually the Bison would have been rendered extinct by the Tribes at some point in the future.

The problem is that this can never be proven because it never happened!

What happened, and it is documented in massive amounts of printed primary historical sources, was that the Bison were deliberately slaughtered by greedy Anglo hunters for their skins and tongues.

The United States Army was in on it as well, as is documented by many sources showing that the Bison herds were decimated in a deliberate attempt to make it impossible for the Tribes to remain living free on the Plains.

Isenberg's book is one that must be extremely comforting to those forces that continue to destroy what wild animals and lands we have left here in North America.

</review>
<review>

So often, we tend to think of the near-extinction of the Bison as having been solely caused by overhunting by the fur trade.  This book shows the intensely interwoven cause and effect relationships that led to massive changes, not only for the Bison, but for the Native Americans as well.  The scope of this book is so much larger than just the destruction of the Bison - it addresses the full range of effects that Westward Expansion had on the plains.  To gain a better understanding of the ecological dynamics at play between the Bison, the indigenous tribes, the settlers and the environment - this book is a must

</review>
<review>

Andrew Isenberg presents an array of complex and systemic causes that brought about the near extinction of the North American bison.  The author's breadth of knowledge related to the bison demise is incredible.   The reader is not bored with endless details behind these knowledge blocks,  however.  Rather, in fairly short order, the reader understands how  climatology, geography, economics, sociology, migration and immigration,  policy, and anthropology all played a role in the bison's destruction.  And  while the author presents an incredibily well researched description of the  bison's destruction, along the way, the reader learns volumes about how  Native Americans lived, changed their lifestyles, and were linked to the  bison.  The reference listings are impressive for those needing further  information and authentication.  Anyone interested in how the American  plains were settled and shaped, this is an enjoyable read.  For the  researcher, this book is a gold mine

</review>
<review>

Andrew Isenberg provides a complete overview of the near demise of the American Bison in late 19th century. The author's principle theme is an explanation of the causes for the near extinction of the largest North  American mammal in the largest North American biome. Isenberg provides an  extensive description of how the reintroduction of horses to North America  uprooted  many Native American peoples of the plains and exaggerated their  dependence on the bison. This increased dependence on bison was further  fueled by the fur/hide trade of the early 19th century. The near death note  to the American bison was provided by the east's increased need of leather  component's for it's expanding industry and desire by the Euro-American  populace to displace bison dependent Native Americans. If you are  interested in complex cause/effect senarios in American history this book  is a must. The book has been extensively researched and provides an awesome  reference list

</review>
<review>

This is a heavyweight tome with clear insight. Every manager should read this.

For example, Drucker writes what strategy planning is not:
a box of tricks;
nor modelling;
nor forecasting;
nor masterminding the future.

Methodically, he explains what it is: Analytical thinking  and  commitment of resources to action.

Drucker is famous for his simple questions which resonated across the corporate world for 50 years, and was especially influential with Jack Welch at GE.

In this book Drucker poses these questions as the framework for creating a business strategy:
*What is our business?
*What will it be?
*What should it be?
...And the killer: *If we were not committed to this today, would we go into it?

Written in '73. Valid today

</review>
<review>

this book is just great. i find it a straightforward and no frills book. yet reading it makes business interesting and encouraging. a truly indispensable reference and guide to management, better than any textbook i have come across in terms of giving clarity to the big picture. for that i have huge respect and admiration for peter drucker.

peter drucker is just "the man" in management in my book.

</review>
<review>

This is the book on how to make a business WORK!  I am president of a small company and immediately took the ideas and practices out of this book and applied them to great success.  This is not a quick read, and every item will not pertain to each individual person, but the observations presented explained a huge number of obstacles I was facing.  If you are trying to manage any form of modern organization, buy this book and spend the time reading it.  It made me a huge Drucker fan

</review>
<review>

I bought it for a friend who is trying to train her young dog. I don't know if she has read it yet. She has not told me

</review>
<review>

I felt this was a good book that had a lot of good ideas in it. However, the book was filled with a lot of nonsense type things that I felt really just made the book longer and less enjoyable.  I ended up skimming a lot of the stuff.  A lot of the book talked about nutrition and how that affects behavior. I just felt it was too much info for a dog training book.  I would recommend it though because it was reasonably priced and did tell me what I wanted to knw

</review>
<review>

I have been a trainer for many years, and am currently working towards becoming a behaviorist - and I can tell you that Paul Owens offers nothing new to the world of dog training. This book is an average (at best) compilation of training techniques discovered and perfected by other (professional) dog trainers/behaviorists. I've read many, many books on dog training and behavior and this is one not worth purchasing. If you're looking for an interesting read to learn more about how dogs think and why they act the way they do - check out any of Stanley Coren's books (he has many). If you're looking for training techniques - take a class. Honestly, there is nothing better for a dog than to go to puppy classes (with a respectable and knowledgable trainer) where they can be properly socialized and trained. If your dog is having serious behavior issues - consult a professional animal behaviorist. Your veterinarian should be able to refer you to somebody. Good luck!

</review>
<review>

We tried all the tricks from bribes to choke chains and Paul Owen's method REALLY WORKS. Not only is my dog happier with me for teaching her usng a kind method, I am happier too because my dog really listens to me. This book is the best.

</review>
<review>

Sorry, but I'm just not a fan of clicker training or the concept of waiting around *ho hum* until your dog happens to do something that you want it to do. Granted, there is some helpful advice given within the pages of this book, but I'm very glad I didn't pay regular retail for it. (Yay, Amazon!

</review>
<review>

This book helps you understand the dog and why it does what it does, and how to motivate it to be socially acceptable and good company

</review>
<review>

Nope. This book does not advocate complete physical exhaustion and manipulation as a way to control your "wants to take over the planet" (or at least your house) dog.

Dogs have better hearing, better noses, stronger jaws, and are much faster than the average human. They have already WON the physical contest. Why aren't more dogs exercising their superior physicality when people do foolish things, such as jerk them by a chain strung around, of all things, the throat (which most species are primally motivated to protect)? It is because the extremely social canine -- who would much rather fit into your household than be burdened with running it -- has a longer imprint period than just about any animal, and humans (who happen to have the larger, more complex brain), have used that window to success. Dogs are, when properly raised and sometimes even when not, socially inhibited from reacting in what in many cases would be a just plain reasonable (self-protective) manner.

Further, it is backward logic to think that intellectual (motivational) training is not useful for larger dogs. The larger the dog, the more harm they can cause should something go wrong, and the less responsible it is teaching them that they should only behave when you use physical tools and manipulation. A dog raised to make the right (preferred) choices will make them whether wearing a choke chain, flat collar, or no collar. Remember, motivational training developed at aquariums and has been widely adopted by zoos, where physical manipulation of species less inclined to put up with us could lead to DEATH.

Motivational training should be your FIRST tool -- and when used consistently and compassionately, can be your only tool. So please, for the sake of a species that is socially disposed to give us their all, regardless of what we give them in return, give the true Dog Whisperers in this profession a try

</review>
<review>

Paul Owens gives a fun way to train your dog using treats and positive reinforcement.  Our four month old beagle is learning to sit, stay, lay down and other good skills.  Paul recommends cooked chicken (unseasoned) or cheddar cheese as motivational treats used during training.  Other treats are recommended in his book and dvd.

My children are 8 and 10.  They had watched "The Dog Whisperer" on TV with Cesar Milan.  While that show is quite entertaining, I found that my kids became very rough with our puppy, and their jerking wasn't effective with him.  Paul Owen's nonviolent approach works much better for our family.

My husband and I have used "nonviolent" parenting with our kids, and now we are learning a nonviolent approach to working with our dog, thanks to this book

</review>
<review>

Note that this video has nothing to do with Cesar Millan's television show on the National Geographic Channel called "The Dog Whisperer"

The DVD teaches the most basic dog commands, and is ok.

But if you want books or DVDs related to Cesar Millan, this item has nothing do with him! It is a different author, teaching altogether different things, writing before the television show was on the air.


</review>
<review>

I read Cesar Millan's book and thought that this bood would be similiar in information and instruction.  I was completely wrong.  I skimmed over every section because each section was so basic.  The teaching method is completely different from Millan's and therefore a complete waste of money

</review>
<review>

For any reader who has thoroughly enjoyed the Gabaldon Crosstitch/ Outlander series and couldn't help but adore and admire Lord John Grey then I put to you that this is a lovely sideline novel keeping us linked with all of the characters and history that we miss once finishing A Breath of Snow and Ashes anxiously awaiting Gabaldon's new additions to this wonderful set of beautifully written historical novels

</review>
<review>

Diana's other novels I have read and re-read, getting blissfully lost in them each time. But this was didn't fit with the others. A little too "earthy" for my tastes

</review>
<review>

Gabaldon has built a huge fanbase on her Outlander series which spans literary genres from romance to science fiction to just about everything in between. Lord John Gray is a minor character in the seris, and never one of my favorites. When I heard that Gabaldon had written a mystery novel in which he takes center stage I read it more out of a sense of loyalty to the author than a genuine sense of interest in the character. I was surprised by how enjoyable I found it. Obviously the book is musch smaller in scope and size than the Outlander books (which average about 1000+ pages each) but Gabaldon establishes Lord John as a highly sympathetic caharacter in his own right, and tells a story almost completely separate from the series on which she made her name. Naturally this is jarring to readers initially, but going into the book with an open mind and no expectations yields rewards from a skilled novelis

</review>
<review>

I had loved the Outlander books and I felt a sense of loss when I finished them.  Natually, the next step was to get the Lord John book.  Even though it's unrelated to the Outlander books, I thought it would be just as engrossing and entertaining.  I was very dissappointed.  The story was not that interesting and the characters were not very well developed or likable.  I read the book to the end, but I really couldn't care less how it ended or what happened to these people.  I would not recommend this book to anyone

</review>
<review>

When I first bought the book, I didn't think it could be just as good as the outlander series, since I adore them and it hadn't any of those character. The John Grey book amazed me with its mystery, alway had me on the edge of my seat... I devoured it in 2 days, I couldn't put it down.

I recomend anyone who is a fan of Gabaldon's work, or someone who likes to be put on the edge of their seat to read...Its a great read....

</review>
<review>

I was very disappointed with Gabaldon's previous book, The Fiery Cross, and had a hard time getting through it.  It didn't feel fun, exciting or sexy, as her previous books had.  But I picked up this new book anyway and am VERY glad that I did.  It was a fast read, didn't get bogged down, had enjoyable and interesting characters.  Can't wait to get the next book in the Lord John series.  Highly recommend.

</review>
<review>

Time travel, romance, and historical details from 18th Century Scotland to the beginnings of the American colonies. Who could ask for more from the Outlander series? We did and got it: "Lord John and the Private Matter" is also a hot gay historical novel that takes place in the time series as well

</review>
<review>

I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I began to read this book.  I had not really warmed to Lord John in the Outlander series, but I like Gabaldon's writing style, so thought this might be an interesting read.  For a "short story" by Gabaldon (less than 400 pages), this was pleasantly entertaining.

The story centers around Lord John investigating Lord Trevelyan, the financee of his cousin, whom he suspects of being poxed.  In the process of trying to keep his family's best interests at heart, we wind through the streets of London's East End -- Cheapside, in particular, where the upper crust mix with the prostitutes and thieves.  The plot involves murder, intrigue, and an interesting look at the gay lifestyle of "molly houses" in 18th century London.

The concept of a Lord John series has great potential, given the character's military background and the various storylines that could come from that.  The characters introduced around Lord John were well developed and believable.  I'd like to see this be the beginning of more stories centered around Lord John.  Should the author chose not to continue her wonderful Outlander series, the segue to a Lord John series is believable.

Nice first outing, easy read, and entertaining -- I recommend this book to anyone, whether they have read Outlander or not

</review>
<review>

Although this book was published in 1944, the same year as Hayek's THE ROAD TO SERFDOM, it remains as relevant as ever.  Some say that it is dated and it is true that many of the historical references are not the ones that would spring to mind today, but the critique of the myth of the self-regulating free market remains as relevant and to-the-point as ever.  One of the main targets of his book was the Vienna school of economics, the central figures of which were Ludwig von Mises and F. A. Hayek.  What Polanyi does is help one to see how hopelessly na�ve and ahistorical many of their central assumptions are.  Though one might question some of the details of Polanyi's thesis, especially regarding the gold standard the causes of the two world wars, he makes two incredibly powerful arguments about the myth of the self-regulating market to which proponents of that theory have offered no convincing reply.  More of this is a second.

Polanyi's method is multi-disciplinary.  He wants to show by a multitude of ways that the central historical contentions of those advocates of the self-regulating market are simply fasle.  These people have argued, for instance, that by nature humans engage in market trade and that these markets by nature are self-regulating.  If this were, as they insist, true, then wherever one would look in human history one would find markets that were by their nature self-regulating.  Remember, Adam Smith's Austrian heirs were making arguments not just about what ought to be, but what naturally is in a state of nature.  They are making claims about what is the case if government and others will just get out of the way of the workings of nature.  So to this end Polanyi looks at the results of anthropological and historical studies to see what the evidence shows.  Overwhelmingly, he finds no evidence that things have been in the course of human history as the self-regulators have claimed.  In fact, Polanyi finds little or no evidence of the worldwide prevalence of markets at all.  He finds little historical evidence for the kinds of claims about the state of nature that self-regulating free marketers posit.  Instead, he finds a world of evidence that free markets were human artifacts, created and maintained entirely by government intervention.  The chapters that detail Polanyi's argument can be a bit heavy going, but they are crucial to his overall argument.

Polanyi makes two central claims about the myth of the self-regulating free market.  The first is that in its essential nature it is utopian and nonhistorical.  It is utopian in that it describes not the world as it ever has been or ever could be, but a fantasy that exists only in the minds of its adherents.  It is a powerful myth because whenever one points to the failures and shortcomings of attempts to promote free market principles, its adherents reply by insisting that the market hasn't yet been made pure enough.  If only we decrease government involvement, further reduce regulation, remove restrictions on the kinds of compacts companies can form with one another, further gut the power of trade unions, and so forth, we will see the birth of a glorious new economic world in which all will be right in the world and God will be on his throne.  But as Polanyi argues, not only has such a creature as a self-regulating free market economy never existed, it never could.  In fact, what has passed for self-regulating markets has in fact been the result of drastic and pervasive government intervention.  Additional interventions take place to protect society as a whole from the damage that a self-regulating economy inflicts on the citizenry as a whole.

The second major point that Polanyi makes is that of embeddedness:  any economic system is embedded in society as a whole, with a host of moral, political, and religious values that are not primarily economic in nature.  The self-regulating free marketers would somehow wish for an economic system that is distinct from and separated from those values; that is, an economic system that is not embedded.  But such a thing, Polanyi argues, is impossible.  This is another reason why belief in a self-regulating free market is a sheer fantasy:  it is predicated on a host of impossible situations being possible.  As the effects of a self-regulating free market occur, society intervenes to counteract the harmful effects of that economy.  For instance, workers compensation is neither required nor desirable by pure free market principles.  The same is true for unemployment insurance or anti-trust legislation.  Or pollution standards.  There is no question that keeping a plant from polluting is an interference with the market, but this is an example of noneconomic values trumping economic ones.

The basic dilemma of free market capitalism has always been this:  is an economic system that generates a great deal of wealth for a society as a whole but concentrates most of that wealth in the hands of a few people, leaving most with less than they would have in a different economic system, a good economic system?  Most of us would say no.  Even free marketers would have to concede this, which is why they have had to concoct articles of faith (though not of fact) such as the trickle down theory.  "Trickle down" has been debunked repeatedly over the years, both in theory and reality, but perhaps never so eloquently as by Will Rogers.  Some people, he said, thought gold water like water:  put it at the top and it will trickle down to everyone below.  But, he went on, gold wasn't like water at all; put it at the top and it just stays there.  Polanyi's book gives meat to the question of whether one would prefer a society where a very large amount of profit were concentrated in the hands of a very small number of people (essentially the situation in the United States today) or a somewhat smaller overall amount distributed more equitably among al the people.  Yes, the few who profited under the former would have less, but the vast majority would have more.

I want to question one reviewer below who says that Polanyi doesn't understand the essential nature of the free market.  I find that an amazing statement.  The reason that the myth of the self-regulating free market has spread so easily and widely is that it is so incredibly easy to understand.  What one can question is whether this easy-to-understand, perhaps simplistic, theory is right.  We have no examples of self-regulating economies from history even though in the utopian fantasy one of the tenets is that it is the "natural" course of things.  Of course Polanyi understands the theory he is criticizing.  He just finds it na�ve and silly.  My only hope is that more people in the United States come to realize this.  Ever since the election of Reagan in 1980, though in fact the tendency began under Jimmy Carter (most Americans don't seem to remember how conservative he was on economic matters, far more conservative than either Ford or Nixon), America has toyed with ideas promulgated by the free marketers.  The result?  Vast accumulation of wealth, especially in the financial markets despite the progressive decay in the industrial base, concentrated almost exclusively in the top 2% of the population.  In fact, real wages for the vast majority of Americans has fallen since 1980, the percentage of the population to live below the poverty line has increased, and America has become the industrial nation with the greatest economic inequality.

My own fantasy is that more people would read Polanyi and fewer Hayek.  I can understand why they don't.  Hayek is easy to read and understand and feeds the fantasy that one can pursue economic advantage with no thought of the damage it might do; the invisible hand will take care of everything.  Polanyi is difficult and complex and subtle and pricks a hole in the fantasy.  Polanyi reminds us that economics has to be tempered by our values as a whole, that we cannot be reduced to economic animals.  My fantasy--or is it a hope?--is that we as a society will come to care more for the welfare of the majority more than the welfare of the few.  I would love to see a world in which our highest values did not have a price put upon them

</review>
<review>

Polanyi sets forth an incredibly relevant, radical, and all too plausible theory in this book.

Going beyond a mere analysis of how the market system functions, Polanyi endeavors to answer the question as to how the market came about. Polanyi's answer will not be pleasing to libertarians, he argues that a free land and labor market can only come about through government intervention, and must be sustained through further intervention. He also argues that the market ransforms the nature of social relations. Usually, economic relations were a result of social relations, under the market, it is the latter.

Polanyi attempts to show how a market for land and labor came about in Britain. His argument that government "enclosures" created it through dislodging the poor and turning their land into sources of economic production is convincing. However, other arguments Polanyi advances simply demonstrate a central government repealing the interventions of subaltern governments.

Polanyi's argument that there was no "rent-seeking" (he doesn't use that term) involved in the enactment of state intervion in the economy ("proving" that this intervention was objectively necessary is suspect. One 19th century investigators conclusions don't serve to overturn the implications of public choice theory.

The greatest problem with this book is that Polanyi doesn't do too much to back up his arguments. He fortunately has a section called "notes and sources" where he lists his research material, but I'd wager that most of this is difficult to find 60 years later

</review>
<review>

Polanyi challenges the Neoclassical (specifically Hayekian) assertion that  humans started out as individuals , and only later grew into societies.   Siding with Durkheim and other holists, Polanyi argues that the concept of  a freely contracting economic individual is actually a very recent, and  very sociohistorically localized, assertion.  Put simply,  and quot;free  markets and quot; are something consciously made and supported by societies,  not an a-priori order nor a state of nature.  Polanyi beautifully weaves  legal, economic, political, and social history into a cogent thread of  argument.  One doesn't have to oppose free markets upon accepting Polanyi's  argument; one just has to become aware of markets' socially constructed and  supported nature

</review>
<review>

This is undoubtedly Polanyi's finest work, and an example of the highest quality of scholarship available. This analysis of the rise and influence of  and quot;the socially embedded market and quot; is simultaneously lucid and  profound; clear and complex; detailed and sweeping. It provides one with a  wonderful model for an interdiscipinary approach to the investigation of  social phenomena - it is employs political, economic and sociological  concepts within a genuinely historical framework to reveal truths about our  modern industrial society that no single discipline could fathom. It is, in  short, a masterpiece

</review>
<review>

Polanyi's classic is one of the most cogent treatments of the rise of market society ever written, and shows that conceptions of historical dynamics often cover over the fact that it is people who decide how to  create the rules of economies, there is nothing inevitable about them. This  account shows another picture of nineteenth century economic history  leading into the twentieth that revisionist history would often wish to  forget. A great and enduring work

</review>
<review>

The author of this book outlines the history of the theory of risk in the last 450 years and its modern metamorphosis into risk management. The reading is fascinating, giving many historical tales and anecdotes that one could only obtain from time-consuming consultation of many different documents or books. The author confuses skepticism with cynicism at times, especially when discussing the relation between modern financial engineering and risk management, but in general the dialog is pleasant to read, and offers many different insights into the different viewpoints of risk. This is especially true for the discussion of 'prospect theory' as first proposed by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky and its elaboration of risk averse behavior. Readers sympathetic with prospect theory will find its inclusion refreshing, although it would have been even more helpful to such a reader to find a discussion of the relation between prospect theory and its expression, if any, in modern risk management.

The author however seems not to be aware of the notion of 'model risk' that is embedded in modern approaches to risk management and financial engineering. This is apparent when he speaks of the inability of risk analysts to input concepts into computing machines that they themselves cannot conceive. The issue for risk management is not whether these concepts are exact representations or reality, but rather the cost or risk associated with their inaccuracy. In addition, risk analysts do not need to conceptualize on a level that is extremely far from current paradigms. They need not think the 'unthinkable" as the author believes that they do. Instead, their goal is to invent concepts, models or even new paradigms that allow risk managers to make estimates based on these concepts. But these managers do not view these models as sacrosanct, or as "oracles" as the author puts it. In fact there is typically a large amount of skepticism exhibited towards the models, and the managers at time do resort to personal intuitions and hunches.

The author though is correct in his opinion of the huge role of machines in risk management and in finance in general. With each passing day these machines are given more responsibility for doing financial analysis, forecasting, trading, and even model building. And more importantly, they are beginning to actually construct concepts and theories about how markets work, with the guidance for the time being of human experts. This trend will continue, and with faster and faster machines on the horizon, and with more trust placed in these machines, one can expect even more volatility in the financial markets. This volatility will require even smarter machines to deal with the huge risk trade-offs that will be involved, and it is likely that the machines will compete fiercely with each other as the strive to optimize the financial health of the firms that deploy them.

Thus there are very challenging times ahead for risk management, and therefore it is important to keep its role in proper context. It is not done for the sake of it, and it depends on conceptions and theories that were developed centuries ago, as the author of this book shows in great detail. It is wise to keep in mind these historical origins to the same degree that risk algorithms depend on historical data. Risk in the twenty-first century will dwarf anything that has come before, and new political ideologies. legal and regulatory frameworks, and systems of ethics will arise just to deal with its complexity. The degree to which humans are overwhelmed by this risk will be inversely proportional to their willingness to learn from history as well as depart from it, and to interact with the most complex technology ever constructed.


</review>
<review>

We are used to calculating odds to make decisions on a daily basis, whether it relates to betting at poker or horses, deciding what the traffic is going to be like on different roads en route to work, etc.  This is a great analysis of how we have arrived at our current state, with a particular interest on how to calculate risk.  This book is very succinct, and does not dwell unnecessarily on particular topics but moves forward in a most agreeable manner.  This written in a historical manner, and I believe will appeal most to those that want to have a better understanding of how to analyse risk and/or the historical underpinning of our current state of knowledge

</review>
<review>

"Against the Gods; The remarkable story of risk," is a world-class history of ingenious ways to measure probability.  Author Peter L. Bernstein approaches the subject of risk/uncertainty with patience and unfolds a stirring tale of how civilization dicovered ways to improve the understanding of probability.

The author should be applauded for taking a disciplined academic approach to the subject...and presenting his findings in a sophisticated narrative.  All students of financial markets...be it equities, fixed-income, foreign-exchange or commodities should read this book.  The origin of risk/reward theory...and the evolution of the practice of risk management is valuable information for rookie and veteran Wall Street administrators, brokers, traders  and  executives.

The historical narrative is superb.  Two sections in particular were very impressive...how to infer previously unknown probabilities from the empirical facts of reality (page 133)  and ...how the regression of the mean provides many decison-making systems with their philosophical underpinnings (page 173).  Overall this book presents the outlook that, "to tackle the question of how human beings recognize and respond to the probabilities they contront, is ultimately what risk management and decision making are all about and where the balance between measurement and gut become the focal point."

Non financial mathamaticians will also enjoy this book.  Bernstein starts out examining the risk rooted in the Hindu-Arabic numbering system.  He explains that without the ability to quantify with numbers...risk is wholly a matter of gut.  The author does not fail to overlook many pioneers, including; Fibonacci, Euclid, Paccioli, Cardamo, Frank Knight, John Maynard Keynes and many more.  Highly recommended.

Bert Ruiz

</review>
<review>

For people who are interested in the economic side of risk (mainly stock), rather than the probabilities and risks of every day things.

The book goes through a tour all the thinkers and mathematicians who contributed to the field of probability and risk, such figures include Gauss, Bernoulli, and Von Neumann, describing the evolution of the field of probability from simple dice games, to the probability of today. Similarly the book describes the different factors that stimulated the maturity of probability, from the introduction of Arabic numerals to the west, to the hundreds of computers number crunching figures for chaos theory.

There is not one mathematical formula presented in the book. While this might be a good thing if you have a phobia against numbers, it limits the general practical knowledge gained from the book. The book does, however, discuss how to read graphs and statistics, or more precisely how prominent figures in the fields of risk arrived at important conclusions and properties from given data.

</review>
<review>

Must confess my bias on this. I like games, gambling and investing. This book covers the gamut and does it well. What I found especially enjoyable was Bernstein's literate background. He spun a fascinating tale of 'The remarkable story of risk' (from the front cover) in a totally engaging way.

Following comes from the introduction, "The revolutionary idea that defines the boundary between modern times and the past is the mastery of risk: the notion that the future is more than a whim of the gods and that men and women are not passive before nature."

Clearly, this book covers important ground. Fortunately for us, it does so in a way that leaves no one behind.

As a student of business I found this to be totally absorbing.

Because I like to gamble, it was wonderful to learn that questions posed by gamblers in the Renaissance resulted in the groundwork in our modern understanding of risk management.

Because Bernstein writes this as a history the reader can enjoy it as such without struggling through a textbook-like treatment of this material.

I have read and enjoyed it several times.

</review>
<review>

Bernstein writes with the depth of knowledge of a university professor, and the style of popular fiction writer. He captures both the scientific and human aspects of this broad subject

</review>
<review>

Against the Gods is a fantastic book for people who love to read the history of risk, dating back as far as to the greeks. Bernstein's passion to the topic makes it a clear 5 star book. And he's passions shows on almost every page. Example: if you are just interested in the Markowitz formula, don't buy this book. But if you wanna read that Markowitz's methodology is a synthesis of the ideas of Pascal, de Moivre, Bayes, Laplace, Guass, Galton, Daniel Bernoulli (especially since he's had the same nationality than me) and von Neumann  and  Morgenstern. Furthermore, that Markowitz's methodolgy draws on probability theory, on sampling, on the bell curve and dispersion around the mean, on regression to the mean, and on utility theory. If this history is what interests you, this book is for you (if not only for the great title  and  book cover)

</review>
<review>

This is an excellent book on the history and development of the concepts surrounding and the measurements of risk.

For the first time, a book on this subject was prepared that stands as a guide to help the individual in his professional career and investing activities and serves as a legitimate academic work worthy for incusion in capital markets study.

Professor John W. Kercheval, III
Georgetown University
Washington, D

</review>
<review>

Crisp reading, articulate, gives an exacting history of math and the pursuit of managing risk through the use of math since the beginning of time

</review>
<review>

This is an extremely comprehensive guide to classical music by over 500 composers and provides authoritative recommendations on the various performances of their works that are available on record. For each composer there is detailed information about their life and a critical analysis of their work. So this is both a biographical dictionary and a guide to recorded music. The articles are well written in an accessible style and the book is attractively produced. Highly recommended for the classical music lover

</review>
<review>

I am not a professional music critic or player, but just like and listen to classical music a lot. This book is to me the a better guide than Penguin or Grammophone.
One critical feature of the book is that it has many contributors, among them are professionals like Harold Schoenberg, and many semi-professional listeners. They do not have the bias commonly felt in the Penguin guide or grammophone, nor do they say good things to every recording (as Penguin). They offer somehow personal, but reasonable and enlightening opinions, often enriched by comparisons of different recordings. I get the feeling that they are just serious listeners and tell us their feelings about different recordings. In this sense it is truly a "listern's companion".
Another feature is that at the end of the third part of the book is devoted to instruments and artists, which surveys the greatest instrumentalists in the 20th century. Along with a short introduction to the artist's style are the representative recordings. This part is really helpful for beginners.
Finally, no recording guide can survey all recordings and this is no exception. A lot of recordings elsewhere claimed to be legendary could be missed here, most probably due to the personal taste of the reviewer. Also you may find the recommended recordings not to your taste and/or your favorite ones listed as not-so-good ones. But none of these is so important. Above all, no review can tell you more than listening to the recording yourself, this guide does tell you what recordings you may want to give a try. And to this point it does do a better job than Grammophone or Penguin

</review>
<review>

This is a fascinating buying guide to classical music recordings with many positive attributes.  It is full of interesting historical context of the composers and their works and fascinating performer trivia, making it quite entertaining and educational in addition to comparing the many recording choices.  Compared to Penguin or Gramophone, it gives MUCH MORE in-depth backgroung on each work's history and significance.  Also, there is a lack of any "British bias" (since published in USA) that some cite with Gramophone or Penguin (both UK published).  Case in point: American pianist, Garrick Ohlsson's superb eight volumes of Chopin on the Arabesque label.  Third Ear is the only guide to extensively review each of Ohlsson's Arabesque CD's while there is not one mention in the 2003 Penguin or Gramophone.  Bias?  Perhaps more likely the Brits are just not familiar with all the musicians "across the pond."  Its really impossible for any one guide to be the "end-all" guide.

A notable and unique feature of The Third Ear Guide is the many pages of great biographies of the FAMOUS MUSICIANS by instrument in the back (pianists, violinists, violists, cellists, wind players, percussionists, vocalists etc).  So, here you can find legends from Rubinstein, Horowitz, Pires, Perahia, Grumiaux, Oistrakh, Casels, Starker, Bain, Holliger, Graham, Pavoratti and many other admired musicians/vocalists thoughout the past century.  In addition to some curious history and career milestones of these well-loved performers, The Third Ear Guide also cites some of their better recordings - a real valuable feature I found.

However, this guide waxes hot and cold depending on the composer/genre.  For example, in the listings of available performances for a huge category like Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas, there are SEVERAL entire pages covering nearly two dozen musicians who have recorded those works with compelling insights into their styles, historic performances and careers.  Really great stuff for the conoisseur!  But, in other categories it is a different story.  Most frustrating to some is that in many cases, obvious top recordings and major performers are not mentioned, leaving the reader with an incomplete information.  But, the bottom line is that no one guide is the end-all resource, and serious collectors will have this guide along with the Gramophone and Penguin Guides as each really has something valuable and often unique to contribute to the study of the finest recordings.

On the style side, the commentary is not dry and academic but full of human interest and spicy opinions - revealing "nuggets" of fascinating information for the music you most love.  Additionally, the editors are not always prim-and-proper, saying only positive things (like Penguin Guide) but actually give critical and insightful comments which truly helps one sort out the pack.  In this respect, the Third Ear Guide is the probably the most interesting to read compared to the others.  So, this guide is much more than just a guide to look up ratings - it is a fascinating journey into classical music, its vast repertoire and its performers.  If you are a serious collector, multiple guides area always the best way to go to get a wide variety of opinion.  If you really can only pick one guide, most people would go with legendary Penguin Guide.  But, my second guide would definately be Third Ear (over Gramophone) as it often lists recordings suprisingly not listed in Penguin.  Also, it is just plain fun and fascinating to read at random

</review>
<review>

An outstanding achievement.  I've always appreciated the Penguin and Gramophone guides, but this book beats them, hands down.  I enjoy the no-nonsense, irreverant tone.  The various writers call it the way they see it, and I don't pick up the industry-commercial bias that I sometimes do with Penguin and Gramophone.  I'm impressed that this book still lists the LaserLight Mozart CDs by Vegh and the Salzburg Camerata Academica that are such fantastic bargains.  The writers also pull no punches when it comes to Naxos, whereas Penguin and Gramophone tend to gush from time to time: Wordsworth's Mozart is criticized while Wit's Tchaikovsky is praised--quite a revelation.  Added bonus: the listing of quality Christmas and Noel music in the back section chapters.  I will keep turning to this book in the months ahead ... I hope they do Rock and Jazz in a similar fashion, soon.

</review>
<review>

In its 1,201 pages, this book expresses maybe 25,000 opinions. And its unavoidable omissions silently state uncountable thousands more. So even a near-dilettante like myself will have no trouble carping over some of them. But when it takes a position significantly outside the consensus, it usually says so up front. And you won't have to waste any mental energy deciding how much of an adjustment to make for Penguin's notorious "Britannia rules the audio-waves" bias. But most decisively for me, it's simply a great deal more enjoyable to peruse. Part of that is the cleaner layout, but mostly it's the writing - concise, informative, and frank.

P.S. It's too gross a provocation to bear: To blandly say, as it does on page 36, that Glenn Gould's 1981 recording of the Goldberg Variations is "widely regarded as the definitive piano version" is nonsense on stilts. It's widely regarded as inferior in vigor and charm to his legendary and much-beloved version from the Fifties which - despite the revolution it sparked in Bach performance and the strange new celebrity it created - isn't even mentioned! OK: moldy-fig rant concluded

</review>
<review>

Third Ear competes indirectly with Penguin Guide in the field music criticism but is limited by having only one person review an entire composer or a selection of a composer's genre. So, unlike Penguin Guide, the reader only gets the opinion of a single person (along with now-deceased editor Alexander Morin) instead of the combined opinion of the three authors of Penguin Guide. Otherwise the book fares well against its more established competitor. Among Third Ear's greatest value -- it contains music often not found in Penguin Guide. It usually contains multiple listings of music deemed unsuitable for the British publication, such as Beethoven's  and quot;Wellington's Victory and quot;. Another example is its review of the burgeoning recordings of Crusell's three Clarinet Concertos, where Third Ear offers a far more comprehensive view than even the 2003-04 edition of Penguin Guide. But there are serious drawbacks in this publication, too. For reasons that could never be explained, Third Ear dedicates less than two pages to the entire output of Anton Bruckner, whose nine symphonies have been recorded many times since middle 20th century. This is a criminal oversight that cannot be forgiven, especially since Third Ear dedicates almost a page to every one of Gustav Mahler's symphonies, the composer most akin to Bruckner. I should grade this book down an entire star for this hideous omission, but I won't since I've found it countless times to be an exciting and interesting volume. Most of the authors are known to veteran collectors and many are current or former contributors to American Record Guide, including the late, esteemed editor and Harold C. Schonberg, who wrote the foreward. Both the late Messrs. Morin and Schonberg were estimable critics who never sought to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse when discussing a record, CD or live performance. While the one reviewer to a section mandate of this book can be limiting -- not to mention the way it projects the the biases of a reviewer (see the comments on Roger Norrington's Beethoven symphonies; a critic calls one  and quot;spew and quot;)-- it is not enough to deny the greatness and value of this book to record collectors. Third Ear joins the Penguin Guide, Rough Guide to Classical Music and now-deleted Insider's Guide to Classical Recordings by Jim Svejda to offer buyers information on the many choices available on Amazon.com and elsewhere in the wonderful world of classical music

</review>
<review>

This book comes in direct comparison with the famous Penguin guide. In my view, it is better than the Penguin guide in its coverage of recordings made on smaller labels, and its style of prose is more readable than the  and quot;cut and paste-style and quot; of the Penguin guide. On the other hand, the Penguin is more evenly balanced beetween composers (another reviewer mentions the poor coverage of Bruckner. A few errors here and there too, e.g. mixing up the Czech and Slovak republics a couple of times.  Alltogether this book represents a fresh and very comprehensive view, with many surprising and innnovative recommendations

</review>
<review>

This book needs to be used with caution. There is no mention of Gunter Wand's recordings of Beethoven Symphonies and Mackerras's life enhancing cycle of Mozart symphonies is simply dismissed  because of his fast tempi as though fast tempi is synonymous with lack of expressiveness.To me Bohm's and Mackerras' views of Mozart are equally valid. If there were only one mode of interpretation, one could program a computer to play the score. To me a great work is capable of different interpretations. Morover, though the publication date is 2002, many new recordings are simply missing like Perahia's marvellous recordings of Bach's keyboard concertos.I am not replacing my Penguin or Gramophone as yet

</review>
<review>

Suzanne is my HERO!  Someone finally put what I was feeling into words.   I had a hysterectomy when I was 24 and started experiencing changes around 35 but didn't know or understand what was happening to my body.  I searched high and low for answers, went to many doctors, none of which could address my issues just prescribed a bunch of synthetic drugs including anti-depressants.  I refused thank god, feeling like there had to be a better way to handle than walking around like a zombie for the rest of my life.  In the last 5 years I've experienced severe anxiety attacks, weight increase, headaches, night sweats, incomplete sleep, foggyness and overall I thought I was just loosing my mind.  Then one day a friend gave me Suzanne's book "The Sexy Years" and I read through it in 4 days, often in tears because finally someone GOT IT!  I'm not going crazy and there is a solution that doesn't involve being drugged for the rest of my life!  Thank you Suzanne, I feel like you gave me a new lease on life.  P.S. I'm reading Ageless and the education goes on

</review>
<review>

As it says in the forward, yes, the medical community should catch up with Suzanne Somers. Hormones are a complex subject, and the author Suzanne is wise in the way this book is written and how the content is presented. She asks the questions (what we all want to know but were afraid to ask), and gives you her opinion. But the book is in a question and answer format where the professionals are giving their answers. You may not want to do it Suzanne's way, but she's asked the right questions, and used her celebrity to bring attention to a very important topic - one that professionals and patients should be more aware of, and that major pharmaceutical companies wish you weren't

</review>
<review>

This is a great first book to read before entering in to perimenopause is possible. Easy to understand and helps soften the blow many women feel when told those dredded words "Your going into menopause" I tried other things on the market prempro made me swell up 60 lbs in two month. I was told I no longer needed a period..(don't let a doctor tell you that)it just speeds up the ride to menopause. I am becomming very knowledgeable about bioidentical hormones and shame on Ob/Gyn who don't know about them.after all they have been around the medical world since the 40s!! Drug companiest hate them becasue you can't patent them and they must be mixed in a special pharmacy called a compounding pharmacy  I find myself educating Dr.s who don't seem very interested.. It is not easy to find the right combonation of homrones but when you do it's jackpot! You will feel great. If only we could educate Dr.s especially female Dr.s (they are going to be here too one day).everywomen should rea

</review>
<review>

Being 45 and in perimenopause, I started to become depressed and found I cried very easily which is the opposite of what I'm normally like. This book was recommended by a friend and has truly changed my life. Hormones play a big part in mood, weight, fat distribution and many other things. I learned enough in this book to ask my gynecologist for a prescription to give my pharmacist, who does compounding, for hormone replacement in a cream form. I use Progesterone and Testosterone and feel much better. I was the first person my gynecologist prescribed hormonal cream for that had not gone thru menopause. This is truly a subject that you need to learn and personalize for yourself

</review>
<review>

This book is absolutely essential reading for women of all ages. It simplifies the extremely complex topic of hormonal imbalance. Women are literally perishing due to lack of this knowledge. Buy it and read it now

</review>
<review>

I realize that 'ruined my life' may be a bit harsh, but I'll tell you why this is true for me.  I read this book and decided that I too, would feel great and look great just like Suzanne, I would go on bio-identical hormones.  That was 2 years ago.  Since then, I have lost almost 40% of my hair due to the fact that replacing hormones is not an exact science.  The doctor that treated me added testosterone to my hormone mix, and this in turn began making my hair fall out after about 4-5 months. I was told to 'be patient', that it would 'normalize'.  I later found out testosterone is the absolute worst thing that some people can take, and now, 2 years later, I am in hell because of this book.  I can't believe how stupid I was

</review>
<review>

Some of this book is good and normally I love Suzanne Summers but.... A few comments like " no wonder men leave us for younger woman". Like what is that about? Woman need to feel better for themselves not some guy. Does she not know men also have hormonal problems and aging? When I ran into a few comments like that in the book it turned me off. Woman need to feel good about themselves and look good for themselves first. I just felt the book was a push for the S Principle Book and to be hot for your guy.  Usually her stuff is good but I wasn't crazy about this one. Sorry nothing new in this book. Maybe helpful to someone else. Jud

</review>
<review>

I have been treating patients with bioidentical hormones for many years without having many books I could recommend to my patients. I was glad when this book came out, because it has a pretty good overview ot this therapy in easily understood terms. There are two things I particularly like. One is that  she interviews a few  different experts on the subject, demonstrating the "art of medicine" that is needed in this type of treatment. The other aspect I particularly liked is where she reasons with her doctor to put her back on hormones after she was treated for Breast Cancer. Her argument was well thought out, and is a good example of a patient/doctor collaboration in healthcare. Some of the style of the book is a bit cutesy, but overall I believe it does a good service for the women who read it.

</review>
<review>

The best book out there on the subject.   So many women go through life just doing what the "doctor" says.   This book takes you to the next level and really helps you understand your body and what is out there that can help.    This may not be for everyone, but it has worked wonders for me and the people I know.

</review>
<review>

Bio-identical hormones are not all they are cracked up to be. They have serious, dangerous impacts on the human body. Please, if you are going to try these, do your homework first. A growing number of women are experiencing lethal side effects. Some don't make it out the other side. I am one of the lucky ones - I survived the blood clots in my legs and two near-fatal, year-long illnesses connected with use of "natural" progesterone. Since that time, I have been contacted by scores of women who have suffered due to use of these hormones. I hope this information will be helpful to someone else, too. Please, safeguard your health - no one else is going to do it for you

</review>
<review>

The premise was great. The storytelling, very awkward. The technological information could have been interesting, but it read like an instruction manual. I give one star for the final cat-and-mouse and another for the funny way Mr. Clancy portrayed the Soviet apparatchiks

</review>
<review>

Maybe some people will not like it, but this book is as good as they come!. It's plot is superbly and tightly woven; the characters seem like people you could find in the supermarket, yet they turn into extraordinary people when facing extraordinary challenges. Clancy makes this transition in a very smooth way. The events are concatenated in a highly logical way to get you to the final ending. About the only thing I can criticize is the somehow biased stance it takes in USA-USSR relations, but we have to remember that the book was written when the cold war was still something from the present.
Clancy is one of the best plotters I've ever read and his surrogate son (or friend?) John Patrick Ryan is a very believable character. If you like geopolitical intrigue, fast action and a very good plot, you should not miss this

</review>
<review>

Worth reading again.  For a thriller, the characters here are fabulous.  Ramius is just perfect, very well crafted, as are Ryan and almost all of the supports.  The research is spectacular, even though I wish it was more eloquently presented.  I gather from various high-up Navy friends that the "silent drive" is still an utter impossibility in real life but Clancy's work is so well done that it seems utterly plausible.  His research/descriptions on various other technical subjects - on radiation, etc - are also top notch.  Even after all these years, this one is still great.  FIVE STARS.

</review>
<review>

This is one of Tom Clancy's best Jack Ryan novels.  It is hard to put down once you get started.  The plot is intricate and interrelated without all the coincidences that mar some of Clancy's later novels.  He also has political points woven into the plot and action without the reader having to plod through page after page of pontification seen in some of his later novels.  (Even if you agree with Clancy's political views, it gets tedious in some of his books.)  The details of submarine theory, construction and warfare are interesting without getting in the way of the story.  If you have seen the movie based on this book, you will still want to read "The Hunt for Red October" as it is much more detailed and exciting.  As other reviewers have also mentioned, this book is much shorter than some of Clancy's more encyclopedic novels.  That makes for much crisper reading and less flipping back in the book to sort out who is who.  This was an exciting book when it was published, and even though times have changed it is still a good read

</review>
<review>

The book "The Hunt for Red October" is about a nuclear submarine run by Captain Marko Ramius of the Soviet Navy.  Marko Ramius secretly has a plan to get back at the Soviets and avenge the death of his wife.  Jack Ryan, a CIA member and an American is leading the investigation of the submarine the "Red October".  Ramius sends a letter to the Soviet dictator warning him of his plans.  This letter leads to an avalanche of events.

I would recommend this novel because it is a good book.  This novel is not only an adventure story that keeps you on the edge of your seat, but it also forces the reader to think.  When reading this novel the reader should try and relate the novel to real life and perhaps even picture themselves as one of the characters.  When the reader does this it makes the book seem eerie because the reader thinks to themselves, what if this sort of think is actually happening right now and I am not aware of it.  Although this book is good, understand that there are some major flaws.  For one the beginning of this novel is extremely slow paced.  Don't get me wrong, it's very much needed for the rest of the novel to be interesting, but do not lose hope in the novel if you think it comes off to a tough start.  The first reaction that I received when I first read this novel was that it is rather strange that what is going on in this novel could actually be going on right now in our government.  When I looked at things that way I felt like I got more out of the novel because I found ways to relate to what was going on in the novel.  Overall this book is rather good and I suggest you read it.

</review>
<review>

The Hunt for Red October, an amazing novel by Tom Clancy, is an action packed adventure of political controversy and suspenseful combat.  The Red October, the Soviet Union's newest submarine, sets sail in the frozen Arctic circle.  Ramius, the captain of the Red October sees this as an opportunity to take revenge for the avoidable death of his wife; His plan is to defect to the United States.  Will he make it, or will the Soviets catch him before he can give the Americans what they need to stay ahead of the Soviets in race for the ultimate submarine?

This novel was a pleasure to read, and I recommend it to all ages, although there is some inappropriate language for younger readers.  It never slows down, and you'll find yourself staying up late at night, unable to put it down.  This novel is almost frighteningly realistic, making the story even more convincing and entertaining.  There is a reason that this is a bestseller; The Hunt for Red October sets up a race that will leave you breathless as you read from start to end.

The main difference in this novel that stands out in my mind is that Ramius' motive is exposed almost immediately; there is no secret motivation.  Once that is put aside, the reader is able to concentrate on the true question: will Ramius be successful?  This allows to the reader to digest each chapter and add to the knowledge that they previously receive to attempt to predict the outcome.  As each character introduced becomes to interact with the others, Ramius and his crew's goal is obstructed, and they have to make twists and turns in order to proceed with their plan.  This method of writing is one of Clancy's unique ways to tell the same story in a more interesting way.


</review>
<review>

This was Clancy's first novel and it is his best.  The writing is fast paced.  This is a skill Clancy would slowly lose over the next few novels, as he added detail after detail to virtually every scene.  Here he gets the formula right.

Read this along with Patriot Games and you a fantastic intro into the world of Jack Ryan

</review>
<review>

In a word, WOW.  This book is ranked in the top five greatest books that I've ever read.  Clancy uses incredibly specific and intricate descriptions of the nautical military to create a real life atmosphere that the reader can relate to.  Real military events were used to shape the plot of the story, and Amazon.com even states that Clancy was rumored to have been debriefed by the White House during the production of this novel.

Clancy also creates an easy way for the reader to understand the complexity of the characters.  He uses events from his own life to shape the personality of Jack Ryan, the main character.  With character traits that were founded on the experiences of a real-life person, the reader is able to relate to Jack Ryan as if he was a member of reality.

Finally, the theme presented in this book can teach the everyday consumer a very valuable lesson - never jump to conclusions.  As Jack Ryan's actions are carried out during the story, he constantly gives a base for this moral to grow off of.  By reading and learning the depths of Jack Ryan's personality,  we as a society can learn to live by this theme, and greatly enhance our everyday lives

</review>
<review>

Heifetz' definition of leadership revolves around the concept of influence rather than subordination or coercion.  Using contrast to sharpen his own definition of leadership, he wrote that there is an important difference between imagining that a leader influences a community to follow her vision and influencing a community to face its problems.

In the first instance, influence is the mark of leadership; a leader gets people to accept his vision, and communities address problems by looking to him.  If something goes wrong, the fault lies with the leader.  In the second, progress on problems is the measure of leadership; leaders mobilize people to face problems, and communities make progress because leaders challenge and help them do so.  If something goes wrong, the fault lies with both leaders and the community (pp. 14-15.

It is the second description that Heifetz defined as leadership, which is simply put as "mobilizing people to tackle tough problems" (p. 15).  Heifetz was less willing than Peck (1977/2002) to say that the task of leadership is spiritual growth of self and others.  Rather, he put the problem into a depth psychology perspective with practical organizational implications, and he used "four criteria to develop a definition of leadership that takes values into account":

"First, the definition must sufficiently resemble current cultural assumptions so that, when feasible, one's normal understanding of what it means to lead will apply.  Second, the definition should be practical, so that practitioners can make use of it.  Third, it should point toward socially useful activities.  Finally, the concept should offer a broad definition of social usefulness"(p. 19).

By inserting values, Heifetz argued, he created a "prescriptive concept of leadership" (p. 19) rather than a descriptive or proscriptive one.  Using his four criteria, Heifetz was able to state that Hitler, for example, was not a leader because he "exercised leadership no more than a charlatan practices medicine when providing fake remedies" (p. 24).

Later in his book, he defined the task of addressing "tough problems" in the clearest terms:

"Leadership, as used here, means engaging people to make progress on the adaptive problems they face.  Because making progress on adaptive problems requires learning, the task of leadership consists of choreographing and directing learning processes in an organization or community.  Progress often demands new ideas and innovation.  As well, it often demands changes in people's attitudes and behaviors.  Adaptive work consists of the process of discovering and making those changes.  Leadership, with or without authority, requires an educative strategy"  (p. 187).

Heifetz identified the principal limitation of his book when he wrote that his book was concerned with the "short-run task of making progress on an adaptive challenge" and not about the "long-term task of leadership--developing adaptive capacity" (p. 129).  This is a fruitful area to explore for scholars of servant-leadership because a major focus of Greenleaf's was precisely the development of this adaptive capacity.

Heifetz also provided leaders with a "seven practical suggestions for bearing the responsibility that comes with leadership without losing one's effectiveness or collapsing under the strain.  These included "getting on the balcony"; separating yourself from your role; externalizing conflict; utilizing partnerships; listening; "find a sanctuary"; and keeping your purpose clear (p. 252).  Leaders under stress would do well to remember to read through these pages, which essentially offer some tips about resilience.

The following includes several key concepts through direct quotation.

*	The concept of adaptation arises from efforts to understand biological evolution.  Applied to the change of cultures and societies, the concept becomes a useful; if inexact, metaphor.  Species change as the genetic program changes; cultures change by learning.  Evolution is a matter of chance--a fortuitous fit between random variation and new environmental pressures' societies by contrast, can respond to new pressures with deliberation and planning.  Evolution has no "purpose"--survival is our only measure of its success; societies generate purposes beyond survival.  (pp. 30-31)
*	The mix of values in a society provides multiple vantage points from which to view reality.  Conflict and heterogeneity are resources for social learning. . . .  Leadership will not consist of answers or assured visions but of taking action to clarify values.  (p. 35)
*	I define authority as conferred power to perform a service.  This definition will be useful to the practitioner of leadership as reminder of two facts: First, authority is given and can be taken away.  Second, authority is conferred as part of an exchange.  (p. 57)
*	A holding environment consists of any relationship in which one party has the power to hold the attention of another party and facilitate adaptive work.  [italics original]  (pp. 104-105)
*	Attention is the currency of leadership.  (p. 113)
*	The pitfall of charisma, however, is unresolved dependency.  (p. 247)

</review>
<review>

I thought the book was good when I read it first. It took me a second read to realize how exceptional it is. The book's reviews on Amazon site range from 5 star to 1 star, from people who were amazed by its brilliance to those who could not despise it enough. I think this is the best accolade that a leadership book can ever get - it takes a stance, it provides direction, and it chooses to be for a great cause irrespective of whether it is loved or hated. This book cannot and must not be ignored.

</review>
<review>

I have been studing leadership for over 15 years both by reading and experience.  I consider this book to be the best book I have read because it describes leadership as a learned activity.  It also says that leadership is in motivating people to do their own work in solving difficult problems. I found that as President of my congregation I was continually going back to the concepts in the book to lead it through a very difficult situation involving placement of the flags in the sanctuary.  It was very difficult to get people to do their own work and not try to step in to solve everything. (That would have been impossible anyway) I found that he described President Lyndon Johnson as a successful leader (civil rights) and unsuccessful leader ( Vietnam).  His discussion on leading without authority is new ground for me.    If you want to discuss the book with others there is an on-line book study at the Work and Worship Institute website. I found it was a good way for me to get more from the book. This is a great book with great stories of a variety of leaders in our society.

</review>
<review>

The most disappointing part of this book is its blatant political slant.  The book is NOT about a theory of leadership, but about an ideological judgement of the performance of leaders.  Heifetz starts by insisting that leadership is necessarily tied to values because if you disagree....then the rest of his book is meaningless.  Heifetz believes that to be a good leader you have to adopt positions that he advocates and if you don't, then you aren't a good leader.  So, in Heifetz's world, Reagan wasn't a good leader, but LBJ was.

Do yourself a favor and keep surfing...

</review>
<review>

Wow! There is something truly amazing about the images and words of "Bone". At heart, it's a fairy tale, but one that appeals to the child in the adult and the adult in the child

</review>
<review>

I know that it seems that I have moved away from reviewing cinema lately and have deeply transformed into this graphic novel reader, but it couldn't be further from the truth.  With my recent move, I have found ore time to be able to crack into these dusty books that have been sitting on my shelves for some time and fully experience the bizarre, yet imaginative, worlds that they boast.  I have witnessed the death of a superhero, the curse of a video, and now I am excited to say that I unknowingly jumped into the second chapter of Jeff Smith's Bone series.  I don't know how this happened, but instead of starting from the beginning, I found that I actually owned the second book of his series, aptly called "The Great Cow Race".  Unfamiliar with Smith's linear storytelling technique, I jumped into this novel expecting to understand everything that was laid before me.  I was unwittingly wrong.

"The Great Cow Race", for those that have missed the number two on the spine, is actually the second compiled book of Smith's adventures with his loveable, yet strangely built, main character Fone Bone.  As this is the second book, I was unfamiliar with the origins of the "Bone" characters, but fell instantly enthralled with their lifestyle and storyline.  What makes this second chapter enjoyable is the level of magic, evil, and "paths of fate" that obviously lay before our characters.  There is mystery, suspense, and some genuinely funny moments as our characters do classic nare-do-well things and thus have to deal with the consequences.  For a child, this book is about a fixed cow race between the people of the village, Phoney Bone, and Granma Ben, but what kept me interested was the subsequent back-story that opened a more sinister and coincidentally fantastical element.

As I read more graphic novels, my eyes are beginning to focus on more than just the words and pictures, but also the background themes and events.  "The Great Cow Race" demonstrated more than just a humorous race with cows, but a la Harry Potter, a darker element at work that is constantly behind the scenes.  The last few frames of this story, the conversation between Granma and Lucius, sent a pulse of excitement through my spine as well as goose bumps over my arms.  The thought of a possible war brewing and an unfamiliar structure made me want to immediately get the next of the series.  Alas, first I must see how it all begins.  I must get the first book and start with the origins.

As I review this great book, I must admit, Scholastic has done a great job and a poor job all at the same time.  The great element is the coloring of this edition.  I remember seeing the Bone series at a bookstore in town and was rather unconnected with the black and white storyboards, but now, with the ample use of grays and whites, coupled with the "cartoonish" reds, blues, and greens, you have a story that both illustrates the humor as well as the danger.  The bad is that I never read this story with a child in mind.  Outside of the coloring, the story itself is not ... at least in my eyes ... one for those that are young.  There are scary beasts, eerie dragons, and again, that unknown element, that may not be suitable for the suggested "Grade 4" reading level.  Maybe I am behind the times, but outside of the actual cow race, there wasn't much that I believe those at a "Grade 4" reading level would enjoy.  Personally, I found the story coupled with the images a unique read, but would a youthful reader find the same?  Maybe, maybe not.

Overall, I thought this was a great story.  I am very eager to read the first in the series as well as see where Smith goes with these obviously troubled characters.  I am excited to see where the future "war" will bring us and how closely Smith related Tolkien's ideas to a more graphic level.  For those interested in a younger fantasy genre, this is a quick read as well as a mis-marketed book.  I loved turning the pages and discovering a twisty ending that leaves you wanting so much more!  While I didn't find myself laughing as much as other critics have mentioned, it wasn't what I wanted from the story.  I wanted mythical characters combined with a level of fantasy, and needless to say, I was not disappointed.  Bring me more Bone!

Grade: ***** out of *****

</review>
<review>

Like the title says.  I've read the odd Disney comic, and they were good for a few chuckles; but "Bone: The Great Cow Race" was so funny, I had to put it down a few times to catch my breath from laughing so hard

</review>
<review>

At long last!  Jeff Smith's epic high fantasy comic masterpiece is being produced in color.

Fans of Bone will be pleased with Steve Hamaker's crisp coloration, which frequently adds shadow and texture without overloading the panels and really brings out the details of the art.  Fans familiar with the one-volume addition will also be glad to see additional artwork filling the space between chapters, as artwork in the original black and white nine-volume series has been reintroduced, including the 'Possum kids' goofy poem and the two-page spread of Thorn frolicking with the Bones.  These new color volumes also reveal more of Smith's (or his editor's) endless fiddling.  The dialogue in the one-volume edition had been altered, sometimes significantly, and very minor changes have been made again.  Most noticeably, the misspelling of "Kewpie doll" has at last been corrected.

The quality is much higher than in Volume One:  Out from Boneville.  The pixelation that some panels suffered in Volume One is gone.  The printing is crisp and even the colors seem brighter.  However, as in the last volume, the panels have been shrunk.  The one-volume edition was smaller than the original nine volumes and the new color volumes have been shrunk again.  Surprisingly little detail is lost, considering the intricacy of Smith's art, due no doubt to the high-quality printing.  Hamaker and Scholastic are doing a great job and are truly bringing Bone to life

</review>
<review>

I have read Bone from back when it first came out in individual comic issues. I must say, this color edition, especially the hardcover one, is the nicest one yet. The black-and-white original always felt a bit sparse for the tone and humor of the story. The beautiful coloring in this edition is perfect. I've bought the two that have come out, and can't wait for the remaining 7. Great job, Scholastic

</review>
<review>

I am a big fan of N. Sparks and enjoyed this book as I do all of his books

</review>
<review>

Sparks continues to make his readers feel. I hope he continues to write for a long time

</review>
<review>

I use "The Notebook" and "A Walk to Remember" as optional films in my upper division sociology courses. After hearing many positive student responses, I was curious about Sparks as an author--one of the few males writing commercially successful romance novels.  After a slow start with "True Believer," I was more satisfied with "The Rescue."  Taylor's friendship with Mitch and his emotional growth add dimension to an otherwise standard tale of boy meets girl, etc., etc.,

</review>
<review>

I absolutely Love all of Nicholas Sparks' books.  I have read them all and if want a great read with a touching story then he is the author for you.  Get your kleenex's ready. You can't go wrong here.

And I always preorder his new ones..... I'm addicted

</review>
<review>

I've been adventuring off reading new writers that i've been hearing about. Well Sparks was one of them and after reading this I wonder why did it take me so long to read his books. This book was really heart touching. The mom was a real inspiration for everything she was doing with her son and changing her life to better his. The love story was also great because that is somewhat reality. When you loose someone or go threw hard times; Its hard to put yourself back out there and to trust someone because its so much easier just to do things on your own . I can't wait to read more of Sparks books because I've already heard so many great things about them

</review>
<review>

I just got done reading The Rescue last night. I just didn't like the part when Taylor blamed himself for his father's death. He had a right to be happy and live his life. The boy really likes Taylor. Denise was a sweet lady. I am surprized they got married and the little boy finally had a Dad. You might want to read that book again. I am a Nicholas Sparks fan. I have been his fan for 1 year and a month. I love all his stories, I will be looking forard to the next one in October

</review>
<review>

I have read several of Nicholas Sparks' books, but this one was different for me.  It was a very very slow start.  I was more than 150 pages into it before I got interested in the plot.  I had even considered quitting reading it at times.  It ended up being an okay story, but nothing that I couldn't have lived without reading.  What I did enjoy is the way Mr. Sparks writes about male characters in the romantic way women wish men really were.  I would suggest another read from Mr. Sparks like "The Notebook" or "The Wedding" if you want a good romantic read.

</review>
<review>

I didn't know why I chose to read this book. Anyway, it was disappointing, really. The book was slow, and it was too long for a story of its type. I mean, I think the book could go on without some of the parts. When I was reading it, I only thought of putting it down because it's making me go crazy. I thought the plot was shallow, but Taylor's self-conflict was even shallower. He kept on blaming himself about his father's death well then it's really his fault! He was a coward. If you don't believe me, go on and read about it... although you might get bored getting to that part because it's towards the end. And I hated it when this stupid conflict got in the way with his relationship with Denise. He was acting really immature! He should have at least thought about Denise but he was too selfish. It really sucked.

And yes, I know that this is supposed to be a romance novel... but I kept on looking for that love factor althroughout the book. And what did I find? NOTHING. Oh, what a waste. It's like Sparks tried very hard to make the situations in the story seem romantic but as a reader, it didn't really capture the whole essence of what romantic situations should be like.

If it hadn't been for my HRR (Home Reading Report) I wouldn't have finished reading this at all.

I guess I'm saying this because I'm not into this genre. Love stories are fine but this one... nah

</review>
<review>

was worthless...was not the correct match for my class book requirement.  Never used it...if someone wants it you can have it for free



</review>
<review>

Important literature that tells of post emancipation United States and the problem of the color line. Perspective amazing.

</review>
<review>

Written originally in 1903 both as a gift to African Americans and a gift from an African American, "The Souls of Black Folk" describes through one man's (W. E. B. Du Bois) eyes the consciousness of turn-of-the-century African Americans. Using his own life as a social and psychological model, Du Bois traces the inner life of post-Emancipation and post-Reconstruction African Americans. Whether one agrees with all, most, little, or none of Du Bois' conclusions, any serious student of African American history and self-understanding can't afford to bypass this work.

One of the most intriguing aspects is his candid comparison of his views with Booker T. Washington. Washington promoted a more modest, slower-paced changing of the status quo. He also emphasized what today would be called vocational education as the surest way for African Americans to advance. Du Bois was not totally critical, at times lavishing praise on Washington for his many valiant achievements. However, he was not timid in his appraisal that Washington had trusted too much in European Americans and too little in African Americans.

Reviewer: Bob Kellemen, Ph.D., is the author of the forthcoming "Beyond the Suffering: The History of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction." He has also authored "Soul Physicians" and "Spiritual Friends."

</review>
<review>

The usefulness of this book for us in 2005 lies in the way it gives a wider historical perspective on current debates over racially-tinged political issues - particularly affirmative action in college admissions and funding for inner-city schools.

One of the early focuses of DuBois's historical account Freedman's Bureau, which was set up by the Federal Government during Reconstruction to help establish African-Americans.  His analysis of why it mostly failed reveals how, after being hobbled by inadequate resources, it was faced by a thicket of special interests and a tidal wave of white racism.

Without the assistance of institutions such as the Freedman's Bureau, African-Americans had to fend entirely for themselves.  Trapped in a situation where they were economically powerless, politically disenfranchised, and stranded in a hostile society, few African-American people were either able or even allowed to succeed, while most became discouraged.  The result was a fall into a cycle of poverty and hopelessness, a situation that in some corners of the country tragically continues into the present.

As DuBois puts it in his discussion of the emancipation, "when these variously constituted human particles are suddenly thrown broadcast on the sea of life, some swim, some sink, and some hang suspended, to be forced up or down by the chance currents of a busy hurrying world."  The question for DuBois is how African-American people could learn to "swim," as it were - that is, to protect themselves, thrive, and mount a political counter-offensive in a country so extremely antagonistic to their well-being and even their very lives.

DuBois's big idea for solving this problem is his famous argument for the "talented tenth."  Basically DuBois is arguing for African-Americans to get a higher education and also to seek out professional careers for a number of reasons beyond the immediate good of education and being a professional.

The soundest support for "talented tenth" argument is is DuBois's claim that educated, professional African-Americans would be able to act as teachers and leaders of their community.  Speaking of "college-bred men, black captains of industry, and missionaries of culture," DuBois calls for the cultivation of "men who thoroughly comprehend and know modern civilization and can take hold of Negro communities and raise and train them by force of precept and example, deep sympathy, and the inspiration of common blood and ideals."

What DuBois clearly had in mind were institutions like the NAACP and movements like the Harlem Renaissance, and it seems pretty clear today how accurate he was in predicting how important such efforts were in establishing a truly free and equal society.  The Souls of Black Folk gives one an appreciation of the intellectual foundation of these efforts.

DuBois's argument continues to be important in an era when affirmative-action in college admissions is coming under increasing fire from the right.  It also remains important given the current reign of the so-called "No Child Left Behind" bill and similar state and city efforts, which leave inner-city schools inadequately funded even as these schools are threatened with being shut down due to a lack of improvement in test scores.  Of course, this improvement could only realistically come about through a significant increase in funding that the bill denies in the first place!

To sum up, The Souls of Black Folks is a classic statement on the importance of education to African-Americans and to the cause of racial equality as a whole

</review>
<review>

Standing alone, this is one of the great books of the last two or three centuries. When you consider that it's author eventually gave up on America and died in Africa on the eve of the March on Washington, it makes it perhaps the most necessary book for black people in America ever (nods to THE PHILOSPHIES AND OPINIONS OF MARCUS GARVEY notwithstanding)

</review>
<review>

The audio CD version of Dubois'  and quot;Souls of Black Folks and quot; is horrible. The reader makes mistake after mistake. He mispronounces words, makes breaks where none were to be taken, and his reading in general is poor. He has made a vibrant and enjoyable read a boring and atrocious listening experience. I guess I'll have to find something else to listen to on those long drives. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT Purchase this rendering of  and quot;Souls and quot;

</review>
<review>

A bit of a slow read and disappointingly focused almost exclusively on black men (ignoring women), but it is a worthwhile portrait of the position of American blacks in the late 19th century. The second to the last chapter, The Coming of John, is a moving story of how racism can throttle achievement

</review>
<review>

Mainstream historians may object to some of the claims in this book, but John Man has created quite a readable mix of travelogue and history. This is more a work of interpretation, rather than direct research, as Man has combined his own past learning about Genghis Khan and the Mongols with his modern-day travels to Mongolia in search of surviving relics. So do not expect newly detailed research breakthroughs, because this is one of those "living history" books. One particular problem is that Man uses a lot of conjecture and opinionating when tackling gaps or contradictions in the historical record. But in the end, we do get a very good summary of all the present knowledge on Genghis and his descendants, and Man engagingly discusses this very intriguing and complex historical personage. This especially applies to how Genghis was surely a genius in military strategy and administration, and was a remarkable leader of men, while also being responsible for the destruction of dozens of classic cities and the slaughter of probably a few million people. Man also discusses the sheer hugeness of the Mongols' empire-building practices, why these once-anarchic nomads decided to destroy every settled civilization in the known world then return to their simple pastoral lives, and how Genghis has been deified as both a god and a devil by multiple societies ever since. Add to this Man's exploration of the modern landscape and the Mongols' ongoing influence, and this conjectural but still very readable book really shows what made Genghis and his boys tick. [~doomsdayer520~

</review>
<review>

Just finished the paperback edition--which has maps and color pictures. A very good read in the manner of the best dogged English seekers after truth--what can we know about G.K. today? and what does he mean to present day Mongolians and Chinese? A good combination of challenging travel in Central Asia and educated weighing of evidence, with wonderful writing about places

</review>
<review>

John Man's done a great job of sequencing the historic events in a way that captures the attention of the reader. I must however hasten to add that not all the events have been asserted as facts leaving some scope for reader's fantasy. John tends to hop back and forth between decades and centuries at some points where in he tries to place the reader in an appropriate context to best understand and appreciate certain facets of Genghis's vision and life. That might leave the readers a little lost in time :) Over all a very well done book that leaves readers rather enlightened on the geopolitical dynamics of ancient Eurasia

</review>
<review>

John Man's Genghis Khan is a chalenging and rewarding read.  It will come as a bit of a jolt to readers used to reading popular biographies of more modern figures.  This is a very different experience to reading about, say, Churchill or Kennedy.  More modern subjects have a wealth of source material available to the historian, whose task becomes one of selection and condensation.  Not so for a 13th century leader whose life was often deliberately shrowded in secrecy.  Man's task is not to wade through volumes of material, but to actually find material.  And he does a terrific job.

He has pieced together a rivetting account of Genghis Khan's life, from birth to death and beyond.  He takes the reader on a journey in search of Genghis, through the steppes and deserts of Central Asia, into Europe, and to China.

One strength of this book is Man's depth of knowledge and experience.  He has clearly spent a great deal of his life in Mongolia, has picked up the language and immersed himself in the culture of the Mongols.  He still sees himself as an outsider, an indication of his great humility, but he is certainly not typical of many modern writers who adopt a subject only until their book is published.  The scope of this book is truly impressive.

A word should also be made about the illustrations.  The book has two sections of illustrations, and many seem to be photographs taken by Man himself.  They add to the enjoyment and experience of the read, as do the several maps included in the text.

Another great strength of this book is in capturing the present day spirit and influence which Genghis still holds in Mongolia and beyond.  There is a nice concluding chapter on Genghis's current place in international relations and how modern day leaders manipulate his image and legacy for geopolitical reasons.

Overall, this is not your average popular historical biography.  I imagine the general reader, like me, doesn't dwell too much on 13th century Mongolia.  But for a glimpse of the life, death and resurrection of one of history's greatest leaders, I can imagine no better treatment

</review>
<review>

I grabbed this volume from an airport bookshop hoping, as always, for a good read, but as well to learn a bit about a period of Chinese history that I have not read deeply in. Alas, Man's book fails on both levels.

Halfway through and the Mongols are conquering Asia. This part of the book is well written. Exactly why Genghis is the leader and why the Mongols are following him is left unclear. Indeed, after a rough childhood, being kidnapped and escaping Genghis emerges as head of the Mongols? Why? I do not know. The historical record here is probably sparse, but that is no excuse to skip over these years. They are pivotal to explaining why the Mongols emereged. Would the Mongols have emereged under another leader? Or, was it just Genghis?

The final third of the book is spent in Man's quest to find Genghis grave. The lack of any maps to go with the travelogue leaves this section quite confused. Then again, is Genghis's resurrection only to be seen in Man's hiking about the Mongolian woods?

Somewhere there is a good biography of Genghis and the Mongols, but this is certainly not it

</review>
<review>

This book contains a lot of useful information for the new teacher or the burned out teacher who needs a boost. It's useful in the sense that it tries to get teachers to stop taking negative beahvior personally (usually it's not about the teacher) and to use positive reinforcement as much as possible--always a good idea whenever you are trying to change behavior, be it animal or human! But I had to laugh out loud when the author suggests praising the consistently tardy student for being in class "most of the time." Give me a break!

</review>
<review>

"Alexander And The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day" is an absolute classic of children's literature, even if I have heard Judith Viorst's story done way too often at speech tournaments. The idea of feeling so mad or sad that you want to move to Australia remains one of the great punch lines. In "Alexander's Not (Do You Hear Me? I Mean It!) Going to Move" she comes up with a story almost as good. Alexander might talk about moving to Australia, but when his mom and dad tell him that the family is moving to a new home a thousand miles away he decides that he is not going to move. He is not even going to pack.

His father might have a new job a thousand miles away and there might be a new house a thousand miles away but Alexander does not care. Right next door to the new house there might be a boy who is the same age of his brother Anthony and down the street there might be a boy the same age as his brother Nick, but Alexander figures that there is probably nobody for a thousand miles who is his age. He will never have a best friend like Paul again or a great sitter like Rachel. Alexander has a long, long list of favorite friends and special places that he will never have again if he moves. Therefore, he is not packing. Never. Not going to happen.

"Alexander's Not (Do You Hear Me? I Mean It!) Going to Move" is illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser, who pointedly does so in the style of Ray Cruz, who first illustrated Alexander in print and who was unable to complete the work on this endeavor. This book might come in second to the original tale, but for any kid who has to deal with the trauma of moving (as an Air Force Brat my family moved a half-dozen times when I was growing up) this story will ring true and help put things in perspective. Final Note: I was surprised to read that Judith Viorst has three sons named Anthony, Nicholas, and Alexander. This must have made for an interesting household. I wonder what happened to Alexander when he grew up. Maybe he moved to Australia.

</review>
<review>

Alexander, Who's Not (Do you hear me? I mean it!) Going to move by Judith Viorst is a great childrens book.  It is wonderfully illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser. The storyline is realistic and approaches a subject in a creative style.  It is attractive to young readers and manages to shed light on Alexander's negative feelings towards moving. Alexander ends up happy and so will the reader

</review>
<review>

I thought this book was a very good book for kids of all ages. i'm sure you would agree with me. The book talked about everyone pacjing and getting all of thier things ready for the bid move and how Alexander was being  stubborn. This would be a good xmas present for someone planning on moving.  This book was long enough to get the message across, but not too long

</review>
<review>

This is a very well done book on one of the most beautiful college campuses in America.  The architecture is spectacular, architect Cram created a style for Rice, it was unique to Rice, it is an amalgamation of Byzantine and Venician styles and it suits the Houston climate perfectly.  Through the years subsequent architects have created their own interpretation of Cram's architecture, for the most part it has worked.  Though the lamented Fondren Library terminates the axis and is an unwelcome intrusion, but it is soon to be completly rebuilt so hopefully it will better suit Cram's buildings on the main quad.  The setting of the university is breathtaking, I recommend anyone visiting Houston to take time to stroll the campus, it is symply stunning.  Stephen Fox is one of the foremost authorities on Houston architecture, so it is quite fitting that he authored this book.  High recommended, beautiful campus and architecture, the crown jewel of Texas higher education and that comes from a die hard Texas Ex

</review>
<review>

This is a fascinating, original take on what lies ahead. Rather than project a single future, authors Joel A. Barker and Scott W. Erickson examine existing trends and group them into five regions of technology. They explain each technology, extrapolate the future it might create if it alone shaped the world, and then discuss how these different technological currents might intersect. Barker and Erickson paint their five futures in broad swaths. This allows them to cover a lot of ground and sketch many potential markets and challenges, but it also means that they cover their ground shallowly. Of the five technologies they examine, they are far more solidly grounded in "Super Tech," "Limits Tech" and "Nature Tech" than in "Local Tech" or "Human Tech." They sometimes treat individual and place them in categories their fans might dispute. For example, science fiction author Isaac Asimov was a long-time supporter of population control and of limiting the power of machines, but he is found here in Super Tech rather than Limits Tech. These small nuances should not take away from your enjoyment of this book, which we recommend to managers who want to plan for a flexible, productive future, and to those who enjoy mental experiments and challenges, since, at times, it is simply fun to read

</review>
<review>


Those who have already read Paradigms: The Business of Discovering the Future, already know that Barker is one of the most insightful and eloquent business thinkers in our time. Years ago, Peter Drucker suggested that one of the greatest challenges for any organization is to manage the consequences and implications of a future which has already occurred. I agree. However, I also agree with Barker that it is possible to recognize what he calls a "paradigm shift": a major change of the rules and regulations that establish or define boundaries, a change which suggests that new behavior will be required within those redefined boundaries.

One of the most important concepts in Paradigms is what Barker calls "paradigm pliancy": "the purposeful seeking out of new ways of doing things. It is an active behavior in which you challenge your paradigms [ie the status quo, assumptions and premises] by asking the Paradigm Shift Question: What do I believe is impossible to do in my field, but if it could be done, would fundamentally change my business?" This is a question which must be asked...and then answered correctly, especially given the fact that competitors may be doing so now or will do so in the near future. I again recall Wayne Gretzky's response when asked to explain his great success playing hockey: "Everyone knows where the puck is. I see where it will be." Barker does a brilliant job of explaining both how to "change the rules of the game" or at least recognize when such change is underway and then respond to it effectively.

In Five Regions of the Future which Barker co-authored with Scott Erickson, the focus is on "a geography of technology so that we can better map our future. Just like locating our towns and cities on a physical map of the world, we need to locate, on some kind of conceptual map, the blizzard of new products and processes that are appearing [and will continue to appear] so we can better understand this `brave new world' of technology." The reference to a "conceptual map" is especially appropriate because Barker and Erickson are introducing what I view as a new business discipline: cartology of paradynamic transformation. (Yes, I realize that it's a bit of a mouthful but, at this moment, I can't come up with anything better.) I am curious to know what would happen if senior managers in an organization were to read this book in combination with Kaplan and Norton's Book Strategy Maps in which they explain how to "convert intangible assets into tangible outcomes,"  and then formulated a game plan based on the core principles in each of the two books.

Barker and Erickson carefully organize their material within six chapters as they provide and explain what they characterize as "a new paradigm for understanding the development of all technology." I was especially interested in their observation that "the world is witnessing the birth of technological ecosystems constructed of human-made elements instead of biological elements." They identify five TechnEcologies which have evolved during the past 100 years since the advent of the mass production of automobiles and steel. What are TechnEcologies? They are "the inevitable result of accumulating discoveries, inventions, and innovations of human beings." Each is a complex ecosystem of technology made up of the tools and techniques invented by humans "that interact in both mutualistic and competitive manners to increase the variety of technologies and the complexity of interaction."

According to Barker and Erickson, they can place almost any example of technology into one of the five regions of the future once they know the technology's dominant purpose or function. The nature of each of the five is revealed by the answers to these four value questions:

1. What is the region's attitude toward material wealth?
2. What is the region's view of science and technology?
3. How does the region view its relationship with nature?
4. Finally, what is the region's view of work and leisure?

If I understand their primary objective (and I may not), Barker and Erickson see themselves as 21st explorers who are attempting to define the future of technology just as Lewis and Clark once set out to define the vast and uncertain land west of the Mississippi River. "In the twenty-first century, we need a more sophisticated way to catalog and describe our technology. We think the five regions offer that. As citizens of this new world, we all need to begin to think more systematically. The five regions methodology invites that. Our technologies are bigger than our nations. We need to understand the consequences of that."

Barker and Erickson conclude with a passage from a poem which William Blake wrote 200 years ago. His metaphor for technology was the tiger "burning bright/In the forests of the night." Now, another quite different "tiger" burns even brighter. Here's mankind's challenge: How to frame its "fearful symmetry"? And what will be the consequences if we don't? In this context, I am reminded of Robert Oppenheimer's reaction when the first atomic bomb was detonated more than 60 years ago. He immediately recalled a line from the Bhagavad Gita (The Song of God): "Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds."

Those who share my high regard for this brilliant book are urged to check out Kaplan and Norton's The Strategy-Focused Organization as well as their Strategy Maps. Also two books by Peter Schwartz, The Art of the Long View: Planning for the Future in an Uncertain World, and, Inevitable Surprises: Thinking Ahead in a Time of Turbulence; and finally, for now, Frans Johansson's The Medici Effect: Breakthrough Insights at the Intersection of Ideas, Concepts, and Cultures. I truly envy those who have not as yet read any one of them. What an intellectual feast awaits them!


</review>
<review>

There is a lot going on in academic and commercial labs that are rather invisible to the ordinary public. The results however have the potential to change our life completely. This book gives a very thorough insight into current developments. And more, it also helps you to imagine how these technologies are being used in the real lives of persons.
We face the unique challenge in the coming years to use new technologies and at the same time take our responsibility towards sustainability of this planet. This books shows a lot of potential in innovative use of materials and processes that makes it possible to make right choices.
Highly recommended for anyone interested in not only new technologies, but also in the impact and actual use

</review>
<review>

Joel coined the phrase "Anticipating  the future", in my mind and continues that focus quite well, with new perspectives, in this  very readable, clearly written, short book. I'm insisting participants in my Leadership Learning Forums study it and discuss i

</review>
<review>

This is a great book. The value of The Five Regions is its ability to segment the potential future applications of technology into five distinct areas, which provides for a great deal of clarity and depth. I found the book's content on technology to be especially relevant and useful. The Five Regions Assessment also allowed me to expand my own cognitive horizon on how I tend to see the various technologies in application, while also expanding my vision into new worlds of application. As always, Barker's observations are intertwined with science and research, thereby opening our eyes and our minds to fascinating possibilities. Indeed, the book also left me intrigued. I had a renewed sense of excitement about the future utilization of technology. All in all, this book is written in true Barker style. It is incredibly captivating yet understandable, stimulating, and well worth reading.

</review>
<review>

As a process futurist, Joel Barker is a very familiar name.  His earlier book titled "Paradigms," introduced the word paradigm to a wider audience in the business arena. I highly recommend that book to anyone intereted in understanding the nuances of paradigmic change in organizations.

As a splendid catalog of future technologies, I found this new book by Joel Barker very fascinating in its breadth of scope.   The last 2 chapters tilted "Human Tech" and "Conclusion" were the most enlightening for me and worth the price of the entire book. Joe's insightful comments on every page are an added bonus.  Although, i am familiar with some of the technologies, Joel Barker's treatment of even the most familiar ones is very precise and insightful.  Most of the examples were new to me, though.

I marvel at the way the author brings the five regions together with examples in the last chapter.  Author's love for the subject matter shows on every page.  Indeed, It is a tour de force of a futuristic imagination, as one reviewer aptly put it. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in understanding the implications of futuristic technologies.

</review>
<review>

All of us have a bias when it comes to technology and the future.  One of the great strengths of this book is that it makes each reader aware of her or his bias and provides perspective on other dimensions that limit or encourage future technology development.  Do we see technology as unbounded . . . or creating new problems that threaten to overwhelm us?  Do we see the race with population and pollution as unwinnable . . . or as easily won?  Do we look at the giant technologies . . . or do we look for what is small and beautifully efficient?  With the expanded view of all these points of view, the wise technologist or executive can choose more promising directions.

I see this book as an applied example of the kind of scenario-based thinking, except as applied to the social forces that influence technology development, that can be so valuable.

If you only read one book about developing technology this year, I recommend this one!

It's hard for most of us to see the positives and negatives about potential technologies and their developments at the same time.  We naturally tend to focus on one or a few elements of the potential.  With this wonderful book (and the quiz inside), we can graduate to the rounded perspective that we need to make the most of technological potential.  With this approach, I predict great things for the people of the world

</review>
<review>

Barker's book provides a radical new way of categorizing technology - something we've been without in the modern age. In addition to giving us a series of frameworks on which we can base our decisions about the direction of our future, he illustrates how our current course in the United States is extremely destructive and ultimately unsustainable.If enough people read this, then perhaps our course can be changed for the better.

However, a disclaimer: Although the book title references business, this book is much more about specific technologies and their socio-environmental implications than any business application.

Still, it is a recommended read for anyone who wants to ensure a comfortable, sustainable future for our species

</review>
<review>

I read Five Regions - and it drew me back to re read Joel's other works.  It is such a power segmentation of where technology has been lupmed together and Joel's perspective really brings focus back to where our species is heading technologically.  Technology has alway been encompassing - now looking at Human Tech, Nature Tech et all - it become galringly obvious there is so much mis understanding of the nature of technology - its hard to discern where the future is headed.  Five regions really brought back focus to major areas of innovation for me and my collegues - thank you Joel - it look sliek you are coining new venacualr and creating a new technology lexile again

</review>
<review>

Joel has done it again.  He has always had an uncanny knack for seeing the future and describing it in ways that help others understand and this book is no exception.  Regardless of which "region" view you believe is to be the future, you can not afford to be ignorant of the others.  This is a very valuable book for any CEO or exec that plans to be around for the future. Well done Joel, thanks.

</review>
<review>

Easy reading, funny, motivational and packed with powerful strategies that will take your sales career to a new level. Read and reread Zig's Secrets and you'll become a top closer too.

Also recommend Tom Hopkins classic 'How To Master The Art of Selling' Tead anad apply both and break through that six figure income easily

</review>
<review>

This book contains what every salesperson should know about sales.   There are not reasons for not getting sales, you just didn't get past the objection.   This book puts things in a whole new light.   I highly recommmend it

</review>
<review>

This is on of the first books I ever read on Selling and I have never forgotten it.  What still stands out after all of these years is Zig's placing a huge importance on questions.  In fact the book contains thousands of questions in its narration and you sort of pick up the habit naturally by example by just reading it.  Zig is also a friend to the customer by disseminating these effective but ethical selling techniques.  Do you want a rewarding career in sales?  Highly Recommended.

Five Star

</review>
<review>

For any salesperson or any person. since we do not sell only services we also sell ourselves be it in a job in a relationship. It is definately a must read

</review>
<review>

I have read this book numerous times.  It is a book that I have highlighted, taken notes on, and referred back to several times.  I absolutely recommend this book

</review>
<review>

Zig is an accomplished sales trainer and his "Secrets of Closing the Sale" is absolutely awesome and a joy to read.

Although some of the materials are somewhat dated, it's immensely useful on how to develop a great personal attitude in the sales and MLM profession!

For the more experienced sales professional, I would also recommend Duane Lakinin's "The Unfair Advantage".

James Leong
Author of The World's First Book on Network Marketing with NLP,
"MLM Persuasion Mastery: How Master Networkers Change Beliefs and Behavior"


</review>
<review>

Zig is a pro in sales. He is the BEST of the BESTESS.

Really, read, write, note, and read again. Good book on sales. Somewhat outdated, but it targets more personal attitude rather than skills and techniques

</review>
<review>

This work relates the intangible qualities of a successful sales personality to the tangible principle of lessons to learn for individuals who are motivated to do so

</review>
<review>

Many years ago I made the investment in Zig Ziglars book, finally the pages wore out from my numerous readings so I re-ordered and would not be without it.

Although I do not sell pots and pans, I took Zig's techniques and put them to work in creative real estate investing, just pluged in real estate instead of pots and pans as I like to relate.  If you are in sales or just want the ideal way to handle situations then make the investment in this book.

Thank you Mr. Ziglar

John $Cash$ Lock

</review>
<review>

What a pleasure it was to read and thoroughly study this treatise on selling by the great Zig Ziglar. I don't care how successful you are right now or how inexperienced you are, this book will take you to new levels of accomplishment.

In Zig Ziglars Secrets of Closing The Sale you will learn from an acomplished sales master. Zig has done it. He has been in selling since 1947 and speaks from actual experience. The techniques offered here are proven, sure fire tested methods, not theory.

This book is huge and can be intimidating to some people at 410+ pages and 38 chapters. You will find over 100 closes and over 700 questions.

You will learn how to paint word pictures and use stories. Not only will your sales take off but your ability to communicate in everyday life will become much easier and more fun as well.

Zig Ziglar's Secrets of Closing The Sale is a fun read. Zig is witty and the hardest thing I had to do was to put the book down. It's a great read.

The techniques are easy to apply and the best part is that they work even when the client knows what you are doing. Zig also drills the concept of integrity selling and building value as well as following up after the sale.

Five months ago, I went to work for a company that is big on the "Spin" Method of selling. Being open minded, I tried The Spin Method setting aside what I had learned from the past. I was wholly dissappointed. Two months ago, I began studying Zig Ziglars Secrets of Closing Sales and am once again making money in selling and enjoying it.


Thank you Zig. We needed this.

</review>
<review>

E.D.Hill has interviewed a great many people for this work and has compiled them into a series of interesting anecdote

</review>
<review>

Save you money! This isn't really suitable for anyone who cares what their children read. Much, much better can be found elsewhere

</review>
<review>

Lynee Cheney's `A Time for Freedom: What Happened When in America' is an interesting book which ensures that its readers, comprising of students and adults alike to be aware of key events that took place within its recent development from the arrival of the Pilgrims to the destruction of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. In this book, she outlines and reinforces the importance of such dates as 1492, 1607, 1620, 1776, and 1787. However, as she explains, an actual comprehension of American history cannot be explained with a presentation of dates exclusively. Thus, she places a great deal of emphasis on chronology.

Along with chronology, Cheney also places a great deal of importance on the timing and the reasons regarding the occurrence of events, such as the Civil War, the assassination of Civil Rights activists, and the approval of the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress, the firing on Fort Sumter, and the attack on Pearl Harbor, as they would also be necessary in the understanding of America's history. In order to assist readers with that purpose, she has provided an illustrated timeline, replete with images, historic quotations, and also an explanation on why key events occurred in the order that they did. For instance, one image might show a battle that had taken place in the Civil War. Preceding that might be an explanation of the nation's expansion in the 1840s.

While the majority of information presented in `A Time for Freedom: What Happened When in America' is readily available in other texts, Cheney presents it in a manner which is both logical and comprehensible. Moreover, one might be surprised to learn that at one point, the country had nine different capitals, among them Annapolis, Maryland and Trenton, New Jersey. It is also surprising to learn that many students, even at the collegiate level, believe that Ulysses S. Grant was a general in the Revolutionary War (and not the Civil War). In fact, inspiration for the publication of this text was driven by a study showing that only two-thirds of seventeen-year olds could recall the time span of the occurrence of the Civil War.

In conclusion, `A Time for Freedom: What Happened When in America' is sure to be a valuable resource for students and adults who may have forgotten what they have learned from their studies of American history. It is also sure to be a useful supplementary text, in that provides information not found in other books, while presenting information already known from other texts in an otherwise comprehensible and attention-grabbing manner. Moreover, it will more than likely play a key role in allowing the denizens of American to appreciate how far the country has come to achieving freedom, as it presents a rather large list of contributors who transformed freedom from a dream into a reality. As such, it is highly recommended that readers in search of a supplementary history text or anyone interested in learning about a portion of American history that they may have forgotten or misunderstood consider and purchase `A Time for Freedom: What Happened When in America.'

By Baron.

</review>
<review>

Thank you once again to Lynne Cheney for caring enough to write a book for all of us who need to appreciate the history of our country more than we do. This book does more than just inform, it invites the average American to delight in the events that have contributed to the forming of our great America. I am proud to be an American and have watched friends and family make sacrifices for the freedom of all, but I remain one of the typical victims of the history snobs (otherwise known as history professors and experts) who cared more about impressing students with their high intellect than instilling a love for the history of our country in their students.  Even at my age, after reading this book I am motivated to read more about some of the historical events presented in Mrs. Cheney's enlightening timeline. I am encouraged that a book like this can be given to young people and we can expect that their interest in historical events will be piqued.  I plan to give this book to many people (young and old) as a gift to them and to all of us who want to see the pride and love of American history returned to its people! I highly recommend this book

</review>
<review>

This is a wonderfully written resource for anyone who wants to brush up on their American history.  The "timeline" format allows the reader to follow multiple stories at the same time and understand the context in which they occurred.  Mrs. Cheney's succinct prose is complemented by a compilation of interesting quotations from many of our country's most famous (and some not as famous but no less important) figures.  This book is a great starting point for anyone looking to reacquaint themselves with our country's past. I find myself using it as a reference for placing specific events within a larger context, which has helped me gain a greater appreciation for the complex story of America.  A great gift for graduating high school students or your favorite college grad, as well as for anyone who enjoys American history.

</review>
<review>

The art in both of Lynne Cheney's books that I've read are awesome! Very colorful and eye-catching!

But that's not all her books are about. She weaves many interesting facts into this book ... facts that keep the reader's interest to the very last word.

I hope to see more of this author's works

</review>
<review>

I didn't read the entire book, simply browsed it for about 20 min while my daughter shopped for books in the kids section of the bookstore.  However, it doesn't take much more than 20 min to get through it.  The book is nothing but a timeline of  miscellaneous events and grouped by presidency.  Each event is covered by no more than a couple of sentences. You might learn some trivia going through it but not much else.  It is also not a very objective view of US history - not a single "factoid" given for the 8 years of the Clinton presidency was positive, only negatives

</review>
<review>

Lynne Cheney reveals her love for America's history and her commitment to scholarship in A Time for Freedom.  A chronology of America's past from the arrival of the first Americans to the present day, this book presents the events that shaped our country in a way that is understandable and compelling.  Cheney's organization of the book-it passes through history in date order, with short summaries of events instead of complicated explanations-gives the reader a sense of context that is rare in history literature, yet essential for understanding our national story.  I learned that in 1968 alone, North Vietnam launched the Tet Offensive; assassins murdered Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy; police used tear gas against antiwar activists at the Chicago Democratic convention; and women protested the Miss America Pageant, in that order.  Understanding this national suffering is surely necessary if we are to appreciate the hope that Neil Armstrong inspired across the country when, in early 1969, he became first person to walk on the moon!

Cheney has also filled the book with primary source quotations, images, and fascinating tidbits that, even as a college history student, I've never found anywhere else (for example, during World War II, Navajo Indians serving in the Marines used their native language to keep U.S. transmissions from being deciphered by the Japanese). Such rich information and captivating prose make A Time for Freedom the perfect gift for a student, a family, or (perhaps best of all), a busy adult who can't remember what she learned in American history class.  I predict that this book will become a classic-and until then, I'm going to give it to everyone I know.

</review>
<review>

Joan Grant and her husband Denys Kelsey take turns writing their accounts of life in France during and after WWII and how they use her gift of seeing into the far past--past lives--to help psychologically maimed patients. The  tone is very humble and yet matter-of-factly and helps us understand our  own continuity and moral responsibilities. Suffering is indeed unnecessary  and death is nothing to be afraid of

</review>
<review>

I still have my first edition copy of Agee on Film.

A production on the stage is seen once and then is gone forever. Curiously, despite the fact that a film can be viewed repeatedly, once upon a time revivals were rare, and most audiences saw a film once, talked about it, then forgot about it.

Even the film studios only half-heartedly treated their products as permanent, allowing many of them to deteriorate irretrievably and others nearly so (eventually giving rise to an entire industry devoted to film restoration).

Films were given a new life with the advent of television. Growing up on old movies on the tube in the 1950s, I found that repeated viewing of the same film could be a rich experience, and nothing enhanced this experience more than the appearance in the early 1960s of Agee on Film.

Agee took film seriously as a cultural experience, a molder of public opinion, a tool that might be useful or dangerous. Just how much he differs from mainstream reviewers who regarded the movies primarily as entertainment can be seen in the two different sets of reviews in this book.

His reviews in the liberal The Nation are extended analyses of the films and the sensibilities of the filmmakers, withering critiques of the limitations of the studio system, and manifestos on how good films could have been made better. Agee interpolates in his reviews his opinions about everything: The War (WWII, of course), politics, race, education, religion, psychology, philosophy ... the list goes on.

In contrast, his reviews for Time, constrained by that magazine's conservatism, are truncated and absent the depth and  bite that distinguishes Agee from all other critics. His beautiful use of language keeps him afloat, but were it not for The Nation, I doubt Agee would have the reputation of Greatest Film Critic of All Time.

Agee on Film was originally in two volumes. The first was the current book. The second was a collection of Agee's own screenplays, including the classic The Night of the Hunter; Noa Noa, a fascinating teleplay about Gaugin (very different from Maughams' The Moon and Sixpence); and his magnificent adaptation of the The African Queen. Thus, he was able, unlike most critics, and with admirable results, to put his pen where his critique was.

James Agee almost single-handedly popularized the appreciation of film as an art form. The writing in this book is how he did it

</review>
<review>

James Agee wrote film criticism in America at a time when the American film industry hardly deserved his attention.  His celebrations of silent film comedy, of Preston Sturges, of John Huston [for whom he later wrote  the script for The African Queen], and of the handful of worthy foreign  films that he managed to see are what make this volume worth reading.   Besides Agee's beautiful prose and above all his compassion.   Interestingly, Agee was a fan of Frank Capra's comedies (It Happened One  Night) and bemoaned the director's decent into serious social films (Mr  Smith Goes To Washington, Meet John Doe).  His negative review of It's a  Wonderful Life, which has never been in print since it appeared in 1946,  reveals the extent to which Agee was perhaps too far ahead of his time, and  even of ours

</review>
<review>

Agee on Film, part of Martin Scorsese's wonderful new series of great film books from the past, is a really enjoyable read. It contains a lot of interesting reviews of classic Hollywood films by an articulate, witty  writer, who himself wrote the screenplays to some great films, like Night  of the Hunter. I love the way that the essays in this book are both  thoughtful and direct. He has important things to say about what some films  suggest about human nature and society, but at other times he's quick and  to the point. Agee writes at the beginning that he thinks everyone is an   and quot;amateur and quot; when it comes to films, because what matters the most  is not what you know but how a movie affects you; I like that quality in  him. He isn't so pretentious that he can't admit when a movie just doesn't  move him. He writes in a really down-to-earth way, but his reviews aren't  simplistic or rushed, like many of the reviews I read today. Some of my  favorite parts of this book are the essays where he quickly gives his take  on a bunch of films, writing funny though sometimes harsh one-line quips  (for example:  and quot;several tons of dynamite were set off in this movie,  none of it under the right people and quot;). This book is especially  informative and entertaining for movie fans, but also would be useful as  instruction on writing about art. Really, though, it should be fun to read  for just about anyone

</review>
<review>

This book is a wonderful account of life in the attic as told by Anne Frank. I read the book in high school and then recently read it after my husband and I visited the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. It was so interesting to read the book after having visited the real. I would almost recommend reading it before and after visiting the site

</review>
<review>

I have just finished the Diary Of a Young Girl and i have the strong feeling that i was moved back in time, as if it was 1944.
The diary is incredible, almost hard to belive that if was written by a 13 old gilr. If olny she'd had a chance to live- she would have been an amazing writer.
The book is written so clearly that you are able to imagine, almost touch everytching that's inside the secret annex.
you'll have a feeling that you are one of those 8 people who were living there for 2 years.
I really recomend this book for those who emphatise with the holocaust victims and also for those who don't know much about the hard times the Jews had to go through. Hard to belive...

</review>
<review>

The diary of a young girl is an inspiring story where I learned about some circumstances and events in the time of World War 2;
but this story is really about the meaning of life from a teenager's point of view.She writes events and stuff that she thinks while she is hidding with her family for more than 2 years.When she says in her diary that she wants to keep living, her diary then ends, and she was found and was set to a concentration camp and died.

</review>
<review>

A year ago, I was forced to read this book by my english teacher... At first, looking at the cover, (it was red with a picture of a girl) I had an impression that i would not enjoy reading it...

After a couple of days, i was surprised to see myself bringing the book everywhere I go... During break times, lunch, and spend 2 full hours reading it at home...

Reading this diary, made me picture how Anne had her teenage life.. It was really different from mine. Nothing beats how a 13 year old girl manage to live a life like a prisoner in the attic. No other friends to talk too... Same people she sees every single day... In a small place called the "Secret Annexe".

Can you imagine that that kind of life? That you have no idea if you can eat or not, if you should talk or remain silent for the whole day... or if you can still get out of that Annex and live a normal life again... Can you imagine??? But still, they remained hopeful until the last air they breathe...

For me, those people are the real heroes. They never gave up. They sacrificed and united. And best of all, their faith in God reamined strong.

This book influenced millions and millions of people from all over the world. This is a real story of a real world... And the fact that this happens too to so many people. Sometimes we ask, "Why do we need to repeat History?"

Read this book and you'll realize that this is different, worth it and remarkable...

</review>
<review>

This was such a well written book, that you would think an adult wrote. To know that a young lady wrote this was truly an inspiration for all those young people with writing dreams such as Anne's. Anne and her family went through such a hard two years and still remained hopeful and positive. This book really gives a great picture of what the Jewish community went through, all the unjust moves against them. It made me gain more respect for ALL religions and races. This book makes you wish that more help was sent to these people. We can never understand all the hardships The Franks went through, but we can help those going through similar persecution.

</review>
<review>

It was very interesting and exciting to delve into the life of a family hiding from the Nazis during WWII. I highly recommend this book and I hope I can one day go see the Anne Frank museum where the family lived during this time

</review>
<review>

Glassman's, first law of Phillip Fisher financial investing is "become a partner in a good business, for a long time": get information about the companies your are buying and ignore price trends, keep the stocks for the long run - at least 5 years, believe that assets are linked to time because time is the single most important factor in investing.

Look for companies that 1. have a consistent track record of increasing earnings of at least 7 percent for the last ten years 2. have a good prospect of surviving over the next 50 years 3. don't have huge capital demands for the profits.  Ideally, this means the company is rich; it has a service or product that produces a growth rate in earnings over a ten years because ten years suggests reasonable market dominance; and invest in companies that will offer value, in the future.   What are people looking today that will meet these criteria?  Biotech, Robotics, Fuel cells, and alternate energy.   However, most of these companies are emerging technologies which would not qualify them from investment opportunity short term.  Large companies like Genetech would qualify, whereas, small companies like iRobot would not because it does not have a ten year track record.  Glassman conservative Warren Buffet like approach demands forces the investor too follow the maximum, "Do not invest too lose money."   Furthermore, Glassmans conservative view attacks speculation and favors Graham security investment strategies of predictability.  Glassman surprisingly does not predict doom for the speculators, instead says, "history shows that the fate of the stock market is closely connected to the fate of the economy".  A speculator would own hugh about of stock or commodities in a few sectors, whereas, a security investor would diversify into a portfolio of many stocks.  Well, why not just invest into a Index or the whole market, per recommendation by John Bogle?   The Index returns about 7 percent and does not require buying and selling commissions.  It is obvious, that Glassman has some speculation visions, as a part of his core beliefs and hopes for above market average profits.  Glassman attempts to justify his risk based beliefs by saying, "when you hold a stock long enough, it becomes less risky than a bond."   The assumption is the investor will select a stock that will not have wide fluctations, large downward trends, and cause the investor too sell because of pain; and having faith the stock market will outperform bonds, he makes the prediction that stocks will be higher priced over time.  Glassman has not decided against risk stating, "prudent behavior is a key to investing", "volatility can an investors best friend because it offers good stocks at bargin prices", and "risk is a necessary evil in the stock market".  This is the language of a speculator.

Don't trade stocks.   Buy low and sell high is impossible for an investor to turn a profit.  Short term investing is a losing game reeling in the suckers by the thousands.  The only way to make money short term is to own the market and have the financial power to manipulate it.  So the best investment advice for an average investor with less than a billion dollars is too dollar cost average.  In other words, invest money consistently over a large period of time and let the average work, for ones benefit.   One good idea is too use a low cost broker, such as, sharebuilder and setup an investment plan of 10% a pay period diverting into a purchase plan which cost about $4 per transaction.

Pay no attention too the Fed.   This is illogical.  If the stock market is affected by the economy than if the Fed monetary policies cause inflation or deflation, the stock market valuations will also change.   Glassman must be assuming that investors do not borrow money to make their stock purchases.  Interest rates slow down or heat up the economy.  High interest rates slow down company earnings, if they are heavy in debt. Glassman investments do not carry heavy debt loads and operate cash rich and this justifies ignoring high interest rates.  However, it does not explain the interconnected web of commerce where companies are constantly adjusting their inventories either too cut costs or replenish depleted inventories depending on economic factors.  Glassman's faith is that the Fed will do a descent job in maintain the valuation of the dollar which means controlling inflation, adjusting interest rates, and maintain dollar hegemony against the euro and yen.  The second assumption is that the stock market will continue to climb onward and upward eventually crossing 36,000

</review>
<review>

Mr. "Dow 36,000" wants you to believe him this time.  No, really, he means it.  Right.  In 2005 he he wrote an article denying that there was a housing mania about to go bust.  I think that's a pretty good indication that there is a housing mania about to go bust.  This guy is amazing

</review>
<review>

Ms. Phillips has written a frightening non-fiction treatise that is right up there with Jared Diamond's "Collapse."  Thanks to its lucidity, it is a rather quick read. Her writing is exquisite. But the content, ah, the content is indeed disturbing. No external enemy will ever destroy Western Civilization, its culture or its values. No, the West, if it is to be destroyed--will be destroyed from within, as it loses its will to resist and defend itself.  It is at that point that we will simply surrender--not to the barbarians outside the gate, but to those inside it.

</review>
<review>

This is a very important book if you want to know what happens to a country that has bought into politically correct, multicultural, and relativistic nonsense

</review>
<review>

Mandatory reading for anyone who believes in multiculturalism and for those who don't. Melanie Phillips provides a factual commentary and incisive analysis of the political and legal decisions, which have led Great Britain away from its traditional culture and beliefs and transformed it into today's fractured society, whose past values are being discarded proactively and passively by the strong multi-cultural forces applied during the past 40 years.

Londonistan should be of great interest to readers in the USA as the parallels which can be drawn between the abandonment of the priciples upon which this country was founded and Britain today yield a frightening glimpse into our future

</review>
<review>

This book is a fascinating account of the relationships between the European liberal movement and Islam and how this is changing and affecting the political life of England and also Western Europe.
As an american it help us to understand why our views and position about Middle East problems are often so different with Europe. It also help us to understand the fragility of the State of Israel and many of the powerful forces aim at destroying it.
The book as the title suggest is mainly related to England but touches also into other European countries. The author has done a very extensive research and she has done a good work in problem analysis of the major dilemma that we will face in this century.
Independent of our own political position this book describes a reality that we can not ignored and we are gradually start to see it in the USA

</review>
<review>

A notable parallel to the direction America is headed- shocking wake-up call

</review>
<review>

Melanie Phillips reveals how London has degenerated into a terrorist incubator, surrounded by spineless politicians who quiver at any insinuation of being diversity-phobes.  Great read

</review>
<review>

Phillips nails it. And it's coming here to a city near you

</review>
<review>

This book expertly describes how and why the Muslim community within London gives birth to a group of radical men whom go on to committ terror throughout the world. The author questions why England has not confronted these sects more head on without the worry of insulting Muslems. An interesting and worthy point is one that indicates that living in England does not give anyone the right to denounce the goverment to the point of  proclaiming death to the goverment officials. Maybe its time to send these people back to the 'war torn' areas from which they came from and allow them to express their 'freedoms' and collect ' state financial aid' there. This point is raised and the reader has the option of agreeing or not. The best thing about this book is that it was written and demands that action be taken place to quell an uprising taking place

</review>
<review>

The best book on the history of World War II that I've read in a long time.

The title has three meanings:

1. It can refer to the gunner at the back of a bomber. The Brits called these people 'Rear Gunners.' The Yanks used the term 'Tail Gunner.' It's the most dangerous position in the plane.

2. The last plane in the formation. This was more true in the American Combat Box than in British usage. This position is difficult to hold because it is at the end of a string and every move by the lead ship propagates irregularily through the formation. It is also more dangerous as enemy fighters can attack this ship more easily since there aren't so many guns pointing that direction.

3. It can refer to the bombing missions near the end of the war.

This splendid book covers all three of these meanings. In addition it does an excellent job of discussing the power and importance of air power in the defeat of Germany

</review>
<review>

This is an excellent book covering the bomber war over Europe in the final two years of World War II.  It is authored by two more recent RAF veterans and the book is simply outstanding.

The first part of the book talks about the experience of being in the bombers as they raided Nazi occupied Europe.  It relies heavily on first person accounts, which make the reading fascinating.  Everything is woven together to give a sense of training, flying, and dying in the bombers of Bomber Command and the Eighth Air Force.

The first part is based more on selected topics - on the experience itself.  The second part of the book turns to operations from D-Day to the end of the war, including an excellent treatment on the controversy surrounding the decision to bomb Dresden.

The book tries to discuss both the British and American experience of the bomber war and while it relates experiences that both nationalities would probably share, it does focus more on Bomber Command than it does on the Eighth.  This is in itself though is interesting as I knew little of the British experience and have been impressed by their resolve in prosecuting the war for so many years.

This is a great book to read - hard to put it down.  I would highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in learning more about the final years of the strategic bombing of Germany and are interested in the experiences of the average Allied airman

</review>
<review>

I often read about others that say they "can't put the book down because it is soooooooooooooo captivating". Well, "Tail-end Charlies" did that to me. What a super read. A dose of history and a dose of personal perspectives all in one. It is also an objective perspective relating to "Butch" Harris. Don't pass this one up.

</review>
<review>

In "Suttree", Cormac McCarthy doesn't so much shake the rafters of the illusory of literature as he does bore holes in its foundation. When his novel was published in 1979, you probably would have to have been a McCarthy reader to know about it - undoubtedly, there were erudite McCarthy readers making some noise over his three, previous works, but they were likely fairly small in number. As to his work, the old adage comes to mind: nothing worth having comes easily, and if you are to consider the dark themes and brittle, agrarian subject matter of his pre-Suttree work, you might be able to explain his relative obscurity. But, oh, how McCarthy takes these themes into Knoxville, Tennessee and with stunning craftsmanship, conjures up a visionary, humdinger of a novel. We have before us an astonishingly compelling and deeply personal opus that only a master storyteller could construct.

Rarely in the litany of the written word has the reader been so thoughtfully engaged. It is not as though you are unaware that McCarthy is taking you on a journey through seamy, 1950's Knoxville, it is how he creates the circuitous relationship between the viewer and the protagonist. You are simultaneously inside and outside and underneath Buddy Suttree, rapidly shifted in your radiant postion to the character, at the same time left to fill in the mysterious blanks in his past. This is McCarthy's astounding gift: he is generous without being patronizing, humorous without the slightest wrinkle of a smile. He paints and sculpts and carves with the casual attitude of a man at work on an assembly line though, of course, this is not manufactured-for-the-masses stuff here. The viewer's suddenly shifted point of view, however, is not limited to the main characters. The detail is so intense, that even the peripheral dead are given life: (pg 287) "In an old granfather time a ballad transpired here, some love gone wrong and a sabletressed girl drowned in an icegreen pool where she was found with her hair spreading like ink on the cold and cobbled river floor. Ebbing in her bindings, langrous as a sea dream. Looking up with eyes made huge by the water at the bellies of trout and the well of the rimpled world beyond." You are given the keys and the engine is running and you are therefore involved in the story in such a way as to have omniscience over all the characters. You are strangely confident that you will see the action from all sorts of dizzying angles, at the same moment laughing at the dire circumstances of the characters and McCarthy's lard-heavy, homespun humor.

Perhaps the most profoundly unique quality of "Suttree" is the language it is spoken in. There are many passages that will cause your jaw to drop, unable to quite say: oh, my God! he's made a deal with the devil! The beauty of the prose is not only generous; it is dense, ever prevalent. Ornate, Gothic-like depictions abound and are not confined to the commonplace. The author scripts these passages seemingly at will, as expertly painting polluted First Creek in all its reviling filth as he does Suttree's tender but ambivalent encounters with the girl, Wanda, and the prostitute, Joyce. Juxtaposed, is the hilarious dialect of East Tennessee, which is cleverly rendered and not confined to the notion that all are white and of Scotch-Irish descent. Knoxville and the Tennessee River come breathing off the pages like a war-torn, decimated moonscape and you are overwhelmed, not only with architectural oddities, but with slapstick sketches of shanty town ghettoes.

While this is literature of the highest caliber, it is probably not for everyone. If you see Cormac McCarthy on the book jacket, you might want to go back up the aisle in pursuit of less existential reading. But if you believe that literature has the power to illuminate the paean that is the written word, then you might give "Suttree" the nod. You may very well not look at novels the same thereafter. It is the rare novel that invites you to recite its lines long after they have been pulled through you. This one has that power. It is one you will be reluctant to move from its place on your nightstand into the common book population on your shelves.

Note of caution: This reviewer suffers the prejudice of locale. Thre are scenes from "Suttree" that run in precise locale to his wanderings as a small child. He played soldiers in the same bushes where one melon-fancier hid, spent nights as a young man in those same, frigid mountains and wandered hallucinogenically over the same mica-glazed sidewalks of Fort Sanders. "Ain't that right Mizz Mull.

</review>
<review>

For me, this the best book I've read by McCarthy. As usual he investigates the darker side of humanity, in this case following the trials and tribulations of Cornelius Suttree. It is not the easiest of reads but perseverence pays dividends. I see the people have complained about the lack plot...can't say I even noticed because it stands up quite well without one. It details the life of Suttree as he eeks out a living on a houseboat while spending his free time in bars knocking around with less than desirable folk. if you find the beginning a bit of a heavy read just hang in there until Harrogate enters the scene. Absolutely superb, reminds me of Ratso from Midnight Cowboy (also highly recommended). McCarthy certainly loves to describe a scene/situation down to the merest minutae so you might find yourself passing over a few paragraphs while trying to get back to the heart of the story. And if nothing else you'll certainly come away remembering 3 things: watermelons, tunnels and bats. A superb read

</review>
<review>

Suttree is an extremely challenging book.  I picked it up, read the first thirty or so pages, then put it down for two years before I finally dedicated myself to reading the whole thing.  The narrative occurs in elliptic little episodes, with no particular overarching plot.  Many reviewers here have cited this as a flaw, but McCarthy is breaking the ordinary traditions of narrative here for a reason - a life does not progress in neat order, nor do most people live to see some golden denouement that makes sense of all their previous decisions.  Suttree the character lives without this happy sense of order, and McCarthy has no desire to provide it to the reader.  As in life, some things happen, some more things happen, and then the story ends.  In the hands of a less skillful writer this could have been an appalling mess, but McCarthy's incredible gifts make it at once satisfying and heartbreakingly incomplete

</review>
<review>

ok...for a brief opinion, i think this is an absolutely amazing work of fiction that ranks up there with the best of faulkner...it ranks up there with the best books ive ever read...the prose really makes me reread passages out loud, just as previously posted by another reviewer...

in response to those that deem the work short on plot, i just wanted to mention this....i could be remembering wrong but i am pretty sure that this is a somewhat autobiographical work that focuses on mccarthy quitting the drink and leaving tennessee for texas...so this is not necessarily the same kind of work that the border trilogy or blood meridian are.

something interesting for me in reading these reviews is that faulkner suffered from the same kind of criticisms, especially while he was alive...lack of structure and coherent plot...

i do believe that he is the greatest living american author...if not, i would love to find the person that beats him

</review>
<review>

McCarthy is a very talented writer (read Blood Meridian and All the Pretty Horses) but he is also known for a very melodramatic style of writing, using many archaic words. Suttree is written is this style and one could say it is 471 pages of melodrama without a plot. Despite the novel's length it is very underdeveloped and the reader is not sure why he should even care about the main character. Certain chapters are interesting (the workhouse chapter especially), but these passages are few and far between. Also the violence at times is ridiculous and does nothing to advance his ever prevalent theory that the world has always been this way and will continue in this way. McCarthy writes about nature beautifully, but after finishing this book, one is left unfulfilled.

</review>
<review>

Okay, I'm going to go against the grain here and say that Suttree really isn't all that good.  Maybe it's fine literature -- although personally I don't think so; I think literature should engage and tell a story that the reader can feel part of, absorbed into with a pathos for its characters, good or bad.  Here we get only snatches of that.  *At times* we feel akin to Suttree.  For example the prison segment is good; there is a sense of purpose and pace here absent from the rest of the book; but on the whole Suttree is a rambling and confusing mess.  Why struggle so much with a book?  It's not that the ideas are so incredibly complex -- sure, at times it's sublime -- but it has a purposefully disconnected storyline.  The reader is meant to feel in the dark and only slowly pick up on the context and setting of the scenes.  The relationship between Suttree and Harrogate is great, but there needs to be more of it -- I feel like saying "yeah, yeah, yeah, just bring me back to the friendship between those two and give us more development of Suttree's mysterious past."  If you want to read this, you have been warned.  You will probably be bored and frustrated a good deal of the time.  Page after page of how someone shaves or combs their hair sound interesting?  If you think it's worth it "in the name of literature", then that's up to you.

Note: I have read Blood Meridian and thought it was an excellent book: definitely go read that one first.  And I read A Child of God, which was also great.  I was hoping to become more of a Cormac McCarthy fan reading this one, but I think I've gotten to the point where I'd rather read the back of my shampoo bottle or peruse my way through a stack of disclaimer forms.  McCarthy is a master of the language, no doubt.  But in order to make us read the book he ought to at least make it interesting

</review>
<review>

I in 1996 I bought and read All the Pretty Horses first. Laughed myself off the train seat in to town.  Bought the whole lot and read them in chronological order - re-reading Pretty Horses on the way.  Along with scenes from the Orchard Keeper, Sutree sticks in my mind - images ideas, flavours, jokes, and a personality that I'd rather see more of.  Sutree made me feel that I know this man, and could even like him.  Great fun, and deserves selfish time to read and unwind after reading.

</review>
<review>

Absolutely exquisite. Perhaps that adjective gets overused nowadays, but here it is appropriate - perhaps even not strong enough of a term. "Suttree" is a must must must-read. It is such a profound indictment of the human race that it could be used as evidence against us if we are ever sued by space aliens. When viewed in terms of "Blood Meridian" and all of C McC's pre-Natl Book Award works, his range as an author is revealed and is humbling. The man is our greatest living novelist. I am grateful to him for having offered this work to the world.

</review>
<review>

I cannot understand anyone having a problem with this book.  Maybe it is too long for some but that is why it is called literature.  Likewise, if you do not like the slow pace and lack of action, pick up a Grisham novel during your visit to the airport and chuckle along the way.  This is the best southern McCarthy novel by far and equal to Blood Meridian.  Remember, turtles make good soup and do not try and kill your neighbor's pig without first asking

</review>
<review>

I came across this book when advising a friend's college-age child who was researching careers and was using this book.

On the plus side, the book does contain info on basic job search skills.  I would say that most (if not all of it) is now widely available via the internet.

Very troubling was the inaccurate guidance regarding specific careers - some of it was just outdated, but some of it was inaccurate to the point of being "dangerous" for a reader with little knowledge or experience, and who would choose to spend time/effort pursuing a career based on the info in this book.  I would have to recommend against using this book as a key source for making a career choice

</review>
<review>

I am saddened by the utterly unfair and inappropriate posting here by one reader. She had not read the book, but because I am a mere moderate feminist rather than a radical one, she chooses to excoriate me here. A far more unbiased source, USA Today's review of my book said, "From finding the well-suited job to customizing it, this book is full of smart advice." In the Reader's Choice Poll, it was rated the #1 most useful career guide. Here on Amazon, you can read sample material from the book. I encourage you to do that before making your decision

</review>
<review>

Sorry, I just cannot believe that the  and quot;humorous and quot; and  and quot;honest and quot; approaches recommended in this book will work. It all seems very idealistic, flaky and undignified. I value honesty (and humor too!) but there is also something to be said for modesty and decorum. I would find someone using these strategies very off-putting -- the words  and quot;sense of entitlement and quot; come to mind. And I am not conservative. So what would a conservative employer think

</review>
<review>

Enjoyed the book and can't wait to see the movie.  Lots of action - provocative.

</review>
<review>

This book was a fast read and interesting from the first few pages

</review>
<review>

At best Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code is just a mediocre modern day mystery with religious conspiracy overtones. The characterization seems like it came straight out of a 70's made for TV movies. If you have read any mysteries before the plot is paper thin, the first time the true villain makes an appearance, it is basically a "well isn't that contrite" moment. But it is a fast EASY reading novel. This book is just fine for lounging on the beach or passing the time on a cross country airline flight.

Some people take the conspiracy overtones to being anti-catholic. I think this is just nonsense but if you are sensitive to this sort of thing you might be offended by this book. Althogh, there are some kooks that think this book is about reality, instead of fiction,

A much more interesting book, in a similar venue (modern day mystery with religious conspiracy overtones), is Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco. Be forewarned, Eco's novel is a MUCH more challenging read but in the end is a more enjoyable novel. It is analogous to comparing cotton candy (Da Vinci Code) to a 12 course gourmet dinner (Foucault's Pendulum). Both will satisfy hunger, both are a type of food, but the popular one is something which can be consumed casually and in the end leaves you wondering if you should have made an effort to consume something that would have been more fulfilling.

</review>
<review>

I found this to be a really annoying, and - in the audio format - annoyingly-told story. It sounds like a screenplay, with symbolism, mystery, and trivia that are so mediocre... how best to describe it? Here, read the book if you think this is fascinating: the orange is a symbol of the divine feminine because it's round like a mother's womb. If that doesn't blow you away, read something else.

The two leads are so stereotypical, it hurts. Lastly, the guy reading the audio version puts on these heavy nasal French accents that actually impede understanding of what's being said, and then he has French people speak to each other in these accents - way overdone. Then, layered on that, they are explaining things to each other that any French person would already know (cle de voute, for example) for the reader's benefit.

Taking in the many supposedly intriguing objects and situations in this book was exactly like watching the movie Van Helsing for me - I'm watching that thinking "a werewolf, and vampires? and frankenstein? and hot chicks? why, it's got everything! what next?" Short attention span theater. The fact that this book is so popular makes me sad

</review>
<review>

Despite trying very hard to deny that this is just another fad management book - there is nothing new in this title.  Clueless managers will recite the core principals of this book and treat them as gospel as they try to improve their bottom line.  It is also worth noting that at least one of the "great" organizations in the book, Fannie May, has imploded in an accounting scandal.  Not the worst fad management book ever written, but that isn't saying much

</review>
<review>

The book separates core values from the operating practices of
companies. Ultimately, the core value system is the determinant
of success. It is the driver of success. The author plots the
profits of visionary companies as against non-visionaries. The
visionaries make over 5 times the profits. The challenge is to
preserve the core values and stimulate progress in the industry.
The core values involve innovation, integrity, individualism,
initiative, personal growth, quality, risk-taking ability and
expanded service. These types of attributes will give a large
institution the speed and agility of a small company according
to the authors.

The book is an excellent value for anyone navigating through
a large organization or facility in search of a strategic
plan or implementation

</review>
<review>

This is one of the business classics in the past twenty years.  It has sold a huge number of copies and I am sure many of those purchased copies were actually read!  As impressive as its sales numbers have been, the way it has affected the approach to the way business was discussed and talked about for the past dozen years has been even more impressive.

Yes, there are always newer fads and business is subject to fads more than most fields of human endeavor.  There are lots of theories about why this is so, but it might have something to do with the new managers coming in wanting to bring something new with them and so the previous guy's stuff is no good.  Hence, something comes and something goes for reasons beyond its ability to run business in a sound and profitable way.  However, when something comes along with some real substance it spreads and lasts, at least for awhile.  The ideas of core values and big (hairy audacious) goals hit a chord and lasted.  Of course, today they are part of the air businesspeople breathe rather than a quote from this book.

The authors looked at a number of big companies and found a list of those that had been around a long time, been financially successful, and were on a roll at the time of this book (but they don't say this is one of their criteria).    They also found some comparable big company that hadn't found the level of success of the "visionary company" as they call the successful firms.  They then looked for some traits common to those big successful companies that might explain their success.

The four big principles they came up with were: 1) Be a clock builder - or architect - not a time teller [once you read the chapter it will be clear], 2) Embrace the genius of the AND, 3) Preserve the core / stimulate progress, and 4) seek consistent alignment.

All this has to do with being opportunistic, building the organization that best supports the opportunities you are pursuing rather than letting the organization dictate what you pursue, that success requires doing seemingly contradictory goals simultaneously, making sure that the core culture gets preserved (if it has been a successful culture), and making sure that the whole process is focused on the core ideology - the core values and core purpose of the organization.  Sounds simple?  It's not.  And even so, the "visionary" companies the book lauded a dozen years ago have all, or almost all, fallen on various levels of hard times since the book came out.

This fact is addressed in a soft way in the frequently asked questions addition for this paperback addition.  There is also a new last chapter on building the vision and a section on questions for research (this acknowledges areas left unexplained by the book).

A book that has been this influential deserves your attention if you are interested in business literature.  However, as with all of these books, use the principles as they apply to your real life in the real world of competitive business rather than treating them as some kind of final truth.

</review>
<review>

A very inspiring book about creating and maintaining a vision for yourself, your company and even applicable to your own family.

A challenge given to plan and define the future in more than years but in decades

</review>
<review>

Jim Collins' books are well-researched, easy to read, and usually provide thoughtful, actionable guidlines for business owners. This book fits that mold in the context of describing precisely the framework that is needed to build a company that will both last a long time and outperform the market.

The "prequel" to Good to Great, this book covers the principles and practices of great companies, using a variety of companies that have lasted multiple chief officers for basis and comparisons. If you're looking to bring some moral fiber and long-term success to your company, I can't think of a better book to read and act upon.

</review>
<review>

This is a book that tries to uncover the common traits between companies considered visionary (companies that are regarded as being the standard bearers for the industry they compete in, that outperform the market and have been around for at least 50 years).

I think the sequel 'Good to Great' is better but this one is pretty instructive too.

The 12 myths it explodes are:
1. Visionary companies do not all start with a great idea. In fact great idea companies soon founder after the idea loses relevance. A company that is set up with processes that keep generating good ideas (a research lab that attracts the brightest talent for example) will over time outperform one set to capitalise on one 'big thing'
2. Visionary leaders and charismatic leaders are sometimes destructive for their companies in the long term since they lead to an over reliance on themselve and do not build successors who can take the company to the next level after them. Humble gritty guys are more likely to make the best CEOs
3. The best companies don't put shareholder returns as the prime objective. Although they think it's important they define their raison d' etre as for some greater cause - quality or innovation or pride or people or customers or product or whatever
4. Visionary companies do not all share the same set of shared common values. In fact some companies have completely opposite values from other companies and both can be equally succesful. However whatever they value, great companies truly believe in it.
5. Great companies do not keep changing with the times. There are core features that they just do not change no matter what. At the same time on the superficial level they adjust and keep ahead of changing times.
6. Blue chip companies do not always play safe. The best companies have at some time stake the house on a bet. But it has been a calculated well though out approach to risk taking.
7. Visionary companies are not great places to work for everyone. If you believe in their values then it is but for others it is distinctly an uncomfortable place and many people who 'do not fit' hate it there and soon are ejected like a virus. Fit is vital
8. Complex planning is not vital to building a great company. Instead quite often their strategies come from a 'let's try lots of stuff and keep what works' approach that is the opposite of analysis paralysis that plagues other companies.
9. The best CEOs are not those brought in from outside to reform a company. They are in fact the ones who have grown up from within the ranks who strongly believe in the company and have grown with it.
10. The most successful companies don't focus on beating the competition. They focus instead of focusing relentlessly on self improvement.
11. Great companies manage to make paradoxical things work together rather than chose one of them. for example they manage to give freedom of expression and yet have cult like conformity. Other companies try to go one route or the other or fail at trying to take the middle path.
12. Comapanies don't become visionary through visionary pronouncements and mission statements. Instead the entire tapestry fits seamlessly together and those mission statements and values are embodied in every facet of the organisation.

Some pretty interesting stuff here

</review>
<review>

I found Built to Last to be an analytical look at the intangibles of success.  Core development and maintenance, personal growth, employee development and more, highlight the "outside the bottom line" look into an organization lasting longer than any one leader's tenure of influence.  Although I don't agree with every aspect of the book I still rate this high due to its ability to stimulate positive thinking

</review>
<review>

I'm an employee with a small educational business, and I've started reading more business related stuff to get some perspective on how I can help our business evolve. I recently read "First, Break All of the Rules" and I picked this book up as a follow-up to get a different vantage point on growing a business. This study, completed in the early 1990s, focuses on 18 historically visionary companies that have built stable core cultures that can serve as role models for any business.

I greatly appreciated the historical perspective that evaluated the companies from their early roots. 3M a failed mining company? Sony building heating pads? Realizing how far rock-solid brands like this have come helps me to have some hope that a persistent, grounded organization can adapt to changing conditions.

I also value the emphasis on core values and presenting how these companies translate those values into a pervasive attitude throughout the company. Wal-mart and Nordstrom's are compared to "cult-like" organizations in a favorable way. Successful visionary companies not only have a vision, they find a way to attract employees who adhere to that vision and are able to "eject like a virus" any employees who don't match that vision.

This book, in contrast to many other business books I've read, relies heavily on thorough properly annotated sources. Even if you disagree with the author's conclusions you'll be pointed in the direction of some valuable published resources to assess companies like IBM and Merck for yourself.

My only concern with this book is the challenge of properly evaluating comparison companies and some of the visionary companies that look considerably less visionary in the present moment in time. The comparison companies are drawn from the time of the companies' founding. With companies like Boeing, this makes a lot of sense. With companies like Sony, this doesn't make as much sense to me. Sony has expanded into the music industry and technology industries successfully. I'd like to see how Sony's present comparision competitiors in industry compare on the visionary scale. Likewise, companies like Walt Disney thumped Columbia, which is now owned by Sony I believe. How does Walt Disney compare to some of its present competitors like Six Flags in the theme park arena or some of its competitors like Nicolodeon in the cable TV department?

The other criticism that some readers will have is that companies like Merck, IBM, and Wal-mart may not look as visionary in the popular press as they are presented in this 1994-completed work. The authors do speak to that concern in a later chapter and I accept their arguments for looking at the companies over 100 years and saying that, like Ford, they have the potential to return to visionary ways.

This book was real insightful, and I strongly recommend it to those who like some rigorous research with their business strategy advice.

4 stars

--S

</review>
<review>

Tony Judt's  "Postwar - A History of Europe Since 1945" is the well researched material from a British conservative born 1948 in London  and educated at Cambridge and Paris on political, social and economic developments in Europe following World War II.

Steeped in information about little understood countries, the book would be a great read for non-Europeans interested in how the continent recovered from the war, especially in East Germany, the Balkans, and the Eastern Europe countries that were strongly influenced by the USSR.

The book makes the point, that without the threat of the USSR in Eastern Europe, the US isolationist might have prevailed, which would have adversely influenced the recovery of West Germany, and Communism might not have collapsed so quickly.

Although the book is relativly easy to read, its 800 plus pages are peppered with little over-the-top clauses that add about 200 unnecessary pages to the work. Nevertheless, as non-professional historian, I would rank the book slightly under 5 stars.

</review>
<review>

Postwar is truly a huge achievement.  While it is a long book, it is actually short given how much ground Judt covers and how effectively he covers it.  the book starts with a great synopsis of some under-stated facts and thoughts about the impact that WWII had on Europe as a whole and on its constituent parts.  This book is worth reading for that synopsis alone.

From there, Judt covers the varied periods of the social and political landscape in Europe over the course of sixty years.  He looks at Europe as a whole, but also at the individual regions and countries that make up Europe.  The amount of ground that he covers in 800 pages is quite amazing.  Time and time again, you find yourself learning about something you understood only tangentially in the past.  In addition to just covering the ground, Judt offers some really deep insights into these situations that give you a whole different level of understanding.

One theme that runs throughout the book is the physical and spiritual battle Europe fought over Communism over this period.  Judt really lays bare Communism as the unworkable idea it has proven to be.  It is a powerful message that Judt delivers very effectively.

One thing that is more strange than bad is Judt's treatment of the United States in this book.  Judt seems to want to make the point firmly that Europe does not owe anything good about its recent changes to America.  America's role in Europe's recent past is quite conspicuous in its absence for most of this book.  Then, in the last ten pages, Judt launches into an anti-American monologue that contrasts sharply with the America vacuum in the rest of the book.

A lot of what Judt says about America is true and is probably important for Americans to hear.  Judt drives home the point that for most of the world it is the United States, not terrorists, that is viewed as the greatest threat to global peace and prosperity - good food for thought for Americans.  However, Judt's point about America is blunted by the fact that he's barely acknowledged its existence for the first 790 pages of the book.  It gives his verdict on the US the feel of a one-sided rant that actually undercuts its message.

I wouldn't let that stop you from reading this book.  The history and insights are great and even Judt's thoughts on America are important perspective for any American to have to round out their judgement about how the country handles itself on the world scene

</review>
<review>

I have just finished Mr.Judt's tome on modern Europe. I am a little embarrassed to admit that it took me several months. I enjoyed learning the information; the book is certainly filled with detail. It is not by any means an easy read or a "page turner, " however. Although I agree with some other reviewers that the US' role is deemphasized a bit, overall I felt the author was fairly objective. In contrast to a reviewer's comment that the French will love this book, I would argue that the author reveals the French during this period  as deeply flawed. Certainly the Soviet leadership  properly receives a great deal of blame, as do many of the citizenry throughout Europe.  I agree that the book's strength lies in the breadth of the information, which at first seems overwhelming but is kept semi-manageable. Mr. Judt is less successful in neatly synthesizing all the info, but I personally think that that is primarily a realistic function of the subject matter. I did find the epilogue discussing specifically the treatment of jews a little jarring in its placement.
In sum, for the average reader interested in history, the book is an ambitious, worthy, and overall well-written endeavor. Be prepared for a bit of a slog, however.

</review>
<review>

"Postwar - A history of Europe since 1945" by Tony Judt is the best book I have read on the subject.  Its perspective on events since 1989 up to 2005 is remarkably good.

Only two generations have passed since World War 2, and the risk with a book about this period is that its conclusions and themes may prove to be foolish in the fullness of time.  One is reminded of Mao's response to a question about the consequences of the French Revolution, "It is too soon to tell."

We can probably be reasonably sure that the history of Europe from the collapse of the Ottoman and Habsburg Empires plus the Soviet upheavals after WW1 to the final territorial and ethnic spasm in the Balkans in the 1990s can probably be written with some certainty, although we still lack access to original source documents for the Soviet role over that period.

All books dealing with post-war European history suffer from the fact that limited archival material from the Soviet Union has been available for study.  Historians are forced to rely on sporadic Soviet documents and speeches and the assessments of western diplomats and analysts to interpret Soviet thinking and intentions.

The result is that this book (and others) views the history of the Communist world with Western eyes and Western mindsets.  We are denied access to the thoughts, fears and hopes of communist politicians and dissidents and their influence on history.  Hopefully, one day, more archival and other documents will become available to historians and a more balanced history will emerge over time.

If I may give another analogy: at present historians writing of the Communist world are peering through the windows of a house trying to understand the lives of the family living there.  They see people going to and fro in the rooms.  Occasionally they get glimpses of what the individuals are reading and writing.  Sometimes a resident will hold up a photo or document for the historian to see.  But the historian cannot hear what they say, nor can he go inside the house to talk to them or inspect their documents, or ask them their views on the outside world.  He can draw conclusions only from what he sees through the windows.

A big message from this book is that the recovery and prosperity enjoyed by Western Europe for half a century is due to both the US and the USSR.  The US provided critical economic aid and political support to Europe, including West Germany, because of the threat assumed to be posed by the USSR.  Without such a threat, the US may have retreated into isolationism, leaving the Europeans to sort out the mess.  Without the threat of the USSR, there may not have been the will forgo reparations from Germany and to encourage West Germany to recover.  These were distinct possibilities in the immediate post-war period.

The book deals only with the history of Western Europe, with very little explanation of the impact of the rest of the world on that history.  Events and policies in the USSR and USA are covered to the extent that they directly impinged on Europe.  However, Communist and post-colonial developments in Asia and Africa certainly reinforced cold war attitudes in Europe, if they did not directly influence them.


What must still be provisional is the history of Europe since say 1990.  Will the European Union and the Euro survive the test of time, or will one or the other go into the dustbin of history?

Judt's description of the moribund Soviet economies in the 1970s is the best I have read on the subject. The joke "You pretend to work and we pretend to pay you" sums up the cynicism and inefficiencies of Eastern bloc economies.

His account of the final years of the Eastern Bloc is excellent, as is discussion of the key issues facing Europe in the aftermath of its collapse and the apparent success of free market ideologies.

The final chapters of the struggle between socialism (in the form of modern European social capitalism) and capitalist individualism on the US model has yet to be written.  Communism has probably failed for all time, but that does not mean that unrestrained US-style free enterprise will take over Europe.  Beware of historians who proclaim "the end of history" and the "triumph of liberal democratic capitalism".  Fortunately, Judt is too sensible to make such hubristic claims, although he does lean towards the European model.

Which model of society will "win" in the course of the 21st Century - the unfettered capitalism of the US, or the social capitalism of the EU?  What is the future of the nation state in the face of the challenges from terrorist extremism?

These are important questions, and Judt's book provides the reader with an excellent exposition of the political, social and economic circumstances surrounding them.


</review>
<review>

See what happens when the author's friends write the reviews? After all the glowing raves given "Postwar," I spent fancy money on it, and in the end, I came to agree with the only negative review of it I saw, in The Economist. You are misled by the acuity of the first chapter, in which Judt explains how much the current peace of Europe derives from the severe ethnic cleansing that took place there during and just after World War II--a fascinating point quite new to me. But after that, over 830 pages, Judt tries to explain everything and gets to the bottom of nothing. What did Margaret Thatcher really accomplish for England? I still don't know, though I learned a lot on my way to not knowing. This was the failing cited by The Economist reviewer, too. If you want a history of the war's aftermath in Europe (though only up to the mid-fifties) try "1945" by Gregor Dallas: distilled, acute, clear, concrete, fresh, and compelling. Maybe Dallas needs to hustle academic insiders as well as Judt does, for unlike Judt, Dallas actually delivers the goods and deserves the credit wasted on Judt.

</review>
<review>

Englishman Tony Judt's POSTWAR is an ambitious and worthwhile undertaking: to give a coherent account of the history of Europe from 1945. The outline of events is well known: a continent in ruins at the end of the Second World War, the miraculous rise of Western Europe from the wreckage, the concurrent enslavement of the East, and thence the titanic struggle between the two world systems, culminating in the triumph of liberal democracy over totalitarian state control. It is a great story, surely one of the finest chapters in the history of human civilization.

Judt seems to take the view (with which most people would likely agree) that great shifts in history ultimately rest upon the underlying economics. In the big picture, Communism failed because it was unproductive, capitalism succeeded because it was the opposite. The question he asks is a good one: why did it happen when it did? Why, after having survived so long (since 1917, in the case of the Soviets) did the Eastern Block suddenly collapse at the end of the eighties, and so rapidly?

His answer is, astonishingly, the Helsinki Accords. "Against all expectation," he claims, "it [Brezhnev's signing of the Helsinki Accords] was to prove mortal." (p. 503). The argument here seems to be that by having agreed to the Helsinki Accords (which included some boilerplate language on human rights), the Communist leaders were thereafter hamstrung in suppressing those dissidents who dressed their opposition in terms of human rights rather than as political attacks against the Party.

He thus attributes the collapse of Communism to the role of dissenters within the non-Soviet Eastern Block countries. Judt seems not to have grasped that these countries were just the playing field, not the actual players. He refers to himself as having been in Czechoslovakia at this time; perhaps this is why he seems to think that the minor protest groups within the Soviet satellites were something other than marginal--as causal agents rather than benefactors of larger forces. In this book, Vaclav Havel plays a far greater role than Ronald Reagan in the collapse of Communism. In fact the name "Reagan" itself only appears a dozen or so times--in other words, it is rarely cited, and then usually in the off-hand manner with which those who wish they had influence dismiss those who do. (Reagan's speech at the Berlin Wall is not even mentioned, something hard to fathom in an 800-page history of postwar Europe.)

Eventually, the anti-American streak which runs through this book from the beginning emerges into plain sight: "But it should not be concluded...that it was American encouragement or support which precipitated or facilitated their [Eastern Europe's] liberation." (p. 631) and then later, equally bluntly, "...[despite] the self-congratulatory narrative that has entered the American public record, Washington did not `bring down' Communism, Communism imploded of its own accord." (p. 659.)

Really? Who would have thought that forty years of American effort in the Cold War was just a waste of time?

This proposition is such obvious nonsense that it really does not need to be argued against, but the wonder is that someone who appears to understand the function of economics in history can fail to appreciate the central role of America, and specifically of the American taxpayer, in postwar Europe. America paid for Europe's reconstruction (Marshall Plan). America paid for Europe's welfare states (by relieving their governments of the need to pay for their own defense, and also in the form of endless credits and loans). America paid for Europe's economic prosperity (by bankrolling the agencies which funded it--such as the IMF  and  World Bank--and by opening American markets to European goods while allowing European markets to remain subsidized and protected; something that is still the case today, from agriculture to Airbus). And finally, it was America who paid for the Soviet's defeat. Without America, modern Europe would not exist.

Yes, it is undeniable that Communism rotted from the inside. But rot by itself does not cause collapse (otherwise how to explain North Korea, a long-bankrupt thugocracy that survived even the death of the former thug-in-chief?) Such states continue to exist indefinitely, until given a push. And so to answer Judt's own question: the reason Communism collapsed when it did was because America pushed. Ronald Reagan reversed American policy and stood up to the Soviets, and did so at a time when the major Western European states were cowering in postures of supplication and appeasement (Thatcher's UK excepted). It had nothing to do with the Helsinki Accords.

Judt flatters himself in the preface that his book will be controversial, but to this reader his conclusions are too silly to be worthy of controversy. They are simply wrong.

It is a pity Judt fails here. The fundamental lesson to be drawn from the history of postwar Europe is that it is no good trying to make friends with the schoolyard bully--or to give him your lunch money in order not to get beaten up (the European response). The lesson is that you must stand up to bullies. Appeasement in all its guises--rapprochement, Ostpolitik, engagement, detente, Nixon/Kissinger-style scheming, or Carter's endless vacillation--inevitably leads to failure. And when the bill finally comes due, as it always does, then the accrued interest can be enormously costly in human life. This was true in Munich in 1938, and it remains true today.

Given the current state of the world, we could have used a book which reminded us of this basic truth right now.

There are numerous errors and omissions, mostly minor (Iceland is missing from the cover maps), occasionally more significant (For example, there is no understanding that the repeated attacks by American hedge funds against the weak European currencies did much more than just blow England and Italy out of the ERM in 1992. They also forced a hugely embarrassing French devaluation in 1993--in the form of widened intervention bands--and imposed a hitherto unknown market rigor upon the respective governments, basically requiring them to depoliticize monetary policy and rein in fiscal policy--major changes in how these governments governed. The attacks also contributed to the ready adoption of the Euro, as a collective defense against George Soros.) But any book of this scope will contain errors and omissions; in fact the strength of POSTWAR is its vast collection of facts and figures and statistics (although weakened by the lack of source citations.) It is in the small-scale work of collecting data that Judt succeeds. It is in the big-scale work of interpreting those data that he fails. For example, toward the end of the book there is an account of the disaster in the Balkans following the break up of Yugoslavia. Judt correctly identifies the nadir of postwar Europe: the slaughter at Srebrenica, in which 7400 Muslims were murdered under the noses of Dutch soldiers serving under UN command. He then goes on to contrast the situation when NATO took over, at which point the slaughters promptly stopped, and ten years of peace ensued (enduring to this day). Surely this is something to which you would ask: Why? The answer is simple: the UN force, as is usual with UN forces, was too small, had a weak and compromised mandate, was composed of soldiers who were inadequately equipped and commanded, and who operated under unrealistic rules of engagement. But the NATO force tolerated no nonsense, they came in with the intention of standing up to the Serbs, and had the ROE to do it. The Serb `army' (if thugs who slaughter civilians can be dignified with such a term) promptly collapsed.

Same lesson: bullies must be stood up to. Perhaps it is the fact that the force was American-led which prevented Judt from seeing this.

(At the time of writing, the UN is once again dithering in the same old way on the same old issue--this time in Lebanon and Darfur--a perfect example of why we should learn from the past instead of repeating it, as seems all but inevitable right now. What a sorry institution the UN has become!)

Judt gives some good detail of postwar political theory on the continent--something usually missing from English-language accounts, other than the obvious observation that such theory was mainly Marxist. Sartre and Camus were predictable, Foucault less so (a substantial presence in France, but more or less unknown in America). Judt appears to come from the political left himself, but nevertheless he seems not to have understood the basis of Foucault (which can be summed up, Deep Throat-like, as "follow the power.") In Foucaultian terms, the discourse of dissent (which Judt claims collapsed Communism) was something entirely dictated by the power relations existing at the time. He would have said look not at the surface, look at the constellations (a favorite Foucaultian term) of power. Any objective survey of the constellations of power existing in Europe in 1989 would center on the United States (and might still do so today, despite a united Germany, an expanded EU, and the absence of the Soviet threat.) In explaining the collapse of Communism, historical roads as diverse as euro-Marxism, macro�-economics, empirical rationalism or even Great Man theory all lead to the same place: America. But according to Judt, Washington had nothing to do with it.

By the final chapters, any pretense of objectivity has been lost. 9/11 was not a watershed horror for the free world, but a passing American event that by implication the US deserved for its Middle Eastern policy. (Of all European leaders since 1945, Judt reserves his strongest denunciation not for Stalin or Tito or Ceausescu, but for Tony Blair. Why? Blair supports American policy--"blindly," of course.) In summing up what (Judt thinks) binds Europeans together, it is "...contrast with `the American' way of life.' (p. 748)

Lastly, not just the content but the style is likely to be tiresome to American readers. There is an overabundance of smug English circumlocutions and double-negatives: "It was not for nothing," "not perhaps terribly," and the like. Meaningless modifiers, such as "more than a little" and "decidedly," are used ad nauseum, so that the text sometimes reads like a student essay in which the author has tried padding it out to make the required number or words. Judt could learn from the great English historians of the past, of whom there are plenty, from Gibbon to Churchill. There is in POSTWAR none of their directness of language, that firm relentless empiricism which at its best ascends into epic prose, noble in conception and majestic in scope. It is what makes reading them such a pleasure, whatever they have to say. Reading Judt is just a chore.

In the end this book, for all its size, is just a sour little pamphlet--an insult to the achievement that it purports to explain. It is the written equivalent of those old photographs of Soviet leaders gathered atop Lenin's Tomb on May Day, in which the images of the purged party members have been carefully airbrushed out--except that in POSTWAR, it is not just a party hack but the main player who is missing. POSTWAR is not even bad history, it is non-history, just anti-American propaganda dressed up as scholarship.

It should sell well in France.

</review>
<review>

Much as I admire Judt's writing and breadth of knowledge, I'm appalled that he allowed this book to appear without source notes and bibliography, which are relegated to a website. I imagine this was a compromise he reached with the publisher to enable the publication of an overly long manuscript, but it renders the work largely useless to serious readers

</review>
<review>

PROFESSOR JUDT'S BOOK WILL CERTAINLY BE THE REFERENCE GUIDE TO THE HISTORY OF EUROPE FOR YEARS TO COME.
HIS ELOQUENCE ,HIS NICE STYLE AND MASTERY OF MATERIAL IS SUPERB.
I CANNOT REMEMBER  ANYONE ELSE THAT HAS DEMONSTRATED SUCH  AN ANALYTICAL ABILITY ON SUCH A VAST SUBJECT AS JUDT DOES.
READ THIS BOOK AND YOU WILL ENJOY EVERY MOMENT OF IT

</review>
<review>

I have read this book twice and I loved it.  Mowat wrote as if the tug was a living thing.  It was wonderful.  I actually cried at the end when Franklin came into the harbor with barely any power left and covered entirely with ice, thus ending her life.  The people who captained Franklin intriqued me as well.  In the book they were the only ones that really cared for her

</review>
<review>

I first discovered  and quot;Grey Seas Under and quot; about 15 years ago, appropriately enough as Able Seaman on an Ocean Salvage Tug. I was immediately enthralled. Out of the many books on the sea I have read, this one remains very dear to me (not that you have to be a mariner to enjoy it). Grey Seas Under is the true story of the ocean salvage tug, FOUNDATION FRANKLIN and the brave men who battled the North Atlantic to save hundreds of ships and thousands of lives. Farley Mowat, a master srory-teller, passionately desribes the exploits of FOUNDATION FRANKLIN with geat admiration and humor. Grey Seas Under is a true masterpiece saga of the sea. I've read this book probably 6 times in the last 10 years and I'm sure to re-read it for many years to come. I cannot recommend this book enough.  I also highly recommend  and quot;The Serpents Coil and quot; also by Farley Mowat, another first-rate tale of the sea

</review>
<review>

Farley Mowat can make the stars sing with the sheer beauty of his writing.  His writing is a little old-fashioned by today's standards, (all the better) but his craftsmanship is unsurpassed.  You ARE there.  You feel everything his characters felt, you see what they saw.  The book ends happily and I know it, but I cry through the last chapter every time I read it because his writing takes me there. One hedge:  the book does start slow, but if you keep plugging away, you will be richly rewarded

</review>
<review>

I read this book about 5 years ago, lost it and have been trying to find it for about 5 years. It is one of the best books that I have read. I could not put it down. I have had some sea adventures myself but nothing like  this. I have recomended it to all my marine friends but have not been able  to locate it until today

</review>
<review>

According to the authors and contributors, the example of Jesus Christ contains indispensable lessons for leadership. However, in the Gospel, Jesus seems to have commanded disciples primarily to love God and one another. He never seems to have promised success in worldly business affairs or to have offered managerial precepts. On the other hand, in the parable of talents he taught his followers to be fiscally conservative and to invest wisely. To their credit, the authors and editors who compiled this book acknowledge that Christianity never set itself up specifically as a recipe for business success. Regardless, they conclude, that applying precepts they identify will lead to success. The leadership guidelines they quote make sense and do not exclude thoughtful businesspeople of any theological background. The authors illustrate their advice with amusing, instructive anecdotes. The counsel is accessible, ethically illuminating and personally inspiring, although if you usually skip the sermon, it may not be for you. We believe that its primary appeal will be to Christians who seek to serve as servant leaders in their communities and workplaces.

</review>
<review>


Every year I eagerly anticipate the publication of another edition of this fine series - and its competitor, the "Best of American Science Writing."   Series Editor Tim Folger painstakingly selected 100 articles from American periodicals early this year, all of which attest to the intrigue of science.  Sometimes the scientific method is seen to be, as he puts it, "an intensely human endeavor, with nobility and self-sacrifice commingling with self-doubt, ambition, swollen egos, and sometimes outright fraud...Even though the intellectual brawls never stop, charlatans are invariably exposed...[yielding] an understanding of reality impossible to achieve by any other means."

This year's guest editor, physicist Brian Greene, selected the final 25 essays.  He suggests that when science writing is done well, it lowers the historical barriers between science and the humanities:  "Like master chefs, the best science writers pare away all but the most succulent material, trimming details essential to the researcher that would only be a distraction to the reader."

Natalie Angier:  A lesson on the cultural and linguistic analysis of swearing - an underestimated form of anger management.  Swearing is present in every culture - men consistently cursing more than women "unless said women are in a sorority."

Drake Bennett:  The story of Alexander Shulgin, an American chemist who has spent his life legally synthesizing hundreds of psychedelic compounds.  On the door of his lab is a sign that reads, "This is a research facility that is known to and authorized by the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Office, all San Francisco DEA Personnel, and the State and Federal EPA Authorities," with phone numbers.  He posted the sign after the second raid (the agencies later apologized).

Larry Cahill:  Within the past ten years, research has revealed an astonishing array of structural, chemical, and functional variations between the brains of males and females - many of them existing at birth.  The assumption that researchers can study one sex and apply findings to both is no longer an option.

Michael Chorost:  This article is one of my favorites.  The author was born almost deaf and didn't learn to talk until he got hearing aids at age three and a half.    At age 15 he somehow got hooked on the "Bolero," a famous orchestral piece known for its dynamic crescendos.   From that time on, he judged each new hearing aid by listening to his favorite rendition of "Bolero."  Then for unexplained reasons he became completely deaf at age 38.  The story of how a cochlear implant brought back his hearing ranges through engineering, computer science, physics, ear physiology, and the continued use of "Bolero."

Daniel Dennett:  Explains eloquently how no intelligent-design hypothesis has even been ventured as a rival explanation for evolution.  "You haven't explained everything yet" is not a competing hypothesis.

Frans de Waal:   Humans descended from group-living, highly social primates.  Like them, we are highly motivated to fit in with those we live and work with.  He calls "Behavioral economics" an evolutionary explanation for why we interact as we do - embracing the golden rule not accidentally, but as a result of our history as co-operative apes.

David Dobbs:  Nothing reveals errors like an autopsy.  The author quotes studies showing that when an autopsy was done, 25% - 40% of the time the cause of death was not correctly diagnosed.  Unfortunately, forces stacking up against the autopsy - regulatory, economic, and cultural - overcome attempts to revive it.

Mark Dowie:  Another of my favorites.  A small group of leaders representing indigenous tribes from all over the world have a pneumonic for their biggest enemy - BINGO.  This stands for Big International Nongovernmental Conservation Organizations.  Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, the Wildlife Conservation Society, and others - are well-funded and have been paying poor governments to establish national parks as fast as they can.  Indigenous people always live in these locations, are almost always left out of the negotiations, and are almost always robbed of their land and their culture.  This lamentable outcome is frequently barely discernable behind a smoke screen of slick promotion.

John Hockenberry:  A fascinating survey of US soldiers in Iraq whose hobby is blogging about the war.  Nearly all of the contributing bloggers say the current system of limited restrictions can't possibly last.  The policies are currently under Pentagon review.

John Horgan:  Remember the dramatic 1963 photograph depicting Jose Delgado calmly standing in the path of a charging bull?  With a hand-held transmitter, Delgado stopped the bull by stimulating electrodes in key areas of the bull's brain.  This is the dynamic story of his field in the 60's and its rebirth in the 21st century.

Gordon Kane:  Another favorite of mine, but qualified* - the physics-impaired reader may have trouble.  This is a concise summary of the particles of the Standard Model and how the Higgs field gives them mass - complete with teasers about dark matter, string theory, and the "Theory of Everything."

That's a paragraph about each of the first 11 essays out of 25.  To keep this review from being any longer, I'll do only one more - another favorite:

Paul Raffaele - Primitive tribes that barely know we exist live deep in the Amazon, not far removed from the stone age.   Sydney Possuelo represents the Brazilian government in protecting these indigenous people and their land from the "whites" (anyone else), and has made first contact with seven different tribes. The author spends a dangerous week with Possuelo visiting the Korubo tribe, otherwise known as the headbashers.  Possuelo's advise: "Be on your guard at all times when we're with them, because they're unpredictable and very violent."

The remaining 13 essays are just as invigorating as these.  Some readers will say there's too much fluff - others will side-step the hard science, but any critical thinker from any field will find many articles they love.  Top Notch, as usual.









</review>
<review>

I was struck by something Brian Greene says in the intro to this
enjoyable book: more or less, that it's generally acceptable for
people with degrees in the humanities not to know anything about science;
and that that's not good for us as a scientifically competitive country.

My three favorite articles: "Dr. Ecstasy", "His Brain, Her Brain",
and "Remembering Francis Crick", by Oliver Sacks.  That last looks like a
sedate title, but this coverage of the correspondence between
Sacks and Crick, who discovered the double-helix of DNA, is not only a great adventure; but if you haven't read Oliver Sacks before, it is a good,
broad overview of what his writing is about. I've read some Sacks books, but this made me want to read all the rest

</review>
<review>

These earlier, shorter stories are rather flat, and don't stand up to Tomine's later work, collected in  and quot;Summer Blonde. and quot; Tomine works best when he has the time and space allotted to really build his characters, and the short stories herein do not allow for it. As simply a portrait of a developing young artist,  and quot;Sleepwalk and Other Stories and quot; is somewhat interesting, but certainly not a fully realized or especially enjoyable book

</review>
<review>

Adrian Tomine is a comic art minimalist.  Despensing of unnecessary elements like thought balloons, he relies entirely on dialogue and visuals.  His style is spare, unlike many of his more mainstream peers, and his narratives are far removed from the spandex exploits of Superman or Batman.  All of Tomine's characters are flawed human beings, ...  Following these stories may make one feel somewhat despairing, but a vague sense of hope lingers as well

</review>
<review>

Tomine is an excellent artist and storyteller. Unfortunately his quiet stlye makes him easy to miss

</review>
<review>

this was easy enough to read in one sitting (for those of us lacking a lot of  and quot;free and quot; time) but interesting and emotional enough to linger. i really truly loved it and was especially impressed by his ability to sooooo nail the feelings of some of his characters. i mean, they ARE his characters, his creation, so of course they are what he wants them to be, but outside of that fact, the characters in  and quot;sleepwalk and quot; are very true to their situations. take a look at the story about dylan and donovan, the twin girls... this one most amazed me. as far as i know adrian tomine is not a twin and he is certainly not a high school girl yet the things dylan is feeling felt so genuine to me while i was reading. it was her speaking, not tomine. this is not exclusive to tomine, i know. of course writers create believable characters and of course these characters are often nothing like their creator, but tomine seems to go one further. he is able to create reality in only a few pages. realities that are maybe a little dark, or even outright depressing, but so human and so undoubtedly real

</review>
<review>

This is perhaps one of the best comic books or books period ever written.  It is a statement of how common life can be interesting, because we can all relate to it.  The anonymous reader who initially reviewed this obviously has either not read the aforementioned work or was too dense to understand it's deeper implications.   It is unfortunate that in the comics world stories like this don't receive as much attention as  and quot;superhero and quot; comics.  For a vastly underaprecciated and misunderstood medium, this is a statement of what comics can be

</review>
<review>

This book features Stephen Huneck's brilliant canine wood block prints. The book is colorful and suitable for all ages: kids will love the whimsy it offers, while adults will enjoy the sly insights into canine mental processes. The introduction of the book explains how Huneck overcame a nearly fatal illness with the help of his dog, a black Labrador Retriever named Sally, setting the tone for his deep appreciation for dogs.

The prints are very entertaining and thematically fall into sections called "The Parts of the Brain," "The Two Hemispheres of the Brain," and "The Powers of the Brain." While I loved the whole book, I really liked "The Powers of the Brain," as I think it has the most insight into the minds of pets, and dogs in particular. I especially appreciate the prints "They sense when you are going away," and "They know when you need love."

This is a great book not only because it's fun, but because it deals with the bond between people and their pets so effectively. I highly endorse this book and give it five unequivocal stars

</review>
<review>

I use this book in my work doing animal assisted interventions with at-risk children.  The kids love learning how a dog's brain works - or more likely how dogs are driven to pleasure-seeking behavior.  The pictures can also be pretty powerful - particulary the page "good dog" and "bad dog" with the split brain - this is very helpful teaching children about how our brain actually divides itself at times under stress.  When I explain this in the picture - the kids feel so much better about themselves.  Great work

</review>
<review>

The diagram of Sally's brain is great, just how I imagine it.  The illustrations are wonderful and his love for animals really shows through

</review>
<review>

If you've ever owned a dog or have been owned by one, this book is for you!  You'll find it even more familiar if you happen to own a labrador  retriever.  The subject matter is the simple yet adorable mind of our dog  friends.  Stephen Huneck apparently has put a lot of time into the this  book--the art is fantastic

</review>
<review>

This was the first book I read on quality a long time ago and stills on my bookshelf.

Ishikawa insisted that Total quality means everyone contributes but in teams rather than as an individual, and went on to coin the phrase that quality was a thought revolution and based on the "respect of humanity". Maintaining that building a quality culture was a slow process easily destroyed by too rapid an implementation and that collecting and analysing factual data was the essence of quality control.

Like others, Ishikawa believed that quality begins with the customer and therefore the essence of any improvement is based on understanding that customers needs, aspirations and reactions. Clear and distinct clarity was needed in a specification to cover any relevant condition such as humidity, temperature and feel. He also pointed out that customer complaints rather than being a criticism was a vital quality improvement opportunity to be actively sought out.


Ishikawa built on Feigenbaum's concept of total quality and suggested that all employees have a greater role to play, arguing that an over-reliance on the quality professional would limit the potential for improvement. Maintaining that a company-wide participation was required from the top management to the front-line staff. As every area of an organisation can affect quality, all areas should study statistical techniques and implement as required with internal and external Quality Audit programmes. Going on to name areas such as engineering, design, manufacturing, sales, materials, clerical, planning, accounting, business and personnel that can not only improve internally but also provide the essential information to allow strategic management decisions to be made concerning the company.


</review>
<review>

Ishikawa makes a careful and intense analysis about the meaning of the Quality Control . Its reading is ver interesting and passionate . It is a fundamental tool for all those managements who really want improve their productivity in their respective work places .
A must for you to have it

</review>
<review>

This book provides another perspective on the mind of the CEO. Worth reading

</review>
<review>

After reading the reviews of the book, I expected much more.  The e-book really just whets your appetite with generalities (e.g., about the internet or globalization) summarized from the full-text version.  One could get far more from a typical on-line article in Fortune, Business Week, etc.  The e-book version is 9 pages of about 14 font text, double-spaced.  I guess that this would calculate into about two or three pages of a regular book.  I would still like to read the full-text version but I would advise avoiding the e-book version

</review>
<review>

The author integrates coaching with systems thinking and the learning organization popularized by Peter Senge's book "The Fifth Discipline". This revised edition shows the Hargrove's approach is still fresh and surprisingly unique, given all the recent books published on coaching.

One unique contribution is Hargrove's model of triple-loop learning. It is a model of reflection. The first loop is reflecting on the outcome of actions for incremental improvement. The second loop is reflecting on assumptions that led to the decisions about those actions. The third loop is self-reflection on the core identity of the decision maker. This acknowledges that who we are influences our assumptions about the world and thus our actions. This type of reflection has become the core of quality coaching.

Other particularly helpful sections are the chapters on stretch goals and breakthrough thinking. Pushing for breakthroughs, rather than incremental change, requires the use of stretch goals. Hargrove tells us how to coach through the process of setting stretch goals. He says you first must decide what would be a breakthrough, then dig inside for motivation by examining why it is important to achieve and what's in it for me? Finally, learning and acting differently is essential to reaching stretch goals.

Hargrove's combination of systems thinking and learning organization principles with coaching is a real winner. Other books might be more thorough on the "how to" of coaching but his theory and tools for transformational change are excellent and unique

</review>
<review>

I found Hargrove's book inspiring, insightful, and useful. I had read his first book - which was pivotal for me in creating my own coaching business-- and have found that he has taken this work to another level-a very compelling, as well as easy read. The two parts that I found most applicable to my own coaching clients were his step-by-step approach to coaching executives and the part on creating a "laboratory" that fosters collaboration within a group. I was able to bring these principles to a client who was wowed by what we were able to generate for her business. I would recommend this book to any coach, internal and external to a company, as well as to any leader who wants to create an "impossible future.

</review>
<review>

I'm not really a big of Grant Morrison's work. I find a lot of his work to be the kind of stuff I thought up and then decided does have enough depth to carry it in a story. With that said, Invisibles takes the cake when it comes to that. While it may be different, that doesn't mean it has any depth. If you're a fan of Morrison's, go do yourself a favor and read the Seven Soldiers trades or his Arkham Asylum stuff but stay away from the Invisibles

</review>
<review>

I just read the review bad mouthing this and wanted to cancel him out by giving this 5.  It's a great book, one of the most imaginative comics of all time and it's easy to grasp and understand if you pay attention.  Also, try and read more than 3 issues sometime, eh?

</review>
<review>

Long ago, a friend who raved about "The Invisibles" loaned me this first book. I don't have very clear memories of it, but I remembered it as being very hard to read, and I remember not getting very far in it before I lost interest.

Recently, due specifically to the influence of Warren Ellis's awesome series "Planetary", I've gotten interested in comics again, and decided to give "The Invisibles" a second try. I got a little further this time, but still didn't even make it past the first volume.

The story seems promising; "Big Brother is Watching, So Make Yourself Invisible". The eponymous team are a gang of reality-bending Crowley-style sorcerors, fighting the mundane system of everyday life, and the sinister otherworldly monsters who control the mundane system of everyday life. The execution, however, is less than ideal. MOST of the pages are very jarringly non-sequential; on one page, the characters will be in a park, listening in on a conversation, and then on the next page, where you expect to find a continuation of the conversation they were listening to, they'll suddenly be walking along a riverbank, in the middle of their own completely different and unrelated conversation. On almost every single page I had to turn back, and check the page numbering to make sure I hadn't accidentally skipped something or pages hadn't fallen out of the book; if it weren't for the sequential page numbering, I would have assumed I was reading a bad printing. This could be a clever technique if used sparingly; in a comic book about "hacking reality", throwing in a sudden and unexpected "jump cut" between two pages can contribute greatly to the reader's immersion in the "reality hacking", but when it's done on every other page it loses that hook and just feels sloppy, like the author and artist didn't know how to structure a comic.

One of the "page cuts" jumps from the beginnings of a fairly realistic fight scene to a super-bright, psychedelic scene in which a character is tripping out and talking to the ghost of John Lennon, which looks like a completely different comic, has completely different pacing and artwork, and is FILLED with meaningless text, which brings us to my next problem with "The Invisibles": there's WAY too much meaningless text. If you want to present a radical, reality-altering concept in your comic, that's great; try to do it with action as much as possible and with as few words as possible -- this is a visual medium, after all. If you need to throw in a few wordy bits, that's OK too ("Planetary", again, does a perfect job of this). If, however, you are filling ENTIRE PAGES with text so small that you have to go below standard comic font size and it becomes illegible, then you might want to re-think your medium and perhaps just write a book, or a really wordy animation, instead. It was after the third ENTIRE page of nothing but hard-to-read, handwritten, meaningless text that I gave up on "The Invisibles". And by "meaningless" I don't mean "fluff dialogue that pertains to the action" or "cryptic dialogue that might make sense later", I mean actually meaningless, gigantic word-bubbles of insane characters singing entire songs and babbling incoherently about things that have nothing to do with the plot, or meaningless stream of consciousness droning from characters who are tripping. All of this text feels like nothing but filler, and coupled with the jarring transitions between pages it makes "The Invisibles" look like VERY amateur work.

One last niggling detail is that I couldn't really identify with any of the characters. The main character, a teenage boy named "Dane", is basically a carbon-copy of Alex from "A Clockwork Orange", but without the interest in Beethoven. He wanders around London with his monosyllable-named "droogs", indiscriminately stealing cars, smashing windows, beating people up, and blowing up buildings. It's suggested that he's very smart, but this doesn't make him any more likeable. The "hook" is that he "sees dead people", which might've been clever when this series was first printed, but after "The 6th Sense", "Bleach", and a dozen other stories with "I see dead people" protagonists, it just seems clich�d.

I really wanted to get the same sort of "reality warping" experience out of "The Invisibles" that some of my friends have, but I've seen it done better a dozen times before, and the whole execution just seems amateur. When I stopped reading it, I was hungry for some REAL reality warping, so I sat down and read some stories out of the collected fictions of Jorge Luis Borges and felt MUCH better. I suggest you skip "The Invisibles" and do the same.

Addendum: The friend who last loaned it to me told me that the first two story arcs were, indeed, horrible, but that it got significantly better after them. I tried reading it again, skipping over those first two story arcs and starting from the third, and it was indeed a much better read, and nothing was lost in having not read that first part. So, I'm upgrading my review to "a fun read overall, but not something I'd be interested in owning"

</review>
<review>

I won't take the time to review each TPB of this series separately because really it's a continuous story that I think should be taken as a whole. The invisibles is very entertaining and highly thought provoking. Being that I've never read anything else by Morrison I don't know if he believes in the ideas expressed in spiritual science fiction style books, or whether this whole series was his type of satire. But it's a clever series, and worth it for fans of comic books, liberal politics, spirituality, conspiracy, punk rock, science fiction, and literature alike.
Still, I can't truly give it five stars, and that flaw is due more to the comic industry than to the books themselves. Comic books are laughed at as a "trash medium" and the idea that the words "comic book" spark in the minds of most people is that "dudes who read comics don't really do well with chicks, and proably live in their parent's basement." Also there are no libraries or Blockbuster type places that specialize in comics, so most of the time if you want to read them you have to pay through your nose. Since every comic book published has to try to appeal to the widest demographic possible in order to keep its publisher afloat, every series, no matter who its intended audience is, has to cater to the average idiot expecting a shwarzenegger flick, or disney channel original movie in book form.
Because of this limitation morrison's heroes are a slightly stereotypical action hero type squad who could easily be marketed as action figures. In the first trade, the second part, we see a rich literate time travel piece which includes a portrait of the roots of mob psychology, and a charming dialogue between Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelly, this was too brainy for most and sales flagged, see the problem?
If The Invisibles was a novel, the acessibility of that medium would give morrison free reign for his ample creative faculties, but the restrictions of the industry sort of kept him back. The series does, however, use that to it's advantage and begins to parody itself and it's audience in a clever way, but it just couldn't fully compensate. Plus being scottish morrison's take on African American culture is a bit laughable at times. Still overall I enjoyed the heck out of this series, and the characters were likeable in spite of themselves. Read it alongside the Illuminatus! trilogy or Phillip K. Dick's Vallis for maximum enjoyment

</review>
<review>

Let me start by saying that The Invisibles is by far my favorite comic book of all time. It is such a demanding and rewarding experience. I read the entire series at least once a year and not once have I grown tired or bored by a single page or panel.
Grant Morrison is the finest talent working in the comic medium, bar none. His imagination knows no bounds, be it writing super hero fare like New X-Men or his current All-Star Superman, or more intelligent, cerebral stuff like The Filth or The Invisibles. All of his comic work shines like a diamond in a dark mine, lighting one's way to an eternal salvation of enlightenment and bliss. In short, GM Rocks!
Volume 1 of The Invisibles is a good introduction to the main characters and concepts of the series, but rest assured, this is only the first section of a further 6 volumes that need to be read in order to fully understand and appreciate the significance  of what Grant Morrison is attempting to convey.
A lot of people seem to have disliked the second half of this first volume, ARCADIA, dismissing it almost outright as incomprehensible and far too strange and disorientating to be worthwhile, but make no mistake, ARCADIA is a key storyline in the overall narrative of the Invisibles. It defines a lot of the core philosophical concepts of the Invisible saga.
The inclusion of the Marquis de Sade into the mix is a particularly inspired choice. In particular, when he is transported forward to our time only to be faced with a world whose standards and choices mirror his own beliefs and writings. Not that I side with de Sade; I simply find it an interesting insight that what was once considered damnable and deplorable is now embraced as cool and thrilling. Down and Out in Heaven and Hell, indeed!
On the art side, I favour Steve Yeowell over Jill Thompson, however, Thompson's art is still quite impressive and suits the seedy nature of the overall ARCADIA story. I particularly like her depiction of Ragged Robin.
And while a lot has been said about the Invisibles/Matrix connection, I'll just let the fact of the Matrix films' declining quality and narrative inventiveness/cohesiveness speak for themselves. Besides, Neo is no Dane McGowan and Morpheus is certainly no King Mob!
Viva la Invisibles!

</review>
<review>

What makes the invisibles such a powerful story are the characters and how they relate to each other.  When the character relationships aren't in flux, attention wanders.  I think that the series improves when King Mob throws his guns away and things get extra whacky.  Many other reviewers have accurately reported how uneven this first collection is because of the departure taken in the time travel arc.  The story shifts its focus onto characters who are not so easy to relate to.

When the Invisibles is really firing on all cylinders, the situations the characters face are instantly familiar, but the reactions and commentary are fresh and inspiring.  Check out the middle of the comic's run.  That's five trade paperbacks.  I know, it's a lot but it goes fast.

Some outstanding aspects of the book that many others have mentioned are its some-of-everthing inclusion of popular cultural references, storytelling tone, varying art quality, and its use of popular conspiracy theory.  Morrison manages to find a place for the fantastic in a realistic world.  Or maybe he's just good at writing realistic conversations in bizarre situations.  A few, but not all of my favorite moments in the entire series-
-Why's King Mob so violent?
-Silver age invisibles.  A little comic geek fun
-King Mob uses acid to timetravel, disable enemy soldiers, and see the future
-KM visits his ex-girlfriend
-Jack doing mysterious stuff while on the lamb from the rest of the team
-amazing tangent stories.  eg the life of a conspiracy stormtrooper, a terrifying choice for a deep cover invisible working as a royal butler

</review>
<review>

Ok, so maybe art is not so great, maybe not everything is explained, and second half was extremely lame because of showing DeSade as one of invisibles and good guy, but this comic is full of esothery and is social and pop culture kind of  satire and criticism.  Its value is that it points to something nothing else does and first four issues, Dane in London and his initiation are great. Theory of conspiracy fans will enjoy all of the Invisibles, and some of ideas shown in series were reexploited later, watered down of course

</review>
<review>

This first volume of Grant Morrison's subversive series, THE INVISIBLES, represents a range of ideas and concepts, including a disdain for all forms of authority, the existence of strange and powerful magic in the mundane, and the codification of modern pop culture into a new religion. The Invisibles of the title, one cell of many, comprise a group of unlikely miscreants: a smart street thug with mysterious powers; a former police officer; a transvestite Brazilian shaman; and an insane precognitive. Leading them is King Mob, who, in addition to being a fairly obvious stand in for the author, personifies the multitude of rebellious anti-establishment sentiments that form the core of the book.

The art (with pencils by Steve Yeowell and Jill Thompson) is eclectic and inventive, simultaneously showing the unspectacular nature of the real world, and, lurking just beneath it, a whole series of violent, bizarre and psychedelic images. Morrison revels varyingly in social angst and perversity, providing a cast of angry and destructive heroes, and some refreshingly original (if ambiguously motivated) villains. The second story arc is probably a little weaker than the first, but ultimately the whole thing is worthwhile.

SAY YOU WANT A REVOLUTION is a complex but ultimately rewarding read, provided you take the time to examine and unravel all it has to offer. At this early stage in the series, some of the countercultural themes are slightly simplistic, with the "bad guys" drawn in pretty broad strokes (the same can be said of Warren Ellis' TRANSMETROPOLITAN in some ways), but they lead to some fairly engaging philosophical ideas that can be both thought provoking, unashamedly defiant, and fun in a way that THE MATRIX only dreamed of

</review>
<review>

The first time I read it, I was confused. The second time I read it, I thought I mostly understood what was going on. This time, I get it... no, really. This work is crammed with philosophical commentary, conspiratorial speculation, new age pseudo-science, and just plain madness. I look forward to how much more I'm sure to find the next time I read it.

</review>
<review>

The Invisibles is the only comic I've ever collected from first issue to last.  When it started in 1994 I was a sophomore in college, and when it ended a few months into 2000 I was holed up in a soul-sapping corporate job.  Regardless, during those 6 years I was able to get my hands on each issue, despite the fact that I'd "quit" reading comics in high school.  But there was something special about the Invisibles, and it kept me coming back for more; I even set up a service with the local comic store so they'd hold each month's issue for me, and I'd come in every few weeks, grab them, and high-tail it out of there.

The Invisibles, as a whole, is as important to the `90s as "Naked Lunch" was to the `50s, as "Illuminatus!" was to the `70s.  I suspected this when reading the comic monthly, but now, years later, I know it for a fact.  Unfortunately, it's doubtful more people will come to this realization, as the Invisibles is simply too big to fit into one handy volume, a la those aforementioned subversive classics.  To digest the entire story, you need to track down seven trade paperbacks.  No doubt this will stunt the virus-like growth the Invisibles would otherwise engender on the innocent minds of those who read it.  This series can change lives; this has been proven and accounted for.

"Say You Want a Revolution" is the first book of the Invisibles, and this early out, things are presented in more of a black and white/us versus them scenario; it is only in later volumes that writer/creator Grant Morrison begins to subvert and reveal the "larger picture."  Here we are taken by the hand and led into the underground and bizarre world of the Invisibles by tagging along with Dane McGowan, an unruly, teenaged Liverpudlian street punk who just might be humanity's last hope in the battle against the Archons, demonic enforcers of Order.  The opening half of this book details Dane's initiation, and here we meet the cast of characters who will carry the series till the end.

First and foremost, there's King Mob, a multi-pierced assassin excelling in physical and psychic combat.  Next there's Ragged Robin, a sometimes-crazy redhead with psychic powers who claims to be from the future.  There's Boy, the ironically-named black woman who's an ex-cop with all sorts of skeletons in her closet, and a black belt in every form of martial art to boot.  And finally there's Lord Fanny, transvestite shaman supreme.  Dane himself is a ragamuffin of a lead character; you'll probably dislike him for the first few issues, until the human is revealed beneath all of the cursing.

"Say You Want a Revolution" begins with a quick pace, Dane being locked up in a sinister boarding school by agents of the Archons, and King Mob coming to his rescue with guns blazing.  After that things slow down for a while, as Dane is tutored by the magically-powered Tom O'Bedlam.  This section is good reading, as gradually Dane becomes a more likeable character, but the rest of the Invisibles disappear for a while, and some of the dialog (particularly from Tom) comes off as Morrison pontificating to his audience.  It gets to be a bit too much after awhile.

At any rate, Dane is soon initiated (which entails a jumping-from-a-skyscraper test that was completely stolen by the producers of the Matrix), and his adventures with the Invisibles proper begin.  However, those expecting the slam-bang escapades hinted at in the early issues will have to wait; instead of more fireworks, the team (or "cell" as they call themselves) mentally project themselves into the past, to bring one of their own back to the 1990s.  This Invisible of the past is none other than the Marquis De Sade, and this section of the book, complete with sideline discussions between Elizabethan poets Byron and Shelley, is undoubtedly the most "literary" comic ever written.  Unfortunately, this story arc was also nearly the death bell for the series, so early into its run: sales dropped to negligible levels.

The Marquis De Sade storyline is wrapped up in time for the volume's end, however we're left with one heck of a cliffhanger.  And that's pretty much it.  If my review sounds a bit negative, don't be fooled.  It's just that these opening stories seem very static when compared to what comes later.  I realize this was not only intentional but necessary; had the series began with the whirlwind events presented in later volumes, a lot of people would have jumped ship in confusion, and the series might never have been completed.

Morrison's writing is his trademark bevy of ideas, one-liners, and profundities.  Some of it can come off as a bit too self-serving (King Mob's conversation with Boy in the club, for example), but not so much as to annoy.  The Invisibles in a way works as Morrison's autobiography; no doubt it will be what he is remembered for, in decades to come.

The art, however, is where the trouble comes in.  The Invisibles was plagued with a procession of artists throughout its run, some talented, some workmanlike.  The closest the series ever got to a "regular artist" was Phil Jimenez, and he only lasted for about fourteen issues.   Here the art chores are split between Steve Yeowell and Jill Cramer.  Yeowell's art is a bit too scratchy and ragged for my tastes, but it gets the job done.  Cramer's is a bit more "artsy" and elegiac.   Both artists are fine, but future volumes boast great material by Chris Weston, Phil Jimenez, and the unrivaled Frank Quitely.

This first book of the Invisibles is your introduction to one of the greatest works of the 20th Century (and I truly mean that).  Once you read it, you're either in or you're out.  To quote the phrase that adorns each of these collections: "Which side are you on?"

</review>
<review>

Very helpful read for anyone that has lost a child

</review>
<review>

If you are looking for the academic lecture video by this same title (the one hour lecture delivered at UNC), this isn't it. This is a shorter video, with a pragmatic focus on individual persons and families dealing with catastrophic loss. A good primer for health care workers, but does not have the broad academic, philosophic, and theological applications that the earlier lecture video has

</review>
<review>

I wish more people could see that their humanity in the world rather than try to be God, or relentlessly seek answers when none exist. This is a brilliant discourse on the sadder parts of the human experience. Rather than try to alleviate pain by trying to find out why a tragedy happened, etc ... it is often more healing to also see the humanity of an event when no real explanation is possible. Bad things happen to good people and vice-versa. This world is complex and simple at the same time. But most of all, this book is a blessing against the current wave of New Age blame game mumbo jumbo...

The New Age (distinct from metaphysical teachings from ancient wisdom) is the serpent in the tree with the poison apple. It is the taking of ancient spiritual teachings and commercializing them as false prophets for profit. Allow people there humanity just like what the author of this book is doing. And perhaps authentic healing can occur

</review>
<review>

This book is an easy and enjoyable read about a difficult philosophical topic.  It deals with the practical reality of the exisence of evil and ties it to a combination of random chance and people's free will.  That is the underlying thesis and deep philosophical arguments are avoided.

What this book does have is practical wisdom and common sense arguments.  I think this is what the average reader is looking for and Rabbi Kushner achieves this gold within a Judeo-Christian worldview.  However, his arguments would appeal to people of many traditions.  At a minimum, the text would be good food for those who embrace vastly different worldviews.

I rated this book a 4 rather than 5 primarily because I would have liked to have seen a bit more philosophical depth.  However, I still think the book is well worth reading for all of the reasons I mention above.  This is high quality, but not the right book to weigh various perspectives and contast them

</review>
<review>

Heard the taped version of WHEN BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO
GOOD PEOPLE by Harold Kushner, a Jewish rabbi . . . although
written some 25 years ago, it is still amazingly relevant . . . and, in
fact, it was reissued in 2001 with a new preface by the author.

Kushner originally wrote the book when faced with his own
child's fatal illness . . . it deals with death and, also, with
other situations where evil enters our life . . . though it gives
no easy answers, WHEN BAD THINGS got me thinking about
with this one particular bit of advice . . . he urges people not to
ask why all the time, but instead ask this question: What can
I do now?

What Kushner has to say applies to people of all religious
faiths . . . I urge you to get a copy of this short book . . . like
me, you'll want to go through it more than once.

There were many worthwhile tidbits; among them:
* God never gives you more than you can bear.

* We can't make sense of God's thoughts by saying it is God's will.

* Things of nature don't make exceptions for good people.

* We suffer because we misuse our power to choose.

* God intervenes when in a tragedy, he takes ordinary people
and has them behave in an extraordinary way.

* If you know somebody who has been hurt, reach out to him
or her.

* People don't want theology, they want reassurance.

* When we most need it, God gives us more strength.

* You have no control of the past. You have a lot of control over
the future.

And, lastly, this one:
God has given us the tools to live meaningfully in an unfair and
unpredictable world.

</review>
<review>

Excellent!  I gave this book to my sister who lost her granddaughter to cancer and she said it provided the most help of all.  Thanks so much

</review>
<review>

If you are a Christian, this book isn't for you. It is full of blashphemy, concluding that we must "... forgive God" and that we must love God "... even if He isnt perfect". Kusher even has the will to say that "...God would not be God..." without our love for Him. At one point he reduces God to an aminal saying that in the garden of Eden, when God said "...let US make man in OUR image" he was speking to animals and creation. Kusher explains that God created the world, and in the next paragraph that we came by evolution.

Since when was God in need of forgiveness? Isnt it that "... God so loved the world" and it wasnt us that loved God? I have no words in describing this book. It is full of error, because it does not base it self on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. All this book does is frees you from the thought that you are a sinner, and that it isnt your fault, and that actully you are a good person. Why do bad things happen to good people? Wrong question. There are no good people in the world in the first place. " for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God..." The world is in sin. The world DOES NOT HAVE GOOD PEOPLE!! Only by the grace of God, through faith in Jesus Christ you are made righteous. I beg you in the name of Jesus Christ to stay away from this book. It hasnt helped 4 million people, but it lied to them. Kusher, please turn from your ways and come to Jesus, then will you understand the life question "WHY"

</review>
<review>

This is the least preachy bible study I've ever read.

Kushner divides his chapters by themes and suggests, but does not demand, a theological answer which supports his thesis: that an all-knowing God can server the cause of good yet not function as a safety belt.

He supports it with elements from his own experience.

Since his language is comforting and conversational, anyone can relate to him as a speaker. Well worth it!

</review>
<review>

This book is so easy to read it is as if you are having a conversation with a close friend.  I was so inspired by this book, I am ordering many more to pass along

</review>
<review>

I singled out this book as I felt I'd come to a fork in the road of my life. I could choose to be bitter after the premature birth and death of my son or I could try to seek out better ways to live my now very different life. I started this book dubious of its content. I expected to be lectured. Instead I found myself reading with an open mouth; shocked at how accurately my loss was explained. It was as if this wonderfully gifted rabbi had invisibly witnessed the events of my life, the times when my relatives would say the dumbest and most cruel comments. Instead of being talked at, I found I was reading a book a kind friend had written just for me. I am not religious or spiritual, I guess you could say I'm confused, however his book has opened my eyes to a different, kinder religion than the one I had always felt was judgemental.

I have since purchased the anniversary edition and this book will be one of my most treasured possessions. If you feel life has let you down, if you feel every door that was once open has been slammed in your face, if you feel alone in your sorrow and have nowhere else to turn for relief, this book is for you. It won't make the pain go away, but it will make the pain and sorrow less personal. You will no longer feel `why me', you will just realize that it is what it is and that in itself will make your pain easier to cope with. This is certainly how I feel upon it's ending, I hope you experience the same comforts

</review>
<review>

This comprehensive book will help any breast cancer survivor navigate the medical system and become her own best advocate for quality health care

</review>
<review>

This book saved me when I has having chemotherapy and ended up with constant insomnia. I had not read about that as a side effect of breast cancer treatments until this book which has a good discussion of drugs usually used to treat breast cancer. I had read LOTS of books prior to my treatment and only this one mentioned drugs used to treat insomnia. If hadn't of known, I probably would still be staring at the ceiling ALL NIGHT wondering what the heck was going on!!!

</review>
<review>

I am a primary care physician and read this book with an eye toward recommending it to my patients who are diagnosed with breast cancer.  I found the book to be thorough, compassionate and very clearly written.  It's an unusual book.  As other reviewers have commented, breast cancer guides are either from MD breast cancer "experts" OR from patients.  This is the only book I am aware of written by someone who has lived both sides of this disease. I will recommend this book strongly to my patients with breast cancer, and also to their family members and friends.  Thanks to Dr. Kaelin and Ms. Coltrera for providing us with such a terrific resource

</review>
<review>

This is the best book I have read on breast cancer because it addresses the biology of breast cancer with the reality of the symptoms.  It is written by a physician who knows what it is like to lose every single eyelash, and can tell you not only why you lost it, but how to keep on smiling without it.  This book has it all - even a whole chapter on the effects of aggressive chemotherapy on cognitive skills and how to cope.  When I read the tip 'jot down where you parked your car', I knew this was THE book for me  - I had already been doing this.   If there is only one book you are going to read on breast cancer, this is the one

</review>
<review>

We have read many books on Breast cancer and this is one of the best.  It is easy to read, easy to navigate, and provides alot of answers from a Dr. who has been there

</review>
<review>

You never think of doctors as patients, but this book not only is about a doctor who had cancer but a breast cancer specialist who developed breast cancer. As a newly diagnosed patient myself, I must say that it was probably a greater shock for someone who knows so much about the disease to find out that she is in the same frightening position as her patients.

The author, Carolyn Kaelin, MD, director of the breast center at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, finds out about her cancer just before she is to enter a rigorous cycling event for which she trained in order to raise money for breast cancer patients.

I think the most startling aspect of this book is that a doctor lived through the same treatments that patients routinely undergo. But I think that this in turn gave her a far different perspective on breast cancer. She had to have surgery, she had to have chemo, her hair fell out. These are things doctors usually only discuss with their patients.

I can highly recommend this book because it has the perspective of both a doctor and a patient. The reason I gave it only four stars instead of five is because the book does not give a good explanation why a woman who is so smart and who is also a breast cancer specialist did not have some hint that she had a tumor. Hadn't she gotten mammograms all along? Was she considering herself too young for mammograms (she was 42 when diagnosed; mammograms are supposed to start at 40).

I can only say that Dr. Kaelin's patients are the luckiest in the world because they are being treated by a doctor who has been there and knows what her patients are experiencing, physically as well as emotionally

</review>
<review>

If you just want the latest research, go read the New England Journal of Medicine.  If you want the latest research PLUS experience, understanding, compassion, and answers to your most embarrassing questions, get this book!

I heard the co-author, Francesca Coltrera, speak a few weeks ago. I was absolutely blown away by how lucid, informed, and compassionate this woman was. She didn't just present the book as a bible for people undergoing breast cancer treatment (though it is that). She talked about it as a a kind of lifeline--a source to go to for questions the doctors and nurses don't have the patience (or experience) to answer.

I hope you don't need a book like this.  But if you do, this is the one to get

</review>
<review>

Most books about breast cancer are either written from the point of view of a doctor or of a patient.  This wonderful book comes from the education and experience of a doctor and from the experience of a patient.  In knowing both sides, Dr. Kaelin is able to share information in a way that I have not seen in any book before.  I am very thankful that she has provided this valuable resource for those who are just beginning the journey of dealing with breast cancer and for those, like me, who have been on this road for quite awhile.  Even after 8 yrs of being cancer-free, I have found quite a bit of very useful information in Dr. Kaelin's book.  This is a must-have book for every patient diagnosed with breast cancer

</review>
<review>

Dr. Kaelin's book show us the medical side of Breast Cancer from the surgeon and specialist. However, each section is sparkled with the knowledge of the patient as well.
It's one thing to be The Doctor, have the knowledge and the experience that one learns by treating hundreds of mostly young women with breast cancer, but then, to be on suddenly caught on the other side of the microscope..so to speak, is another.  Each chapter tells useful informative information that one should know on this journey, but are sometime afraid to ask.
She has the knowledge and heart of one who's been there as well.
As a Breast Cancer survivor myself, I still seek answers to those "silly" questions that nag at my mind.  Carolyn Kaelin answers these all with a grace and knowledge of no other.
Thanks for giving us this resourse!
KP Massachusette

</review>
<review>

Dr. Kaelin's book is an outstanding resource for the newly diagnosed, or even someone like me, who has been in treatment for two years with metastatic breast cancer. The book is not only medically informative on all counts, it also offers the personal side to dealing with the disease, including how to dress, eat and care for yourself in the midst of treatment. Two thumbs up Dr. Kaelin! T.G. (Lompoc, CA

</review>
<review>

I've been working with this book (with children) for many years and have just bought my fifth copy (as they seem to 'disappear' whenever I loan them to children to take home--I suspect they love them too much to part with them for good!). The idea of reality being what we're used to it being (not rather what it HAS to be everywhere), as well as the hilarity of the situation the people of the story are faced with is just delightful. It is an excellent resource of rich vocabulary and expression, and the drawings are believable and at the same time jaw dropping. Highly recommended to all ages, especially preschool through the lower grades

</review>
<review>

I bought this to read to my five year old son. I had to stop reading at times because he was laughing so much.  It is silly and fun to read.  I would recommend this to anyone who has little ones.  It is very entertaining and lots to see

</review>
<review>

I recently purchased this book, again, for my grandchildren.  My daughters and nephew still remember this book.  They loved it and we read it many, many times together.  It is the perfect age level for my 7 yr. old grandson, but a little long for the 4 year old.  We usually just "talk the book" because he loves the illustrations. I am an artist myself and I just love the artwork.  After the first reading of the book, it transferred over to the dinner table.  What would happen if we had a flood of green beans?  A funny, silly and wonderful book

</review>
<review>

I read this to 7 and  8 year olds in a second grade class. I had to explain some of the words, but the children enjoyed hearing and seeing the book. The illustrations are helpful,. I dont think it would stand up to re-reading to the same class, but it was a funny diversion between more serious and longer books

</review>
<review>

This is a funny book, with a very unusual perspective on the weather.  We bought it because our family loves the writer's other book:  "Animals should Definately not wear Clothing" which we much prefer to this one.



</review>
<review>

This book is such a fun adventure! The pictures will have any child laughing and enjoying this book. This is such a clever book in having a child wanting to read. They will remember having a great time of fun with very happy funny moments in this book.

Cynthia Marie Rizzo, author of "Julie and the Unicorn" and "Angela and the Princess

</review>
<review>

I have had the pleasure to enjoy this book from two different perspectives: first as a child and now as a parent reading to my child.  This book is wonderful!  The story and illustrations are captivating for both young and old.  The town and people of Chewandswallow are just as real as they were over 20 years ago!  This book is a must for anyone with children and even for those who are young at heart

</review>
<review>

This is a wonderful story, as a teacher I read it with my third grade students and now as a mom I read it to my 3 1/2 tear old son.  He loves the story as much as they did!!!

</review>
<review>

Just as wonderful as the first time I read it as a child!  What a wonderful gift to pass on to your children.  It is now a frequent bedtime request of my 3 year old

</review>
<review>

Once again a great book from Nicholas Sparks, i've read them all, and Nicholas is always true to what would happen in real life.  He doesn't write about "fairytales" its all true to what happens in real life.  This was a moving story of what true love is, and allowing another to be happy.  He gave a small window into what it must be like for those serving our country overseas and didn't make it a rosey story that makes the world look perfect.  Definitely a sad story but one that leaves you inspired to hope, that you could do the same for someone that you loved that much.  If you are looking for the fairytale ending, this book isn't for you, but if you want a story that you could actually see happening its amazing.  I look forward to his next book

</review>
<review>

I would say this is one of my favorite Nicholas Sparks novels. It is a thought provoking and more true to life story than most. If you want a happily ever after story than you might want to read something else, but I say you're missing out. Granted the book didn't have an ending like we might expect or hope, but it couldn't really have ended any other way or I would have been disappointed with the person that John became in this story. Besides,there COULD be a sequel...

</review>
<review>

I've always been a huge fan of Nicholas Sparks, and I couldn't wait to read Dear John. Well, there was no reason to rush. It starts out okay, but then just gets more and more depressing. The main girl character is annoying and you hope that John will find someone who deserves him, instead of just pouting over her for most the book.
I cannot wait for another Nicholas Sparks book, but only because I want to know that he hasn't lost his touch, and that this novel was just a fluck

</review>
<review>

I'm not much of a "reader" but I love love loved this book. It is inspiring and show what true love really is.

</review>
<review>

I would have to say this is one of my favorites!! I have read all of Nicholas Sparks books and while Message in a Bottle will always be my favorite, this runs a close second along with A Walk to Remember :)

I would definitely recommend this book, it is certainly a page turner!! I must demand a sequel!!!

</review>
<review>

I have all of Nicholas Sparks novels, and I can honestly say that this one left much to be desired.  I have also raved about Nicholas Sparks' works to everyone; however, I don't have much to rave about this time.  The book was too predictable; although I have often figured out other story lines written by Sparks, but this book did not have half of the depth that the others have had.  I am disappointed in the book and hope to see that Nicholas Sparks goes back to his heart wrenching story lines.  Hopefully he can find time (outside of coaching track) to write another wonderful novel such as The Notebook, Message in a Bottle, The Wedding, and the list goes on (but stops at Dear John)

</review>
<review>

I have been a Nicholas Sparks fan and I was very disappointed with this book.  Too predictable, very depressing...


</review>
<review>

Dear John is an amazing book. The book is able to relate to military relationships and how distance can change a relationship. This book is going to be tear jerker but its worth all the tears.

</review>
<review>

This is a wonderful book.  Rolfe Humphries did a magnificent job of making this philosophical poet relevant to us in the 20th. The translation is eminently readable and at times reaches heights of beauty that does the great Roman Epicurean justice.  I discovered Humphries' Lucretius 20 years ago.  I've found no other translation to be as accessible or as beautiful.  It's been a consolation to me often in the last two decades and I'm sure it will continue to be in the future.  Lucretius has much to say to us and we owe Rolfe Humphries a lot for giving him to us in a translation that manages to be both profound and charming at the same time

</review>
<review>

This book completely fails to realistically convey the relative risks and profit potential for the average wannabe day trader.  Im talking about someone with less than a few thousand to play the market.  Unless you have big bucks and Level II quotes forget day trading unless you are very lucky. In the trading parlance, I wish I had a short position on this book at its current price, and could cover my short at the current used price! Save your money

</review>
<review>

good book , nice conditio

</review>
<review>

The books presents a comprehensive description of wireless communication systems supported with gamut of examples from the world around us.

By focussing on design tradeoffs and issues, the author has provided an insightful view of the most fundamental principles of wireless system design. Hence, it is best for gradaute students.

I came to this book while I was searching for analytical tools for wireless communications. The references provided are excellent, and have helped me to locate the information I wanted, with ease.

Currently, I am developing my basics for gradute study in wireless communications. I hope that book fits into the realm of graduate study at all institutions. The author is highly leraned person and seems to have an excellent knowledge of the subject

</review>
<review>

In this book, the author merges her deep knowledge of the field of wireless communication with her passion of transmitting her knowledge to others.  The evident didactic skills of the author are put into service to explain in a clear, profound and accurate way not only the fundamentals of wireless communication systems, but also some of the most recent development in the field, such as MIMO, adaptive modulation, equalization, multicarrier and ad hoc networks, in such a way that the reader will soon find himself immersed in the excitement of this up-to-date knowledge. The book also includes the information theory point of view of both single user and multiuser wireless networks, which are usually omitted in other textbooks in the field.  Students pursuing a degree in electrical engineering will find in the first six chapters a comprehensive treatment of the fundamentals in the subject, saving a lot of time, as very few books treat the fundamentals in such a clear and, at the same time, deep way. Students pursuing a Ph.D. degree in the area will find an indispensable reference. For practicing engineers, this book will provide the design tools of modern wireless networks. This book will shortly become a classic. It is simply, an excellent job.
Juan M. Romero-Jerez
Associate Professor
Unversity of Malag

</review>
<review>

I read Kozol to actually be amused. It saddens me to think that colleges force students to read books like these. Young minds take this at face value. I am a native New Yorker, from Brooklyn. My parents were working class, and we had no extras. What I hate most about Kozol is his obvious white guilt. He never talks about personal responsibility. It is just the city not taking care of the poor and needy. That is the problem with most liberals, they offer opinions, work on the emotions of people, and never offer solutions. When mayor Giuliani wanted welfare workers to work, IE pick up leaves in the park, there was a great outcry-well, when I was in college, I worked cleaning up after horses-just to pay for part of tuition, and I waited tables, ETC. Why should they not work if they are getting a check? He also talks about how the suburbs spent more money per child in the school system-yet he never mentions what those parents in the suburbs spent each year on taxes--There is a lot more I could write, but I would be here all day. Take it from a native New Yorker who worked as a teacher in the South Bronx-he plays on your feelings, but in the end, by portraying poor people as victims he gives people a way to "blame the system," and insults every hardworking person who has improved his or her life

</review>
<review>

I first picked this up in college in my first sociology class.  I didn't know what to think of the book.  Was this supposed to be a textbook for the class, or a nonfiction novel?  Well, it didn't take long for me to get hooked on Kozal and everything he's written since.  Amazing Grace is very powerful and the most basic level; it introduces the reader to children directly affected by poverty and shows you in no uncertain way how their socio-economic status cripples their ability to learn and flourish into adults.  It doesn't mence words, so be ready to get a little emotional when reading this.  If you have any interest in class and education, you have to read Kozal.  If you're going to read any Kozal, you have to start here

</review>
<review>

Jonathan Kozol is a national treasure, and his Amazing Grace is a beautiful addition to his portfolio.  It has inspired my own writing about the importance of uplifting the South Bronx, a place that I well remember from visiting my grandparents there in the late 60s.

It has been said that Hurricane Katrina woke many Americans to the realization that domestic poverty is a serious problem.  Obviously, those Americans had never read Jonathan Kozol.  We should be ashamed that places like the South Bronx exist amidst all the affluence in our society.  If and when a group of spiritual politicians emerge who are serious about confronting this national disgrace, I suspect they will have this book at their sides to serve as living, breathing muse

</review>
<review>

Jonathan Kozol's Amazing Grace is an enlightening, non-fiction account of life in the South Bronx. To write this book, Kozol visited to the area hundreds of times, speaking with and establishing relationships with residents as well as exploring, and getting to know the area himself. The final product is a compilation of conversations with some amazing people and his own thoughts and reflections, beautifully woven together. This book addresses numerous social issues effecting New York's poorest areas including violence, poverty, unemployment, drug addiction, HIV/AIDS, inadequate schools, orphaned children, and deplorable living conditions.
Kozol's account was more two sided than I expected it to be. He did a good job of presenting both sides of the issues fairly, leaving it up to the reader to form their own opinion. I personally finished the book feeling guilty for living my privileged life with no regard for what is going on in other parts of the country and anxious for answers. How did these areas become so dismal and life so hopeless? What can be done to fix the situation? Why hasn't someone, anyone, done something to prevent or fix it? Who's fault is it? Looking back, I believe that this sort of reaction was Kozol's purpose in writing this book. He wanted to show America what is going on in poor urban areas, like the South Bronx, in hopes that they will then move to change.
The passage that struck me most was part of a conversation Kozol had with a reverend in the South Bronx who explained that she thinks if New York were a "Judeo-Chrisitan city," people would "be asking questions all the time" such as, "Do I need this bottle of expensive perfume more than a child needs a doctor or a decent school?" (Kozol 223). When I read this line, I was struck with an immense feeling of guilt. I've bought countless bottles of expensive perfume, but have never considered that the money I'm spending on perfume could save a child who is suffering less than an hour from my own home.

</review>
<review>

Amazing Grace is an amazing book by Jonathan Kozol that portrays the impoverished life of thousands in the ghettoes of New York City.  It is a nonfiction book where Kozol goes into extremely poor areas of Brooklyn to interview several people who must live that filthy life everyday.  Kozol uses theses interviews to prove his point that the government is at fault for the horrifying conditions that many people in America live in.  He uses many people's situations as examples to prove that the government does not do enough to help these people live.  Kozol dives into topics such as AIDS, asthma, homicide, education, drugs, and many more.  Kozol effectively appeals to the readers pathos, ethos, and logos because it allows him to connect with the reader, and allows the reader to adopt Kozol's concept that the government is to blame for the ridiculous living conditions in New York ghettoes.

This book opened my eyes to real hardships that occur in America right now.  Before i read this book i did not believe that life in the ghetto was ever this dreadful.  I will never forget about the things i read in Amazing Grace because many of the childrens' stories are so sad that it is impossible to not show sympathy for their situations.  When you read about young children with AIDS, asthma so bad that they cough up blood, and shootings that leave young children in wheel chairs, it encourages the reader to get stop being ignorant and spread awareness to the growing problem of poverty in the United States.  The book had a direct affect on my life because I visit my family in New York almost on a weekly basis, but I was oblivious to the conditions that these people were living.  According to Kozol, I visit the "white" parts of Brooklyn, so it amazes me that i never saw these situations when I was only blocks away.  The book made me realize how lucky I was to have even the simplest things such as running water, or a bed to sleep in.

Finally, Amazing Grace by Jonathan Kozol, is an incredible book that details the hardships of life in the ghetto, while constantly appealing to the reader's pathos, ethos, and logos in order for one to relate to the situation

</review>
<review>

This book masyerfully unmasks the sorrows of the nation. The author is able to compose a memoir of the haunting lives of children in New York's ghettos. The fierce images of rat-infested homes, and schools filled with poisonous lead walls leave readers unable to fathom how people truly exist in such harsh conditions. Kozol addresses every area of the spectrum from the children's point of view to the political views of the country. Also presenting an array of diverse issues such as AIDs, drugs, underage prostitution, death, motives based in moral, religious beliefs, and inhuman treatment towards others to the reader. Feelings of pathos arise after hearing the accounts of the children in the area; readers feel sorrow for the children because they are stripped of their childhood. Numerous quotes and examples are given in the book, but one that particularly struck me was when Kozol asks one of the children if he knows anyone happy at all the boy candidly responds, "Not many...Well, to tell the truth, not any who are happy for more than one day...No! Not for one day. For 15 minutes...Not any. That's no lie"(212). To honestly not know at least some form of happiness is incompressible for me and I'm sure for many others as well. By using statements made by children the author easily wins the readers pity and sympathy. Our pity soon turns to anger when he describes the lack of government support. Examples such as unsanitary hospitals, toxic incinerators, closet sized school rooms, and shabby, less then adequate housing evoke sentiments of detest towards the government's lack of aid towards these poor devastated people. But once again Kozol quickly changes our feelings to those of denial. He provides shocking statistics and first hand accounts as to how the nation sympathizes with these people for five minutes and then continue on with their lives.  It seems shocking that people would do things so cruel such as disposing of their waste in the ghetto streets. While reading, it became a necessity for me to remind myself that the events taking place were all true; this is not a cleverly composed work of fiction, though it would certainly be far more assuaging if it were.
Taking into account the brilliant components of the book, I must say that I was vexed by one minor detail; Kozol's overall presentation of his opinions. The beginning of the book revolves around the accounts of parents and children within the area and the author provides few opinions on the subject. But towards the end he fills several pages with statistics followed by passages of his opinions. I feel that this takes away from the book because rather than focusing on the children and people living in the area we turn our attention to the author and how he is impacted by the events and things he witnesses.
Other than this minor dislike I think that the piece as a whole is very informative and certainly does a good job at presenting what appears to be the ideas and realities for several minorities in New York. It may not be a thriller, or adventure novel, but it most certainly is a mystery. A mystery as to how people are able to survive in such hostile conditions and retain hope. Kozol's mastery of rhetoric reveals that the issues taking place have been around and that until something changes they will remain so.


</review>
<review>

Amazing Grace by Jonathan Kozol is an enlightening book.  It is very interesting and well written.  It portrays the lives of poor people and innocent children living in the inner cities of New York City.  The book focused on mature and complex topics such as homicide, the AIDS virus, drug use, and religion.  Kozol makes a strong argument that life in the inner cities is unsafe for children.  He argues that children's schools and homes are inadequate and unacceptable.  He also discusses the faults of the government, such as how it's decisions help the rich and hinder the poor.  Kozol addresses issues about hospital services for the poor regarding money deficiencies and discrimination.  Kozol interviews several people who explain how they feel mistreated and unwanted by the upper-class white society.  They feel like burdens, and believe that the white people would be happy if the poor left the city.  It is amazing to see that in spite of their suffering many poor inner city people are very religious and have very strong faith in God and Heaven.  Amazing Grace open's one's eyes to the less fortunate, and reminds us to be thankful for all that we have and to enjoy life even when things do not look great.  Overall Amazing Grace was a very good book, inspiring and interesting, a good read

</review>
<review>

Before reading Jonathan Kozol's Amazing Grace, I always thought the South Bronx was "what was happenin'" according to KRS-One's song "South Bronx." Unfortunately unlike the upbeat tempo and rhythm of this song, this non-fiction compilation of stories of the South Bronx is a place full of peril, hatred, and abandonment.
Kozol's work describes the difficulties of the lives of the citizen's of the South Bronx, and the tragedies that constantly surround them. Many people claim that this book presents an argument that supports Kozol's political opinion. However, the author never comes straight out in this book and calls someone or some group the "bad guy." He leaves it up to the readers to decide who is at fault, and what most be changed within the communities. For example, when Kozol was walking with Gizelle Luke, a woman who he chooses to interview, near the highway she pointed out "pictures of flowers, window shades and curtains and interiors of pretty-looking rooms that have been painted on these buildings on the sides that face the highway. It's a very strange sight, and the pictures have been done so well that when you look the first time, you imagine that you're seeing into people's homes...The city has these murals painted on the walls, she says, not for the people in the neighborhood - because they're facing the wrong way - but for tourists and commuters" (31). The author never attaches any direct blame to the struggles in the South Bronx; however, through accounts such as these he lets the audience make their own decisions. For instance, in the above passage the reader may conclude that the local governments are not fulfilling their role in society. Kozol does a mastery job in making subtle arguments throughout the text to persuade his audience.
In addition to the author's arguments, his interviews with some of the children of Mott Haven are heart wrenching and beautiful. Some of the statements they make about heaven and life itself, is something you would never expect to hear a child say, nevertheless, a child from the South Bronx. A 12-year-old boy name Jeremiah makes note that "`It isn't where people live. It's how they live'...`There are different economies in different places'...`Life in Riverdale is opened up. Where we live, it's locked down'" (32). Imagine a 12-year-old child making this type of conclusion about his life. When one reads this child making this statement, one is overwhelmed by how intelligent and for how much this child has to live. Then, as one continues through the book this happiness and joy is struck down, as the reader realizes that Jeremiah is probably going to become another victim of his society.
The book is very interesting and entertaining to any reader. Kozol's style is easy to understand and holds the attention of any reader as he appeals to the audience's emotions and values. The issues raised in this book effects everyone in America, not just those in the South Bronx or the surrounding area. It is imperative for one understand that all are apart of the problems that the South Bronx faces. No one is exempt from the hardships faced there. Unless one believes that "`Some people are better than others,' wrote conservative social scientist Charles Murray several years ago. `They deserve more of society's rewards'" (154). Then when it comes to the day of one's own reckoning, his or her final judgment will already be made.
This book is a must read for anyone who believes in equality and justice. Everyone is apart of our American family. "Many men and women in the Bronx believe that it is going to get worse. I don't know what can change this" (230). Well, it can start with everyone becoming aware of the situation at hand. Great read

</review>
<review>

"The biggest ones, the water rats, come out of the Bronx River. At four P.M. or five P.M., when it's beginning to get dark, you see them coming out in hordes. Very large rats. You see them right here in the street outside our building. I don't like to see them. I feel nausea when I see them."

**No one seems to appreciate my review. Let me addend. The book is an intelligent, self-reflective, heartbreaking, and beautiful experience. That quote is my effort to point out that, poignantly, it often reads as science-fiction.*

</review>
<review>

I guess what I find funny is that some of the other reviewers say this book does not help. Having read the book I am really quite taken aback.

This is a wonderful book! This is a book written by real investment guru with a strong track record. His advice is solid.

In many ways I found this to be a very surprising book to read. What I found surprising was the degree to which Peter Lynch tries to think independently and look at the big picture. His advice is very practical and very down to earth. He follows his own instincts and does not follow other people's advice. He tries to follow social trends and go to malls and other places - where anyone can go - to get an idea about what product or store is hot and what is not. Then he investigates the financials of that "hot" prospect.

For example if he learns from his wife that a new store like the Gap or similar is suddenly full of shoppers and things are flying off the shelves, he will investigate the financials, cash flow, etc. If the stock is a "buy" he will not sell when it goes up 25%. He will set a price in his mind where he thinks the stock can go, say 200% or 400% higher. Then he will buy and hold until that occurs, holding the stock through volatile fluctuations. And he does that on his own. Once he can accumulate a number of multi-integer growth stocks, then the portfolio tends to take care of itself and small losers are easily written off.

A very good read. He talks about mutual funds and S and P type investments also.

Five stars

</review>
<review>

When I first read this book, it really reinforced the concepts of investing.

Peter Lynch isnt exactly a value investor...a growth investor with a small, if at all, bit of value investing is really his style.  This book is really for beginners who want a "practical front" for investing.  Overall, the book is a must if you are a novice investor.  For advance investors though, read quickly.

Great Book.  A must for novice investors

</review>
<review>

It is a book that you have to read if you want to know how a very succesful make it

</review>
<review>

When Peter S. Lynch speaks, wise investors will listen.  This book covers the famous fund manager's career at the helm of Fidelity Magellan from 1977 to '90, and post career into '92.  It's far more introspective than "One Up On Wall Street" and it was no doubt meant to be for this purpose.  For example, there isn't nearly as much fundamental principles for stock picking outlined in this book as the former.  My belief is that the reader would do best by reading "One Up On Wall Street" first and follow up with this title, as its the newer of the two, regardless.

Peter's style of writing (with John Rothchild) is no-nonsense and easy to take in.  To my knowledge three books have been published by the duo and all three have been entertaining and never dry.  The reader can comfortably take in some very important stock-picking principles from one of the greats without feeling intimidated at any point.  I think this is a sign of a well written book that covers a topic that isn't child's play (unless you like playing with money).

And although this book doesn't cover nearly as much technical information as the first, it still offers a lot of tasty tidbits for stock pickers.  I made plenty of notes while reading "Beating The Street", and I'm confident that I'll be well served by doing so.  Peter reiterates many of the guidelines he mentioned in his first best-seller, such as scrutinizing company earnings and the balance sheets, and he gives his wise opinion of picking bargain stocks that have lower P/Es than their growth rates.

Overall, this title definitely deserves four stars, and his first book deserves at least five stars.  Lynch and Rothchild have authored several investing books that will stand the test of time. You'll sleep better with your investment decisions by having these valuable classics in your collection.







</review>
<review>

Peter Lynch's book held me back about 10 years in my investing success.  I used to believe things I read in books because a good publisher like Simon and Schuster would publish it.  I counted cars in parking lots of companies with due dilligence and questioned managers on how things were selling.  I also avoided "reading tealeaves" like drawing trendlines on what I was actually concerned about THE PRICE of the stock!  Now I make a living "reading tealeaves" and leave the parking lot duty to those who think counting cars makes the price go up.
My suggestion is to learn basic technical analysis from a book like John murphys Technical Analysis of the financial markets.  Start there then go on to learn more advanced TA.  I also like Investor's Business Daily-BUT it is very specialized and takes reading several times and probably help from a more advanced user to understand IBD.  I also swingtrade - hold stocks for 2-5 days sometimes longer.



</review>
<review>

If you're just starting out in stocks and investing.  This is a good book.  It tells you to know your stocks, to do your homework when you buy stocks and how to pick good stocks.  It gives you some good places to start and it also gives you some history on Peter Lynch.
The experienced investor will probably know most of the things in this book.  There are no "secret techniques" or anything in this book.  Just plain common sense

</review>
<review>

Peter Lynch writes well and this book has some classic wisdom that lets you into his mind.  One drawback is that Mr. Lynch may sometimes forget just how smart he is and tends to over simplify some aspects of investing analysis that come to him naturally.  For example, asking a clerk at a retail store what sells well is a technique Mr. Lynch will use on occasion to evaluate a stock.  However, it's key to note that he also has a great deal of resources in the form of advanced technology and research tools, not to mention personal genius.

This book is highly recommended and can be a great tool for a business owner or investor but I'd caution most non-professionals on reading this and thinking they can become the next Peter Lynch with little more than a computer and a brokerage account.  Good book, thanks Mr. Lynch.

</review>
<review>

I am very new at the investing game, and pretty much know what your average couch potato does...
I found this book to be very interesting and easy to read.  Peter Lynch seems very down to earth and humorous and his tips are pretty basic and easy to follow.
Considering the topic (which I assumed would put me to sleep like the History Channel!) I was quite surprised when I found I couldn't put it down.
I would recommend it to anyone w/ a basic interest in investing

</review>
<review>

I bought this CD storybook in Beijing. It's much more expensive than my anticipation. But the cover of this book is very beautiful, it's good-designed. It's very easy to attract children's eyes, and easier to attract the eyes of teenagers who have a kid's heart just like me!
When I started this book, I felt the stories were familiar to me. The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast were my favourite stories. The pictures in this book were so beautiful, the words and phrase were easy to read, this was fit for little kids and English beginners. There was a read-along CD with this book, it was very useful to me. To little kids, this CD with read-along stories and dramatic music can give them the feeling that they are one of the characters in the stories. But to me, it's a good material of learning English.
I read this book and other English books every morning from the day I bought this book. When I saw a new word, I wrote it down on my note book, and read it as many times as possible. Then I listen to the CD and read-along with the voice in my book. I loved English when I was a child, but the English books I used were tedious. Now I can improve my English with a Disney Princess CD Storybook, my spoken-English and reading-English have been improve much now!
If there are little kids and English beginners in your family, this book will be the best present to them, and they will love it and feel it very interesting and useful

</review>
<review>

I saw this book in Beijing, Xidan and I loved it very much, but I didn't have got enough money that time.After a few days, my uncle came to see me in the hotel and gave me this as a gift! I was so happy! The stories of the princesses are pretty good, and the CD and the book is good to my English study

</review>
<review>

This is the second Disney 4-in-1 Audio Storybook I purchased for my two kids (first being "The Lion King, the Little Mermaid, Toy Story, Aladdin"). We absolutely love both these books! All the four stories have beautiful illustrations and the print is large and easy to read. The audio CD is fun to listen to, with lots of animations. The pages are of great quality that should suit kids'"rough"handling of the book and page turning.

</review>
<review>

This book is funny because of the writers comments mostly, although there are a few times where you will be wondering how our parents or grandparents survived. A lot of the time, I found myself "standing up" for the old-fashioned advice because honestly, a lot of it made sense when you think about the era.  For example, they still teach us that newspaper can help with delivering a baby if there are not better materials available.

It is worth a read if you have an hour to kill, but I probably would not purchase it again since reading it once is enough.

</review>
<review>

I absolutely loved James Lileks' two previous books and found them achingly funny, but like several other reviewers, I found "Mommy Knows Worst" to be tinged with sadness at times.  Yes, it was very funny, but on the other hand I ended up feeling so sorry for mothers that actually followed this kind of advice (like my mother) and kids who were subjected to it (like me) that it tempered my enjoyment somewhat.

I can remember looking at my mother's baby care book in the early '60s, and the illustrations on how to prepare formula -- sterilize the entire house while you're at it, why don't you? -- were so daunting that I'm amazed anyone actually wanted to have children.  Wait, maybe they didn't.  Perhaps a chapter on reliable birth control, or lack thereof, would have been a funny addition to MKW.  At any rate, I'm still glad I bought the book but will re-read Lileks' "The Gallery of Regrettable Food" when I want a belly laugh (pun intended)

</review>
<review>

Parents with a sense of humor remaining about their profession will appreciate Mommy Knows Worst: Highlights from the Golden Age of Bad Parenting Advice, which gathers past parenting neuroses from the 1940s and 50s. From 'delicious' baby laxatives to boiling baby's milk, MOMMY KNOWS WORST is filled with hilarious moments and fine vintage illustrations from the times.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatc

</review>
<review>

I love the Lileks books, but this one actually left me feeling a little sad for children who were raised this way. (I'm still giving it 4 stars because it's well done and as well-written as ever.)

</review>
<review>

I love exploring James Lilek's website and this book is just more of his wackiness.  A majority of the items were way before my time but I did note my not-so-beloved "carseat" in there. Nothing like being hooked to the front seat with some metal tubing and a thin plastic strap

</review>
<review>

I read James Lileks' blog all the time. This book was good for a concentrated does of humor

</review>
<review>

I laughed until I cried when reading some of these great old time ads.  I even made my pets upset by laughing out loud so much.  It was a great book on what not to do in parenting.  It's a wonder any of us survived.

</review>
<review>

If you already have kids, this book will seem funny, but mean spirited to all the good intentioned parents from a bygone era. If you haven't already gone to the bathroom, you will have an accident from laughing so hard. It starts funny and stays funny. There are really long reprinted articles that make you want to skip ahead to the funny parts, but read through everything for a unique insight into the world where you have to be 18 to smoke, 21 to drink, pass a test to recieve a license to drive, and obtain permission from the neighborhood association before you can build a deck on your own property. Yet anyone can spit a babe into the harsh, cruel world with only the advice of family members and current child rearing philosophies from our so-called experts

</review>
<review>

I am 45 years old and recently told my kids that in my day, infants didn't have car seats or booster seats (or even seat belts!) They asked in disbelief, where did you go in the car? I said, Nana and Pop just laid me on the floor of the car. This book proved to my kids that I was telling the truth about the dangers kids and babies lived through back then--and all the jaw-droppingly unbelievably bad advice mothers were given.

My 12-year-old son loved the product that allowed parents in apartments to get fresh air and sunshine for an infant by hanging the baby out the window in some sort of box contraption. My 16-year-old daughter is reading it from cover to cover and getting a bigger kick out of it than I did.

It was a nice day in Missouri here today, and I had the doors and windows open. I was laughing so hard while I read this book in one sitting (I could not wait to see what was next--oh, spanking children with hairbrushes for not having had a bowel movement that day, that'll teach 'em!) I was surprised the neighbors didn't call someone from the looney bin to pick me up. This book is a scream, literally

</review>
<review>

When I was eleven years old my father started to sexually abuse me. When I was fourteen my half-brother sexually abused me. I have remember the abuses every single day for 37 years - never forgetting for a moment what happened to me. Up until seven years ago I played the dutiful daughter in our "happy little home" until I finally got the guts to confront my father. Did he deny it - No, he admitted it. When I asked my older sister if our father (actually her step-father) had abused her she, too, said that she had remembered it everyday since the age of seven. Our father admitted to that, too. When I confronted my brother about the abuse, he admitted it too. But did I announce to the world every sick detail that happened to me. Did I cut myself off completely from my family. No - but at least I didn't have to pretend anymore that my father was this upstanding person. Now I didn't have to come up with lame excuses when I didn't go to family functions. Did it affect me - yes it did.

I spent many years engaging in self destructive behavior. When I finally started seeing a therapist did he become my Svengali - did he try to dig further and further into my past using such disreputable techniques such as hypnotism, guided imagery, body memories, etc? No - he did not. Did he encourage me to join "Survivor" groups ("survivor" and "victims" are two lables used to somehow separate or isolate those with "repressed memories" from the rest of society; sort of an us vs. them mentality) so that the other "survivors" and I could spend our session trying to one-up each other - each person trying to come up with more horrible memories than the others? No - he didn't. Did he tell me that in order to get better I had to get worse. No - he didn't. Did he insist on focusing on painful aspects of my past? No - we focused on the present and ways of working towards a healthy future. Did he tell me to focus on rage, to act out rage and anger, to become consumed by anger. Absolutely not. Anger and rage are not healthy if they become a major part of one's life. Did he tell me that I had alters roaming around in my psyche - 10, 20, 100, 1,000, 5,000 of them. Nope just me.

Victims of Memory has numerous accounts of the so-called sexual abuse victims. Coming from my background and in speaking with other women who have always remembered their abuse, the stories of these "susvivors" do no ring true. No matter how detailed their "memories" may seem (and I haven't even touched on the allegations of Satanic Ritual Abuse or MPD/DID) to others, they have no ring of truth to those of us who have been abused and always remembered. We don't want to listen to the minute details of what we went through - why would we. In fact, why would anyone except those who are titillated by the details. The goal is to deal with what (if anything) happened in our past and then get on with life. All of life's failures cannot be blamed on what did or did not happen in our childhoods. Eventually, as adults, we have to take responsibility for our problems and deal with them like adults.

Pendergrast's book delves deeply into the "repressed memory" phenonmenon. Personally, I think he treats the unscrupulous therapists too kindly - giving them the benefit of the doubt that they "mean well" and truly believe that what they are doing is somehow helpful to the client. I don't view them so kindly. After reading Victims of Memory (not just in this book but others on the false memory syndrome) I am glad that the falsely accused parents and "survivor"/retractors are finally receiving compensation through the courts - not for sexual abuse but for therapist abuse. These therapists (and as the book points out, pretty much anyone can call themself a therapist) need to be accountable for their actions. Authors of books such as Courage to Heal need to be held accoutable for all the irresponsible and blantantly false "advice" and information in their books.

As Pendergrast points out in his book, it is so ironic that feminists in the post-modern women's movement overwhelmingly support the repressed memory phenomenon. The whole repressed memory concept was one of Freud's pet theories - not someone whose theories I would except to see embraced by modern feminists. In addition, repressed memory therapy by nature forces the client (usually a woman) into a weak, dependent - almost childlike - state quite unlike the strong independent woman one would expect feminists to support.

I suppose this doesn't seem like much of a review of Pendergrast's book but more of a personal rant. But that's how Victims of Memory made me feel. Not anger at the author but anger - and sadness - over all the ruined lives that are a consequence of the repressed memory phenomenon. I only have a couple of criticisms of Victims of Memories. First, this second edition of the book came out in 1996. The book could really use an updating. There has been so much research done recently on memory showing how easy it is to implant false memories. An updated edition could help with this added info. In addition, many of the statistics certainly could use updating. Updates on the falsely accused in prisons, updates on changes in the policies of professional organizations, and information on the trends in the number of repressed memory cases.

Whenever someone professes that repressed memories have to be true I always ask the same questions. Where are all those who suffered horrible tortures and abuses at the hands of the Nazis in the WWII concentration camp claiming annesia? Where are all those amnesiacs who made it out alive from Pol Pot's regime and the Killing Fields? Where are all the children who have completely forgotten seeing their mother, sister or friend killed right before them by a drive-by shooter? These aren't people who forget - they have vivid memories - memories they can't forget even if they wanted to

</review>
<review>

This is an excellent book examining how and why some people come to believe that they have suffered appalling abuse that most probably never happened. It DOES NOT deny the reality of or harm caused by sexual abuse (the author explicitly states this on many occasions) and the reviewer who suggested that this is "a terrific book if you are child molester" probably (I guess) didn't bother reading it and made up the especially foul accusation to prevent others from examining the issues surrounding repressed memory and the cult of therapy.
The author shows how even trained professionals can disregard overwhelming evidence against a particular hypothesis (repressed memory/MPD/satanic cults) and rely on their intuition to (unintentionally) wreak havoc with their clients lives. In the upside-down world of some therapists, lack of hard evidence is trumped by strength of feeling for even the most outrageous accusation. Pendergrast demonstrates how uncertain and malleable human memory can be.
The book is written in an easy style and despite what another particularly stupid review suggests, concentrates specifically on the scientific evidence for his claims

</review>
<review>

A good (though heavy) read for anyone exposed to  and quot;recovered memories. and quot;  It is important to remember that recovered memories can feel as real and vivid as true memories- This book takes a huge amount of information and manages to put it in one place.  Other reviews have pointed out the non-objectivity and the seeming need for stronger editing, but that is a nearly impossible task to ask of Mark, as directly affected as he was by this tragic movement

</review>
<review>

Those so called "professionals" of the cottage industry called "childhood sexual abuse" should be forced to read this book before lunging foward to "save" more kids.  The witch hunt we've seen in this nation makes Salem look like a tea party.  Beautifully written, well researched, heartbreakingly fair - the enemies of critical thought and careful observation will hate this book

</review>
<review>

This book was real help to get out of the Hell my family has been in since falsely accused of abuse.  The irresponisible therapists have NO idea the pain they have caused

</review>
<review>

This book fails both as a history or analysis of Yugoslav politics or as a critical biography of Tito. The first few chapters, which contain an overly compressed "historical" review of the South Slavs from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century, contain factual, spelling and interpretative errors so obtrusive and atrocious that they are almost laughable. For example, West claims that the leader of the 1573 Croat peasant revolt was "Donja Stubica" - that was actually the name of the village in which it started. He claims that in 1871 the Croat revolutionary Eugen Kvaternik led an "armed assault on the Serbs," when in fact Kvaternik launched a foolishly bold uprising against the Habsburg Monarchy while many of his fellow rebels were themselves Serbs. He persistently misspells the surname of the great Serbian linguist and writer Vuk Karadzic as `Karadjic' - and there are literally dozens of similar mistakes that riddle the entire text. West basically argues that the problems in Yugoslavia are directly tied to historical events and religious schisms that occurred during the Middle Ages, and reduces the wars which ensued after Yugoslavia's collapse to religious conflicts. He also insists that there are no national nor even ethnic differences between the Serbs, Croats or Bosnian Muslims; rather, he says they are all the same ethnic group with three different religions, thus demonstrating his glaring ignorance of the differences between `nation' and `ethnicity,' among other things. He focuses extensive attention and invective, perhaps rightfully, to the WW2 Croatian Ustasha regime and the often scurrilous role of the Croatian Catholic Church during this period. On the other hand, he downplays or denies the much less extensive but often quite brutal crimes of the Serbian Chetniks during the same period - even to the point of making the ludicrous claim that the Serbian Orthodox Church was "never clearly associated with Great Serb nationalism or with the Chetniks." One of the main flaws of this book is that its primary focus is on World War II - the implication being that this period crucially influenced events in the 1990s. This is only true to a certain extent, but oversimplifies and greatly downplays the even more vital 40+ ensuing years. In fact, at times this book rather eerily resembles texts often seen in Croatian and Serbian newspapers during the late 1980s and early 1990s which speak of events from 50, 150 or even 500 years ago as though they happened yesterday. West's ignorance and lack of objectivity also leads him to (rather outrageously) twice refer to the Kosovo Albanians as `Shiptars' - among non-Albanians, this is a racial epithet, not a neutral descriptive term. Tito, the central figure in this book, fares little better. Although West has a nostalgically favorable view of Tito, he offers no new insights into Yugoslavia's long-time president and strongman, only the reworded observations and conclusions from other biographies, memoirs and histories, both favorable and critical. Often he provides details on completely trivial matters from Tito's life, at one point even citing actor Richard Burton's impressions of Tito and his wife. Aside from a few mildly engaging anecdotes taken from his own travels in Yugoslavia, there is little of interest here. Reading West's book is a colossal waste of time; my recommendation is for readers to check it out of a library, peruse the photographs and then go straight to the bibliography to find more worthwhile books to read on Tito, WW2 and the Ustasha terror and the former Yugoslavia in general

</review>
<review>

This book contains absolutely one of the best explanations of the current Balkan fiasco.  While dwelling on Tito, West also explains the ethnic  disputes that have torn apart Yugoslavia.  West's coverage of the Ustasha  is particularly accurate and enlightening

</review>
<review>

I did not buy this book for the designs---nobody should, and they are not the point of the book anyhow.  I bought it to review the technical information for my knitting classes, which according to some other knitting teachers, was first rate and unbiased, in this book.
Instead, on page 24, this supposedly hyper-tolerant and unbiased author lets creep in a definite intolerance towards Continental Purling, saying "it takes quite a contortion" and refers to "being blocked by the difficult maneuver".  While she does say in boldface everyone should knit however they want, just a few pages earlier, why then include the various slams against Continental purlers?  It is simply another way to knit, and I am not the only one who does not find it contortious or difficult, at all.
The other reason I do not give more stars to this book, is that the information given is really nothing new---Elizabeth Zimmermann's several offerings include all of the technical information of this tome, including the now-sacrosanct discussion of how the stitch is mounted (leading leg/edge, whatever you wanna call it these days) and have some truly beautiful classic designs to boot.  If you're looking for good coverage of knitting technique, you'll do much better with any of the Zimmermann classics.

</review>
<review>

I only just picked up a copy of this book the other day, but already it's having a profound effect on the way I look at my knitting.

It's not a pattern book, and it won't make you hip, but it will explain how knitting actually works, and how knitters can make that work for them.  Zilboorg's book is a real eye opener, and equips those of us who do our stitches a little differently with the knowledge and ability to deflect purists, stitch nazis, and other fiber arts authoritarians when they tell us we're doing it wrong, and show them that our stitches are perfect regardless of whether we knit Continental or English, leading leg in front or back, or if we wrap clockwise or counterclockwise

</review>
<review>

For several years I've been told by friends that I ought to lay hands on a copy of this book, before it goes out of print. When I finally found one and spent an evening reading it, I discovered why there is such a buzz about the book.

Although you may be drawn to the colorful pages and designs (which are only a small part of the volume), what lies at the heart of this book are its sensible, clear, illuminating explanations of how those loops operate as they slide across your needles, leaning this way and that. Anna admits that it was not particularly appealing to her to so thoroughly describe the characteristics of stitches, but she seems to have dedicated herself to the task and succeeded very well. In fact, her explanations are really quite engaging, because they are so illuminating.

Once you take the time to read through her pages, studying her illustrations, you will never again knit without understanding what your stitches are doing. Basically, Anna has taken the time to open her eyes to the movements of stitches, and articulated and illustrated it well enough for the rest of us to benefit from her examination. If this sounds hopelessly abstract, it isn't - it's liberating and right before you.

Now that I've read the book myself, I have begun to recommend it in all the workshops I teach. It answers one question I hear several times every workshop, which is: "Why does this stitch lean the wrong way/what should I do about it?" This question will never mystify you again, and the concept of a wrong way will vanish.

Cat Bordhi, author of Socks Soar on two Circular Needles, A Treasury of Magical Knitting, and A Second Treasury of Magical Knitting

</review>
<review>

Having read The Partly Cloudy Patriot first, I loved this book because it invited me to learn more about the author and her life.  And in that respect, the book is very good--well-written and full of Vowell's characteristic wit.  I would not, however, recommend it as a first taste of Sarah Vowell; I think it's funnier and more interesting once you're familiar with her style

</review>
<review>

Take the Cannoli was a wonderful mixture of essays that was throughly enjoyable. As I have become used to with Sarah Vowell, her family, her relationship with her twin sister, her friends, her thoughts on the world in which she lives, her love for history, and the challenges of her everyday life flow through many of these essays, interconnecting them in ways that you do not expect. The essays in Take the Cannoli are consistently good, often made me laugh out loud, and in some cases changed my perspective on a particular subject. Although I didn't always agree with her, I certainly appreciated her passion

</review>
<review>

Sarah Vowell is one of America's best writers in the genre of humor. Personally, having read both Sedaris and Rakoff, two other fantastic humorists, I am rather partial to Vowell. Take the Cannoli seems to demonstrate her ability to both make us think and laugh. It seems that in most of her essays, I learn about as much as I laugh. Personally, I thought the title essay was extremely well done and is  deserving of much praise from the literary community

</review>
<review>

Nice collection of random essays about American life.  Blends the personal with the larger cultural and historical elements into a very palatable literary malt.  A little too short of a book.  The title essay (take the cannoli) was my favorite

</review>
<review>

Though she's known to many as a voice on NPR's "This American Life" and to many more (even if they don't realize it) as the voice of Violet in the hit Pixar film "The Incredibles," I mainly came to know her through her written works.  Having read her book "The Partly Cloudy Patriot" and loving the unique way she blends history, pop culture and humor with autobiography, I couldn't resist Sarah Vowell's essay collection "Take the Cannoli."  To put it mildly, I was impressed.  Even though many of these pieces were delivered on the radio, they translate to book form without a hint of strain.  Whereas a book written by a comedian like George Carlin often comes off as a clumsily assembled blog, Ms. Vowell takes the time to put her thoughts down with clarity, and therefore her ideas and personality shine through.

Of course, that's what one should expect of any writer, much less an essayist whose main beat is her own life.  So what makes this book hold up next to the likes of David Sedaris and Dave Eggers (both of whom are thanked in the acknowledgments)?  For one thing, Ms. Vowell has a firm grasp of American history, both the good and bad, that most contemporary memoirists tend to ignore.  In particular is "What I see when I look at the face on the $20 bill," in which she examines the Cherokee side of her family by taking a car trip along the Trail of Tears with her twin sister and tries to reconcile that shameful episode in American history with the country she loves today--this book is also useful ammunition against conservative blowhards who claim that liberals "hate America".  Her conclusiions are both inspiring and heartbreaking, not to mention worth the price of admission all by itself.  Ms. Vowell looks at the worst America has to offer--violence, racism, religious extremism--and balances it against the freedom, independence and opportunity it provides, and still proudly waves the constitution (that's right, the constitution--any idiot can display a mere symbol like the flag, but the U.S. constitution is about ideas, perhaps the most revolutionary and resonant ideas in the modern world, even if they're not in color).

The current vogue for memoirs can sometimes come off as a gimmick--did you have a screwed-up childhood and a weird family?  Great!  You too can be a bestselling author!  Sarah Vowell proves that a relatively "normal" upbringing and an adult life spent with other people's stories--her takes on "The Godfather" (from where this book gets its title) and Frank Sinatra are mini-classics--can result in something beautiful and original.  Call it "post-modern" if you like (or don't--that term went from cliche to plain silly a long time ago) but I'll just call it "brilliant.

</review>
<review>

What I find most admirable in Sarah Vowell's work is the way it illuminates what's possible in essay writing. While her work is often well-researched, she is not writing journalism exactly, nor is she writing analysis--though she's unafraid of pulling a quotation from Nick Carraway, Huck, or the Corleones into any discussion--nor, despite the strong presence of her own voice, is she writing a pure "personal essay."  Her most successful work defies categorization simply by using whatever comes in handy at the moment.  The subtitle "Stories form the New World" suggests the loose theme of these essays, the bred-in-the-bones idealism of this country that any sensible person resists and feels nonetheless.  Besides being someone worth spending time with, Sarah Vowell creates prose like clear, cool water.  She speaks through words, not into them, and that is a too-rare phenomenon among essayists

</review>
<review>

I love this woman! She cannot be any better of a writer, she keeps her stories short and clever telling nothing but the truth! This is yet another book that I never wanted to put down because it was just that great!

I did read this a long time ago, her most recent book left a bad taste in my mouth, but I'll just have to go back and read this again just so I can put good thoughts about her back in my mind! :

</review>
<review>

I may be somewhat biased in my review because Sarah Vowell is my insperation. The short stories of her life are classis and fun. They are so easy to identify with and the cover real issues. Things that can be entertaing yet insightfull

</review>
<review>

... one of the greatest poets ever. in my opinion. reading his poems as oposed to listning to them on a album is a vastly differnet experiences. his words touch me like no other. this book is absolutly amazing, especially reading the things the dead never played. "jack o roses" the seventh section of "terrapin station" is the most beautiful thing iever read ( you can hear hunter sing it by going to the hunter archive at dead.net".  everyone should read this, and for the few that really get it, it will be a transcendant experinece

</review>
<review>

you need to buy this book.  you wont regret it.. its got the most amazing lyrics/poems youll ever read!!  Robert Hunter could possibly be the best lyricist of all time

</review>
<review>

...and my tunes were played on the harp unstrung would you hear my voice come through the music would you hold it near as it were your own?'  Part of the experience of a Grateful Dead concert (and now The Other Ones, Ratdog, Phil Lesh and friends, and Mickey Hart's band) was listening to the words of Robert Hunter dance and twirl in your head.  Hunter probably isn't the greatest American poet of the second half of the 20th Century, but he does know how to turn a phrase, borrow a line, and mix a metaphor.  And his strange mix of phrases went well with the strange mix of American music written by the late Jerry Garcia.  Box Of Rain is a must reference for anyone interested in the lyrical end of rock and roll.  The book will clear up many an on going debate on just what Jerry was singing all those nights so long ago.  And for all those people who can't understand why the Grateful Dead was so successful, this book will let you in on part of the secret.  'If you get confused, just listen to the music play....

</review>
<review>

Hunter's words, the inspiration, soul, and backbone of the Grateful's Dead's songs, are here collected in all their subtle grace.  His songs read like poems, and his poems burst like songs.  Vital reading for dead-heads and poetry lovers alike

</review>
<review>

WOW! This is an amazing book featuring the lyrics of Robert Hunter (primary lyricist of the Grateful Dead).  Helps with those totally  un-understandable (is this even a word?) lyrics but more importantly is a  reflection on a remarkable career including personal notes and non-Dead  songs.  Hunter's work s truly wonderful  and amp; I would even be willing to  bet non-DeadHeads would enjoy this book for its poetic values. Peace  and amp;  of course...ENJOY

</review>
<review>

I have to admit to a great deal of personal bias here because I am a lifelong DeadHead.  So it stands to reason that my opinions towards Hunter  may be a bit coloured and clouded. (Pun possibly intended.)  But this is a  wonderful collection of lyrics.  Hunter is a true poet whose song lyrics  deserve to live and breathe in printed form.  I always felt there was a  poetry to rock lyrics: Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Jim Morrison, Richard Hell et  al.  Robert Hunter also deserves to be recognized on that list of Rock Poet  Laureates.  Beautiful lyrics like Box Of Rain and Ripple take on a new life  when read from the page.  It gives one the chance to see how good the use  of language actually was. Terrapin is a tour de force epic of Rock poetry  and almost everything from American Beauty and Workingmans Dead ring out as  great poetry.  While there is some average, weaker material as well, this  gives Hunter a chance to earn acknowledgment for the fine poet that he is.   The Grateful Dead would never have achieved their legendary status without  the mystical, magical lyric ability of Robert Hunter.  This book is a  treasure trove that deserves a place next to the Dylan lyric book from  62-85 and the collection of lyrics put out by Lou Reed as well

</review>
<review>

Hunter's lyrics for the Dead sing alone, without music: he's the best living poet in the Enlish language; maybe the greatest ever.  But geez, Bob, stop trying to re-write Terrapin! Sometimes a writer gets too close to his work to see it well.  The first version is perfect, man

</review>
<review>

Anne Lamott is amazing!  Her metaphor for writing and for life may be a  little irreverent at times, but she tells it like it is.  The unexpected moments of humor delight us while opening us to her keen insights on life.  A manual on writing, a daily meditation, and a joyful read, Bird by Bird reaches us on many levels

</review>
<review>

Most of the time, How To Write books are either reeeeally touchy feely, or completely technical. I get annoyed about books like that because writing is a combination of both. So I wasn't convinced I'd much care for this book, which leans toward the touchy feely. I was NOT expecting to find touchy-feely with a hint of tough love.

I enjoyed it very much. Lamott manages to inspire without fist-pumping theatrics or lies about the publishing business. Instead, she offers humorous, straight-forward, sometimes tough-love advice aimed at helping you get over yourself and get on to your writing. If you're in a rut, do yourself a favor and pick up this book. It helped me immensely

</review>
<review>

Whenever I feel like everything I've ever written is crap, I pick up Bird by Bird. Writing crap, as Ms. Lamott tells us, is the first step toward writing well. William Zinser's On Writing Well is a more comprehensive text on the subject, but Lamott's Bird by Bird always inspires me to go back to work on the story. If you love to write, get the book.

</review>
<review>

This is one of the books that I will keep and re-read.  Very well written and inspiring.  I LOVED IT !! Made me "want" to write and made me feel that I could actually write something worth reading

</review>
<review>

I found this book very depressing. Anne Lamott's constant self-deprecation throughout the book caused me to really doubt myself as well. I know she is doing it to show that she's human just like the rest of us, but I think she can show that without hating on herself every chance she gets (saying the 9-year-old version of herself looked like a neurotic cat woman, etc.) despite what she says about how you shouldn't do that. It's like hanging around with a bunch of anorexic models, it gets to you.

This is not a good book for people who are not sure they are writers. I am not a writer but I am interested in writing and I would very much like to write fiction but I have a lot of trouble writing authentically. Lamott sends the message that "As long as you're a writer, as long as you're in our secret little club, everything will be okay!"

</review>
<review>

If you're too hard on yourself as a writer, this book is definitely for you. Even if you're not, this book will encourage, inspire, and jumpstart your writing. Lamott is funny and insightful, but what I love is that she pushes you to be gentle with yourself as a writer (writers tend to be overly critical and pessimistic about their work). If you're ever faced with writer's block, this book is a must have. You'll laugh your way back to the page

</review>
<review>

Well, either way, Ann Lamott has written a simply put and beautifully thought out tome on wiritng.  Not how to write, but how to get your gluteus on a chair and fight through all of your inner and outer demons and put yourself on the pages.  To take a bold step forward and reveal to the world who you really are.

The chapters are well balanced and are invaluable in the philosophical advice it dispenses.  That is the beauty of good writing, the universality of the message is such that you can take the philosophy generally or specifically, which ever way you want to take it, the truisms are true.

Lamott is well known as a funny but well thought out author on matters spiritual.  She does so with great grace and humor.  She is able to tell a great story, dispense great wisdom and still make you laugh out loud.  Her main vehicle is her self deprecating sense of humor.  After a while though, I can see the punch line coming, I can feel her timing and start to expext a funny, knee slapping aside coming on.  It got tedius after a while.  If she weren't so predictable I would have enjoyed this book much more.  Note that this writing strategy did not mitigate the message, nor did it minimize the ideas or the advice.  What it did was to decrease the pleasure of reading her prose.  It made it common place when the reader is always anticipating the rim shot.

One slight quibble.  I would love to give this book to a friend's daughter.  She is a bright and precocious little girl with a stellar sensibility for good writing.  I think she would love the philosophical content immensely and gain much for her own writing from what Lamott has to say.  Unfortunately, Lamott has injected just enough expletives in the narrative to make me hesitate.  I have always been told that using expletives is a cheap way to achieve emphasis, to make a point by creating shock value.  Lamott is way too good of writer to stoop to using expletives in a writing book just to get her point across.  I am sure she can find powerful and effective ways to make her point but she chose to mix in the expletives.  I am not disturbed by it but I think she missed the boat by doing what she did because it is delaying her outreach to young writers thirsting for advice and knowledge which she has placed in this book.

Overall though, it is quite a nice addition to my library, I will be reading and re-reading her wisdom for years to come

</review>
<review>

The big gift that the present public school system bestows upon most of us is a giant inferiority complex.  Few of us ever wake up to the mental prison-cells that society has put us in and fewer still escape.  Anne Lamott's book is one of those that not only encourages people but shows them how to let go of their perfectionism and internal critic and all the other fears and ego traps that keep us from creating.  Once you get past this junk, you begin to see you don't really need books telling you how to write at all.  You just need to write.

</review>
<review>

What a great book!  420 pages, hardback, and every single page is worth reading, not one page is boring.  You just want to keep reading and keep turning pages!

This is my first Nora Roberts' book.  I can't believe how good she writes!  I would recommend this book to everyone!  It's got murder, mystery, romance, people, the love of the land...

I'd love to find another book like this one!  I really enjoyed it.

(I'll let the other reviewers tell you about the story, I'm not so good at that.

</review>
<review>

I've read quite a few of Nora Roberts's books and this was the only one on which I had the complete 'wowzer' reaction.  I mean, seriously: wow.  This is a book full of content, with enough dimensions to the story to keep me busy for weeks and weeks, reading and rereading it to get it all.  Ms Roberts brings you into the gold and glamour of Hollywood with the same talented ease as she brings you into the green and whispers of the Olympic Rain Forest.  The characters are likable, and believable, and most certainly not your average Roberts book.  Livvy could be a pain in the butt as much as Noah could be a persistent annoyance.  And readers will find themselves grieving for Julie MacBride along with Jamie, Rob, Val, David and Livvy herself.  And there's a surprising twist at the end that will leave you reeling . .

</review>
<review>

When I started reading River's End, it reminded me of a remake of the "O.J. Simpson" murder.  It is a story centered on a little 4-year old girl who witnesses the death of her mother by her father.  Years pass by and the story unravels Olivia's feelings and emotions as they develop based on this horrible tragedy.  Written in the ingenious Nora Roberts style I have grown to truly enjoy, this story is both entertaining and informative as we learn quite a bit about the Olympic Rain Forest through Olivia's eyes.  I guessed the villain about 1/2 way through the book but the story still held my interest as I could never be 100% sure I was correct.  I would highly recommend this book to everyone.

</review>
<review>

In RIVER'S END, Nora Roberts uses a plot that has been used many times over the years: A story of Hollywood's glamour gone astray, and the young girl who survived it. But this isn't a typical plot by any means, not with Roberts' doing the writing. She guarantees many unexpected events along the way!

The tale of a pair of Hollywood stars living the life many only dream of living, a young child who can grow up to have it all, until murder and mayhem reeks havoc in their lives. The mother is dead and the father is in jail, and Olivia, the little girl who had it all, is forced to forget it all in order to save her own sanity.

Olivia is raised by her grandparents in the Pacific Northwest and has been shielded from her past until those events are once again brought to the headlines when her father is released from prison. A young writer, Noah Brady, is the son of the investigating police officer to this crime and he wants to tell the story that no one has been allowed to hear.

Noah digs up long buried ghosts and stirs the pot to bring the monsters back. With her father out of prison and revenge on the killer's mind, you have to wait until the end of the book until many subplots are solved. Was her mother's killer her father or someone else? Who is the monster that wants this story buried and never told? Can Olivia and Noah's love survive this ordeal?

As an avid mystery lover, and a Nora Roberts' fan, I have to say that she just keeps getting better and better. This one almost had me fooled (very few actually do fool me), and I was second-guessing my idea of the villain until almost the end.

</review>
<review>

Some may not consider this one of her best, indeed, it isn't listed as a fav anywhere, but it had enough Nora magic to introduce me to the woman and hook me into devouring everything I could there after.

Pacing was good, twists were good and I was right there in Hollywood, the forest, everywhere her characters were. Detail in descirbing the forests got a little bogged down but I waded through it.

I cried at the end - a first for me! ( Until I read her other books)

I wouldn't read this first, if you're just discovering Nora. There are other books that put the awe in awesome. Check those out then come to this one

</review>
<review>

My first Nora Roberts' book....with only be persistent did I complete the book....found it to be very slow paced with an unrealistic storyline...shallow characterizatio

</review>
<review>

I couldn't put this book down it was so good. It was such a surprise because by reading the inside cover it doesn't sound at all good. But I gave it a try and I'm glad I did it's definatly become one of my favorites this year. The story comes alive for you

</review>
<review>

This is one of the ONLY books by Nora Roberts I can actually say I didnt like. It was SO dissapointing I got mad everytime I looked at it. This books is about Oliva and Noah... THE END. That is practically what it is. It started off when they were both younger, them meeting when they were older and them meeting YET AGAIN WHEN THEY ARE MATURE. I guessed the story RIGHT from the beginning, and I hardly could ever do that before in any of Nora Robert's books. I hate to say it, but I DONT reccomend this book. It was really waste of time. What happened to the quality work of Ms. Roberts

</review>
<review>

The books are in fine condition.  My problem is with Amazon!
I will never buy text books on Amazon again!  Waited over 2 months for the books that were promised within 10 days.  Not just one book, but 5 out of 8 that I ordered. Never, Never again!

</review>
<review>

I suspect not many younger SF readers really "get" Heinlein. You really have to be an early-phase Baby Boomer, one of those (like me) who got hooked on his juveniles in the early `50s, when rolling roads and unlimited solar power and a working lunar colony seemed not only possible but very likely. Those "Future History" stories were the stuff of dreams for geeks of my generation. Personally, I had every intention of being the Staff Archaeologist on the first flight to Mars. Ah, well.

As actual history moved in different directions from what Heinlein's fiction had predicted, he had the ingenuity to explain the divergences away by postulating parallel time lines -- in one of which Mycroft the lunar computer managed the Lunar Revolution, in another of which Mars was inhabited, � la _Stranger in a Strange Land,_ etc. More than that, in his later works, he came up with the idea of "World as Myth" -- the notion that any fictional location or character that has had a significant influence on our culture thereby really exists as a parallel universe. So there really is an Oz, and a Skylark Duquesne, and a Jubal Harshaw. This novel starts out as a galloping adventure -- not unlike _Friday_ and _Job_, which also were written in this later phase of Heinlein's long, prolific career: Dr. Richard Ames (the classic Heinleinian "philosopher/soldier/rogue," as the jacket copy says) is having dinner in a restaurant in a space habitat orbiting the Moon, when an uninvited stranger sits down at his table and is assassinated five minutes later. Within a few hours, he's on the lam from a variety of authorities and organizations, accompanied by his new bride, Gwen, who has just as many alternate identities as he does. In fact, as their adventures through the Wild West atmosphere of lunar society lead them from one dangerous situation to another, introducing many classic characters along the way, she turns out to be Hazel Stone, of _The Rolling Stones_, one of the author's best early juveniles. The latter part of the book -- in which we finally meet a cat named Pixel, who does indeed walk through walls -- becomes an exercise in World as Myth, as well as a sort of "old home week" for many of Heinlein's earlier characters. By this point in his career, RAH also had learned to tone down the over-the-top writing style, especially in dialogue between the sexes, that make some of his mid-career books occasionally excruciating, so the whole thing flows very nicely. But I wouldn't recommend this book as anyone's first Heinlein novel -- you have to serve your apprenticeship just like the rest of us, with three dozen earlier novels, plus a few score short stories, or you won't catch half the references

</review>
<review>

My story regarding the way I encountered this book may quite differ from other reviewers' experiences. I came by this book randomly my first year of high school when my english teacher one day "forced" us to choose a book displayed in class to read IMMEDIATELY [oh, these long-gone years of high school...] so this was the book I ended up with. I honestly didn't know what to expect, other than I highly doubted I would end up liking this science-fiction type of story...This was not my usual cup of tea. Nevertheless, being the type of person who must finish a book always, regardless of if I enjoy it or not, I started reading the book, and before I knew it, I had concluded it. Although I may not disagree that starting elsewhere may be of great help, I do like to share the fact that I WAS one of these "random-pickers" and in this case, it did NOT turn out "disastrous" as many may gather to be the case. Or at least, it was not nearly as bad as one could anticipate for this kind of novel, since I fully agree that for science fiction works, one may find himself completely lost had he not first visited the earlier works... I allowed myself to be open-minded as I read the novel, allowing my mind to create perceptions and concepts I was not used to dealing with in the past since my exposure to science fiction was practically non-existent. I believe this approach helped me greatly in enjoying the book, and I quite enjoyed doing so. I found this book very entertaining, and given my usual taste in novels, very different from the rest of my book collection. This is something I am greatful for, since I'm often up for new experiences, and I will be honest in saying that after reading this book, it has opened up the doors to the possibility of my reading more, if not all, Heinlein accomplishments.
Enjoy :

</review>
<review>

there was hardly any mention of Pixel the cat, it was alot of dialog, tried to resemble a fast paced action book, but I found myself skimming over alot of the text after a while.......for a female I like action and for the plot to move along........there was too much about dumb sexual innuendos about swinging, and multiple partner sex.I felt like the over tone to the book was "well ok we all have alot of sex with LOTS of different people in the future" it was too focused on that ...I liked "Stranger In a Strange Land" alot better. By the time I was through with this book I kind of felt almost like he was just slapping stuff on a page.

</review>
<review>

First the good news. This book contains some of Heinlein's most interesting speculations, some of his most delightfully outlandish ideas (there is a cat who really can dematerialize and walk through walls, and enough skewed gender politics and sexual antics to give the book an X rating :-)), some of his most interesting characters (several of them new, and many old, such as Lazarus Long and Jubal Harshaw), and probably the most well developed presentation of the concept of The World As Myth. Heinlein uses this idea to tie together the different books, such as Glory Road, Stranger in a Strange Land, and The Number of the Beast, that are not a part of his Future History Series, by making them all members of the multiple timeline universe, or multiverse theory, that was discovered by mathematician Dr. Jake Burroughs in The Number of the Beast. It's a brilliant concept that unifies Heinlein's entire oeuvre under one integrating theory of temporal reality.

Now the bad news. The novel is very uneven and much of the action doesn't seem to go anywhere, as Dr. Ames and Hilda get chased from pressure dome to pressure dome on Luna, finally ending up at Time Corps Headquarters in another millenium. Even worse, the ending is possibly the most unsatisfactory of any Heinlein novel as it leaves the entire novel's story and denouement unfinished, perhaps because Heinlein intended to follow the book up with another novel. But as that never happened here it just ends in the middle of the action and there is nothing more to indicate how the story actually ends.

Half way through the book, it takes off in an unexpected direction (although that's part of the fun, since that's where you get to meet all the other characters from past novels), and is where one finally learns that this novel is subsumed under Heinlein's Temporal Multiverse concept. Still, there is little to motivate that based on the previous direction of the book. The hard-hitting, in your face, ultra-cool, smarter-than-you dialog that is one of Heinlein's trademarks, is so ubiquitous in the book so as to make it impossible to distinguish many secondary character's personalities from one another, as they all act and talk and think the same way--which is basically how Gwen Novak and Dr. Richard Ames behave too.

Finally, almost everyone in the book is apparently a completely larcenous, opportunistic, and immoral entrepreneur who would sell his own grandmother to the glue factory if he could get away with it, especially the citizens of Luna, who are proudly anarchistic, and who ardently believe that there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. But apparently that means it's okay to steal someone else's lunch if you can get away with it. After awhile this never ending procession of unrepentent and ebullient scalawags, rogues, and profiteers gets to be a little tedious, and seems to indicate a darkening of Heinlein's views on human nature which first became evident in his novel, Friday.

The novel is still well worth reading for Heinlein fans, but only if you're familiar with many previous characters, concepts, and history from earlier works. At a minimum, this would include Methuselah's Children, The Green Hills of Earth, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, Stranger in a Strange Land, The Number of the Beast, Glory Road, and possibly a few more that I'm forgetting. So if you're a newcomer to Heinlein, don't start with this book; start with the many better introductions to his fiction, such as those recommended on several websites developed to his work. If you do a Google Search on his name, you'll turn up several of these. The book assumes too much previous special knowledge to be comprehensible to the Heinlein beginner, and reading this one could turn someone off who might otherwise enjoy Heinlein with a little more knowledge and education.

All that having been said, the book is still worth reading, especially for Heinlein fans, since in this novel Heinlein fully develops the theory of The World As Myth that he introduced in The Number of the Beast. Another strong point, for all those Lazarus Long fans, is that Lazarus has a major role. And in the last part of the book, some of Heinlein's most memorable characters from previous books, such as Jubal Harshaw, Slipstick Libby, Mannie Davis, Rufus and Star (from Glory Road) Hazel Stone, Jake Burroughs, and others appear, and it's fun to have all of them in one place at Temporal Headquarters interacting together

</review>
<review>

Excellent Heinlein - I re-read this on my journey back from Denver this weekend.  It is the mid-point between The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and To Sail Beyond the Sunset, two of Heinlein's best.  This is not a standalone book, and would hardly make sense without at least reading The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Heinlein's best book, IMHO, and one of the finest pieces of science fiction ever published anywhere by anyone

</review>
<review>

The first two-thirds of this book are great. A great Heinlein thriller, with action and mystery.  Then it just gets weird. Almost as if Douglas Adams got hold of the manuscript and decided to finish it off.

</review>
<review>

This book is terrible.  RaH takes a perfectly good murder mystery and turns in into...well, I don't quite know what.  Halfway through the book, it seems as though he had set it down for several years, came back to it to finish it off, but had nothing but nonsense on the brain.  I've seen authors pull an ending out of their hat before, but this book absolutely takes the cake.  It's not even my book and I threw it in the trash so it won't waste another person's time ever again

</review>
<review>

Heinlein loads this book up with hooks in the early pages to catch your attention.  Unfortunately, these hooks turn out to be superfluous and lead nowhere.  This shoddy technique is found in all four of Hienlein's final books.  We are also treated to some of Heinlein's stock characters, dirty old men, horny female computers, naked adolescent girls, and dominant beauties who would be right at home in leather and whips.  Without these archetype characters most Heinlein novels written after 1970 would have a sparse population indeed.  As if this isn't enough, Heinlein drags in his usual cast of characters from his other novels as he is so prone to doing.  In spite of all their cameo appearances, this group remains dull and one dimensional throughout.  Heinlein's earlier novels written prior to 1960 are still fine fare for young people, especially boys.  This novel, as well as most of Heinlein's later work will be enjoyed primarily by a group of die hard fans and is definitely not for general consumption

</review>
<review>

First off, Starship Troopers is one of my top ten books period.  Well done Mister Heinlein.

This book?  In a word--UGH!   The dialogue is laughable at times, noxious at others, and sometimes entertaining enough to keep you reading to see what comes next.  Sometimes what comes next is plausible and exciting and entertaining.  Sometimes it is none of those.  And at one point, it's jaw-droppingly shocking and nauseating:
Main male character, former military officer, is someone you learn to like a lot as you read through the book.  Until you suddenly find out he's bisexual around page 300.  And had a homosexual experience he didn't find unpleasant with a Boy Scout Leader when he was a kid.  Thanks for springing that on us just before the end.

Bottom line:  Do not recommend.  But Starship Troopers--get 2 copies...one to read, one to lend out

</review>
<review>

The principles in the book 'On Becoming a Person' are good for anyone who loves all ideas on the Free Individual. Scientists who like theories of Personality must know this book

</review>
<review>

I found this book a lot more enjoyable than most other psychotherapy books I've read and made getting through my psychotherapy class a lot easie

</review>
<review>

This is Carl Rogers' classic and a must-read for everyone interested in getting real with themselves.  The critic who edited this version indicates very successfully that there are important parallels between Carl Rogers and Ralph Waldo Emerson. This makes Rogers' philosophy and psychotherapeutic approach a truly American one, one that places the individual in the supreme seat of ultimate authority over his/her own experience and existence. The main message that Rogers develops from many different angles is this one:  there is no beast in man, and therefore there is also no need to fear one's innermost thoughts, feelings, longings and desires.  "There is only man in man." This was surely a revolutionary message at the time, and  remains to be revolutionary to this day, as so many modern-day religionists cling to the idea of man's "innate badness."  Rogers most certainly debunks that destructive religious heritage in his work. This book is a pleasure to read.  It is written in very simple, yet precise language and goes down "like honey.

</review>
<review>


I first read this book as an undergraduate in 1988.  I occasionally read it today, as I sometimes see myself within it.  As I think of the changes I have gone through and look at the person that I have become (and becoming) I can't help but think that everyone who reads it will gain enormous insight into themselves.

It's a must read for every body.

</review>
<review>

I was given this book in 1973 when I was a senior in college and wished to attend graduate school in clinical psychology. The book transformed me. I went from page to page recognizing that Roger's spoke directly to me and the way I experienced my relationship with my inner self and soul. This book review is written with the purpose of encouraging others to read this masterpiece of psychological theory. ALL psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors, and social workers should be intimately familiar with Rogers and his concepts.

Of all the personality theorists and practitioners of psychotherapy such as Jung, Freud, Fritz Perls, Albert Ellis, Karen Horney, Harry Stack Sullivan, Eric Fromme, and Rollo May; Carl Rogers is the one infused with optimism and a belief in the goodness of mankind. He sees human beings as capable of vast growth and creativity; able to achieve ethical and loving relationships and encounters; and achieving a healed and healthy soul that directs us toward others and the world.

Do not confuse his discription of the state of psychological health with that of William James, Clark Hull, or James B Watson. These theorists see man's natural state as homeostatic, neither alert nor asleep, neither happy nor sad. Rogers on the other hand would assert that the Buddha-like state of homeostasis is not full psychological health. Full psychological health is involvment, attachement, love, relationship, creativity, fulfillment, achievement, and goodness.

Once the reader buys into Roger's Self Theory, which posits that we are self healing, self directed, and instinctively know psychological health from psychological disease; then he posits his therapeutic model by which the therapist facilitates the process whereby a client moves toward this wholeness. This method, client-centered psychotherapy, transformed the world of psychotherapy, education, medicine, and social services.

The book gives a very thorough and insightful look at how Roger's developed his theory. There are connections between his self theory and Christianity, but these are implicit rather than explicit. Then, further into the book, Roger's explains the method he developed that seeks to facilitate personal growth. The method is not intrusive but faciliates the natural growth process of the client rather than takes on the world-view or paradigm of the therapist. The method is ethical and has minimal opportunity for destructive practices by the therapist,if practiced as Rogers describes.

When you read this book you will understand why Carl Rogers is the most beloved of all the personality theorists. The phenomenologists who have examined Rogers believe that Rogers creates reality by facilitating the loving, healthy self in the soul of his clients. Well, if Rogers has created such a loving and affirming conception of mankind, then my hat is off to him for creating such a profound reality. I believe the existential-phenomenological concept that reality is a social construct but I must honor that Roger's has in fact created a beautiful, internally consistent reality with his theory of the self.

You will not be disappointed by this life changing book.

</review>
<review>

I read this book as a student in high school. I was dissatisfied with the way my education was going. Science and math were stressed and everything felt like a mold. My life lacked a human side, and I could not be myself, I had to be what my teachers wanted me to be. Reading this book helped to change all of that. Rogers shows a way to be human, rather than the machine that the scientific community stresses, but he does this in a scientific manner so it has merit within the scientific community. His theories for education are also amazing and have helped me to shape my own college education

</review>
<review>

Rogers writes this book on what seems to be an unsure basis about his theories on human psychology which i find to be very accurate, albeit ignored theories.  From Socrates, Descartes, and Sartes his theories, though accidental, seem to come from.  The evolution of the human being, the mystique of free will, and the pattern of thought are all described in this boo

</review>
<review>

As a student, the writings of Carl Rogers changed my life and view of therapy. I stopped worrying about techniques and other psychological constructs such the Id and Ego. After reading Carl Roger's writings, I started to focus on the person, client, and therapeutic relationship. Every person who is considering entering the counseling or therapy profession must read Carl Rogers. I have had the honor of hearing and seeing Carl lecture and demonstrate what he believed in vivo. Carl Rogers will go down in history one person who truly changed counseling and therapy

</review>
<review>

David Hume, who perhaps more than any other philosopher raised questions about our ordinary understanding of the world - after having made his long argument showing how our ordinary understanding of causation could not be logically proven nonetheless said  , "When I leave the room, I leave by the door and not by the window".
Jennifer Michael Hecht in her lengthy history of the concept of 'Doubt' , shows how it has informed and transformed the thought of a great variety of cultures.She claims that Doubt does not have negative paralyzing consequences only, but has often been the spur to world- transforming discoveries and thought. She makes a long historical survey from the pre- Socratics, and the Biblical Ecclesiastes and Job, through the Romans, and beyond until she reaches our time. She in the course of this writes about how 'Doubt' has worked to both undermine and establish the major religions of mankind. She also shows how different worlds doubt different things.
However what she does not do sufficiently is show how Doubt when taken to the extreme can undermine not only our faith in our world, and in ourselves but in the very meaning of all there is. She does not that is concentrate enough on the negative sides of Doubt, and the positive sides of Certainty.
Nonetheless this is a rich, original and informative study which those  who may well doubt many of its conclusions , can nonetheless learn from and enjoy.

</review>
<review>

This book deserves to be read and re-read.  This is a powerful, fascinating and in the end surprisingly moving book.

</review>
<review>

What's with the moron from Texas who reviewed this book while admiting that he or she didn't READ THE BOOK???   GEEZ.

</review>
<review>

This book blew my mind..the writing is clear and the ideas are exciting.  I thought it would be my summer read - but I was done in a few weeks -- I couldn't put it down. The book gives weight to the psychological, historical, philisophical and sociological aspects of the subject in a balanced and well presented format.  It is a delightful read..complex without being dry for a minute.  I highly recommend this book

</review>
<review>

There are millions of books out there offering to seduce you or browbeat you toward a particular belief system, but for the thoughtful philosophers, the nervous doubters, the nonbelievers (both lost and  found), and evangelical athiests, there are very few well-written, even-handed, inspiring texts.  Jennifer Hecht deserves a wreath of laurels for creating an exciting, readable, joyous work that belongs in the home of every open-minded, rational, seeker of enlightenment. This book should have its own section in bookstores.

I've been waiting for a guide like this for a long time.  My religious friends have their bible; but this is mine.  Mine.  My source of wisdom from the ancients.  My source of morality tales and life stories of my martyrs.

Errors? It's funny: the bible is supposed to be the word of a divine being, but it still has mistakes in it. Doubt: A History is the work of a human, for humans, for you. If I were offered a canteen of water after a week in the desert, I wouldn't complain if the canteen were the wrong color.  Let's get a little perspective here.  There are people who can't sleep at night for want of what is in this book. Solace. Warmth. Information. Camaraderie. Validation. And ultimately, hope. Hope that our species can save itself by tempering faith with reason

</review>
<review>

Reading the title and description of this book, I was excited about reading it. I found the writing not up to the task! Despite having a great deal of interest in the subject, after scanning the book I decided not to read it

</review>
<review>

Jennifer Hecht has written a courageous book in the face of the current groundswell of fundamentalist thinking. It is a very thoroughly documented history of some of the greatest thinkers in every era. She also sites many lesser known sages and provides us plenty of examples to support her argument. She uses a very personal sometimes humorous style that makes this tome compelling throughout the whole book. For those in need of a poignant quote Hecht provides them routinely in every chapter.

From the beginning, philosophers have been compelled to face their own beliefs and societal mores by proposing "Doubt". Doubt need to be understood for what it is and what it is not. There are many variants to the concept of doubt and they include amongst them-skepticism, agnosticism, atheism and humanism to name only a few. Skepticism is not "throwing the baby out with the bath water" but it is a discipline that does not accept things on the surface. It is the questioning of ideas on their own merit. Doubt should not be confused with atheism nor should it be considered as rational in every case. Understanding historical religions provides a mirror of today. At every level in this historical book, the issues are incredibly similar to those facing us.

The use of religion as a social control has been shown by Hecht from long, long ago. The reaction of those who cannot accept faith on its own merits marched right along with the constrictions of so many religions. Hecht describes this condition across cultures and time. It appears as if it is part of the human psyche though she does not suggest that tacitly or overtly.

Gods are considered in several ways. In some cases they are all powerful creators who control all events on earth. In others they are "hands off" creators who leave our machinations to ourselves. These two main types of gods have been understood throughout history and today are referred to as theism and deism. Balbus described four main reasons for belief. That god has foreknowledge of events; god has created the blessings of nature; the witness to awesome natural spectacles and the regularity of heavenly bodies. Balbus wrote thousands of years ago that "Only the arrogant fool would imagine that there was nothing in the whole world greater than himself. Therefore there must be something greater than man. And that something must be God." Michael Behe and his "Irreducible Complexity" owe Balbus for that quote.

Once cities formed and humans socialized, religions formed to speak to the beliefs of the people. They were formed more out of the need to create order from chaos rather the issue of good versus evil. (While an argument may be made that these two concepts are one in the same I would posit that they may really be a "nature versus deity" issue). As in current times, fundamentalist religious leaders and their flock require fundamental answers to questions. Answers have to be firm and unbending. They had to be relied on and passed from one generation to the next. They were designed for obedience and custom. St. Augustine lamented about the agony of hesitation that result from not owning the correct answer to moral dilemmas,

Thinkers on the other hand were not satisfied with the descriptions. Religion was described as a method to keep brutish people in line or for political ends as just two examples. Many doubters wrote about the grand scale of bloodshed that has historically been the cargo of religion. The central question of skeptics-if there is a god and he is good why are there catastrophes.

Today fundamentalists use a notion attributed to Martin Luther that essentially says that a lie for god is not a sin. It is easy to identify many of the lies spewed by religious leaders and it is not dissimilar to the tactics such as magic and sorcery used to make sacred points in the past.

"There are those who have argued that all our beliefs about the gods have been fabricated by wise men for reasons of state, so that men whom reason could not persuade to be good citizens might be persuaded by religion. Have not these also totally destroyed the foundations of belief?" Cicero

Hecht examines religion and doubts both historically and culturally. The book is not limited to western societies by any means. She cites Zen Maxim "Great doubt; great awakening. Little doubt: little awakening. No doubt: no awakening." The idea of a just God in a cruel world is the central point of doubt. She also sites a few ironical biblical notions of the doubt of Jesus. He asks God (who he is one third of) to relieve him of the burden of Calvary and in his dying (?) moments he cries out "Why you hast thou forsaken me?" This is confusing to the skeptic because it addles the understanding of
Jesus' immortality and his place within the trinity. It is not confusing to the true believer who uses faith as an explanation for all things not understood. Of course there are also believers who use questions and uncertainty to better understand their own faith.

"Even within the closed system of Christianity, doubt was understood as the only way to know anything."  Kierkegaard for example, saw the pitfalls of religions in the quest for a greater personal faith. Other belief systems used transcendentalism, koans and riddles. Eastern and western religions use doubt for faith building-negating, god in order to prove god and to push on in the search for something better or more meaningful.

With the age of enlightenment and reason along with technological and scientific breakthrough came a greater acceptance of agnosticism and atheism. While not all great thinkers professed a specific non belief, many described how the world could work without divine intervention. From Kant to Hume from Bacon to Darwin, serious if not specific questioning of a deity was rampant. Of course even with greater acceptance there has always been a reaction from those inspired by faith.

The greater examples include the Inquisition or the trials of Galileo but there also were many subtle one such as the term atheism becoming a euphemism for amoral and the constant reminder of the "Godlessness" of the communists. In our own country the backlash caused the changing of our dollar bills and National Anthem to include religious phrasing. It created the McCarthy witch hunts and the extreme fundamentalism that has swept this nation. The same fundamentalism drives people to vote for candidates and causes that are not in their own best interests.  Religious leaders have always felt and preached that unchecked reason leads to disbelief and the most startling and cogent point of  this book is its historical imperative and looking at what is being publicly discussed today.

Despite this, skeptics, atheists and humanists have prevailed and they have spoken out. As Bertrand Russell indicated "What the world needs is not dogma, but an attitude of scientific inquiry, combined with a belief that the torture of millions is not desirable, whether inflicted by Stalin or by a Deity imagined in the likeness of a believer." Werner Heisenberg used his scientific theory of uncertainty to point out the philosophical understanding that despite all of our knowledge and technology, we are objectively prevented from being certain

Later Sartre wrote about the need for atheistic morality. He viewed human actions as the only reality and those actions are dictated by morality as if it is a legacy. "In a godless universe there is a desperate need for each of us to be moral and to act for the betterment of life."

The anti Post modernist, Salmon Rushdie speaks to the cultural relativism of the west and how it seeks to avoid its old crime of cultural imperialism, now perpetrates a new injustice by denying universal enlightenment standards for human rights. Like Sartre, he indicates that atheism forces us to live better; it forces to live better because we are responsible for what we do and what we fail to do.

Hecht was almost gleeful in describing women rationalists and doubters and with good reason. Hypatia's sense that all evil is man made and that nature cannot be evil and Anne Royall citing with disgust that how the poor were exploited by the churches and missionaries just as they are today are but two examples. Others include Fanny Wright and her empiricism "observe, compare, reason, reflect understand'; and...we can do all this without quarreling." The great feminist and emancipation advocate Ernestine Rose and the English scientific humanist, Margaret Knight are also described as were many other great women thinkers.

It is difficult to give full justice to this book in a three page critique. It is a serious book highly researched and presented in a very readable way. I sensed some real joy by Jennifer Hecht as she wrote these words. "Doubt gets a lot done" claims the author.

</review>
<review>

Superb scholarship in an easy to read format. The author, Jennifer Hecht, is fully capable of recapitulating  the salient pericopes

</review>
<review>

I happened on this book in a bookstore last fall. It gave me a whole new way of looking at things because it presents the history of doubt (and heresy) as a long tradition worthy of admiration.

On the surface it is a history of certain strains of philosophical thought, doubtless influenced by the author's particular in-depth knowledge of French history, but it goes back to the ancient Greeks and tells the stories of many doubters in different cultures including Christians, Jews, and Muslims.

A common thread is that it can be dangerous to go against contemporary dogma, but it is also potentially liberating. It is this tone of liberation that makes this book exciting as one realizes that thinking for oneself and perhaps diverging from one's peers has a long and honorable history.

Before I read this book I had no interest in philosophy. This book has lead me into entire new realms of thought. I have since read several introductory books to philosophy and discovered that consciousness is a field that provides a lively intersection for science and philosophy

</review>
<review>

Jill Briscoe is fantastic.  This book is grounded in the Bible and gets to the heart of key areas that are vital to your Christian walk.  Not an anemic gloss-over, nor a "health and wealth" God-as-geanie recipe book.  Jill challenges the reader to make real grown-up Christian decisions about truly living your life for Christ, but does it in a wonderfully humble and loving style.  With plenty of scripture and real-life examples, it is one of those books that are easy and enjoyable to read, but not a quick read because it is constantly prayer and thought provoking

</review>
<review>

In a world where the dead rule, a band of the living take refuge in a prison. Seems a little too easy, but what could go wrong...don't worry about the dead ones. It's the living prisoners you need to watch out for. When Hershel opened that door and I turned the page...my jaw dropped to the floor. Totally wasn't expecting it. Volume 3 is the best so far.

</review>
<review>

Like many readers, I've been an on again/off again comicbook fan for many years... In the last couple of years (since the year 2000) I've returned to the fold, this time taking advantage of the many top-quality graphic novels out there, and Robert Kirkman's "Walking Dead" was one of the titles most frequently recommended to me since I started this reading spree.  It lives up to the hype.

I just finished reading books 1-4, which collect the first twenty-four issues of the comic, and man, I can't wait for book #5 to come out.  The series tells the story of a guy named Rick, a small-town cop and self-described Barney Fife who wakes up from a hospital stay to find the world changed around him -- it's zombie time, but zombie time with twist.  The twist is that, unlike all the movies and TV shows we've all seen, "The Walking Dead" has a much longer, open-ended story arc -- Kirkman and co. don't have to wrap things up in a tidy, two-hour package, so there is space for the story to unfold at its own pace, with character development that's more prolonged and in-depth than the usual zombie flick allows.  By the end of Book 4, the crisis has lasted about a year and Rick and his band of survivors are about twelve strong, having lost about an equal number of family and friends over the course of the story.  It's a taut, grim, reflective plot line that keeps your interest and compels you to read. I, for one, hope this isn't just another one of those neat B and W comix that kind of fizzle out, but rather that Kirkman really gets the chance to do what he says he wants to do, and follow Rick's saga as far as he can.  Anyway, I'm hooked.  As long as he keeps writing this series, I'll be first in line to buy it. [copyright joesixpack @ slipcue.com

</review>
<review>

I BOUGHT THIS BECAUSE IM A ZOMBIE FAN.I WISH I SAVED MY MONEY.THE MAIN CHARACTER IS A GUY WHO IS A COP AND HIS WIFE IS CARRYING SOME OTHER GUYS BABY.WHEN THEY ACTUALLY STOP JUMPING IN AND OUT OF BED WITH EACH OTHER THE BATTLES WITH THE ZOMBIES IS QUIT BORING.AND OF ALL PLACES TO BUILD A NEW LIFE THEY TRY TO DO IT IN A PRISON.HOW STUPID.LESS SEX AND MORE ACTION THIS STORY DESPERATELY NEEDS.RENT A GOOD ZOMBIE MOVIE WITH YOUR TEN BUCKS INSTEAD OF BUYING THIS GARBAGE

</review>
<review>

I've watched and read an unreal amount of zombie movies, comic books and stories and Robert Kirkman has one-upped them all! An amazing tale of survival and chaos

</review>
<review>

Excellent story and artwork.  The author really put some thought into the plotline.  He did a great job of using the overall concept to examine other societal issues in a fresh way.  If you are a fan of the zombie genre at all, then you are sure to enjoy this book

</review>
<review>

Safety Beind Bars is the third collected volume of Robert Kirikman's excellent The Walking Dead comic book series from Image Comics. This volume collects issues 13 through 18 and it continues that journey and travails of surviving in a world overrun by the undead. As the tagline of the books proclaim, in a world ruled by the dead we are forced to finally start living. This is so true in Safety Behind Bars as Kirkman and returning artist Charlie Adlard tell the story of Rick Grimes and his band of survivors as they come across what they think will be their salvation from the threat of the hungry dead: an abandoned prison complex.

The last we saw Rick, Tyrese, Lori and their ragtag band of survivors they had just been forced off the the presumably safety of the Herschel farm after the tragic events which transpired within its fences. But Safety Behind Bars starts off with the group discovering an abandoned prison complex that may just solve their shelter, safety and food problems. Once again, Kirkman's writing is tight and to the point. The characters of Rick and the rest of the survivors continue to evolve as the days and months pass by in the journey to survive. What they find in the abandoned prison is both safety and danger, but not in the way of most people thought it would come in. Sure there are still zombies both inside and outside of the prison's security fences, but as the enormity of the crisis finally crashes on everyone --- that there won't be a rescue --- the survivors reach the threshold of their breaking points to the detriment of everyone involved. It's especially tragic for Tyrese as a tragedy pushes him to acting on his base instincts in an act of vengeance that is both understandable and horrifying.

More people are introduced to the group in the form of surviving group of inmates left behind by fleeing prison guards. This new group acts to change the group dynamics and even add more conflict to what Rick and his group thought was going to be safety from the dead. Instead, human nature --- as Kirkman sees it --- causes more problems and danger than the dead represent. The events of The Walking Dead has really changed everyone involved and we lose more people to both living and the dead.

The volume ends in an even bigger cliffhanger than the previous two collected volumes. Like the best drama series on TV, The Walking Dead hooks you in with great writing, well-drawn characters and a great hook that pulls the reader in and doesn't let go. The cliffhanger at the end of the book just reinforces it and it is an understatement, to say the least, that I will be anticipating the next volume with bated breath to see what Kirkman and Adlard has in store for Rick and his people

</review>
<review>

Robert Kirkman, The Walking Dead: Safety Behind Bars (Image, 2005)

It took my library, for some reason, six months between this book's release date and them getting it in. It was worth the wait.

Safety Behind Bars is the third installment in Kirkman's Walking Dead series. It picks up right where book two left off, with Rick and his travelling companions getting into an abandoned prison which they can use as a fortress to guard against the predations of the zombies that now infest the planet. Rick, feeling guilty about leaving Hershel and his crew back at their farm in book two, goes off to get them, and they discover four people already hiding in the prison, leading to a new round of the get-to-know-you tension that drives the series.

This may be a comic book about zombies, but Kirkman has always stressed that the zombies themselves are not the focus-- the relationships between the stressed-out survivors are the focus, and once again, he delivers. This isn't survival horror so much as it is human drama (more often than not, it puts one in mind of George Romero's Dead trilogy in this regard). The zombie fans will, of course, still get a kick out of things, but those who have never been into monster movies will also find a great deal to like here. Kirkman's series gets stronger with every book; I'm wondering how long I'll have to wait for the next installment, which comes out (as I write this) next week, to show up at my local library. I'll be first in line to read it, though. ****

</review>
<review>

Rick Grimes and the group of survivors he leads have found yet another place where they hope to live and start life anew, a deserted prison.  While it seems to be a secure location, cleaning out the walking dead inside proves a monumental task, and the discovery of surviving prisoners makes the group grow by four more.  However the group is far from safe, as a threat from within begins killing them one by one.  It is one of the surviving inmates, or one of the group?  More twists and turns in what has become one of the best comics around today.  Highest recommendation

</review>
<review>

Back before the Zombie apocalypse swept the Earth, people were dying to get out of Prison.

When the Dead walk the Earth, the Living are dying to get in.

And the Walking Dead? Pretty much business as usual: they walk, they stink, they eat.

Robert Kirkman's ambitious rolling soap-opera-with-Dead-Folks continues to rumble with Volume 3, "Safety Behind Bars", in which our No-so-Merry travelers ditch the RV for the relative safety of an abandoned maximum security prison---well, abandoned if you don't count the wandering Dead, naturally.

As the gang digs in, they find Security in their new Bighouse home-away-from-home ain't exactly what you would call "Maximum". For one thing, every time you start to unclench, settle down, take a potty break---well, you know, those pesky zombies, who *always* seem to want a piece.

And then there are the four convicts (nothing "ex" about these guys) former patrolman Rick finds locked up in the prison's cafeteria, treating themselves to meatloaf, whose rapsheets---and intentions---may or may not be as garden-variety as they make themselves out to be.

Oh, and "Safety" unveils one major revelation---major by the time-honored standards of the Zombie genre, even: you don't have get bitten by a zombie and die to come back with a hankering for extra-rare Peopleburgers, oh nosirree.

Mix in our nerve-addled, exhausted heroes, shake hard, and stir, and you have a real Jailhouse Rock goin' on in the Slam.

Congratulations are due to Kirkman, who keeps a firm rein over his increasingly engrossing story even as he opens up the portals to even greater, and considerably sicker, horrors. Kudos as well to Charlie Adlard, WD's illustrator who took on the unenviable role, in Volume 2, of replacing initial artist Tony Moore.

It is to Adlard's supreme credit that his panels have approached the sumptuous level of detail and shadowplay that characterized Moore's initial efforts, throwing enough visual Crawling Kingsnake creepiness into "Safety Behind Bars" that Adlard deserves the ultimate compliment: he's making me not miss Tony Moore all that much.

The ruined world through which Rick and his companions travel is sick, haunted, blighted and deadly, but Kirkman and Adlard have made it brutally, addictively compelling, being as miserly as they can be with plot-twists and mysteries, while keeping the story's edge sharp enough to keep me coming.

Eat up.

JS

</review>
<review>

The best of the zombie movie genre (that is to say, Romero's films) usually have had a thing or two to say about human nature.  Robert Kirkman has been doing this to some extent in "The Walking Dead" all along, but perhaps more conscientiously with the third volume "Safety Behind Bars".  After the events of last volume, Rick, Lori and company find an abandoned prison which, ironically, is the perfect place to hide out from the dead wandering the world.  But there are still a few human prisoners, and while they seem a reasonable lot, it soon becomes clear that even when the dead roam outside, and humanity is on the ropes, a serial killer still feels free to act on his sick desires.

Kirkman's strong suit is characterization.  Indeed, this is the most important thing he brings to an otherwise standard genre piece.  His characters act and interact like real people would under these circumstances.  Despite the horror of the world, people are only so willing to trust one another, treat each other with decency, or to put their own self-interests on hold for the benefit of the survivors.  Indeed, even when circumstances would appear to be black and white, they blend into gray almost immediately.

Granted, Kirkman is telling a sprawling epic story here.  Not every character is important beyond eventually being cannon fodder (zombie food or otherwise).  Don't have any revelations about life and your place in the world if you're not in the top tier characters, because two pages later you will be dead.  Nonetheless, even if every character isn't the most important character, Kirkman does an excellent job of making each character distinct.

The artwork by Charlie Adlard and Cliff Rathburn is terrific.  They fill this volume with decayed corpses, gut-wrenching gore and death, at the same time depicting quiet moments of smiling children, happy couples, and general peace.  Particularly effective is the juxtaposition of the cold, bleak prison walls that are the only form of safety.  Naturally, we also know that the prison isn't completely safe, because there are zombies in every dark corner, and creepy convicts walking in the bright sunlight.

While Kirkman has taken on other comic book projects, I sincerely hope he keeps this one on the front burner.  It is thought-provoking, chilling, and, at odd-moments, heart-warming all at once.

</review>
<review>

The book is well sectioned into a broad, comprehensive range of topics from the war, technology, management, culture, world trade, etc. I found his approach to setting up in the US interesting (very non-Japanese).

The writing style keeps the reader's interest, although the  vacillation between formal and colloquial ("flunked") reflects the fact that two ghost writers were used - one American, one Japanese.

Overall, a good autobiography well written, comprehensive, with broad appeal to the leader, technologist, international businessman and the politician.

</review>
<review>

Hi everyone, I have just completed this book and found it not only an interesting one but a necessarry one to be read by any preson who is thinking to become a sucessful manager. This book is the journy of Akio Morita and SONY together.

Here Mr. Akio Morita not only talks about himself and SONY, but gives you sum nut-crackers about management also. once you understand the meaning of having fate with your emplees, getting new ideas and evaluating them, taking compitition and respecting compititors, building a brand, most importance of quality control, and ofcourse inspiring your coligues to go ahead, you come to know that you have just finished half of management training in one book. that's why I said it's a must read for managers.

after reading this if you think on it you will find a positive change in your attitude and views

</review>
<review>

I wavered awhile between three stars and two stars, because a company and entrepreneur as brilliant as Sony and Akio Morita seem to deserve at least three. However, in the end, the book's errors just piled too high. It opens well, with the story of Sony's founding and rise from leaking offices in a half-wrecked department store just after World War II, to becoming one of the world's great companies. This is a fascinating and inspiring story, and Morita tells it with flair.

Then, unfortunately, the downward spiral begins. Morita consistently takes his experience at Sony and assumes that every other Japanese company operates the same way, which is a fantastically wrong assertion (as the last thirteen years of Japan's seemingly endless recession have shown). He also frequently takes good basic management techniques, like trusting employees and giving them creative leeway, and tries to brand them as somehow uniquely "Japanese".

Then there are all the claims which are simply out-and-out false, such as Japan supposedly having the world's best construction technology. (It actually has perhaps the worst in the industrial world, as the Kobe earthquake unfortunately demonstrated.)  Or how Japan is supposedly a nation fanatically devoted to not wasting anything. (Yet it only recently discovered the concept of "second-hand goods", instead of throwing nearly-new furniture and clothing away. Plus, Japanese garbage trucks groan under the weight of the world's worst overpackaging.)

Reading between the lines, a person can see the roots of so many of the problems that Japan faces today. For example, Morita spends a good deal of words attacking the excess of lawyers in the United States. While this can, of course, sometimes be a serious problem, it also gives U.S. consumers a way to protect themselves. Japan's consumers, on the other hand, without an accessible court system, are almost completely at the mercy of bureaucrats and executives. Complaints about dangerous products or chemicals in drinking water are simply ignored, because they lack any threat of legal action. In another example, Morita praises the "trust" and agreements without contracts that exist among Japanese corporations. In reality, this "trust" is a death pact, as bankrupt inefficient companies are propped up by their buddies, instead of letting them fall and create openings for fresh and innovative entrepreneurs.

Other than the glimpses into Sony's history and corporate culture, this book is only interesting as a museum piece - yet another in the flood of "Japan is going to take over" books that came out in the Eighties. Although, of course, considering all the "Internet companies are going to take over" books that came out in the Nineties, not even this is a uniquely "Japanese" phenomenon.

PS: Anyone wanting a healthy reality check about the current state of Japan should read "Dogs and Demons" by Alex Kerr.

</review>
<review>

I can't put it down until I finished it within 2 days. I was kind of embarrassed by Mr. Akio's observation about China, but it is quite honest and down to earth. We Chinese should learn a lot from Japan's rising experiences. From this book, we can learn how to deal with the free world, how to improve the quality of our products, how to simply be open minded... Thanks for Mr. Akio  and his great book

</review>
<review>

This book is written by Mr Akio Morita,the man behind the corporate giant Sony Corporation.He was a visionary and dreamer who not just dreamed but also made it possible.Let's not forget, the Sony Corporation was founded at the backdrop of nuclear attack on Japan by the United States.But he was never jealous of America.Instead he was very much influenced by the progress of US.He always tried to replicate the progress of US by closely watching the American business model.The book is full of anecdotes about the Japanese lifestyle, his thoughts on Management and his association with SONY.So,just read

</review>
<review>

Of my 3 favorite books, this is one of them.  Made in Japan is part autobiography, history, economics, Japanese culture and business all rolled in to one.  The writing style is one of the most comprehensible I've ever read.  Very interesting, insightful, and informative.  Akio Morita is a very cool guy, and he's lead an interesting life.  If you like business, economics, or Japanese culture, this book is definitely worth the read

</review>
<review>

 and quot;Made in Japan and quot; gives us insight in to Japanese working ethos, their dedication and vision. It is a story of SONY, a company that is world leader in many electronic and IT products, told in simple manner by creator of SONY Mr Akio Morita. Coming from him, one has to believe every word of it. It is fascinating to read and travel along, as the story progress, with a small seedling's growth in to a big corporate giant that SONY today is. No brashness, no adoption of unfair means, no showing off its economic strength. It is a plain simple story of a dreamer who dared to dream and succeeded. An interesting reading

</review>
<review>

What a great read! Bringing Down the House is a superb story that reads like a fast-paced action thriller, but the kicker is that everything in this story really happened. Once i started reading this story, I couldn't put it down until the last page. I truly believe that its a must have for any serious fan of gambling and/or blackjack. It will inspire and give hope to the hopeless blackjacker such as myself. I doubt that you will be disappointed

</review>
<review>

This true story really takes you into the hair raising lifestyle of Vegas, and then propels you into the blackjack world and the realities of getting caught at counting cards.  Hell of a read, makes me want to learn to count cards

</review>
<review>

Bringing Down the House tells the story of Kevin Lewis and his teammates from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who formed a team to win millions from Las Vegas by counting cards at blackjack.  The story focuses on "Lewis" and chronicles how he is brought into the group and becomes entranced by the excitement and the money.

The book reads like a novel.  The author's background in fiction may have influenced his nonfiction style.  While it's possible that the author takes minor liberties with some of the facts, the book DOES make for an enjoyable read.

The team has great success due to the fact that their approach is much more efficient than the standard card counting strategy used by individual players.  With multiple players sitting at the tables keeping track of the "count" and a "big player" roaming around, the big player can move from table to table when the conditions are favorable for winning.

A rudimentary explanation of the card counting methods used is given, but the book is definitely NOT an instructional manual on how to make money in Vegas.  What it IS is a fast reading story of how a bunch of college kids outsmarted the system and how the money and success affected them..

</review>
<review>

In the mid-1990s, a team of American science students took on the might of the Las Vegas casinos, and came home with millions of dollars. Hardworking engineering students during the week, they became high-rolling gamblers by the weekend and proved that, in one game at least, the house doesn't always win. The game was blackjack, and the students were from the world-renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Their audacious winnings marked the climax of an arms race between casino and player that began 40 years earlier with maths professor Edward Thorp. He realized that the one feature of blackjack that made it different from other casino games also made it possible to beat. The unique way blackjack was played, the odds were not always the same in every round. After each hand is played, the used cards are put to one side, and not shuffled back into the deck. They are effectively removed from the pool of available cards in the next round. So in any given hand, the odds of getting an ace will decrease if an ace has been played in previous rounds. Aces are beneficial to the player, so having a smaller proportion of aces in the deck shifts the odds further in favour of the house. Previous gamblers had realized this fact, but no one had the insight to come up with a practical system to take advantage of this phenomenon.

Thorp announced his strategy at the American Mathematical Society in 1960 and news quickly spread. He was approached by the mysterious 'Mr X', a gambler and businessman with strong links to the underworld, who was eager to see whether his strategy could make real money. Mr X put up 10,000 dollars to test the system. Unaware of Mr X's mobster links, Thorp agreed, and playing according to his strategy in Reno casinos, managed to more than double his bankroll in two days of play! In the early 1990s, however, a new breed of counters emerged. They had a greater level of resources, training and attention to detail than the casinos had ever encountered. Semyon Dukach, Katie Lilienkamp and Andy Bloch were all studying at MIT when they heard of card counting as a way to make extra money. MIT had a history of card counting. Indeed, Ed Thorp himself had developed the original system whilst at MIT, using one of the most powerful computers in the world at that time. MIT counters played in teams, usually of three or more. Each individual was given a specific role. Some would simply watch tables, and wait for favorable situations to appear (the 'spotters'). They would call in the expert strategist (the 'controller') who would fine-tune exactly when was the optimum moment to play, and how much to bet according to the cards being played. The controller would secretly signal to a 'big player' who would then join a table and place a massive bet at exactly the right moment.

The trio played blackjack all over the world on and off throughout most of the 1990s, making money wherever they played. Their exploits only came to an end when Griffin Investigations, a private agency hired by casinos, identified the members of the MIT teams after months of surveillance. From that point on a team player even entering a casino would be swiftly ejected. Card counting still occurs wherever blackjack is played, though as casino technology advances it becomes harder and harder to make anything but a small profit. Facial recognition technology, computerised blackjack tables and rule changes are slowly eating away at the small advantage possible through counting. But the lure of easy money makes it unlikely the casinos have seen the last of the counters. For 40 years they have found ways to make profit, and their ingenuity is bound to succeed again

</review>
<review>

It's a Robin Hood-story of a group of math students from the MIT-ivory tower using their brains to get rich at Las Vegas giants' expenses. I must say it is truly a page turner and if you weren't interested in Blackjack before, you increase your chances of becoming. Looking back, the story is almost too clich�, but if you immerse yourself without skepticism, you'll will love it!

Just a comment: the book does not make you better at Blackjack, I understand that Knock-Out Blackjack by Vancura  and  Fuchs is the one to turn to

</review>
<review>

Beating the odds in Vegas is much harder than I thought. Leave it to a group of MIT braniacs to figure it out. This story is incredible; so much deeper than the "card counting" I expected. Their system was incdedibly elaborate. This is not a book you can read on your flight to LV and hope to gain an advantage. This is about a system that was years in the making. I"m facinated by how successfully this system worked - to the tune of millions in winnings.

</review>
<review>

This book has spurred TV specials and recieved many rave reviews. After getting sucked into one of the many TV specials talking about counting cards and beating Vegas I decided to look into the issue and this book, as I had heard, was the `one' to read. While reading the book I found that it was extremely hard to put down and that I essentially had goose bumps imagining the pure brilliance of these college kids.

The book is absolutely amazing, the story of 6 brilliant MIT students who are taught by a math professor how to count cards and pass these counts to other teammates unknown to security and other casino personnel. Counting the 312 cards included in the 6 deck shoe and getting an accurate count is unbelievable. The book goes into great detail explaining all of the members of the team. The reason a one man team would be impossible to pull off is because raising your bet after the cards got hot, and lowering the betting as the cards cooled off, would be seen as very suspicious to the dealer and you would be made known to security. Using an intricate team is how millions of dollars were made.

The first member of the team will start out at the table placing the minimum bet every single hand while counting cards (A high card, 9 -Ace, counts as -1, while a low card, 2-6, counts as +1. Thus a high count means that many low cards have been drawn out of the shoe leaving many high cards). This team member is generally dressed very modestly and doesn't draw too much attention to themselves. After the count gets `hot' this member will call in the big spender. The big spender is the gambler who attracts all the attention, wearing extravagant clothing and betting large sums of money on nearly every hand. After the big spender is seated the count must be passed, the most crucial part of the entire operation. The passing of the count has to be done without the two teammates acknowledging each other. Let's say that the count is +8, after a few hands of them both at the table the minimum better will leave the table making a comment to the dealer such as, `Well I think my luck is about up, I'm going to go hang out by the pool for a while.' The word pool is not in reference to the casinos swimming pool but actually the game of pool in which the 8 ball is commonly associated. With that simple comment the teammates never look at each other while passing very vital information that is nearly undetectable to the dealer or the casinos high tech security equipment, pure brilliance.

The true art of counting cards is to count cards while being so animated, or seemingly uninterested in the cards that in seems to the untrained eye that you not actually counting cards. Although counting cards is not technically illegal it is not something that casinos permit. Games that are located in casinos are to the house advantage but once that advantage swings the way of the gamblers, the casino will do all that is in its powers to have that individual removed. Once a card counter is caught they are generally asked to leave the premises and are banned for life.

This book is something that is for everyone, a good way to pass time on a plane trip or a great book to read on vacation to get your blood pumping. I would recommend this book to anyone that enjoys reading thrillers, or books that show the underdog consistently beating the heavy favorite, because after all, how can you not root for the underdog?

Brian Bowe

</review>
<review>

This is a fun, fun book. Mezrich opens the door to a world that some of us are unfamiliar with and it was a fascinating expose. You will enjoy this book even if you don't gamble and at just over 250 pages it is a quick read

</review>
<review>

This book is magnificent. I found myself so encrossed in the story. I am just amazed at how Nora Roberts can make you feel. The romantic scenes with Margo and Josh were so powerful. The passion, desire and love between the two of them was so strong. You could only wish you had that type of love in a lifetime. Bravo Nora you are magnificent

</review>
<review>

I have to say I love this book, I could not put it down!

</review>
<review>

This is my third trilogy by Nora and so far so good.  I like Margo, the main character and her relationship with Josh. She is fiesty and fun. The friendship between the women is also nice to read about.  It will be interesting to find out if the dowry really does exist.  I look forward to learning more about the other two women, especially Laura!

</review>
<review>

Daring to Dream is the first story in the Dream Trilogy.  It focuses on Margo Sullivan, the daughter of the Templeton's housekeeper.  Margo's best friends are her two "sisters" whose stories are told in the other books.  Margo is beautiful and has always had plans to see the world and be famous.

Margo gets her wish, becoming a famous model in Europe, but a scandal involving her agent takes it all away.  With nothing left, she returns home to Templeton House.  Josh Templeton, the heir of the fortune, has had a crush on Margo since they were kids.  He jokingly gives her the idea of opening a store, which of course, she takes seriously.  With the help of her sisters, she finds a building near Fisherman's Wharf and opens Pretenses, a store that customers can purchase high-end second hand items.  Margo sells a lot of her own things that are no longer needed to get things going.

Josh and Margo go the usual route in a romance relationship, but I enjoyed reading it tremendously.  Josh is not the spoiled heir, he's a lawyer for the Templeton Hotel chain, and actually goes to work.  He sees a new side of Margo when she starts her store, which draws him to her even more.

Intertwined in this story is the one of Seraphina, a young girl who killed herself when the love of her life died.  She left behind a treasure buried somewhere in the cliffs by Templeton House, and the girls hope to someday find it.

This is also a great story of the love and friendship between Margo, Kate and Laura.  They have completely different personalities, but together, they make a great team.  They are there for each other no matter what, no questions asked.  We should all be that lucky in our lives.

This was a great start to the series.  I recommend it to anyone.  If you've read Nora Roberts before, you know you won't be disappointed.  If you've never read one of her books, this is a great one to start with

</review>
<review>

DARING TO DREAM is the first book in the Dream trilogy. An interesting tale about Margo Sullivan who had visions of grandeur but wouldn't let her dreams die. She grew up in Monterey, California in a mansion. She was treated like a family member, but was actually the daughter of the housekeeper. Her mother tried to keep Margo's feet on the ground, but it didn't work. She went on to have a successful modeling career until scandal ruined it and caused her to go bankrupt, but she continued to dream. She retreats to her hometown and back into the friendship with Kate and Laura, her two childhood friends who grew up in the same house with her.

Sound like a normal romance - it is up until the first few pages, then it has jumps and turns that are very unexpected. Margo ends up talking her buddies into a business venture that saves each of them from the ghosts that hound them.

One thing that is interesting is that the running of the business is not glamorized and is shown as very hard work, but still enjoyable. This runs more along the real lines of actual life than fantasy, but has a dose of "real life" now and then for good measure.

DARING TO DREAM is a very enjoyable book. The only trilogy that I liked better than this one was the Born In series!

</review>
<review>

Daring to Dream is the first book in this must read series.  I started it thinking I'd read a few short chapters before calling it the night...I was wrong...Could not put this book down and believe me I tried several times but just couldn't do it.  I was tired at work the next day but a tiredness that was well worth it

</review>
<review>

I really enjoyed this book from the first page. Nora Roberts just makes you feel as though you know the characters so well. It is a wonderful 3 part story of 3 sisters of the heart. It takes you through each of their lives and their evolution into the women they are today. This first book is focused on Margo, a maid's daughter. She has huge dreams and sets out to find them and make them come true. Read this book to see her set out, find and lose her self and then come full circle back to the place she started out

</review>
<review>

I really like the Characters in this book 3 girls raised as sisters Laura- Rich Girl parents own several hotels around the world. Katie- Parents Died and is a cousin of Laura's parents take her in after her parents traggic death. Then there is Margo- the daughter of the house keeper her father died in a boating accident lost at sea when she was 4 and they moved to America from Ireland. Laura, Katie, and Margo were raised as sisters and were best friends and they each have their own struggles and dreams. Laura marries young in life to a man whom both of her friends and her brother Josh dislike. Katie goes to Harvard After she graduates a year early. And Margo's mom is pressuring her to go to Harvard with Katie but instead runs off to hollywood and Europe to become a model against her moms and Josh's wishes. Margo returns 10 years later life in shambles who wil help her pick up the pieces to her broken carreer and overdue bills. This is a great book I read it in 24 hours

</review>
<review>

I enjoyed this book very much. I am going to read the whole dream trilogy just so I can find out what happens to Josh and Margo. I thought that  and quot; Daring to Dream and quot; was an excellent book, but the ending was slightly unrealistic. Why would Josh forgive her when she was kissing another man? Overall, the book was good, though

</review>
<review>

This is a great book if one is interested in learning more about the world of LBO's and the dealings of wall street. If you read Den of Thieves and liked that one you'll definitely love this one

</review>
<review>

An enjoyable book which offers a good insight into the LBO business and the workings of Wall Street during the 1980s. There are some serious amounts of money involved and some very amusing characters - It almost reads like a comedy when detailing the exploits and excess of the chairman of RJR Nabisco with his fleet of company jets and "superstar" cronies.

Essentially, it reads like a thriller and although a little confusing (and perhaps too detailed on the history / background in parts), it is nevertheless a solid, enjoyable read and a 'keeper'. Recommended

</review>
<review>

Nearly two decades after the leveraged buyout of RJR Nabisco, Wall Street is back where it started.  The people have changed, but greed and scheming to get to the top is constant.

I found the book extremely well written and incredibly researched.  Though I'm a frequent reader of the WSJ and a veteran of M and A and venture capital, I learned more about what happens on the inside in these mega-mergers and leveraged buyouts than anywhere else.

The only fault of the book is the flipside of its strength.  There is so much in-depth detail on so many characters that I found it difficult to keep track of the players and their roles.

If I had to recommend one book on how Wall Street runs, this would be the book

</review>
<review>

The story was very interesting and i couldn't put the book down.

</review>
<review>

Excellent.  This book is to Private Equity what Monkey Business is to Investment Banking and Liars Poker is to Bond Traders.  A must read for any one who deals with Wall Street

</review>
<review>

This has to be the most boring book I have ever read. Well, I haven't quite finished it yet as it's taking forever to push my way through it. And I'm sure that more boring books exist, I just haven't read them.



I wanted to learn about KKR and LBOs - particularly as a division of KKR recently bought one of the vendors supplying my own employer. I was hoping for the big picture of what took place as well as some entertaining anecdotes. But this book consists largely of page after page of uninteresting minutiae of conversations between the various parties involved. There really is no need for such detail and a little bit of editing could have halved the size of the book without losing any essential information. And a bit of theoretical discussion would have been far more valuable than some of the biographical material. It felt a bit like watching someone else's home video. It probably means a lot to the people involved, especially as they'll get the in jokes and quirks of the participants, but it's painfully boring for strangers forced to watch it out of politeness.

I'm sure that much of the conversation is fiction anyway. People don't reliably remember this level of detail of converstaions over a period of years. What are remembered are broad brushstrokes - and this is what the author should have written.

There are occasional moments of entertainment - like Ted Forstmann obsessing about the evils of junk bonds. But most of the characters seem quite flat and uninteresting.


The fact is: I wanted some of this information in this book. As it provided some of this, albeit with a lot of suffering on my part, I'll give it two stars.

Update: Well I did finish this book eventually. My final opinion is much the same

</review>
<review>

I bought this for two reasons: because I wanted to learn about LBOs, and because I had heard that the journalism was good, and was hoping for something like 'The Right Stuff'.  The cover of my copy blurbed 'unflawed' writing, and 'all the suspense of a first-rate thriller'.

The last is true only if your expectations of a first-rate thriller reach no higher than Michael Crichton.  The writing is a plodding 'you are there' journalism-school pastiche of the New Yorker: Gulfstreams are sleak, CEOs are silver maned, side-kicks are bantams, lawyers look like they model for GQ, etc. Investment bankers bark, curse, are struck by inspiration, work off grudges and wave their lingams around at the sort of comic book level Stan Lee would scorn.  I finally realised, after slogging through the first 200 pages or so, that 'Barbarians at the Gate' is, in large part, essentially porn for aspirational middle managers.

There is no-one in this book whom I would want to know, unless I were a sociologist.  But I don't even trust the sociology, because the psychology is so superficial.

I did learn something about the process of LBOs, and for that a star is in order.  I didn't particularly enjoy learning it.

</review>
<review>

There are plenty of good summaries of this book here, so I'll briefly make one point:  this book is a good read, but the business climate has changed dramatically since it was written, and many of the characters here are retired or have moved to very different investing styles.  So the book is worth reading, but I'm not convinced it is as timely as say Lowenstein's books on the Internet bubble or Hedge Funds, or any of the many Enron books out now

</review>
<review>

This book covers in depth the LBO of RJR Nabisco in the late 1980s. Recommended to me by an investment banker friend that knew I wanted to go into M and A work, I decided to read it. I thought the book was excellent, but maybe unnecessarily long. The authors were meticulous in explaining everything about the deal and those involved - from the history to every single meeting and telephone conversation. The two authors never mentioned whether they were present during every conversation or not, but did an incredible job at recreating all that happened nonetheless. For someone interested in pursuing a top Wall Street job, this book is a must. For everyone else that just likes good non-fiction, this book does a superb job at representing the greed of an era

</review>
<review>

It's amazing the number of ways you can get ripped off.  If you learn one thing from this book, it's that you've got to watch your a**

</review>
<review>

Frank Abagnale is the subject of the movie "Catch Me If You Can" and a proven master of deception and the "con". Since his reform many years ago, he has spent decades working with the FBI and the private sector to improve their defenses against the modern criminal.

"The Art of the Steal" is a practical, no-nonsense book that lays out the schemes, subtrefuge, and methods employed by criminals to steal from businesses and individuals. Abagnale details how the cons work and traces them from relatively simple cases of cashing bad checks and street vendor fraud to cyber-thievery and identity theft. Of course, he also provides ideas and solutions to protect yourself from being "had" or victimized.

Abagnale has a lot of credibility in this field and his suggestions are right on the money, so to speak. He is practical, down-to-earth, and insightful. This book provides a wealth of information on how to protect yourself and your family from a ruthless, intelligent, resourceful criminal element.

</review>
<review>

For those of you comparing the literary qualities of this book with "Catch Me If You Can", note that Abagnale did not write that book. He only told his story to the real writer. You can read Abagnale's comments about this at his website at http://www.abagnale.com/comments.htm.

Having said that, I will say that Abagnale has plentiful good advice about taking precautionary steps to protect yourself from fraud. If you don't feel sufficiently informed on that subject, this book is an eye-opening source of information about the threats and the steps you can take to protect yourself.

Abagnale's grasp of complex computer security topics isn't very strong. But that is a fast-changing subject that might be better researched online than in books, which are necessarily a bit behind the times

</review>
<review>

This book by Frank Abagnale has helped me greatly.

Thank you Frank

</review>
<review>

A must read! Captivating, informative and educational. Don't allow yourself to become an unwitting victim. Impower yourself with Frank's knowledge.

</review>
<review>

This book holds alot of great information on how to protect yourself, it can even make you paranoid, about who has all your info!  It is also a great story in itself.  A must read with the book Catch Me If You Can

</review>
<review>

Sidney Homer delivers what he promised - a lengthy and extremely detailed history of interest rates.  Almost completely absent is any commentary on why interest rates have changed through history.  Any observations of cause and effect are left up to the reader to discern.  But as a pure history text, the book is readable and thorough both in breadth and depth

</review>
<review>

Financial assets grow in value with the passage of time.  For debt, we call this  and quot;interest and quot;, and for equity, we call it  and quot;yield and quot;.  Homer's book is the superbly recorded history of this phenomenon.  Perhaps its greatest value is that when you hear or read a new theory, you can assess its validity by comparing the theory's  implications with the historical evidence

</review>
<review>

I really liked this one because of the characters... and of course the background being about wine.. and the lifestyle of those who create it :)  I definitely recommend this one.

</review>
<review>

I couldn't put the book down when I first bought it.  Here it is months later and I've read it again.  The story is great!  I do wish that Nora Roberts would have continued the story maybe into a trilogy.  I would like to know more about what happens to Sophia and Ty.  Also Pillar and David-----  I highly recommend this book.  Its definitely one of her BEST

</review>
<review>

This is one of Roberts' best.  This has a great plot, wonderfully human characters and an excellent background and back story.  The book gives an excellent taste of California wine country as well as a thrilling plot.  Tyler and Sophia are a great pair to get to know as well as Sophia's mother and grandmother.  Definitely a book to keep you turning each page to find out what happens next

</review>
<review>

Being a guy, I wasn't raised reading romance books. After reading my first Nora Roberts book I was hooked. Nora has such a range in her books that there is something for everyone. This is one of her best. I started this book on the morning of a day off from work. After putting it down once to eat, I had it done by mid afternoon. The plot is intense, the characters are easy to get connected to. This would make a great movie. Nora...make this a trilogy please. Don't miss this one

</review>
<review>

Once again, Nora has created a page-turner.  While helping us to get to know the Giambelli women, Nora weaves a tale of intrigue, mystery, betrayal and deceit.  And just when you think you have it all figured out, she surprises us with a twist at the very end.  As usual, you will know the characters so well that you will hate for the story to end

</review>
<review>

this book is a lifetime movie if one was ever written.
great plot and character

</review>
<review>

I thoroughly enjoyed the storyline (Falcon Crest revisited) of The Villa.  The characters, plots and descriptions of the Napa Valley as well as a lesson in "great" wine making only add to the saga of the Giambelli family and the corporate espionage that unfolds during the course of the novel.  I particularly enjoyed the relationship development of Pilar and David Cutter and while some readers felt that Sophia's character was a bit cold, I enjoyed watching her "tough guy-hard shell" antics soften as she accepted the love of a man and the warmth and care that he brought forth with that love.  The climax and the revealing of the villain was a complete surprise to me.  I had narrowed it down to two people (neither of which were the actual killer) and never guessed the real "bad guy" until it was all played out.
Romance, mystery and strong family ties are what make this story a winner for me.

</review>
<review>

`The Villa' was magnificent Nora Roberts's novel. The basis story is about a family of wine makers who find themselves fighting to save the family business after numerous murders, bad business, affairs and fire ~ all with a mix of romance. This book has some nice twists that you will enjoy. If you are looking for fun romance with a story I would also suggest Kate Angell `Crazy for you' and The Ice House by Minette Walters

</review>
<review>

I have read most of Crichton's books. I obviously got sucked into his books with Jurassic Park, Congo, and Sphere. I have continued to read his books through Prey and State of Fear. Crichton's writing has evolved from a lot of science woven into an action story to overwhelmingly science heavy with a good story underneath that.

Jurassic Park is an entertaining, action filled book that has quite a bit of science and mathematics that enhance the storyline and the characters. Jurassic Park is one book that I look back into my childhood with the fondest of memories and it truly captured my imagination. I wish that everyone could have the same reading experience that I had with Jurassic Park

</review>
<review>

This book has one thing going for it right from the get go: dinosaurs!  You know its going to be action packed right there.

Now you are probably saying I already saw the movie why would I want to read the book.  Well I am not going to spoil the suspence for you but the book is very different then the movie.  Some people who get killed in the book do not get killed in the movie and some people who survive in the movie do not survive in the book.

Mr. Crichten you kept me guessing until the very end and even then I usually guessed WRONG!  Except that I guessed there were going to be dinosaurs from the cover and also I had seen the movie.

Anyway great job!

I give this book FIVE STARS because it is just that good

</review>
<review>

Though saying "my favorite book ever" isn't saying much, this really does deserve to be a best-seller. First, if you are new to Jurassic Park, watch the movie first, it will make a lot more sense. Now, get into this.

There is quite a bit scientific stuff going on, much of it is with Dr. Wu so if you don't care or don't know what the heck he is talking about, you can skip it. There is plently of action and suspense to go around. I assume you know the plot but if not: a crazy old man creates dinosaurs from DNA they thought was gone. He invites some scientists and others to test out the park before it opens. But a worker there tries to profit from the new-found animals and he corrupts the park to move on with the heist. Unfortunetly, the fences go down and the dinos are let loose...with the people inside.

The characters are many, and all have a distinct personality. Ian Malcolm, a mathematician, is SURE, even before he sees it, that the park will fail and he describes (MANY TIMES) Chaos Theory. The park creator, John Hammond is an arrogant old man who does not listen to the others concerns. Now, the way this differs from the book is many deaths are switched. Some survive here and die in the movie and vice-versa. Also Hammond in the movie is a sweet grandpa-like charcater, not a jerk. And in the film the kids ages are switched. Which reminds me, Lex here is extremely annoying and should have been dropped.

Anyway, this has so much more stuff then the movie did and at 400 pages, there is a lot of stuff. The carnivores are terrifying and even after reading it 3 times, you still fear for the people in danger. So now, I say go get this or at least check it out from the library. I loved the movie. But this blew it out of the water

</review>
<review>

Easily one of the best and most influential science fiction stories ever written

</review>
<review>

When I read that Michael Crichton made almost a billion dollars for  Jurassic Park, I was a little surprised. I saw the movie, it was ok, not to my tastes though. Then I read the book. Then I knew why.

The book is similar to the movie, but is much more entertaining. The book was not quite as fast as a read as some of his other books, but the plot is so enjoyable that it doesn't matter.

The story involves a group of people including entraprenors, scientists, a lawyer, a computer programmer, and two kids travel to the newly built Jurassic Park. The park is like a zoo, except the animals are actually dinosaurs. When the computer programmer is bought out by a rival company, he ends up turning off the security systems of the park and the dinosaurs start running wild. This creates a very interesting tale.

The plot is fast pased. The story gets the audience more involved  then it did in the movie. The characters behave more realistically.

Overall I would suggest this book to everyone. This book is similar to other Crichton books, so Crichton fans will also enjoy this book

</review>
<review>

Wow, what a book!  In my opinion, considerably better than the movie.  Particularly the first 80 pages are very, very strong.  Crichton's technique of repeatedly shifting points of view -- from the doctor in the Costa Rican jungle, to the vacationing family, to one biologist, to another, and eventually to our heros, Sattler and Grant, and then Malcolm etc -- is tremendously effective.  Normally this would be confusing but somehow he pulls it off.  We can all smell what's coming -- dinosaurs! - and yet we want to see it!  We need to see it!

I agree that the characters here are weak, which I find rather baffling from so talented a writer.  It's quite upsetting really.  That said, because the science and suspense are so well done, I got over it.

The level of detail in the book is what makes it special.  Not just the dinosaurs, but the plants, the intricacies of Ingen and corporate patent law, etc are all very well done.  Some of the plot elements - the total failure of the park, Nedry's ability to control it while no one can do anything, the total absensce of any weapons, etc - are ridiculous, but again, because the elements of supsense and wonder are so powerful, and so well done, the book works HUGE.  I enjoyed the movie quite a bit as well but this novel is just superior.  Right now.  Today.  Everyone should read it!

</review>
<review>

I finally got around to reading the book "Jurassic Park" by Michael Crichton. Paleontologists Dr. Alan Grant and Dr. Ellie Sattler, chaos mathematician Dr. Ian Malcolm and lawyer Donald Gennaro are invited by Hammond to his resort island off Costa Rica. To their astonishment, they discover that Hammond and his InGen Corporation using fossil DNA, supercomputers and gene sequencers have been able to clone dinosaurs at the Jurassic Park. The group is also joined by Hammond's grandchildren Tim and Lex Murphy. They all set out on a park ride to check out the dinosaurs when all hell breaks loose.

The story in the book is deeper, darker and much different than the movie. I hadn't expected this. The book is just as nailbiting as any Crichton book and I ended up being awake until 5AM (and yet another weekend sleep went down the drain). Malcolm with his chaos theory ramblings is highly entertaining. There are more varieties of dinosaurs introduced in the book than in the first movie. Crichton's books always have some smartass way of division into sections. This book is divided into "iterations", with each one slowly progressing to form a fractal accompanied by Malcolm's quotes alluding to the same. The underlying message of the book is that genetic engineering without careful understanding of the consequences can be devastating. Though written back in 1990, the book's takes on genetic engineering are surprisingly accurate seen in today's context. This is an excellent pop sci-fi thriller

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<review>

I enjoyed this book immensely.  If you loved Perfume by Patrick Suskind, you may enjoy this as well although
not as much.;

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<review>

I have read many inpiratational books.  This one is particularly unique in that it is both down to earth and offers the author's refreshing and uplifting perspective.  The author has many rich pearls of wisdom to share and the personal writing style makes you feel as if this soulful sage is sitting right there next to you.  I enjoy this book and keep it handy for those days when everything seems to be going the wrong way.  I definitely recommend this book to anyone who could use some refreshing inspiration.

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<review>

A primer in how we should live, "Open Your Mind, Open Your Heart" is an endearing collection of words to the wise. Like having a favorite grandparent at your side to remind you of these things, the book offers guidance in life.

The first half of the book is full of these reminders; from think positive to speak kindly, honesty matters and trust is key. Though these statements are words of wisdom and worthy reminders to readers, we don't tend to learn from simple statements. It takes a good parable, a story to get the message across meaningfully. The second half of the book does a better job at this by using poems to portray the messages. Simple and straightforward, they lend meaning to the messages and will likely be remembered more.

The author shares her wisdom in this lovely little book on life. It would be perfect as a gift to a young college student or to young adults who are setting out on their own, grandchildren and children as they begin new adventures and anyone who needs a reminder in the area of self discovery.

Review by Heather Froeschl

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<review>

In reading this book, I traveled on a wonderful and thought inspiring journey of a reaffirmation of life.  Marie Giles opened her heart and soul to eloquently pour on to the written page what most of us would find a struggle just to bring forth in a coherent thought.  As I read her words, it is as if she has some how reached inside my being and helped to articulate to my guiding principals.  I truly enjoyed and continue to enjoy this book as I keep it on my desk at work and when I need a break from a stressful situation or just a quick pick-me up I read a page or two.  Thank you Marie Giles for your wonderful words!!

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<review>

This wonderful book touches the inner soul.You identify with each passage as you dissolve into reading. You appreciate the author's passages so much more if you settle in a quiet place and let your thoughts run away. Truly an easy and delighfful reader.Everyone should have this book as a reference tool.I use the passages with my students on a day to day basis.Many life lessons to be learned

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<review>

I am a 45 year old woman who has been on a quest for positive self-motivation fot he last twenty years. I have read numerous books and clippings, but was always left wondering. This book upon reading it brought a satification to my intellectual nature. Everyday I experience tough decisions, emotional battles and spiritual quests and this book along with the Bible has helped me stay focus on spirit and man, on right and wrong, and on good and bad. I thank the writer for making my way easier through the sharing of such powerful insights and compassion

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<review>

It is written that you should hide the Word of God in your heart so that you will speak and live that which is in your heart.  As you read this book, "Open Your Mind, Open Your Heart", you will enjoy the fullness of living spiritually strong and to live spiritually strong your mind has to stay positive to endure all of life's problems and concerns.  The Word of God is strong and this book "Open Your Mind, Open Your Heart" will help you as well.  It will help keep your mind positive and if you let it, it will change your heart.  Now if you chose to live what's in your heart you will rise above all the toils of this world and the people around you will wonder about the change in you.... and then they will be BLESSED WHEN YOU SHARE WITH THEM HOW THEY CAN GET THIS BOOK

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<review>

John Beckett has the feel of an average guy that stepped in to help with the family business and has walked out with so much more.  Loving Monday reflects his humility and dependence on his faith as the ante was upped.  The small family business grew into a Fortune 500 company, yet Mr. Beckett's faith allows him to turn his company into a blessing to its workers and community.

Loving Monday is the account of this success peppered with wisdom from and for the journey.  John Beckett addresses some of the hindrances of western culture in seeing business as a calling.  He uses these insights to apply them to the 'called' businessperson, thus empowering them to press forward with  full confidence in the One who called them.  Loving Monday sets itself apart from others in John Beckett's real life proof that standing firm and resisting pressure to succumb to the status quo of the business world pays with rewarding dividends:  he and his employees are "loving Monday!"

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